Burning Wild (2 page)

Mommies weren’t like this on television or in the movies. There was no cuddling. There were no hugs and kisses. Slaps and kicks were all he would get from his mother. He watched her on television sometimes, at the parties and fundraisers. She looked so different, smiling for the cameras, clinging to Ryan’s arm, stroking his face as if she loved him so much. But behind closed doors there was cruelty and hatred and deceit from both of them. Over time, they taught him to separate fantasy from reality.

FIVE YEARS

“WE absolutely can’t keep a governess, or whatever you call that woman, who beats the crap out of our kid. She put out cigarettes on him,” Ryan complained. “There are burn marks on his hands. Sooner or later one of the tutors will see and report it.”

Jake stayed quiet, very still. He’d perfected the art of sliding silently into a room without their knowledge and listening to the conversation. Most of what they said was still over his head—discussions about business and taking over companies—but he understood the basic truth that lay at the foundation of every meeting. Money was important. Power was important. They had it and he needed it. Agnes wasn’t putting cigarettes out on him. Cathy was. Her lovers did sometimes, just to please her. She could make them do anything she wanted no matter how cruel or humiliating. He knew them by sight, by scent, and someday he would ruin them. Money. Power. That was what they had and he needed.

“Nobody cares, Ryan,” Cathy said, annoyed with the conversation.

“Someone is going to see those burns and a reporter will get hold of it. We’ll be front-page news.” Ryan swung around, pointing a finger at her, his voice hardening. “I let you do what you want within reason, Cathy, but you aren’t going to ruin us with your senseless little games.”

Cathy stabbed her cigarette into the tray. “Really?” Both eyebrows shot up. A crafty expression crossed her face and Jake’s stomach tightened. “We might get some great publicity, Ryan, if we can work it right. Our little boy beaten and abused by a trusted member of our household. Tears in front of the camera, me leaning on you. We photograph so well together. A close-up of our child in the hospital looking frail. We could run with that for a long time. I could host a charity event for battered children. It would open more possibilities and get us some great press.”

“Agnes will be prosecuted and put in jail. She knows quite a bit about us.”

“Don’t be stupid. If we do this, Agnes has to disappear.”

“Cathy, you can’t be serious.”

Cathy rolled her eyes. “You’re such a sniveling coward, Ryan. Do you think I’m going to let her talk to the police? Or to the press? Hardly.”

Ryan turned his head slowly, something feral and predatory in his eyes. Cathy stiffened and lowered her eyes. “We have a very good arrangement, my dear, but perhaps you need another lesson in respecting your husband.”

Jake felt his heart hammering loudly. He had never considered his father to be dangerous, but that look, that small movement, just a flexing of muscles, showed that beneath the seeming apathy, Ryan was every bit as cruel as Cathy, or even more so. He’d given himself away.

Cathy pushed a hand through her hair. “No, no, of course not, honey. I’m sorry.”

She was genuinely afraid. Jake, hidden as he was, could scent her fear permeating the room.

The tension drained from Ryan and he forced a smile, but his eyes were flat and cold. “How are you going to keep the kid from talking?”

Cathy visibly relaxed, and, even in the shadows, Jake felt the impact of evil. “He won’t talk. I can guarantee that. I have to plan this very carefully. We need a few warning signs, some things we can have on record that we discussed with the doctors, expressed our concerns, but no one can substantiate.” She rubbed her hands together. “This is good, Ryan. Maybe that skinny little rat will be worth something to us after all.”

Instinctively Jake knew he was in for trouble. He had already made up his mind to survive, to beat them at their own game. He could be stronger. He’d seen how to do it. He had to be smarter and faster and more ruthless than any of them. He couldn’t stop them yet, but he could endure, and that too would strengthen him.

He opened his hand and looked at the burns there. He had
let
her and her friend put out their cigarettes on him. He had been fast enough to get away, but he hadn’t been stupid about it, and he needed to remember this one moment, to mark the occasion so he would know he could be smarter, use his brains to defeat them. Down in his room, when he was certain he was alone, he took out a knife and slowly drew it over his thigh, making the first of many marks to prove to himself, to remind himself, that he had deliberately taken their punishment, that he had
allowed
it.

SIX YEARS

JAKE watched helplessly as Cathy and Ryan killed Agnes. They took tremendous pleasure in it. And they hurt her for a long time before they killed her. He was tied up and forced to watch as they systematically beat to death the woman who had raised him. Agnes had been cruel at times and apathetic at others, but at least she’d taken care of him. He knew what was coming next, because Cathy had told him what would happen to him. She’d smiled as she told him.

When they were through beating him, Jake spent the next two weeks in the hospital, and he never once denied the allegations brought against his former nanny. She’d disappeared after viciously beating their son, Cathy and Ryan claimed.

The police tried to question him, but he was broken, his bones and, even for a time, his spirit. He could only lie in bed, helpless, pain shaking him, cruelty destroying him, remaining absolutely silent, knowing they would kill him if he said anything. He wasn’t strong enough yet. He had to push harder. He had to dig deeper. He had so much to learn and, lying in bed while his ribs and arms healed, he had lots of time to formulate a plan.

The reporters came and went. The doctors and nurses felt sorry for Cathy as she quietly and beautifully wept for the cameras and her audience, clinging to her handsome, adoring husband. She played out her role, lavishing attention on the unresponsive boy, her money and her celebrity affording her prime-time coverage. She sought out every possible advantage, leading charities and organizations as long as she could headline and get the television time. Everyone believed her, not because of the evidence of Jake’s body, but because of the money and her acting skills. Jake had to admit she was mesmerizing. She could get almost anyone to do what she wanted. He needed those skills now that he knew what he was dealing with.

EIGHT YEARS

CATHY was nervous and upset. Jake Fenton, her grandfather, was coming for another visit. He always insisted on talking alone with Jake, and Cathy didn’t like it. She despised her grandfather and even talked about trying to have him killed, but she was afraid of him. Young Jake didn’t understand why she was afraid. Fenton lived several states away in Texas, but she always dressed Jake just so and acted completely different, as if she cared about him in front of his grandfather.

She hissed instructions to young Jake, reminding him to mind his manners, to keep his mouth shut, not to answer any questions about Cathy or Ryan or their personal lives. She threatened him with dark punishments if he dared disobey her. Jake found the entire matter of his great-grandfather quite interesting. What did the old man have that frightened Cathy? What did she want from him that made her try to look so respectable and sweet?

Fenton never bought her lies. He smiled and made nice with Cathy and Ryan, but Jake could smell the pretense flowing from one to the other and he could see the contempt in the old man’s piercing gaze. Fenton always insisted he talk alone with young Jake, and Jake enjoyed the long conversations, but the aftermath was always hell. Cathy and Ryan used a whip on him to beat him into submission and as an attempt to force every word of the conversation between the old man and their son out of him. Jake became very adept at making up stories and telling them with a straight face, looking the two of them right in the eyes. And then he would go to his room and mark his victory permanently into his skin, the pain clearing the rage and anger from his belly, replacing it with cold resolve.

TEN YEARS

BOOKS. The huge library in his home, which others rarely entered, was a treasure beyond measure. Jake spent most of his time in the library reading in the quiet haven of the room his parents never visited. He read every book on the shelves, regardless of subject, his photographic memory soaking up the knowledge and details and filing them away for future reference.

He learned to stay silent and in the background. He’d slip away from Bridget, the latest nanny, and pad silently through the house, finding each occupant’s location. He’d sneak up on them until he was close enough to touch them, but never let them know he was near.

He discovered insider information on stocks. Ryan was extremely intelligent and adept at knowing other people’s weaknesses. Jake learned a lot by watching him, the small smile that others took at face value, but that Jake came to know signaled Ryan was about to strike and strike hard. Descended from a powerful family with tremendous banking connections, Ryan’s expertise in handling the diversity of companies they owned and his utilization of his political connections were both extremely valuable. Jake’s conversations with Grandfather Fenton about stocks and bonds and the financial books he’d read in the library helped him to understand and assimilate the information he gathered when spying on his father.

Today, as Jake crept though the house, he found Cathy with her personal trainer in the exercise room. They rarely used the equipment so much as they used one another. He learned a lot in that room and then further explored the subject with the books he found in the library and the information on the computer. Sex was simply another weapon to be used, like money, to gain power. He resolved to learn everything he could about sex so he could be really good at it. There was no point in having a weapon at his disposal unless he could wield it effectively.

Jake began to work out, to use the powerful muscles running beneath the skin in his thin arms and legs. He used every machine, studying the exercise manuals and VHS tapes carefully and following the instructions, careful never to get caught. Each day, every day, Jake prowled his family’s home, observing, listening, reading . . . learning more and more. Everything he filed away, all for one purpose.

One day, when the time was right, he was going to beat his parents at their own game. He would take over every single one of their companies, ruin them financially, expose them to the world for what they were. He would make absolutely certain they knew that the child they had beaten so often, thinking him a victim, was really the strong one, really the predator.

THIRTEEN YEARS

JAKE stood very still as Josiah Trent, his parents’ best friend and sometime partner, walked around him, sniffing the air. Deep inside, the other reacted, roaring with rage, raking at Jake, closer to the surface than he’d ever been, demanding to be set free. His skin itched. His muscles ached. His jaw and the inside of his mouth felt small, as if there was no room for his teeth, but he held on grimly, pushing at the other to stay still.

Jake’s mind was strong and disciplined now, and instinctively he knew he was in more danger than he’d ever been before. Trent was looking for the other. Those sharp eyes and that bulbous nose wanted to find the beast living inside of Jake. Cathy’s breathing was ragged and eager, and her body seemed aroused as Trent walked in circles around Jake.

Jake had made one too many mistakes, moving too fast, jumping too high, showing his emerging skills rather than hiding behind the facade of the weak, useless bookworm his mother always considered him to be. He had known he couldn’t ever let them become suspicious, but now he had slipped up and they’d brought in Trent, hoping that Jake was, after all, what they had bred him to be. He would rather die than let them know the truth. That would be allowing them to win.

He clenched his aching teeth and endured the poking and prodding from Trent. The man was a giant, with powerful muscles and glaring eyes. He looked at everyone as if they were beneath him, especially Jake. He made a sound of disgust.

“Useless,” he pronounced. “He’s useless, Cathy. I told you not to bother having a child with that gutless wonder you married.”

“He has money, connections and the right bloodline,” she hissed. “And you didn’t do any better. I don’t see that your daughter has any special talents.”

“Better than this disgusting little runt,” Trent snapped and shoved at Jake. “At least she can produce a whelp eventually. I’ll find her the right man.”

Jake allowed himself to stumble, savage triumph nearly shaking him. Josiah Trent had dismissed him, never once suspecting the other who raged so close to the surface. Trent wasn’t nearly as powerful as Cathy and Ryan believed him to be. His was the other family with the “superior” bloodline, yet he could no more sniff out the truth than Cathy and Ryan could with him living right under their roof. It was a huge lesson. Trent was all bluff, his demeanor and act of superiority fooling even the two people Jake viewed as powerful.

“We need a shifter,” Trent said. “A true shifter with the nose and the cunning for business, not some scrawny little wimp who everyone will walk on.”

A shifter.
At last Jake knew what they were after. He had to find the meaning, and if a shifter was that important to them, he had to make certain they never suspected that he was one—if he was. He would spend every hour in the library hunting down the meaning until he knew exactly what he was looking for. He would learn about his other and what he could do, why he was so important to them.

Cathy ran her hand suggestively down Trent’s arm. “Maybe we should have tried together.” Her voice purred and invited.

Trent looked her up and down, scorn in his eyes, contempt curling his lips. “Not if this is the kind of whelp you produce.” Abruptly he spun away and stalked from the room.