Dark Veil (The Society Series Book 3) Read online

  Dark Veil

  Mason Sabre

  Dedications

  To those who know me truly and still don’t disappear.

  Thank you to the following people for making sure that everything was as correct as humanly possible:

  Cynthia Michal

  Vicky Michalopoulou

  Andrea Whittle

  Angela Peters

  Teresa Meerschaert

  Thank you to my street team for all the hard work you put in for me, without you, this would not be possible. (Names listed at the end).

  Dark Veil

  Mason Sabre

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Author: Mason Sabre

  Cover Art by Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design

  www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk

  Copyright © 2016 by Mason Sabre. All rights reserved, including the right to publish this book or portions thereof (except for reviews, news media reports, brief quotes with attribution, and purposes of promotion of this book or other novels by Mason Sabre) in any form whatsoever.

  Written permission may be obtained from the author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1523714001

  ISBN-10: 152371400X

  www.masonsabre.com

  [email protected]

  https://www.facebook.com/msabre3

  Other Titles

  Watch Over You

  The Rise of the Phoenix

  Cade

  Hidden

  Dark Veil

  Mason Sabre

  Chapter One

  Gemma Davies held the small plastic stick in her hand and stared at it as if it were something that had been born of evil intent, but maybe that was exactly what it was. Something evil—something to fear. The two blue lines mocked her. They were the worst image that she could have ever seen, and her heart sank with despondency, disbelief flooding her. They were the end of her life. Shit, she might as well go and write her own damn name on the execution order before Trevor got the chance to do it himself. Breathless, she gripped the edges of the cold, white porcelain sink to keep herself from collapsing to the floor. Her mind all but floated away as the world started to tip sideways.

  Slowly, she raised her gaze and glared at her reflection in the mirror. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  Pregnant.

  The word burnt through her mind and sent shivers of cold down her spine. Her mind refused to accept what it was she was seeing as she wrapped her fingers around the tester stick and crushed it as she tried to force the result away.

  It was wrong.

  Wrong.

  It had to be.

  The flimsy plastic in her hand gave way with a crack and splintered. She winced as the plastic splinters bit into her flesh.

  These things give false-positives all the time, she reassured herself. She was just one of the unlucky ones. That was all. With a newfound sense of urgency, she flung the broken tester stick into the discarded carrier bag and then fumbled with the box for the second test. She had bought a double test. This would come out as negative—she knew it. She could feel it in her gut as she tore it from its wrapper.

  Three minutes—three goddamn minutes of excruciating waiting. The first test hadn't taken this long, so why had time suddenly decided that it was going to stand still? She breathed in and exhaled slowly to calm herself, but that proved impossible. Every sense she had was on alert. With a twist of her wrist, she gave her watch a shake and then tapped the glass.

  Fifty seconds.

  She got up nervously to look at the test, gulped and changed her mind, flipping it back over before she could see it. She sat down on the edge of the bath and bit down on her lip.

  Forty seconds.

  The test stared at her from the back of the sink. It sat there like judge and jury over the rest of her life, getting ready to stand up and issue her with a death sentence.

  Twenty seconds.

  Her hands grew clammy and she wiped them down the legs of her jeans and glared at the test.

  Ten seconds.

  Gemma tapped her foot against the floor and wrung her hands together. Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.

  “Everything okay in there?” Stephen’s deep voice echoed through the door, making her squeal and jump. “You’ve been in there almost an hour.”

  “What are you? The bathroom police? I didn’t realise there was a time restriction.” She rubbed her face and scowled. She shouldn’t snap at her brother. “I’m fine.”

  He tried the door handle, making it rattle, and she froze. He could snap it and force the door open if he chose to. The rattling was just shit and Stephen trying to scare her, and she knew it. She watched wide-eyed as the handle twisted again and the wood strained under Stephen’s hold. In her mind, she could hear the echo of the crack it would make if he forced it open. “Gemma, let me in.”

  “I’m using the bathroom. I like to do it in private.”

  He ignored her. “Open the door.”

  She bit down on her lip and stared at the door, willing him to go away.

  “If you don’t open this door, I am going to break it down, and then Dad will hear it and come and see what is going on. I get the feeling that you don’t want that.”

  Gemma scowled at the door. How did he do that? All the time. It was like having a damn lie detector around the house. He seemed to know everything—literally everything. It was more than coincidence. He was right so many times.

  “Open the door, Gemma.”

  She loved her brother with all her heart, but right now, she wished that he would just leave her alone. Could he not just keep out of her life? Live his own? Why had he decided that keeping his sister safe was his job? And by safe, she meant stalked and prisoner. Now it would seem he had upgraded to bathroom supervision.

  “You have until the count of three,” he said calmly, his voice sure and laced with authority. “One …”

  “For god’s sake, Stephen.”

  Both Stephen and Gemma were shifters—tigers to be exact. She knew that if he wanted in the room, he would get in. Opening that lock would be as easy as the door not being there at all. No lock or barricade would stop him. That was why he was protector to the alpha—their father—and the best damn fighter the Society had.

  “Two …”

  She grabbed the test from the back of the sink and shoved it into the back pocket of her jeans before yanking the door open. Stephen stood there with his big arms folded over his chest and a smug expression upon his face.

  “Smart girl.” His green eyes scanned the room behind her, his expression giving nothing away, as usual. Although Gemma was by no means a short woman, Stephen’s incredible height practically dwarfed her. His entire presence was big. It was impossible to block his view, even though she tried.

  The test stick in her back pocket pressed against her as a reminder that the three minutes were now up. She had to fight the urge to pull it out and look. She couldn’t think so much right then as Stephen blocked her way. She just wanted to pull the stick out and confirm that it said negative. One line—that was all that would be there.

  She was sure of it.

  “What do you want?” she finally asked.

  “I want to know what you're doing in here.” He nodded towards the bathroom, but his penetrating green eyes didn’t leave hers. “You were almost an hour.”

  “I was using the bathroom. Can't I have privacy to do that? I didn’t know there was a time limit. Do I come in here and ask what you're doing when you spend hours upon hours flexing your muscles and admiring yourse
lf?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “No, because you know exactly what I am doing. You don’t need to check.”

  “Don’t be a jerk.” Of course Stephen was back to looking across every inch of the room. “What are you looking for? It’s a bathroom. You know … where people do bathroom things.”

  He smirked at her, his all-knowing smirk. “Apparently.”

  Gemma stormed past him and out of the room, hoping that her dramatic exit would make him follow her. She was two feet from the door when her step faltered. Oh god. The bag. The fucking bag. Heart pounding loudly in her chest, she wheeled around and raced back to the bathroom, but it was too late. Stephen was standing there with the test in his hand. His eyes lifted and met Gemma’s, the gold flecks in his eyes flickering with the same intensity that she had seem many times in her father’s eyes when she knew she was in trouble.

  “It’s a false test.”

  “Really?” he raised an eyebrow at her and then put the two halves of the test together. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I took another one,” she said more assuredly as she patted her back pocket.

  Stephen narrowed his gaze at her before putting the broken test back in the bag. He crushed it in his strong hands, the muscles and veins in his arms standing out in stark relief as he did so, belying the exterior he was presenting. He stalked towards Gemma, leaving her no choice but to back up or get trampled on. He didn’t stop until he had walked her all the way back to her room. He kicked the door closed behind him—the rooms weren’t totally secure from sound, but they were reinforced enough. “Give me the other test.”

  She backed up, almost tumbling backwards when her legs hit the bed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. It’s negative.”

  “If I have to physically take the test from you, I will.”

  “Stephen …”

  He stared at her, unrelenting, waiting. There was no way she was getting out of this and she knew it. He could take it from her and there was not a damn thing she would be able to do about it.

  “Give me the other test.”

  Gemma couldn’t make her hand move to pull it out. She told herself to do it, even visualised the movements in her mind, but the message wasn’t getting through.

  “Now.”

  She swallowed hard. There was nothing she could do now. With a shaky hand, she reached behind her and gingerly fingered the test to pull it out. Suddenly, she didn’t want to look at the test at all. “Stephen, please,” she wailed, panic flooding her and burning like cold fire in her veins.

  But he simply held out his hand to her, ignoring her pleas. She felt like a naughty child as she choked back a sob. Chest tight, she covered the results window with her fingers and then placed it face down in Stephen’s hand. She slid down onto the floor and leaned back against the side of the bed. “It’s negative,” she breathed, hoping that saying the words out loud would make them true.

  She watched him as he studied the white stick in his hand and waited for his shoulders to lose their tension and for a smile to cross his face. But it didn’t happen. Instead, he lifted his eyes from the tester and met hers. “It’s positive, Gemma.”

  She stopped breathing and stared at him. “No.” She shook her head. “It’s wrong. They're both wrong.” Stephen held the stick out to her, and there they were, bold as anything. Two lines waving like greeting flags at her. “Oh god,” was all she managed as she buried her face in her hands. She felt the bed move behind her as Stephen lowered himself to the floor next to her, his back against the bed, knees up. He put the bagged test on the floor beside him and then put his arm around his sister’s shoulders and pulled her close. He held her for what felt like hours, when it was really just minutes.

  “Does he know?”

  He … Cade. Cade MacDonald. Stephen’s best friend. Gemma’s … she didn’t even know what he was—forbidden desire? Secret? He was everything, that’s what he was. He was her world—her secret world that she wasn’t allowed to have, but that she couldn’t live without. He was wolf and she was tiger, and this was all wrong. She shook her head. “I didn’t think it would be positive. I thought that it was just one of these things.”

  “You need to tell him.”

  She knew that—she did—but she also knew what would happen. He’d want to keep the baby and he’d try to convince her to leave with him. He had already begun to ask, even without any pregnancy to spur them on. Like her, he had grown tired of the lies and the secrecy. He wanted Gemma living with him, waking in his bed, and there was nothing Gemma wanted more herself. But things weren’t that simple. “I can't.”

  Stephen relaxed his hold on her so that he could look at her. She stared up at him, eyes glistening with tears. He was her big brother, the one who protected her from everything. She desperately wished he could protect her from this.

  “You have to tell him. You have to give him the chance to get away. You realise this?”

  Oh god, she did. She knew that he would have to run, but he wouldn’t. That was the problem. He’d fucking stay here and die, and they both knew it.

  “Dad will want him executed?” She could hardly get the words out. She was not just anyone. She was Gemma Davies, daughter of the Alpha, the head of the Society and the Leader of the Council.

  She was screwed.

  They had broken the law and both fathers would want their heads on sticks. The only thing was, which father would get the execution order faster? Because she was sure as shit that Trevor MacDonald would want her head. Not that he had any love for his son. No, what he cared about was his pride and his position. He would use this to get to the top—to get Malcolm from his seat.

  “Please tell me you won’t say anything to him.”

  “You have to tell Cade. You know you do.”

  “I have to get rid of it,” she whispered miserably.

  “It’s his baby, Gemma.”

  She stared at her brother. “It’s his life.”

  Chapter Two

  Gemma’s chest constricted fiercely as she sat in the front seat of Stephen’s car, where he had parked just opposite Cade’s house. She gripped the handle tightly, but didn’t push it open. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Twice she had tried and twice she had removed her hand again as her mind screamed at her to tell her brother to drive them home again.

  Why did everything have to be so hard? It was okay for Stephen to say what he thought she should do, but she was the one having to do it. “If I’m not keeping it, why tell him?” she whispered, her eyes still on Cade’s place.

  “If you abort his baby and don’t tell him, will you be able to look him in the eye? Will you be able to hold that secret inside of you forever?” Stephen put a finger under Gemma’s chin and turned her head so that she faced him. “You know you won’t be able to. You know you have to tell him, or you two are screwed.”

  “We’re screwed anyway.” The thoughts played over in her mind. It was like a mental game of ping pong with the argument back and forth with herself. She couldn’t find any reasons good enough to tell him—anything more than what Stephen had said, that was. Would she be able to keep it a secret? No, she didn’t think so. She couldn’t keep anything from Cade, not even small things. It would eat at her until she was completely devoured and then Cade would be gone anyway.

  Stephen shifted in his seat, the soft leather rustling as he moved. He drew Gemma closer and rested his lips against her forehead, holding her there. He cupped her face with both hands and Gemma took comfort from his touch. The soft stubble on his chin gently scratched at her skin as he spoke. “I’ll wait right here for you. Okay?”

  Gemma covered his hands with hers. She wasn’t raised to seek that kind of comfort, to need touch, but there was something inexplicable with Cade and Stephen … It was like she craved it, and only when they were close did she feel calm. Even Stephen, her big brother—tough, fighter—he seemed to seek out the contact, too. It didn’t make any sense to her.

 
“I can tell him tomorrow,” she whispered.

  Stephen tilted her head back, still cupping her face. “This is tomorrow. It’s yesterday’s tomorrow.

  “I can't break his heart. He’s going to hate me.”

  Stephen rubbed a thumb lightly over Gemma’s cheek. “How broken will his heart be if you go ahead without telling him, and he finds out after? How much would he hate you then? This is Cade, remember? He won’t ever hate you.”

  “Everyone has their limits.” Maybe this would be Cade’s. She had run it through her mind a thousand times and none of them ended up anyplace good. All of them ended with him leaving her—but then maybe that’s what she deserved. What woman aborts her own child?

  Stephen glanced over Gemma’s shoulder and let his hands drop. Gemma noticed he was looking somewhere over her head, and she followed his gaze. Phoenix was coming out from the side of Cade’s house. Phoenix … of all people. He was a stark reminder of the father Cade could be—would be. The agony of it lanced through her like an icy spike in her chest, threatening to steal her breath away. Phoenix was sixteen, a wolf. Cade had taken him in two years ago when he had found him half dead and beaten in the woods. He was a bitten wolf, not a born one, but Cade had taken him in despite all that it had cost him to do so.

  “If he fought for Phoenix, he is going to fight for this baby, too,” Gemma said as Phoenix approached them, his face beaming at the sight of them. Gemma opened the door and got out of the car.

  “Gemma,” Phoenix said excitedly. He raced over to her and threw his arms around her. She returned his embrace, holding him tighter than he probably would have liked, but right now she needed it. He smelt like Cade, not solely, but enough. The soft musky smell that lingered all around. It slammed into her senses and brought a sob to her throat. She pressed her face into Phoenix’s shoulder for a moment. “Is everything okay?” he asked when she released him.

  She nodded and turned from him. She daren’t speak, her voice ready to crack.