36

His thumb had rubbed the glossy sheen off the picture, but he couldn't help it. He missed Chloe, and it wasn't a shallow thing; it ran marrow-deep. His teeth and bones and muscles and the very blood in his veins craved her, and it was a wild, feral thing that seized him every time he looked at the creased picture of them.

"Derek?" He looked up at the sound of his name, finding his father leaning against the doorway. Zachary Cain was a lot different than Derek had ever expected—closed off but friendly enough, intense, fierce, and a clumsy piano player.

All his childhood, he'd wanted nothing more than to meet his father—his real father, not Kit, who had his own blood children—but this wasn't the way he wanted to meet Zachary. He hadn't expected a tearful reunion and riding off into the sunset, but anything other than being on trial for assault was a good fantasy.

He turned, angling his body towards the man. "Yeah?" Discreetly, Derek tucked the picture under the folded corner of his blankets, out of Zachary's view. For some reason, he had the feeling his dad wouldn't like seeing the picture of him and Chloe.

"I want you to meet someone."

There was a smile on his father's face, but it didn't reach his midnight-dark eyes.

Derek was reminded of a wolf, flashing its teeth in both a warning and challenge, and he rose to his feet, one liquid motion that made him a little light-headed. Without a glance backwards at where the picture burned a hole in his mattress, he trailed after his father, nearly standing to his height.

The door clicked solemnly behind him, banishing the picture into darkness, even for a short time; it felt wrong to hide the only tie between him and her but his father was more important. Chloe didn't understand; she had her father. But she'd also lost her mother at a young age, and the fact she didn't seem to have a lot of memories ate at her, made her guilty.

Derek pushed the thoughts away, focusing on the close-cropped hair of his dad. "Who is it?" he asked, looking around the long hallway that bisected and lead into the foyer and the entertainment room.

"An old friend."

The way Zachary said old friend wasn't full of affection or endearment; it was just as cool and smooth as anything else his father said.

Unease dripped steadily through him as they walked to the foyer, greeted by a tall, bald man that hunched a little. Beady black eyes glared at both of them unkindly.

Zachary's smile was all teeth and shadow. "Derek, Marcel Davidoff. Davidoff, my son, Derek." He nudged Derek forward, a firm hand clasping the middle of his back, and the boy stumbled, losing his equilibrium with the firm push from his father.

Derek's unease faded. When was the last time Kit had ever touched him willingly, not out of parental or clinical duty? When was the last time anyone in his family touched him, a pat on the shoulder, a ruffle of his hair, a one-armed hug?

He felt a smile creep across his face, midnight black and restless, and placed a hand out for Marcel to shake. A friend of his father's was a friend of his. Marcel's hand was spidery, with freakishly long fingers, and cool to the touch.

"So this is your son," Marcel wheezed, a manic grin taking residence across the weathered creases of his face.

Derek's smiled wilted a little at the crazed look on his face, but his father clasped his shoulder tightly—too tight almost—and the smile flashed bright.

"Yes," Zachary hummed, his voice low and hypnotic, silky, "he is."

Simon wasn't sure what he was looking at. Tori peered over his shoulder curiously. Her body pressed against his back wasn't as comforting as he wished it would be.

"What's that?" she demanded, grabbing the glossy photographs out of his hand, and stilled immediately.

He blinked hard, shoulders hunched as he stared uncomprehendingly at the wood of his desk. The images were burned into his eyes, seared into his mind, and his hand shook; his breathing was unsteady, shallow, panting through his teeth.

"What the hell?" she exploded, a sonic boom in his ear, and he flinched away from her. When he turned to look at her, her eyes were dark and frantic, her face pinched; her lips quivered and her entire body trembled, vibrating, as she spoke, the words tumbling from her mouth.

She looked as disturbed as he felt. "What the hell is that?" she hissed, but her breathless voice caught on the vowels and ruined the anger she tried to project.

The photograph fluttered out of her unsteady hands. It was a close up of a girl, her short hair spilled around her face as though an inkwell had dripped down on top of her head, blankets kicked off in her sleep if the way they hung off the bed was any indication. The scariest part however was the time on the clock—four in the morning.

And the picture had been taken from inside her room.

"Simon? Tori? What's wrong?"

They both turned and spotted their father, his arm wrapped tightly around a teary-eyed Chloe, who balked at the sight of Tori. Simon thought it was weird for her to react like that but let it slide; they had bigger things right now—like the picture.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" his sister hissed, her venom shocking even him, who'd gotten used to her back and forth moods for years. But this...this was different. Tori was angry and frightened, just like him, but she appeared to have gone from loving Chloe to hating her in the span of a few weeks. What happened? Was there something that happened?

Kit's eyes narrowed. "Victoria Enright." He didn't even have to raise his voice to let her know he was angry with her language and vitriol towards the little blonde huddling into his side.

Her lip curled. "While you were busy playing stand in for Chloe's dad, Simon got a surprise. Not sure where. It's a picture, you know. Of me. Sleeping. Taken from inside my room."

Simon squinted at the photo, searching for clues as to who it could've been, and then his heart stuttered as he spotted the reflection in the window. "Tori," he croaked, grabbing her wrist tight enough that she winced, "look."

She bent down, ignoring both her father and her other brother's ex, and froze in shock. Her mouth popped open audibly, and she wheezed, her legs crumpling underneath her. A few centimeters to the left and she would've hit her head on the way down on the very corner of the desk.

"What is it?" Kit asked.

Tori shook her head, her breath hiccuping past her teeth, and shrank back.

He came closer, Chloe trailing behind him hesitantly, who was casting quick glances at Tori worriedly, a furrow in her brows. Examining the photograph, his face slowly turned red, then purple, then pale, and then back to red—Simon thought his dad had a stroke.

"That bastard."

The blonde jerked in surprise, made a quiet noise that had Tori glowering daggers. Simon really wanted to know why things had shifted between them; he'd been left out of the loop it seemed. But he understood his father's whispered oath; if this guy was in an underage girl's bedroom at four in the morning taking picture of her, well, even as her brother, he was pissed.

Because standing in the reflection, looming over Tori's sleeping form, was Zachary Cain.