I stood there, stunned—and truly apprehensive for the first time. No wonder they hadn’t wanted to hear from me. No wonder they thought I was trying to deceive them.
Instinctively I flared my nostrils, trying to pull in his scent, but it danced away—the breeze was low this deep in the forest, but it ran to his advantage.
So that’s why he’d kept his distance? To hide his Alpha state? But why? I was on his turf—he should have wanted to own every inch of my breach, his body responding to the offense of it, his scent rising so I’d catch it.
Why was he keeping his distance—still? What didn’t he want me to know about him? He was strong, but… if I was reading him right, I was stronger.
~ RIG ~“Who?” Ezekiel spat.I narrowed my eyes. “The true Alpha.” I threw a hand wide towards the trees around us and one of the guards flinched. “Why is he hiding? Is he a coward? What is it you think I’m going to—”“You came to us, Rig. You made the challenge. You want to challenge for dominance? Well, here I am.”I shook my head. “I call bullshit. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but—” I raised my voice and turned my head, so anyone within earshot would be certain to hear. “I’m here, asshole! Stand up and face the challenge, or abandon your pack to me like the fucking coward you are.”Ezekiel st
~ RIG ~“What the…? What the fffff…?” My head was spinning, literally.I was vaguely aware of Cara behind me, her heart slamming, her mind reaching for mine with a dozen wordless, urgent questions, but I couldn’t think straight to even begin to parse it out.Stephen.My brother, Stephen.The intended Alpha.The one Dad was supposed to have killed.“What the—”“I know this is a shock,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine, but swimming with compassion, the way they always had—there were even hints of
~ RIG ~Things remained tense, but it was clear there would be no fighting. So, Stephen soothed his wolves, Cara stepped in front of me and wrapped her arms around my waist.‘Are you okay?’‘Of course not. But… I mean, I’m glad. Of course. I just… this doesn’t seem real. I can’t believe he did it. What he put us through.’Cara nodded, her expression darkening. But before we could discuss it further, Stephen tapped my arm and tipped his head for us to follow.It was exactly how he used to beckon me to come with him when I was sixteen and in awe of my twenty-year-old brother. It made my heart leap and plummet at the same moment. I was so off balance I
~ RIG ~“Rig—”“Four years, Stephen! Four fucking years I thought you were dead! Four years I’ve cried about you and wished you were there and hated whoever took you from us and… this is really fucked!”“I know. I’m sorry. I mean it.”“Sorry doesn’t change anything,” I growled. Cara caught my elbow when I stepped up to my slightly bigger brother’s chest and pressed a finger there. “You did this to us. You and Dad. And don’t even get me started on that. Working with that psycho? You know he’s psycho, right? You know he cares more about his fucking bloodline legacy than about you and me?”“Trust me,” Steph
~ CARA ~Harmony was a beautiful woman who looked to be about thirty. If I was right, that made her a couple years older than Stephen, which was interesting, but I didn’t want to ask just in case. Some women were really sensitive about that stuff.She wore jeans and a thick woolen flannel shirt. Her dark hair brushed her shoulders in loose waves that she flicked back often while she talked.She led me through the forest, pointing out buildings and homes that I often didn’t see until they were drawn to my attention.There was no doubt the rogues had done an amazing job out here of blending into the surroundings. I bet if other humans ever walked through here they didn’t even realize they were surrounded b
~ RIG ~When we’d settled into our seats, my hand gripped to a fist on the arm of my chair, and Stephen gripping his own ankle like it was a parachute, I just waited.I couldn’t stop staring at Stephen, trying to wrap my head around the fact that he was there. And he let me. He didn’t bristle at the scrutiny. I’d told him to tell me the story of what happened with Dad, and he was clearly trying to figure out where to start.His eyes went distant and he shook his head. “You aren’t wrong about it all being really fucked up,” he muttered. “But you aren’t right about why you think I did it, either. So… just let me paint the whole picture before you jump in, okay?”I shrugged my reluctant agreement and waited.
~ RIG ~I stared at Stephen and waited, but his foot was jiggling and he just stared back.“So, that’s it?” I asked. “He told you what you had to do, and you just… did it?”My brother’s jaw went tight. “We agreed on some terms—which boiled down to the fact that I could never reach out to any wolf, ever. And that if I ever did challenge him, he’d deny any knowledge and then kill me himself. And Harmony, too. If I left him alone, she was safe.”“That’s such bullshit, Stephen. You really think if he wanted her dead, he would have hesitated?”Stephen frowned. “Of course he would—I was in line to inherit. If he killed my mate, it wo
~ RIG ~I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt more conflicted.I’d been mad about Stephen calling me little bro again, and yet there was a part of me that wanted to grin and flip on my back, bare my balls and urge him to take over. A part of me that maybe understood, just a little bit, why he’d taken the chance to just duck and run when Dad came at him.Only a part, though.As much as I had admired my brother and who he was, as much as he was responsible for teaching me to have a heart, instead of my father’s cruel ambition, the truth was, that had all been a boy’s view of his big brother. Hearing this story, knowing the lay of the land—understanding how all of this affected wolves, espe