"You have forty-eight hours." She pulled a business card out of her purse. "That's my account. Once the money is in there, you'll be a far richer man."
Wren watched as she stood up and walked off. It was the hardest moment of his life to stand there and let history make itself when all he had to do was lunge at them both and kill them.
I could save my father's life...
But his father was supposed to die. If he didn't, then Wren wouldn't go to New Orleans and he would never meet Maggie.
She's not your mate.
It was true. As his mother had pointed out to Grayson, it wasn't in his people to love. Not like humans did, and yet Wren felt something for Maggie that defied any other explanation.
He only wanted to be with her and yet he knew he had nothing to offer her.
But right now, he could save his father's life...
And lose Maggie forever.
His father or Maggie. But men, there was no real choice. If Wren saved his father, he would alter many more fates than just his own.
His mind turned back to when Vane had been living at Sanctuary. One of Vane's packmates had come to kill him. Only Wren had kept him from pursuing Vane.
If Wren hadn't been there...
Vane might be dead now. And that was just one instance that Wren knew about. One life touched hundreds of others, either directly or indirectly.
"The slightest stirring in the air can set a hurricane in motion a thousand miles off."
Chaos theory. The Dark-Hunter Acheron had been the one to teach Wren that years ago. To change even the smallest thing could have extremely damaging repercussions.
No, he had to let history play itself out.
Grinding his teeth, he turned away and drifted into a secluded area so that he could shift back to his father's house.
"You two can stay in here once Wren returns," Wren's father said as he closed the door to seal the two of them into a guest bedroom alone.
Marguerite frowned at his actions as something inside her became frightened. She didn't want to be alone with Wren's father. But it didn't make any sense. Aristotle had only been kind to her so far.
Still, she felt extremely uncomfortable.
Aristotle took a deep breath as he fidgeted with a small porcelain box on the cherrywood dresser. "Do you think Wren will be able to find the evidence he needs?"
"I hope so."
Aristotle shook his head. "My mother always told me to watch out for Grayson. She said that he had too much human in him for his own good."
Marguerite frowned at his words. "How so?"
Aristotle put the lid on the box, then turned and leaned back against the dresser. "Animals as a rule aren't particularly jealous, but Grayson always was. He was the eldest of my parents' offspring. I was the youngest... born very late in their lives. I had two littermates who didn't survive. Because of that, my mother doted on me. I can remember being just a cub and catching Grayson eyeing me with malice. My mother was always afraid to leave us alone together. It was why I banned him from my company a long time ago."
Marguerite could understand Aristotle's concern, but his actions struck her as extremely paranoid. "Yes, but jealousy doesn't always make people homicidal."
He laughed at that. "We're not talking about people, Maggie. We're talking animals. In our world, it's survival of the fittest. Winner take all."
He crossed the room to stand before her. "You love my son, don't you?"
"I..." Marguerite hesitated. But in the end, she knew the answer. There was no denying it. "Yes."
Aristotle smiled. "A human's love. I couldn't wish anything better for him. Animals protect what they know. They protect what they are bound to, but humans... humans have a greater capacity for sacrifice for those who live in their hearts."
Before Maggie could move, Aristotle grabbed her by the throat and threw her to the ground. She tried to scream, only to find that she couldn't even get air into her lungs.
She couldn't move, couldn't fight. It was as if some unseen force held her paralyzed.
His eyes blazed at her. "Forgive me for doing this to you. I hope you'll understand in time."
Her desired scream came out as a whimper as he changed into a tiger and bit her shoulder.
Marguerite was completely paralyzed as pain ripped through her. She saw colors swirling around as a foreign buzzing started in her ears.
Her breathing became labored, painful. It was as if she were suffocating.
She was dying. She knew it.
Why?
Why was he doing this to her? Her thoughts turned to Wren. He would be devastated.
Fight, damn it, fight!
But she couldn't. She had no control over her body. No control over what his father was doing to her. It was terrifying.
I'm so sorry, Wren.
It was her final thought before everything went black.
Wren found himself alone in his father's bedroom. He cocked his head as he heard faint music playing from another room. It was the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."
Wren snorted. No doubt it was his father's way of letting Wren know where they were.
He cracked open the door to the hallway and looked down it to make sure his younger self wasn't about. Not that there was much chance of that. If he remembered correctly, he only ventured out after dark and then only a time or two. He'd been too afraid to let his father see him. Afraid of how much more his father would hate him if he knew what he could do.
God, he'd been such a fool. The very thing that had caused his father to change his feelings toward him had been the thing that had scared him most.
If only he'd known.
Wren headed down the hall, in the opposite direction of his childhood room. He found the door where the music was playing.
Just in case he was wrong, he knocked lightly on the door.
No one answered.
Hesitant, he opened it slowly to find a large white tiger on the bed. He froze not so much at the sight but at what he smelled. The air was thick with the scent of tiger mixed with that of Maggie.
But there was no sight of her.
Wren's heart hammered at the significance. "What did you do?" he snarled at the beast that lay facing the opposite wall. "How could you eat my girlfriend, Dad? She was all I've ever had. Damn you!"
His rage boiling over, Wren charged the bed, intending to kill his father as he changed into a tiger's form. He caught the tiger, then skidded to a halt.
Wren's gaze locked with the tiger's, whose eyes weren't blue...
They were brown.
They were Maggie brown.
And they were large in panic.
Wren let go of her and changed back to human form. Scared of what he was seeing, he reached out to touch her, half-expecting this to be a trick of some kind. How could Maggie be a tiger?
She was human. Completely human.
"Baby?" he whispered, stroking the tiger's face. "Is it really you?"
The tiger crawled closer to him. She nuzzled his bare chest and raised a paw to rest on his hip. He could sense her fear that was mingled with relief.
Wren wrapped his arms around her to hold her close in comfort. "It's all right," he said, stroking her soft fur. "I've got you."
Two seconds later, she was lying as a naked human in his arms.
Wren pulled back to see those familiar brown eyes.
"I'm scared, Wren," she said, her voice trembling. "What's happening to me?"
He cupped her face in his hands. "I don't know. What happened while I was gone?"
"Your father brought me into this room and I thought he killed me."
Wren frowned at her words. "What?"
"He attacked me as a tiger, then everything went black. When I woke up, I was..." She changed back into a tiger before she could finish speaking.
Her panic doubled.
"It's okay, Maggie," Wren assured her. "Take a deep breath and imagine yourself as a human."
She came back to him.
"That's it," he said with a smile he didn't really feel.