Chapter Twenty-seven

**OLIVER'S POV**

“I’m going hunting!!” Gabriel yelled out as he strolled past me.
I nodded absently and continued sipping on my coffee and staring at the horizon as the sun rose. It was hard to believe sometimes that this was my life now, and the more I thought about it, the more I lived here, the more returning to New York began to seem too far-fetched.
I laughed to myself as I remembered my father’s face when I had told him over the phone and halfway across the country that I was leaving New York indefinitely, even over the phone, his face had turned tomato red, and the tie he knotted too tight around his throat almost seemed like it was going to strangle him.
Sounds of commotion roused me from my thoughts. I sat up and listened to the sounds of a hysterical mother demanding the release of her child. I swore under my breath and walked around the house, coming face to face with a small party of three men…and a man who held a child by the neck.
“How dare you talk back at me?!” He said, his voice ringing through the disturbed air. “I see Gabriel didn’t raise you brats right…”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”
I pulled the child away from his grip and watched as he ran back to his mother, his eyes watered, and his face red from the constriction. His mother’s eyes thanked me as she scurried away with her child in her arms. I didn’t miss the pleading looks of the pack, as though begging me to step away, to not engage this man. This monster.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, but even as the question left my lips, the answer stared me in the face.
The man before me was a spitting image of Gabriel. Looking at him felt as though I had time-traveled into the future and was now confronting Gabriel. He had hair that was graying at the temples and an empty socket that was sewn shut. The roughly done stitch that ran the length of his face across his shut-eye gave him a menacing look that threatened to drop me to my knees.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “What right do you think you have to enter this territory and harass them?!”
The words left my lips with a bravado I did not feel, my stomach churned with all the possibilities as the man advanced towards me, his one eye staring daggers at me and piercing into my soul. I heard murmurs from behind me as they moved back with his advance. Finally, he stopped in front of me. He was so close that I could smell the tobacco on his breath and see the red in his eye. He looked down his nose at me, and it took everything within me to not back off.
I almost didn’t see his hand move, and my eyes opened in shock as his closed, heavy fist came down on my face, and knocked me clean off my feet. My eyes fluttered open as I spurted blood out of my mouth, trying to focus my gaze on the approaching figure of the man. I steadied my hands on the door and attempted to lift myself to my feet, but was sent back to the floor again by the heel of his feet on my neck. He looked back at the two men he had come with and began to laugh, as the force on his heel became stronger.
“Fuck…”
A reprieve came when he squatted down to look at me. The combination of the sun and my dizziness made his figure appear double, and even through that, I could see the disgust on his face. He moved my hair out of the way and stared intently at Gabriel’s mark on my neck.
“Hmm,” he said. “It would seem the goddess gave my useless son a mate after all…though, I don’t see the need.”
I made to move, to tell him that his son was an amazing person deserving of everything good that the gods and goddesses decided to bless him with, that the only useless one here was him. But any tiny movement increased the strain on my neck and made me cough up blood even more.
“When is he coming back? Or did he leave a human in charge of his pack indefinitely?”
It all happened so fast. One second, j was pinned to the floor under the heel of a madman, and the next, Gabriel was standing protectively in front of me, and his father was struggling to get to his feet. Gabriel looked down at me, and through the haze, I could see his eyes burning with an anger I had only seen once before at the ritual with Shawn. At the sides of his mouth, fangs extended.
Gabriel wiped the blood from my mouth, his voice filtering through the haze. “Are you okay?” He asked.
I nodded and struggled to sit up on the gravel. “Yes…”
I winced and held my neck at the intense pain. I coughed to dislodge the discomfort in my throat and that only served to send up more blood. Gabriel turned to his father and growled, and I watched in amusement as the bravado that he had displayed seemed to melt away. He struggled to his feet and took steps back as Gabriel approached him. His eyes widened in fear and shock, as his eyes looked around for a possible escape.
“Gabriel…” he said. “When did you get back?”
“Is this what you’ve been doing?” Gabriel asked, every word from his mouth coming in a menacingly low whisper. “Coming here…threatening my people…”
His father laughed nervously. “Gabriel…”
Gabriel’s hand swiped across his father’s face and landed blow after blow. The two men who had come with him withdrew themselves to a far corner and watched helplessly as their leader got beaten. Gabriel sighed, seemingly satisfied with his handwork. His hand wrapped around his father’s throat, and he lifted him until his feet no longer touched the ground. I watched in satisfaction as he began to choke and gasp for air.
“How does it feel now?” I thought to myself.
“The next time you show your face around here, I’ll kill you.”
Words were so simple and yet carried so much power. Gabriel’s father nodded rapidly, and when Gabriel dropped him, he stood and dusted himself up. His eyes met mine and he scowled, and with what dignity he had left, turned and made his exit.