Seeing as he was still hung up on his younger sister, not much had changed since he’d become a werewolf.
After celebrating their safe reunion, Rock told the two werewolves about running into Phoebe and the information she’d shared with him.
“Father went to search for Krister.”
“…Is that the other kidnapped tailor you told me about?” Guido asked Ebel.
“Yeah.” Ebel nodded, then placed a furry hand on his chin. “Still, a bishop…? I guess it’s not all that strange for a cult to have clergy.”
“I have a lot to ask that little pipsqueak.”
Anger seeped from Guido’s voice, the fur between his flattened ears standing on end.
Rock felt the same way, and she was sure Ebel did too. The Werewolf Brotherhood could never be forgiven for disrupting so many lives.
Maybe putting the squeeze on the bishop would lead them to the truth about the abominable Brotherhood and its curse.
They were facing both a crisis and a golden opportunity.
“Let’s capture them alive,” Rock declared, and Ebel laughed.
“Your bravery is admirable, but you should leave the ruins first.”
“Because you’ll only slow us down.”
That last remark, obviously, came from Guido.
Rock couldn’t deny it, so she reluctantly agreed.
“Everyone will be out of sorts if you get hurt—especially me,” Ebel proclaimed as he lifted Rock into the air with both arms. After gazing longingly at her with his golden eyes, he closed his fang-filled mouth and rubbed it against her forehead in a doglike kiss.
Rock cracked up laughing.
“Father just did the same thing to me.”
Ebel’s eyes widened with shock before he burst out laughing too.
“Looks like he beat me to it. In that case, I’ll find another place to do it when we get home.”
“Another place? Like?”
Ebel turned toward Guido without answering Rock’s query.
“I’ll bring her out to the carriage first.”
“All ri—” Guido stopped in the middle of answering, his pointed ears flicking forward. “No, wait. Someone’s coming.”
Right after he said that, Rock also heard the sound of hurried footsteps. She looked over her shoulder with a start to see someone rush into the desolated sanctuary.
“Where are you planning to take my daughter?”
Placido Alexis, dressed in the blue robe, asked that in a growl of suppressed rage. His expression brimmed with anger as he glared at Ebel holding Rock.
Lauretta staggered out into the sanctuary behind him, her face whiter than a sheet.
“Aaah! Roxy!”
She let out a scream that sounded like ripping silk when she saw a werewolf about to make off with her niece.
Rock felt her heart sink when she saw Lord and Lady Alexis.
She’d hoped to leave without running into them again, because she knew it’d cause strife if they saw her.
The way they saw it, some rampaging werewolf was in the middle of abducting their precious niece.
It didn’t help the situation that they were standing in a space that no longer looked anything like the sanctuary, with mountains of debris from shattered furniture and clawed tapestries. The hall was deathly quiet, now that the people who prayed there had all fled.
Who would ever believe these werewolves were capable of reason?
“Darling, Roxy is…Roxy is…!” Lauretta clung to her husband’s arm in horror.
“I know. Stand back. It’s going to get dangerous.”
Placido pushed his wife behind him and stared down the two werewolves. His expression was threatening as he spoke. “I was wondering who we were dealing with when I heard there was a rampage, but you seem awfully docile.”
Placido didn’t seem scared, even when he was facing two werewolves. It was quite the opposite. His golden eyes had narrowed to slits as he assessed them.
“I don’t know who you are, but you will unhand my daughter,” he ordered in a low, threatening voice. “You understand me, don’t you?”
The two werewolves exchanged looks with the same gold eyes.
Rock didn’t know what was communicated between them, but Ebel quietly answered Placido.
“…She’s not your daughter.”
Both husband and wife gaped at him.
“That voice… You’re Count Mateus?!”
“I knew it! Your eye color really is…!”
“Yes, Lord Alexis. They are the same as yours.” Ebel’s gaze was concentrated on Placido as he held Rock in his arms like a precious jewel. “What differentiates us is that I was cursed against my wishes and obtained this power without ever wanting it. Still, I am happy that I have the power to save her.”
Rock silently clung to Ebel’s chest. His fluffy black fur was warm.
“You call this saving? You’re just abducting her!” Placido raved. “I won’t go easy on you, even if you are a count, if you dare take my daughter away!”
“That’s exactly what you did to me several days ago. I am merely returning her to her parent, as she requested of me.”
Lauretta and Placido had no intention of listening to Ebel’s side of things. They shouted at him in unison.
“We merely took back our rightful child!”
“Her parents are right here! We are her parents!”
Placido was one thing, but Lauretta also seemed to think they had legitimate reasons for kidnapping Rock.
This only saddened her.
Her aunt’s thoughts and feelings were extreme and insane, yet also pure. Her yearning for her deceased sister was being used by some malicious force.
And because of his deep love for Lauretta, Placido was also being manipulated.
“You’ve both lost your minds!” Rock shouted back at her aunt and uncle.
Indescribable apprehension and fretfulness surged within her, even though she was safe in Ebel’s arms.
I can’t let them get any more involved with the Werewolf Brotherhood. I can’t let them stay here.
Something within her warned her of that.
“It doesn’t matter what reason you might have, taking someone against their will is unforgivable!”
Lauretta stepped back as if she’d been struck by lightning when she heard Rock’s reproach.
“Roxy…?”
Placido looked over his shoulder, his brows snapping together when he confirmed his wife’s shattered expression.
“Stop it, Roxy! If you keep this up, I won’t forgive even you!”
He was trapped by his fanatical obsession with protecting his wife.
It didn’t matter what was said—none of it would reach him now.
Likely because of the curse lurking within the ruins.
Guido stepped forward when Rock reluctantly bit her tongue, knowing she couldn’t reach them.
“Ebel, it looks like we’re gonna have a fight on our hands.”
Placido’s frigid gaze shifted to Guido when he heard his voice.
“Lord Linus…you’re one too, then?”
“I apologize for not greeting you as a fellow wolf the last time we met,” Guido snarked, then whispered to Ebel. “You’ve got baggage to handle. Go. I’ll take care of things here.”
Needless to say, the baggage he was referring to was Rock. Ebel’s pointy ears flicked back in annoyance, despite Rock not minding the dig.
“Don’t say it like that. She’s not baggage! She’s my treasure.”
“I’m not buying time so you can flirt. Go on. Get outta here.”
Guido shooed them away with his furry hand. Sharp nails glinted on his fingertips.