Previously: Max's POV If it wasn't my husband, then who was standing behind me?

Chapter Twenty-Three

Fang's POV

I growled when I walked into my family's room. Standing behind Max was a man that wasn't me. He was so close, I bet she could feel his breath on her neck. I let out another growl as I thought this.

The man moved backwards from Max, still keeping his back to me, and I fought the urge to ring his neck…whoever he was.

No one gets that close to my wife and child (children, I added mentally; thinking about how Anastasia was now ours) and lives to tell about it.

"Who are you and what do you want?" I asked, wondering why no one else had noticed him sneaking in the house. We were surrounded by vampires for crying out loud! Didn't one of them pick up his unfamiliar scent?

Or maybe it didn't smell out of the ordinary. I thought, eying his broad shoulders and dark hair. It couldn't be…

"Aw, don't tell me you don't remember me, Fangy?" The man asked in a teasing tone. There was something familiar about him, though I couldn't quite place it.

Max stiffened when she heard the man talk though and that had me worried. I could FEEL her anxiety and I was ready to punch this man in the face for making her feel that way.

"I can't really blame you, though, Fangy." The man said. "Look at what you've become! You have the Flock, you have a beautiful wife, and cute kids too." He continued, sounding resentful. "If I had all this going for me, I'd want to forget my past too."

"I don't understand." I said murderously. "How did you get in here? Who are you?"

The man turned around and I blinked in shock. It couldn't be…

He grinned and I knew he knew that I knew who he was.

"I see you haven't changed a bit." He lied. The last time I saw him, we were six and living at the School. "Good to see you still have the same scowl as ever."

"What are you doing here?" I asked, half in disbelief that he was standing here in my bedroom and half angry that he was standing here in my bedroom.

He paid my question no attention and kept on with his preplanned speech. "You know, you are a hard experiment to find, Fangy." He said, staring at his hand as if he were bored but I knew he was flexing his muscles under his long sleeved shirt and preparing to morph.

"What about the rest of us?" Max asked. "You don't care enough to search us down?"

Only she and I knew that she was trying to distract him; to the outside world, it sounded like she was offended. She had to get him paying attention to her and away from me. Though Max was a great fighter, taking a life was something that she hated to think about. I, on the other hand, was born to kill the man in front of me…or so They had been telling me my whole life.

The man chuckled. "Aw, now Maximum, I'm hurt that you would think you could trick me."

He kept his eyes on me the whole time, but continued in a softer tone. "But, to be honest, Fangy here is my priority. I'll get back to you later, once its finished."

He didn't seem bothered in the slightest that Max was behind his back and had perfect range to strike him if she chose to.

Okay, so he was on to our scheme; what now?

"Little Fangy, or…should I say Alexander?" The man said and I growled. No one had called me that in a long time. He smiled, loving the fact that he was pushing my buttons. "Touchy, touchy, Alex. I was only teasing."

Max stared at me in shock and I knew that I had so much to explain to her…but not now.

"What do you want, Nickolas?" I asked, hoping that Max FELT all the apologies running through my mind.

Now I know most of you must be wondering who in the world Nickolas is…well, it's a long story. One with much worse an ending than I thought it had. Even Max didn't know the whole story, but the longer we kept talking, the more she would figure out on her own.

Nick coming back now was not a good thing. Actually, Nick coming back at all was so unexpected that I almost wondered if this was all a dream.

Again, Nick ignored me. "Like I've said before, you've done well for yourself…but this is supposed to be my life." He said, taking a step closer to me.

He smiled devilishly, pulling his lips back until he exposed his teeth. His razor sharp teeth glistened in the moonlight, making him look more lethal than I'd ever seen him.

"What did they do to you, Nick?" I asked, semi concerned about the man in front of me. Even though he was a danger to everything important to me, I still felt pity for him deep down.

That caught him off guard. He hadn't expected me to say that. He probably only came here for a fight. Well, that would have to wait. I needed some answers.

"After the Flock left with Jeb," Nick spat the words, "those that were left at the School were experimented on even more than before. They were so afraid to loose another test subject that they doubled our security.

"I was in the same room as Ari when he was injected with wolf DNA. He howled in pain and then, without a warning, the scientist used the same needle to inject me with it too."

The man looked disgusted. "I already had wings and they wanted to add being an Eraser to it too?" He asked, more to himself than to me. He was sidetracked from attacking me though so I strategized as he talked.

He closed his eyes, remembering something, and I took that moment to move. I had his arms pinned behind him before he had a chance to morph his claws. Now, even if he did morph, he couldn't harm me or Max.

"I'll ask you one more time…what are you doing here?" I asked with lead in my voice, gripping his arms tighter behind his back.

"What? Can't a man visit his brother without there needing to be a reason?" Nick asked. "Though, how I could call you my brother after what you did to me is crazy."

I FELT Max's shock and pain and comprehension all swirling around and I took a deep breath.

"It was an accident, Nick…if I had known…" I said, knowing he wouldn't believe me even if it was the truth. I loosened my grip on his wrists and he shook out his shoulders angrily.

"Accident? Was it an accident when you took the one thing that kept me going in that hell hole and then left with her? Was it an accident when you pretended to be me so you could join the Flock?" Nick asked angrily. "Was it an accident when you killed me?"

From the look on her face, Max had finally put two and two together, as I knew she would from all the things he was saying, and she stared at me with wide eyes.

Please don't hate me. I thought to her, trying desperately to convey my thoughts even though our bond only allowed us to FEEL what the other is feeling and not actual words.