Chapter 2 _ Layon

“I’m just going to grab something from the storeroom. Can you keep an eye on things for me?”

As soon as Layon heard her call to the local fae man sitting at the bar, he knew that was his chance. Having seen the tension and pain in her at Jason’s comments, he knew there was no way he could leave without at least checking she was okay. And so he waited just inside the restroom door until he was sure that he heard her walk past.

Then he gripped the door handle and pulled it open just enough to catch a glimpse of her disappearing through the storeroom door at the other end of the hall.

She’s going to be pissed with me, he thought, already sensing that Angel’s wolf was riled up.

Then he quickly reminded himself, I’m the alpha’s son. She has no right to be pissed with me. Steeling himself for one pissed-off she-wolf, Layon pulled open the restroom door and began to make his way down the hallway toward the storeroom. Pausing at the door for only a moment to hear the sound of her throwing boxes round inside, he lifted his hand and knocked gently against the wood.

With his wolf senses, he felt and heard her tense, and he could practically feel the way her hair rose on the back of her neck. Had she been a wolf, her hackles would have been raised.

“Angel, I’m coming in!”

he called through the door to her, hoping that

there were enough walls between him and the rest of the pack for them not to hear him.

The moment that he opened the door and stepped inside, he realized that the storeroom was much smaller than he expected. Angel tensed further, and it seemed that the only thing protecting him from her wrath was the heavy-looking box of sauce packets she was holding in her arms.

“What do you want?” she asked, sounding slightly uncertain at questioning him.

Layon’s stomach clenched. Once she had been his sister’s closest friend and he had believed that they were fairly close also, close enough to be able to talk, and yet now she seemed almost completely unapproachable. Her face was grim and downcast, and she looked as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Even so, she was beautiful and fiery, and she made his own hackles rise in a different way.

Forcing down the sensations that he really ought not to be feeling toward her, he cleared his throat and took a step sideways into the room, determined to show her that he was no threat.

Though he could not see her red wolf, he could feel the beast baring its teeth, preparing to defend itself, just itching to break free of Angel’s human skin if she needed to. He raised his hands as if in surrender and began to shake his head as he told her,

“I only came in here to apologize.”

Angel’s gaze twisted with suspicion and her shoulders were so tense now that they were practically clenched together. Layon began to wonder whether he had made the right decision in cornering her in the storeroom.

Where else could I talk to her without being questioned for being nice to the traitor’s daughter? he asked himself but even as he thought it, he cursed himself for thinking of her as that. She was more than that, she was Angel, the little girl who had once played in the gardens of Alpha Manor with him and his sister as if she were just another of their siblings.

Once they had all run wild and free through the woodland at the bottom of his family’s estate,

testing out their wolf forms and challenging each other, pretending at being their very own pack. And yet now there couldn’t have been more distance between them. Angel was no longer a member of their pack, she was a lone wolf, and lone wolves were dangerous.

“It doesn’t matter,”

Angel responded, shaking her head and half

turning away though it was clear from the look on her face that she was still hurting. Jason's words had cut her deep and if Layon had to guess, Suzen’s turning up hadn’t helped. He could sense how much Angel missed his sister.

He had felt it the moment she walked in.

“Please, just go.”

The pleading tone in Angel’s voice, the tone of almost utter defeat, almost made Layon turn around and leave without another word. Yet instinct caused him to do differently. Stepping forward, he placed a hand on her shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.

“I said go,”

Angel insisted, shrugging off his shoulder and stepping away, practically leaning against the nearest shelf in an attempt to get away from him.

“Angel, what Jason said was uncalled for,”

Layon began, but he sensed that it had been the wrong thing to say, only dredging up the thoughts and emotions that had been brought on by his friend’s taunts.

“I’m used to it,”

Angel shrugged once more and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Her charcoal eyes were so dark that they were almost unnerving, and Layon had to gulp past the sudden lump in his throat even as she asked,

“What’s with the whole bachelor party thing anyway?”

Confusion washed over Layon like a wave and he raised an eyebrow, placing a hand upon his hip,

“Bachelor party?”

Angel inclined her head in the direction they had come, back toward the main part of the bar, before she replied,

“Yeah, the way you guys were acting out there. It’s like someone is getting married. You aren’t getting married, are you?”

Is that jealousy I can sense? Layon asked himself, almost certain he saw a hint of the green-eyed monster hiding just beneath the surface. His stomach clenched as he remembered that at one time, before Angel’s father had betrayed his, he and Angel may well have been promised to each other as mates.

Her father had been his father’s second, just like Jason was his, and the bond between them had been as legendary as any alpha and beta.

Layon gulped down anxiety at the thought of how easily all that had changed the day Caprio decided to challenge his father for leadership, stating that he could run the pack better.

“Is that jealousy, Angel? It’s most unbecoming on you,”

Layon chuckled, hoping that a little amusement might lighten the mood, but it only seemed to darken Angel’s gaze and he heard a growl rumble deep in her throat. He couldn’t say he blamed her for her foul mood. She hadn’t exactly been treated well by the rest of the pack since her father’s banishment.

“Are you getting married?” she growled.

Even before he could answer, she quickly added,

“And for the record, no, I am not jealous!”

Layon had to bite back laughter at that. Everything about Angel from the way that she glared at him to the way her fingernails were beginning to lengthen into claws, digging gouges in the cardboard box she was holding,

suggested to him that she was at least feeling something akin to jealousy.

“No, Angel, I’m not getting married, and neither is anybody else,”

Layon stated quickly, shaking his head and trying to keep his own tension to a minimum, not wanting to feed whatever fire was being fueled inside her.

More and more he was beginning to regret approaching her. Yet deep down he knew he could never have rested until he had at least made sure she was okay. She’s definitely not okay, he realized, looking at the state of her a little more closely. Though she was athletically built as she had always been, with curvy hips and an ample bosom, she was much more slender than she had been before her father’s banishment.

There was a feral edge to her that hadn’t been there before, as though she was malnourished and broken without the rest of the pack around her. Seeing that she was unsatisfied with his response, he added,

“We were just letting off some steam before the alpha challenges in a few weeks.”

Angel’s mood seemed to change almost instantly. She seemed to shift before his eyes from anger to downright disdainful, rolling her eyes and scoffing. Hackles rising at her reaction, he automatically asked,

“What’s with the eye roll?”

Angel offered him a pointed look then, and the realization hit him like a slap in the face. Of course she would react with distaste at the mention of the alpha challenges, her father had almost died because he had felt the need

to challenge Layon’s father. No wonder she hates me, Layon thought, wishing not for the first time that he could turn the clock back and change everything that had happened all those years ago when he had been barely twenty-one

and Angel and Suzen only just eighteen.

“Angel, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit a nerve,”

he began, stepping forward to place a hand on her shoulder once more. Even before he touched her, he thought better of it, hearing the way her heart began to beat faster and seeing the way that she tensed. He could practically feel the storm cloud that fizzled all around her, threatening to break at any moment.

“Don’t apologize. You didn’t hit a nerve,”

Angel insisted, though from the way she was acting, Layon was certain she was lying until she added,

“I’m just fed up of you males wolves feeling the constant need to fight and put each other down.”

“I can’t say I blame you,”

Layon shrugged,

“How about when I become alpha, I promise to change that?”

Though he hadn’t meant for his words to sound cocky, he was all too aware that was exactly how they came across. Angel adjusted the box she was holding under one arm and placed her free hand on her hip, looking at him with disgust for a moment before her face began to fall.

“Don’t bother making promises you can’t keep and besides, it’s too late anyway.”

The sadness in her voice might have been enough to tell Layon how she felt but it was in that moment that he saw a flash of memory in his mind’s eye, a woman who looked much like Angel but slightly older, a woman who was no longer around. The color drained from Layon’s face as he suddenly remembered Angel’s mother and how she had taken her own life shortly after her husband was banished, leaving Angel alone in the Alpha pack.

“Shit, Angel, I’m…”he began to apologize again only to break off when Angem’s head suddenly whipped up. It appeared she had reached the end of her tether. Her charcoal eyes had turned to amber, glowing angrily even as she curled back her lips to reveal that her fangs were now protruding from her gums.

“Just go!”

she snarled at him, her claws scraping the box she was holding once more. An instant later she shook her head as if shaking off her wolf and all returned to normal, though her voice was still menacing as she added,

“Your need to comfort me might have been acceptable when your sister and I were friends, but that was years ago and things have changed. We aren’t friends. We are barely even pack members. And I don’t need your pity, especially if it’s some misguided attempt to stroke your own ego before you become the next alpha.”

Layon’s own wolf threatened to snap back then. His entire body hardened, a growl rumbling in his throat as he barely managed to contain himself. The tension from all his recent training sessions came bubbling to the surface and he snarled,

“Don’t forget who you are speaking to, Angel.”

There was only a flash of submission in Angel’s gaze before she dropped the box on the nearest shelf and turned on him once more,

“I’m not forgetting anything. You are the alpha’s son, but that doesn’t give you the right to be cocky and it doesn’t mean you will be the next alpha. There are sons from five other families all lining up to take that honor from you, last I checked.”

Riled up by her words, Layon knew that if he stayed a moment longer, he might do something he would regret. Knowing how bad it would look for the son of the alpha to hurt another member of the pack, even a traitor’s daughter, he turned on his heels and began to storm from the room. He only paused at the door to snarl over his shoulder,

“You know, Angel, I don’t think your friendship with Suzen ended just because you’re the traitor’s daughter. I think it’s down to the fact you’ve turned into a stone-cold bitch.”