Circle of Lies (Red Ridge Pack) Read online

  TRUTH OR DARE

  “I just don’t get you,” I blurted. “Are you really interested in me, or is this all just a game? Because I’m not into games.” There, I’d said it. I’d admitted that I thought he liked me and opened myself up for ridicule. Still, I felt a bit relieved.

  Aiden stood there shell-shocked. “Really, a game? You think I’m playing some sort of game with you?”

  “Isn’t that what guys like you do? You have every girl in school eating out of your hand, so you want the one who isn’t standing in line waiting her turn to hang on your arm. That’s a game if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “It’s not like that. Why would it be like that?” He eyed me, and a new expression crossed his face. “Why is it so hard to believe that I like you? I, Aiden Wright, like you, Teagan Rhodes.”

  “Because life doesn’t work that way,” I snapped. Then I marched away without turning back.

  The Second Red Ridge Pack Novel

  CIRCLE OF LIES

  Sara Dailey & Staci Weber

  www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.

  CIRCLE OF LIES

  Copyright © 2012 Sara Dailey & Staci Weber

  All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Boroughs Publishing Group. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of Boroughs Publishing Group is illegal and punishable by law. Participation in the piracy of copyrighted materials violates the author’s rights.

  Digital edition created by Maureen Cutajar

  www.gopublished.com

  ISBN 978-1-938876-12-7

  For Teagan, Cameron, and Gavin. Three of the coolest kids ever.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been possible without a lot of support from our families. Many thanks to our parents and in-laws for keeping our kids entertained and out of our hair while we spent the hot summer months writing this book.

  To Shari Hassell: Thanks a million for being our beta reader. We know it’s good if you like it. You rock! A special thanks to Jordan Mantell, who continues to wow us with his beautiful poetry. We also have to thank the teachers at Creekside, who diligently helped us with our title dilemma. Thanks to Andy Cole for thinking of Circle of Lies!

  To all the fabulous folks at Boroughs Publishing: Thank You! Y’all are truly a special group. Michelle, you are our hero! Many, many thanks to our amazing editors Jill Limber and Chris Keeslar. Without Jill, we would have had something like two hundred semicolons in this novel, and thanks to Chris we were able to sneak a few back in. Shh! Don’t tell Jill. We know that this is a much stronger novel because of the two of you. We are so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful team.

  Last but certainly not least, a special thank-you to John Weber and Jeremy Dailey for letting us do what makes us happy!

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Author Bio

  Synopsis

  I cannot stop this

  I cannot stop you

  You are my losing battle

  A fight I can no longer muster

  You are a sweetness my lips have never tasted

  A pleasured twinge pulsating, breathing on its own

  Bleeding a warmth within me, melting my past

  Writhing into a dream of every moment, unable to wake my shining eyes

  My walled-in mind shattered into a million pieces of defiant passion

  Enduring, edging your way into my spirit

  You have become my inhale, my exhale

  My love, my own.

  —Jordan Mantell

  1.

  PETER

  March 12th. El Paso, Texas, near the border of New Mexico. Two hunters found by park rangers ripped to shreds. Cause of death: animal attack. Species of animal unknown, but most likely extremely large. Authorities warn visitors to be cautious.

  May 27th. Santa Fe, New Mexico. A rancher went to check on his herd and found over a dozen of mauled to death and partially eaten. Species of predator unknown.

  September 2nd. Las Cruces, New Mexico. Missing girl. Age 10. Went missing from the family’s backyard. No clues or suspects at this time. Family reported seeing what appeared to be a large wolf nearby days prior to disappearance.

  Peter Marshall stared at his notes on the wall map for a few moments before he placed the last tack. It sank slowly into the board. He took a step back.

  November 17th. Silver City, New Mexico. Unidentified body found just outside of town. Victim was male and presumed homeless. Cause of death: decapitation—likely by an animal. Head appeared to be ripped from body by unusually large claws.

  He’d been so sure there was a pattern to these attacks, and now he knew he was right. There were too many unsolved incidents surrounding one state in particular, one particular area. He turned and started packing his belongings. He was headed to northeastern New Mexico. The answers he sought would be there.

  2.

  Teagan

  “I’m taking off, guys. Have a great Thanksgiving,” I yelled to my coworkers as I pulled off my Sephora apron and slid into my winter coat.

  “See you later, Teagan. Happy T
hanksgiving!” Janie replied as she finished up restocking the lip gloss.

  I’d been kind of hoping that we would be busy, that the store managers would be forced to ask me to stay and work a double, but no such luck. Guess all the shoppers were waiting for Black Friday. I really could have used the extra money, but more importantly, the work would have kept me out of the house a little longer. Holidays are not so fun around there these days. It’s safe to say this is my least favorite time of year.

  New Mexico. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the weather here. And I used to think it got cold in San Antonio! I guess when you grow up in Texas, you don’t really know the true meaning of winter. As I stepped outside the mall, a rush of cold November air hit me so hard it forced my teeth to chatter uncontrollably. Zipping up my coat, I ran as fast as my frozen legs would carry me to my beat-up Toyota Corolla, circa sometime before I could walk. I always hear kids talk about how much they love their junked out “classic” cars, how those cars have character. Well, my car doesn’t have character. It’s a piece of shit. The damned thing’s heater doesn’t even work. But, at least I have something, and when you have to buy it for yourself at seventeen you can’t afford to be picky. I could only imagine what it would be like to depend on dear ol’ Dad for transportation.

  By the time I got home little icicles were forming on my eyelashes, and as I walked up the front steps to our house I saw that evidence of my father’s ever-growing habit littered the porch. By the look of things, he should be fairly close to passing out if not already face-down on the couch. A girl could hope. An entire case of empty beer cans and countless cigarette butts surrounded the wooden rocking chair that my mother bought just before she disappeared.

  “Disappeared.” That’s the belief my father holds on to—or at least he pretends to hold on to it. Me, I know the truth. Only a fool wouldn’t see what really happened. She was miserable at home, hated my father, and had clearly found someone new. Her sudden interest in late-night drives were enough proof for me, but I’d followed her anyway one night just to be sure and ended up at a Motel 6 near the highway. No, she just up and left one day. We moved to Red Ridge, New Mexico, and in just over a month Mom went MIA. No goodbyes, no see-ya-laters; she was just suddenly gone. Life isn’t a soap opera where beautiful, mysterious captors abduct women with miserable lives and carry them off to happier ones, though. No, women have to choose to leave. They pack a bag, snag your favorite family portrait from the mantel and just walk out of your life. Out of their children’s lives. Out of everyone’s life.

  So, that’s what really happened. Only an idiot like my father would believe anything else. Hell, he likely believed that Paris kidnapped Helen of Troy. No way. Helen just took off with that hot younger guy, leaving her sorry-ass husband Menelaus alone. Life would be so much easier if my father would just accept that Mom chose to leave. Then maybe, just maybe, he could move on.

  I have. I sometimes wonder, though, if the face that launched a thousand ships left a daughter alone with a drunken father. Who knows? Maybe she did. My Greek mythology is a bit rusty, as Mrs. Shultz wasn’t the most fascinating teacher ever when we studied it in class last year.

  The inside of our house wasn’t much better than the porch. More empty beer cans, full ashtrays, and the dishes from the night’s dinner welcomed me back, which meant Dad was really messed up. Being a retired Army captain, he’s anything but messy. The house was always clean and orderly, sir! Unless he was drunk. And he never, ever smoked in the house. Something must have really set him off.

  I put my bag down and hung my coat in the hall closet. The sooner I picked this place up, the sooner I could lock myself in my room and just crash.

  “Oh…hey…when did you get in?” Dad asked as he stumbled inside from the backyard.

  “Just now, actually,” I replied as I grabbed a trashcan. Trying to avoid confrontation, I walked around the kitchen and living room picking up the mess. Unfortunately, this only seemed to irritate my father.

  “Don’t do that. I’ll do it tomorrow,” he slurred.

  “Dad, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I need to clean up so I can attempt to cook this year. I told you that, remember?”

  “I know damn well what tomorrow is,” he grumbled. “You think I can’t remember what tomorrow is?”

  There was no use trying to talk to him like this. Instead, I handed him the trashcan and said, “Fine. Have it your way. I was just trying to help.”

  He didn’t reach for the trashcan, so I let it drop to the floor and spill out even more evidence of his drinking binge. At first he looked shocked, but that shock soon turned to rage. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but come on, who was the parent? I was sick and tired of trying to make things better all the time when all he did was screw things up.

  He just stood there, anger boiling inside him. I saw it in his eyes just before he snapped. He kicked the trash aside and tried to grab my arm, but I stepped out of the way just in time and Dad lost his balance and fell to the ground. He wasn’t hurt, though, just defeated. The look of failure on his face as he lay there was almost worse than the anger. I reached out to help him up, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Don’t touch me! Just leave. Leave like your goddamn mother did,” he yelled.

  “Come on, Dad. Let me help you,” I said.

  “Get out! Get the hell out of my house!”

  So I did. I grabbed my bag and coat and left.

  Leaving the house like this wasn’t new to me. It’s not like it happened every day, but I’d walked out quite a few times over the past couple of months so I knew where to go and how long to stay away. The 24-hour diner on the other side of town was always open, so I figured I’d go there and order myself a nice, greasy burger and a few sodas. I was hungry, and in a few hours my father would be good and passed out. Then I would drive home and pretend that nothing ever happened. Just like I did every other time Dad kicked me out.

  3.

  Aiden

  “He should be fine…”

  “…a few weeks…

  “…muscles already healing…”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  I could hear bits and pieces of conversation, the drone of voices around me but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t move my body. I didn’t know how I’d ended up in this weird semi-conscious state, either. It was like one of those shows on TV where the person is having surgery and is supposed to be unconscious but he’s not, not completely anyway, and he can hear and feel everything. But I wasn’t in any pain; not really. And there didn’t seem to be any surgical tools maneuvering around my body, so thankfully I wasn’t in the middle of an operation. I just sort of felt…numb. My mind was fuzzy and my arms and legs were too heavy to move.

  Suddenly, memories came flooding back: sitting at the dining room table, finding out from my mom that I’d soon be a werewolf. Yeah, a werewolf. Moving to New Mexico because of it, to be with a group of the same. A pack, they called themselves. A pack with an alpha as their leader. My younger sister Alli being abducted by Kendall Stuart and Dylan Christianson. Finding Alli and then realizing that I wasn’t able to shift. Apparently, not being able to get all wolfy when necessary was what had landed me in this hospital bed. Whatever happened after that was just a blur.

  My mom and dad were here. I could feel them hovering over me, but as hard as I tried I didn’t have the strength to let them know that I was okay, that I could hear them. Instead, my mind wouldn’t stop replaying the last few weeks of my once normal, now crazy life. As if living on an estate in the middle of the freaking woods, populated by people who can turn into wolves at will wasn’t weird enough, my younger sister “mated” with our alpha’s son, which was what got her dumb ass kidnapped and almost killed.

  Interrupting my thoughts, I felt Mom push back my hair from my forehead just like she used to when I was a little boy, and she gently kissed the top of my head. A single teardrop landed on my cheek. I wished I could open my eyes and see her.

>   “We have to tell him.”

  “Oh, God. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “How are we ever going to get through this? What if he hates me for not telling him the truth?”

  I tried again to speak, to answer the voices, to tell my mom that there was no way in the world that I could ever hate her, but I couldn’t move much less say anything. What could she have to tell me now? Last time she’d had a big announcement it was that Alli and I were freaking werewolves. Could anything really get more shocking than that? What else could she have kept from us? Maybe we were hybrid werewolf-vampires. Or witches! Not zombies, surely. I laughed to myself, indulging a grim kind of humor. But, what could be left unsaid that might actually make me hate her?

  A warm tingle suddenly started in my arm and ran straight to my head. The voices in the room were no longer clear. It was as if my parents were slowly moving away, step by step. I called out to them but knew my words were only in my head. No one could hear me no matter how loud I screamed. But I kept screaming. The experience was straight out of a horror movie.

  Somebody hear me! I’m here. Awake, sort of! Damn it, I’m—

  And then there was silence.

  *****

  I was roused from what must have been an incredibly deep sleep by the touch of my sister Alli’s hand, and by her whispers in my ear. I recognized her voice. I had no idea how much time had passed.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, Aiden, but I’m here. We’re all here. We need you to wake up. We need to know you’re okay. We love you.”

  Before she could finish speaking, I could hear a change in her voice, a familiar change which meant only one thing: tears. She sobbed and laid her head on my chest. More than anything I wanted to comfort her, to hold her tight and tell her I was fine. I hated this, hated just lying here paralyzed, unable to tell my little sister to stop crying, that I was okay. But I could do nothing else. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t even open my eyes.