CHAPTER 5: What He Is

CHAPTER 5: What He Is

GREY’S POV

Karl sat on the edge of the bed and I sat in the chair by the window and the woman whose name I figured was the Irina, the woman he was being forced to mate.

She sat on the floor with her back against the wall and we all waited for morning like it was something coming to collect us.

Karl tried to explain twice. Both times I held up my hand and said not yet because I needed to think and I couldn’t think and talk at the same time and there was too much to think about. 

The woods. The shift. The witch shits. Viktor’s voice on the phone saying you felt something tonight didn’t you like he already knew the answer.

The sun came up slowly. Then I heard the elevator down the hall.

Karl heard it before I did. His head came up and something moved through the bond that alerted me, and I sat up straighter in the chair without meaning to.

Two sets of footsteps was coming from different directions. Then the door opened without anyone knocking.

Viktor came in first. He looked exactly like he always looked with his expensive jacket. He looked at me and then at Karl and something behind his eyes went very still.

Then a man, whom looked like Karl’s father due to the resemblance came in right behind him from the same doorway and stopped when he saw Viktor and Viktor stopped when he saw him and for two seconds nobody said anything.

I looked at Karl. Karl was already looking at me.

“Well.” Viktor said. He recovered first. “This is efficient.”

Karl’s father was a bigger version of Karl. Same eyes, same jaw, same thing behind the face that didn’t give anything away easily. 

He looked at Viktor and then at Karl and then at me and the look he gave me was the same one the woman on the floor had given me last night. That slow reading thing.

He looked at Karl. “This is him?” He asked, staring directly at me.

“Yes.” Karl said.

Viktor stepped further into the room. “Grey.” He said. “Come home. I’m not going to ask twice.”

“You’re going to explain first.” I said. “What was done to me. What the binding really really meant. What I actually am.” I looked at him. “You said family should be the ones to tell me. So tell me.”

Viktor looked at Karl. “Alone.” He said.

“No.” I said.

“Grey…”

“No.” I said again. “Whatever you have to say you say it here or you don’t say it at all and I go with Karl’s father instead.”

Viktor’s jaw tightened. That was the thing about Viktor. He was always calm until he wasn’t getting what he wanted and then something showed through the calm that was less pleasant. 

He looked at me for a long moment and then he looked at Karl’s father and made some kind of calculation.

“Fine.” He said. “You were bound at birth. Our mother did it. Your power was too significant and the coven that was hunting our bloodline would have found you immediately if they felt what you were.” He said it cleanly. Like he was reading from a document. “The binding held for twenty eight years. It’s been deteriorating for months. What you felt in the woods last night was it breaking apart.”

“What am I?” I said. Viktor paused, and was staring at my face pleadingly a bit.

“What am I Viktor? I already know, but I just want to hear it from you because I don’t believe them.”

“You’re the most powerful male witch born to our line in two hundred years.” He said. “And there are people who have been waiting for you to surface for a very long time.”

Karl’s father made a sound that was like that of a wolf. Oh, I forget he was one. I looked at him and his expression had changed. He was still looking at me but differently now. 

He crossed the room slowly and stopped a few feet away, then he looked at me the way Karl had told me alphas looked at things they were reading. Then he took one step back.

“That’s not all he is.” Karl’s father said.

Viktor looked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Him.” Karl’s father continued, pointing at me. “There’s something underneath the witch line.” He looked at Karl. “Something the packs have been waiting for longer than two hundred years.”

Viktor laughed in a dismissive way. “He’s a witch. And that’s all sir.”

“You can’t smell it because you’re just a mere wizard.” Karl’s father said simply. “I can.” He looked at me again and something in his face was not what it had been when he walked through that door. 

He had come here to pull Karl away from me. I could feel that through the bond, Karl’s anticipation of exactly that.

But right now, that was not what was on his face again.

Viktor moved toward me. “We’re leaving.” He said. “Now. The coven is waiting and the longer the binding stays broken the more exposed you are and…”

“Don’t.” Karl said. He was on his feet now.

“This doesn’t concern you.” Viktor said without looking at him.

“He’s my mate.” Karl said. “Everything about him concerns me.”

Viktor grabbed my arm instead. And before my brain caught up with what my body was doing. Viktor’s hand closed around my arm and something inside my chest that had been sitting quiet since the woods just stood up.

And it was like something broke. It all happened at once, like something that had been behind a wall for twenty eight years hit something hard enough to bring it down. 

The room went white for a second, like something came from inside me and went outward in every direction and hit every wall at the same time.

And Viktor went down. The woman who had been sitting on the floor went down too. Karl’s father went to one knee and stayed there.

Karl was the only one still standing and he was looking at me with those eyes. And the bond between us was not tight and alert anymore. 

I looked at my hands. Then at the room. Viktor was on the floor looking up at me and for the first time in my entire life my older brother looked afraid.

Karl’s father was still on one knee. He looked at Karl and when he spoke his voice was different from everything he had said since he walked through the door.

“Mate him properly.” He said. “Tonight.” He looked at me once more and then back at Karl. “Before anyone else figures out what he is.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​