The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 1)

Our caravan pulls into Chapel Bell as the clock tolls eight. There aren’t many humans around, but the lights blaze at the stand in the square with the cow statue in front. It’s a prime specimen. Nice haunches. Really gets your mouth watering, and then you see the menu, and it’s instant disappointment.

We park our makeshift caravan, and I help Una out of the Jeep. Maybe I linger. The nip of her waist and swell of her hips are sweet as hell. Made for my grip. Her hands flutter to my chest. The lamplight shines in her eyes. I can’t tell if her pupils are blown wide like before when the heat overtook her.

“Everyone’s staring,” she whispers.

“Let them.”

She ducks her head, unconsciously flashing my bite. The sight makes me even harder. When I spill inside her tonight, I’m going to mark her again. Deeper. And then I’m going to mount her again and again until she marks me back.

I lick my lips.

“Ice cream,” she murmurs, voice rough.

“Ice cream.” I force myself to step back. Grab her hand. Lead her after Nuala and her sugar-happy grandson.

We’re the last to order. I get chocolate. Una gets vanilla.

It’s disgusting. The pups like it, but pups will put anything in their mouths. I see many males surreptitiously tossing theirs in the garbage while their females bravely force down what their males have provided for them. There’s an analogy there. I’m not so dense that I don’t see it.

Maybe we’re overdue for a change. I might have accidentally started things moving with this impromptu jaunt to town. A lot of females joined us, as well as all of B-roster. Not so many elders. Even excluding those I left back on purpose, A-roster is underrepresented.

I reach behind the bench and offer my cone to Nuala’s grandson as he tears past, and I smile. I won’t mind a good fight. In a few days. Once Una’s heat is over, and she’s sated.

She’s actually enjoying her ice cream. She savors it, swirling her tongue around the base and then mouthing the cream into peaks.

The back of my neck sweats. We’re sitting together on a wrought-iron bench, and I swear, I’m heating the metal. She has a dollop of melted white on her bottom lip. She darts her pink tongue out and dabs it clean.

I’m done.

I stand, throwing her over my shoulder.

She yelps, and her ice cream plops into the grass. She whacks my back.

“Hey!”

“You’ve had enough.”

“I wasn’t even to the cone!”

I smack her ass, and it jiggles so sweet. I’m not making it back to camp. It’s gonna be close getting to the boundary of Quarry Pack territory.

I want her first time to be in her nest, but it’s so damn far away. The dens are closer. The dens are right.

“See you in a few days, Alpha,” Tye calls, chuckling. He’s sitting between a scowling Kennedy and a blushing Annie, crowding them into the corners, his legs sprawled wide, arms resting along the back of the bench. “I’ll see the girls home.”

Kennedy’s wolf grumbles.

I grunt my thanks and place Una into the Jeep, careful of her leg.

“Did I hurt you? Carrying you that way?” I grab her chin and search her face for traces of pain. I tried to keep her leg free and not jostle it too much, but I’m a rough guy. I don’t always know my strength.

Her eyelashes flutter against her pink cheeks. “I’m okay.”

“You’d tell me if you weren’t?” It’s an order, not a question. I know she wouldn’t, and her leg’s a pretty constant bother, the ache is always there in the bond, so I don’t know if it’s worse or not.

She ignores me, straightening her skirt and buckling up. “Why are you in such a hurry to leave?”

I’m already in the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition.

“You know.”

I expect more protests, but she grows quiet. I make it out of town in record time. Our connection is alive, coursing with energy. It’s undeniable. Is that why she’s speechless?

Because she knows she can’t deny it anymore?

I don’t want her to surrender.

It would relieve, but it wouldn’t satisfy. What do I want?

I guess what should have been. I want to go back to the moment she claimed me in the lodge, and I want to accept her then. What would it have cost me to hear her out? Take her aside and talk?

My soul would have recognized her. With the way I feel now, there’s no way it wouldn’t have.

But that’s rewriting history.

Maybe the way this is unfolding is what Fate intended. Me pulling my head out of my ass. Her giving me a chance. What if screwing up was necessary so that I could truly recognize the grace I’ve been given?

We’ve waited for each other our whole lives. And despite my epic fuck up, we’re still here together now.

I’ll be gentle. I’ll make it good for her.

My cock strains, the urge to chase rising, even in this human contraption.

I force the rut down, call on my wolf to restrain the lust in my blood. My mate will want her nest, not the dens. I can hold out a little longer, take her to the cabin, not some cave in the woods.

I obey the speed limit. I won’t jostle her leg more than I have to in my haste. I won’t hurt her ever again.

I park right in front of my cabin, and I scoop her from her seat. She’s hot to the touch, eyelids at half -mast. She wasn’t feeling the heat back in town, but she is now. Her eyes are hazy, and she’s fiddling with the buttons on her top before I get her to the front door.

Her need beckons to me.

“I can’t stop,” I tell her.

“I don’t want you to,” she says, breathless.

I carry her across the threshold like a human bride, and she wriggles in my arms, trying to get closer, to press her swollen breasts to my chest. I kick open the bedroom door and place her reverently in her nest. Her hands fumble at her waistband, and she shimmies her skirt down. I rip off my own clothes, feasting my eyes on the skin she reveals, inch by inch, the curves and swells, every perfect line of her.

Her fingers are already stuffed between her legs, her eyes screwed shut. There’s a sheen of sweat on her chest and forehead.

My heart thuds. There’s no more dance. No courtship. This is happening now. I wipe my palms on my thighs. I can do this. You put part A in slot B. Simple.

She glances up at me through hazy brown eyes and moans low in the back of her throat. It’s a command.

She climbs to all fours, sticking a pillow haphazardly under her bad knee. Her braid dangles over her shoulder, sweeping the mattress as she stretches her neck and arches her back. Then she folds, resting her forehead on her arms, and she lifts her hips, angling her pussy so it’s open to me, pink and slick and plump with her arousal.

I kneel behind her. It’s a simple matter of easing my cock inside. If she whimpers or stiffens or anything, I’ll stop. Play with her clit ‘til she’s ready for more. It’s not a race.

She growls and shuffles her knees further apart.

I trace the bumps of her spine, smooth my hands over her round hips and hold her tight in place. I can’t bear the thought of hurting her, but her body seems to know what it wants. There’s no fear in the bond, no tension in her muscles. She’s presenting like Fate intended. She wants this as badly as I do. As if that’s possible.

I just need to go slow. It’s her first time, and I want her to remember only pleasure. I don’t see a barrier in the shadow between her folds. I’ve heard females lose it riding bikes. That’s good. I don’t want her to feel any pain at my hands. Never.

I draw in a deep breath, steeling myself. And then I ease my hard and aching cock into her slippery entrance. She gives for me perfectly, accepting me, groaning her delight. I sink to the hilt in one, smooth thrust, and her channel grips me tight. Before I can breathe again, tamp down my animal urges so I can stroke into her sweet heat like a male in control of himself, she bucks.

I shatter.

She rocks into me, and I slam to meet her hips, going deep, so deep, and she screams and clutches the sheets, bucking faster, harder. She’s not shy. Not scared.

She wants it all.

I grab her braid, twist it around my fist, make her lift her head, exposing the elegant line of her neck.

My beautiful, greedy mate. She works my cock, seeking her pleasure, using me, pushing back and up, widening her knees and angling her pussy so every thrust hits a place that makes her contract and squirt cream.

She’s wild. Demanding. Like she knows exactly what she wants from me.

I curve an arm around her waist, sit back on my heels, and lift her so I can drive into her from below. She tilts her head back and rests it on my shoulder. Her needy whimpers tickle my ears.

She’s perfect. She matches every thrust, takes everything I give her. I don’t have to hold back. She’s not delicate or breakable. She’s voracious.

My balls contract, and there’s no stopping it. I can only go harder. She screams, and her core clamps on my cock, milking my seed, her whole body trembling, spasming. Then she goes limp. My knot swells, notching behind her pubic bone, binding her to me.

My heart explodes in pure joy, and then I panic.

She’s not moving. Her eyes are closed.

I slap her cheek gently, and then with a sharp tap. Oh, Fate. I broke her. What do I do?

I tap harder, and she jerks her head to the side and grumbles drunkenly, “What’re you doin’? Knock it off.”

My heart starts beating again.

Her eyes are open now. Her pupils are still the size of dimes, but her muscles aren’t lax anymore.

We’re naked, slick and sticky. Despite the thickness of my knot, which swells the plane above her pussy, cum leaks, trickling down her thighs.

“Are you okay?” she asks and reaches up to wind an arm around my neck.

“Are you? Is this comfortable?” I stroke her stretched belly.

“Yeah.” She offers me a small, shy smile. “I’m good.”

“Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head, still smiling. “No. Why would I be?”

“Because it was your first time.” I’m oddly nervous. It was good. She said so herself. But still.

I glance down where my cock splits her wide, and I don’t see any blood, but we’re still stuck together. After my knot shrinks, I’ll get a warm washcloth. Clean her up and check to make sure she’s okay.

“I wanted to be gentle.” But I wasn’t. My shoulders bunch. I was an animal.

She lazily strokes my jaw with her fingertips. I’m clenching my teeth pretty hard. I try to relax. I don’t want to freak her out.

“I wanted to respect the fact that it was your first time, too.” I know it’s not good enough, but I need her to know.

“It wasn’t my first time. It’s all good.” Her lips curve higher. “Great, actually.”

What?

It wasn’t—what?

I bend my neck. I can’t get enough distance to meet her eye. We’re locked together. “What do you mean?”

She giggles. “Okay. It was really great.”

“No. You said it wasn’t your first time.”

Her smile immediately drops. A crease appears between her eyebrows.

My gut sours. Acid scores my throat. There’s a scramble in my brain as the words translate and my wolf comes to understand what our mate has said.

He loses it. He snarls. His fangs flash. Una startles. She lunges forward, ripping herself off my knot with a scream. Sharp pain shoots through the bond. She scrambles up the bed, turning to cower at the headboard, gaze darting wildly around the room, knees clamped tight and drawn to her chest.

My wolf fights for our skin. He needs to attack. Protect what’s ours.

She’s ours. There’s a threat. He can’t see where it’s coming from, and I can’t explain, so he snarls louder, rattling the window panes.

“Who?” The word comes out a jagged growl. My mouth is full of fangs.

“I—It’s n—not your business.” Her fear blooms, overpowering the scent of our mixed juices, driving my wolf and I crazier. “I—I d—don’t ask you about Haisley. Or the o—others.”

Our mate is scared, and that’s not right.

But is she ours?

She’s fucked other males. They need to die.

“How many?”

Her nostrils flare. “N-not your b-business.”

“Were you willing?”

“Yes,” she sobs.

My wolf goes nuts. He howls. The walls shake. She scrambles for the edge of the bed. Our vision flashes red.

She’s trying to leave us.

My wolf lunges for her neck. He needs to sink his fangs into his mark, bite down until he hits bone. Until she submits. I struggle to hold him back, and he tears at me, raging. She screams, burrowing into her nest, her cries muffled by the pillows.

Oh, Fate, this is wrong. She’s so scared. I fight for control, and it slips from my grasp. The wolf drags her back to the center of the bed. He wants to mount her. Needs to. Other males have touched her. Tasted her. They’ll take what’s ours.

We’ll die without her.

She doesn’t belong to us. She’s given herself away.

My wolf lifts his muzzle and bays his misery, straddling her so she can’t run to another male.

She whimpers and rolls to her side, tucking her knees to her belly.

She can’t leave. She’s ours. She wears our bite. How could she have allowed another male to touch her?

The wolf glares down at her, confused, heartbroken, and she trembles, curled like a shrimp.

This is wrong.

This is not how mates are supposed to work.

I know I have to take back our skin before the wolf hurts her, but the loss is so strong. So all-consuming. I grapple for the bond, and it ends in nothing. Empty space.

A heavy sadness falls on us both, dampening my wolf’s temper, giving me the space to haul him in, take back our skin.

Una is terrified. Her scent agitates us both, exacerbating the wrongness in the air. I reassume human form, and now my wolf is happy to fade back. He has lost, he has failed, and he doesn’t know how to fix what’s broken.

He can’t. There’s nothing either of us can do about the past.

I back away from the disheveled nest and our sobbing mate. Una struggles to sit upright, back and shoulders curved, huddling as small as she can. The tears pooled in her eyes reflect the moonlight.

I pace the room. Slam the wall. Dent the drywall.

I’m gonna puke.

All these years, when I have been waiting, even without hope, my mate has let herself be mounted by other males. And it’s nothing to her. She can say, as if it’s inconsequential, “It wasn’t my first time.”

I have no right to be angry, and the fury eats at my soul.

I didn’t recognize her as my mate. I rejected her. I cannot blame her for what she’s done in the past.

But I do.

I’m a hypocrite and an asshole and what can I do?

“Don’t you have anything to say?” I spit the words. It’s not what I mean, and not the tone I ever want to use with her, but I am powerless in this moment, and I can’t see my way forward.

I have to fight. It’s the only thing I know.

“F-fuck you.” Una buries her face in her knees.

I plunge my fingers into my hair, turn my back to her and her nest. I can’t be in the room anymore. I’ll make it even worse.

I snatch my jeans from the floor, tug them on, and walk out. Her wolf yips once as I go through the door.

It’s as clear a ‘yeah, fuck you’ as I’ve ever heard.

I deserve it.

I am to blame. I know nothing else—but I am confident of that. It is my fault, and I have no idea how to fix it.

I don’t go far past the porch. I can’t. And I wouldn’t, even if I could.

I just need to calm down.

My heart’s pounding, fur is prickling my back, itching like hell, and I’ve got too many teeth in my mouth. I pace up and down the path. I need a run. I need a fight.

And then I scent a male on the wind. Close. A little more than a yard away.

Yes. He’s dead.

My claws snick through my fingertips, and I relish the pain. It clears the garbage from my mind, the sourness in my gut. It mutes the pain flowing through the bond.

“Come out and fight,” I roar at the shadows.

“Can’t. Hands are full.” Darragh Ryan steps out of the tree line with an armload of venison steaks wrapped in butcher paper.

Fuck.

My adrenaline crashes, and I’m left drained. What have I done?

My shoulders slump. I force down a deep breath. A few of my brain cells start firing again, and I pull myself together.

“Now? This late?” Darragh shows up at strange times, but this is odd even for him.

“I get done when I get done.”

“Kitchen’s closed.” Old Noreen’s definitely passed out.

“That’s why I’m here.”

I grunt, scratch my ribs, and trudge out back for my wheelbarrow. There’s too much meat for my freezer. I’ll have to haul it down to the lodge myself. Which means bringing Una. If she’ll come with me. I doubt she will. She hates me. I can’t blame her. My wolf was out of line.

I was out of line.

We both know it.

And I’m sorry.

And not sorry.

Fate, it’s hard being even this far from her. What do I do if she says she wants to leave?

Of course she’s going to want to leave. She didn’t want to be here in the first place.

Is she hurt? She ripped herself off the knot. I didn’t see a tear or smell blood, but what if the damage is internal? I seek out the bond, feel for pain, but it’s all a kind of—shrieking.

I have never fucked up anything this badly before.

I roll the wheelbarrow to Darragh—who’s wisely staying just outside my property line—and he dumps his contribution with a loud thud. Then he carefully places a thick, double-wrapped package on top. It’s labeled “Mari” in thick black grease pencil.

“You’ll make sure she gets it?” he asks.

His white T-shirt is covered in blood. He peels it off and drops it in the path. His sweatpants follow. He’s become so uncivilized, I’m surprised he can still write.

“You know she throws it in with the rest,” I tell him with maybe more sympathy than I have in the past. It’s not the first time I’ve told him Mari wants nothing to do with his gifts.

Darragh and I go back a long way; I’m real with him. He backed me during my alpha challenges, and more importantly, he didn’t step up to challenge me himself. I would’ve won, but it would’ve been close.

“That’s her prerogative.” He sighs, scrubbing his furry chest. Dude spends so much time as a wolf, a lot of hair stays when he shifts.

“That doesn’t piss you off?”

“She’s well-fed. That’s all I care about.”

“You don’t care what she’s doing when you’re not around?”

A glowing bronze ring appears around his pupils. “You tryin’ to tell me something?”

“No, man, no.” This is my own shit. I don’t need to fuck with his head.

“Does she need anything?” he asks.

“No. She’s got everything she could want.” I snort, remembering the stash of contraband at the lone females’ cabin. “She’s got herself a cell phone and a video game system.”

“Who?” The syllable is a deadly promise, and I recognize the tone.

“Not what you’re thinking. Seems Mari and her roommates have been running an underground honey and mushroom ring. Una’s the ringleader.”

“What the hell?” He’s not as amused as I am. I’ve had time to get over the initial freak out. “They’ve been selling shit? Where?”

“Chapel Bell.”

Darragh groans and rubs his gut. I’ve become familiar with the gesture. Let the acid indigestion begin.

“And you’re letting them?” he asks.

“We’re working it out.”

He raises a thick eyebrow.

“You want to take away Mari’s spending money?” I ask him. “Confiscate her phone?”

“Hell, no.”

“We’re working it out,” I say again. “They’ll be protected.” The statement’s more hopeful than true, but I’ve calmed now. I’m not in the fever of a looming rut. It’s ebbed for the moment, leaving me room to think. To feel.

I threatened her. Dominated her. Scared her.

I acted like my father. The shame is bitter in my mouth.

“So who’s ‘we?’” he asks.

“The ringleader and I.” I cast a glance at the cabin. Her scent is subtle but obvious. I attend to the bond. Sadness. Fury. It makes my skin burn. Still no pain, though. Because this wasn’t her first time.

“And you’re hanging out here while your mate’s inside because—” Darragh’s really enjoying kicking me when I’m obviously down. Dick.

“It’s a nice night.” The clouds have thickened, hiding the moon. It’s humid, and the mosquitos are out. “I’m getting some air.”

“You want some advice?”

I lift a shoulder. Not sure what the pack’s mountain man can tell me about females, but clearly I don’t know what I’m doing.

“Oil the meat, not the pan. And you want to use a low, wet heat.” Darragh nods sagely as he smirks through his salt-and-pepper beard. Then he winks. “Did you think I was gonna tell you what to do with your female?”

I chuckle. “Maybe.”

“I know shit-all about females.” Darragh jerks his chin toward the porch, asking permission. I nod. We walk over, lower ourselves to the steps. Wish we had cigars. I’ve got some in the cabin, but I haven’t got the courage to go back in yet.

I lean back, resting my elbows on the rough porch boards. “What would you do if Mari, uh, took up with some other male?”

His chest rumbles, and his nails lengthen into claws. “Give me a name.”

“I don’t mean Mari. She’s got no interest in—in that sort of thing. I’m asking, like, for example.”

“You tell me if some asshole starts sniffing around her. Kill him first. Then let me know.” He’s not joking. I understand completely. I nod, and we’re silent together for a while.

Somewhere, there are males who know what my mate’s pussy feels like. They’ve seen her—felt her—come. And what was I doing?

Training. Fighting. Busting skulls so half-feral males would fall in line? Doing the bills?

She could’ve been hurt. She could have been stolen.

But she wasn’t.

Haisley, Rowan, a whole bunch of other females are willing to do whatever with a high-ranking male. I don’t disallow it. It’s better that the females choose. Better than how it used to be when males took.

Una chose. I hadn’t claimed her. I have no right to feel this way. I don’t change what I believe day-to-day to justify whatever I want to do in the moment. That was my father’s way.

If I was okay with females spreading their legs last week, I can’t have a problem with it today. That’s logic.

I don’t actually believe a word of it.

“There’s no rule that females have to save themselves for their mates,” I say out loud, test if it has the ring of truth. “This isn’t the old world.”

Darragh grunts. It’s an acknowledgement of fact, but not an endorsement of the idea.

“Males mount whoever’s willing before they mate.” That’s a fact.

“Some keep going afterwards,” Darragh points out. He speaks the truth.

I’ve had plenty of opportunities to get my dick wet over the years. I always told myself I didn’t because it’d mess with rank in the pack. The natural order of things. And that’s true, as far as it goes. But I also didn’t want anyone who wasn’t mine.

I was waiting. And I knew I’d wait forever, and some nights were long, and I’d wonder why I was making such a big deal out of something every animal does when the mood strikes him. But I never changed my mind.

I never wanted anyone until Una Hayes, and it came on so gradually. She slipped into my hands, and I am so very painfully aware that she can slip right out again. Maybe she already has.

I’m an idiot, but I feel what I feel.

Why couldn’t she have waited?

I sigh. “I want to kill someone, and I don’t ever want to know who he is.”

“Did she want it?” Darragh asks carefully.

“Yeah. That’s what she says. She says it’s not my business.”

“You’re her mate.”

“I am.” Everything about her is my business.

“Heard you rejected her in front of the whole pack. Had Tye throw her out back by the trash.”

My chest aches. None of this has been auspicious. None of it has been right.

“Yeah. I made a mistake.”

“And now you’re losing your shit because—I don’t mean to presume, but—she, uh, has seen a little bit of the world?”

I don’t think I’d put it that way, but I grunt. I don’t want to be talking about this, but at least with Darragh, he’ll take it to the grave.

“Alpha, I don’t know another way to put this, so I’m just gonna say it—she’s, what, twenty-eight years old?”

“Twenty-seven.”

I wait for his point.

He coughs. “Twenty-seven,” he says again. “In the old world, she’d be a couple years away from being a grandma.”

“This isn’t the old world.”

“No. It’s not. It’s your pack.” He pauses a second and then he plunges ahead. “I don’t know. I don’t keep up with the comings and goings so much down here. You keep the lone females in the lodge basement for the males’ entertainment like your father did?”

“Fuck you.” My fists ball, fur sprouting up my spine. Those are wrongs I have long put to rights, and everyone knows not to speak of it.

“Why change things?” he pushes.

“You have to ask?”

“It’s a—what do you call it—like Socrates did? To get at the truth. Just answer the question.”

“You’re fuckin’ Socrates?”

“Not lately. We’re on a pause.” He smirks again. Asshole. “Just answer the question—why did you change the way things were done in this pack?”

“It was wrong.”

“Why?”

“She wasn’t safe.” And then the memory sails into clear view like a galleon, canvas billowing, churned up whole from the black storm of the past. The memory that had been there all along, waiting, biding its time.

In the bed at the crone’s cottage. Bundles of lavender and Queen’s Anne Lace hanging from the wooden rafters to dry. Una huddles into my side. The moon shines through the thick glass pane. My mother is asleep in a rocking chair, head tilted at an awkward angle, snoring.

My body is raw, my muscles torn and weak. All I have the strength to do is lay on my back and stroke Una’s soft shoulder with my fingertips. She shakes with fever. She’s swaddled in blood-soaked bandages. I’m feeble, painfully aware that in this state, I can’t protect her or myself. My brain is churning. I need a human gun.

I killed the male who attacked her, but there are others, always waiting in the wings for an opening, and I’m paralyzed. Thomas Fane has friends, males who covet my father’s rank, and who won’t hesitate to take out his son to deal him a blow. I don’t trust rat-faced Eamon Byrne. Who will protect Una if I’m gone?

Panic gives me energy, but not the strength to move my shredded limbs. I try anyway, but I jostle Una, and she whimpers in pain, so I stop.

My brave mate. She’s so small. And fierce. Perfect.

The crone rises from her stool by the fire. She quietly shuffles over, a chipped china teacup in her weathered hand. She sits on the edge of the bed and smooths my hair from my forehead. I jerk my head away. I’m not a pup. Not anymore.

“You did well, boy,” she said. “You protected your mate.”

“Will she live?”

“I think so.”

“How long will I be like this?”

The crone shrugs. “I’ve never seen a male shift so young. Maybe a week, a month, a year. Only the Fates can say.”

“I need a gun.”

She arches an eyebrow. “What does a shifter need with a gun?”

“I have to protect her. I can’t fight. Not like this.” I try to lift an arm, but I can hardly raise it an inch.

“You can’t shoot them all, Killian Kelly. You’ll have to beat them, one by one.”

“Like this?”

She smiles, the crinkles in the corners of her eyes deepening. “You’ll need a little more bulk, I think. Especially to best Eamon Byrne.”

“I don’t want to be alpha.” I want to spar with Tye and hunt for Una. Make her strong. Maybe teach her to fight so my heart never again stops in my chest like it did on the commons when I heard her scream. I knew in that moment she was mine. And I’ve never known such fear.

“That’s why you’ll make a good one,” the crone says.

“No.” What do I want with a bunch of ass kissers and two-faced males lying in wait to take me down?

“Oh, Killian.” She shakes her head, not unkindly. “You don’t have a choice. Do you want to protect your mate?”

“I will. No one touches her. Ever again.”

“How can you say that? In this pack?” And then she looks at my mother.

My father’s mate. The bruise on her cheek has faded yellow, but there’s no doubt in my mind, she has fresh ones somewhere else, somewhere she can cover with her long skirts and sleeves.

“I’ll never hurt Una. I’ll never let anyone hurt her.”

“You couldn’t stop it today.” Her voice is gentle, and her words cut to the bone.

I push Una’s hair out of her face. It’s sticking to her clammy cheeks. “What do I do?”

“You put things right.”

“How?”

“Everything has happened out of order. We need to pause time. Give you space to do what needs to be done.”

She’s speaking mystic nonsense now. I need to know who to kill, and in what order.

She presses the cooling tea into my free hand. “You can’t protect her like this. You need to grow into your strength. You’ll need all your focus to root out the evil in this pack.”

“Tell me what to do.” I’m so tired. So terrified. My wolf prowls inside me on shaking limbs. He’s weak, too.

“Drink,” she says, glancing down at the dark brew in the cup. I sniff. It has no smell.

My grip is unsteady. The liquid sloshes over the rim. “What is it?”

“A choice.” She covers my hand with hers. “Let her go—for now. Let her be happy while you grow strong so you can make her safe.”

“Or?”

“Be selfish. See your mate as a possession, not a gift. You won’t be alone. You’ll be in good company in this pack.”

“And if I drink this, she’ll be safe?”

The crone’s gray eyes grow moist. There’s a deep sadness in them, a hopelessness that riles my wolf. He doesn’t surrender, and the sight pisses him off.

“Yes,” she says. “That’s what I’m betting.”

“But are you sure?”

“No. I can’t see the future. But I’m depending on you. And so is she.” She nods at Una.

My mate is so pale, she’s almost gray. I can’t sense her wolf at all.

“She didn’t shift.”

“She couldn’t. She’s not like you.”

“Where’s her wolf now?”

The crone’s lips wobble before she forces a smile. “Hiding for now. She’ll be back in time. Usually, the wolf is braver than the girl, but in this case, the girl has the heart of a lion.”

It’s true, but the crone’s words provoke my temper. “She doesn’t need the heart of a lion. I’ll protect her.”

“I know you will.” The crone gently guides the cup to my lips. “Drink.”

I don’t. I am not one to do what I’m told. Instead, I watch my mate.

She squirms, restless, fighting the sheet. Her hair is tangled from her head turning back and forth. She’s feverish.

I rest my free hand lightly on the spot above her belly button, the only part of her that Thomas Fane’s claws missed. This must be where she tucked the baby.

A fierceness surges through my veins. Pride. A gratitude so powerful it’s a hallelujah.

“Will it hurt her if I drink?”

“Some might say so. I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’ll be free. She won’t be waiting. She’ll find her own way.”

I comb my fingers through her hair, gently loosening the tangles. Some strands are stiff with dried blood. “She’s mine. She should be with me.”

I expect the crone to argue, but instead, she gives me a sad smile, pats my shoulder, and takes the cup and sets it on the bedside table. Then, she shuffles off to stoke the fire.

What do I do?

The path forward is so unclear. There are so many enemies. So many dangers. The only certain thing is that Una belongs to me.

And I would do anything to keep her safe.

Last winter, when I was on a run with my father, we came across an old wolf up in the hills, a male gone feral in his youth. He’d triggered a landslide somehow, and he was at the bottom of a ravine, dragging himself along with his front paws, trailing blood in the dirt.

He must’ve been trapped by a falling rock. He’d gnawed off his own hind leg to free himself.

My father put him down. Ripped his throat out as the old wolf bared it in deference. My father had called it a mercy. There is no place in our pack for a defective wolf.

I think of that old grizzled male as I finish with Una’s hair, braiding it as best I can so she doesn’t work it into knots again. I don’t have anything to tie the end, so I lay it carefully on her chest. She has pretty hair. Brown like a chestnut.

Her wounds are deep. Despite the crone’s best efforts, there is no way they won’t leave marks. The pack will see her as defective.

But she is perfect.

There is only one choice.

I can’t change what happened, so I have to change what will.

I take the cup and drink deep. It’s bitter, and it burns my throat. And then I hook my elbow behind Una’s neck, prop her up, kiss her clammy forehead, and coax her to open her lips. I pour the rest down her throat.

She grumbles and bats at me with a small hand.

As blackness rushes toward me, roaring, I pray that when I find her again, I will have made the right decisions.

That I won’t have done this for nothing.

“Where’d you go? You all right, Alpha?” Darragh claps me on the thigh.

I blink, shaking away the cobwebs. “Yeah.”

I leap to my feet. My heart pounds. I remember. My arms feel empty, like I realized too late I let everything slip away.

Where’s Una? How could I have left her alone, even for a minute?