24. Kane
“Where is he, Kane?” My mother’s supernatural grip tightens, her arms squeezing around me.
After Jagger pulled Trez up the steps to the lodge, my brother jerked out of his hold and slammed Jag’s back against the door. When their mouths crashed into each other’s, I turned away and started walking toward the music.
The entire pack, minus Jagger and Storm, was hanging out, shooting the shit in their usual groups. Maddy was sitting in an Adirondack chair next to Ashleigh. Across from them on the other side of the campfire, my parents and Eli and Annalise looked deep in conversation. Ronnie was standing with one foot perched on the picnic table bench with his elbow braced on his knee and leaned over, talking to his sister and a few others.
Ash noticed me first but didn’t move. My mother was next. The second her eyes met mine, she jumped to her feet and rushed to me, pulling me into an embrace without saying a word.
“He’s with Jagger,” I tell her.
Her chest deflates. I feel her disappointment through our pack bond and because I’m her alpha, it sends a sharp ache through the organ in my chest.
“Does he not want to see me?” Her voice is a whisper next to my ear.
“Of course he does.” I tighten my arms around her, hugging her back. “Trez is still adjusting to every?—”
She pushes away from me, her brows furrowed, her mouth hanging open. “Why are you calling him by that name when he’s Trey?”
“Mom,” I start. “I know you’ve been waiting a long time, too long, to find him, to see him, but you cannot start calling him Trey just because?—”
“The hell I can’t,” she barks, cutting me off again. Her eyes harden as her temper flairs to life. She steps back but holds her chin high. She isn’t an alpha female, but you’d never know that being the strong woman she is. “I named him Trey, and that is who he is. I will not call him by any other name again.”
“You will until he says otherwise, and that’s an order.”
In my twenty-eight years of life, I’ve never spoken to my mother with the breath of authority. Sure, I’ve been her alpha for over three years, but that doesn’t mean I lost my respect or no longer value her opinion. I’m the man I am today because of the way she raised me.
My father shaped me in many ways; he made me strong and ruthless when I needed to be, while my mother ensured I knew the importance of listening to my pack, to consider what they needed on an individual level.
Which is exactly what I did with Trez.
“I don’t?—”
“You do take orders from me.” I stare down at her. Despite being five feet ten inches tall, she’s still a bit shorter than me. “So does everyone in this pack.”
At that, my father and Eli jump to their feet, having heard the authority in my tone. An angered growl hums through my head, Jagger no doubt picking up on our confrontation.
Annalise’s eyes are wide, her expression worrisome.
I take a breath, hoping it calms the rage building inside me as my alpha side pushes me, wanting to make my mom submit. Maybe she hasn’t accepted that her husband isn’t the alpha any longer like I thought she had. She pledged her loyalty to me the same as everyone else in the pack.
Ashleigh moves quickly, standing at my back in case this goes south. Maddy isn’t as fast but runs over, halting next to Ash. Being human has never stopped Maddy from being one of us. She’s trained with shifters her own age since she was a small child. Granted, everyone knew they better not hurt her or take it too far, or they’d face me and not like the consequences.
“I’m sure your husband told you I took Trez with me to look for Kate because he was overwhelmed by the mate bond, and yes, he did need a breather from Jagger, but the main reason I kept him from here was because of you. Because I knew this is what you’d do.”
Maybe I’m being a dick and not fully considering her feelings, but Trez is the one who just found out his whole life thus far has been a lie. His sister, whom he loves more than anyone, isn’t even his sister. That the place he’s pulled to visit, the people he’s come to know as friends are his family, that here is where he was always meant to grow up. Where they were supposed to be this whole time.
It’s a lot to come to terms with, not to mention the mate bond that was forced on him, though that piece of him is more settled since we got back, even if he hasn’t realized it yet.
“My son was taken from me, Kane. It’s been over twenty years. I never thought...” Her voice catches in her throat, and it makes me want to pull my mother back into a hug, but I can’t do that yet. I have to get her to understand, to take a step back from her emotions as a mother. She needs to see Trez as the man she’s watched him become, not the loss of a son she’s pined over for two decades.
“I know he was. He was taken from us all. They both were.” I step forward and place my hands on top of her shoulders. “If you rush to mother him before he’s ready, you may regret it.”
“You should have waited before you left with him. Your father is right,” she says in anger. “You’re not making the right decisions as alpha, Kane. You need to st?—”
A growl echos all around us, the trees moaning and swaying as limbs rub against each other just before Jagger appears beside me in only a pair of jeans. Scratches and dried blood dot his torso and arms. Those marks will be gone within an hour after his healing abilities kick in.
“You’re out of line, Becca,” he seethes, his bright eyes hard and trained solely on my mother.
She jerks away from me, taking two steps back. My father and Eli come to stand on each of her sides.
“Where is Trey?” she asks, an order in her tone when she speaks to her beta. “Where’s my son, Jagger? The two of you have?—”
“He is Trez to everyone in the pack unless he tells us otherwise,” Jag says slowly, speaking to her but making his voice carry so that everyone in the pack hears him. Then he folds his arms across his chest.
At that, my mother crosses hers as well and pushing her shoulders back now that she’s standing between my dad and Elijah.
“I wasn’t convinced at first, but now I am. You’re both going to announce to the pack tonight that Kane is no longer our leader. Dante and Elijah will?—”
“That isn’t going to happen, Mom,” I say, tired of this shit and hating that I have to put her in her place because she’s my mother, but doing exactly that so the pack knows I will not stand for this, not even from my mother whom I love more than I could ever put into words.
“I don’t think you want that, Becca,” Jag follows. “You’re hurt and lashing out because neither Kane nor I are telling you what you want to hear. Don’t push this. Don’t make yourself a widow and your sons fatherless. Trez is my mate, and until he’s ready, which may never be, you and everyone else will call him Trez, not Trey. Am I clear?”
“Watch it, Jagger,” Eli warns his son.
“Elijah,” Annalise reprimands her husband as she joins our crowd, or standoff is more like it, before turning to face my mother, her best friend. With her back to me, she says, “Kane is alpha whether the three of you like it or not. Jagger is beta. None of you get to decide they aren’t fit for the roles we raised them for. Why don’t you ask yourself why they’re adamant on this, Becca, instead of fighting against it?”
Mom steps forward, closing the short distance between her and Annalise.
“I’ve waited twenty years to see my son, and they act like Trey is still a…” She takes a breath, either unable to or refusing to say a Marked Crest wolf.
She’s wrong, but I don’t tell her that because it wouldn’t help defuse the situation.
Sure, I fought the truth that Trez couldn’t be my missing brother at first, but that had more to do with my guilt over Kate and how I treated her after the best hours of my life were spent between her soft, perfect thighs. I threatened her and kicked her out of the pack while the whole time I’d been staring at my mate.
“So have I,” Annalise cites. “But we’ve also gotten to know them and them us over the past five years. You cannot expect either of them to start calling us Mom overnight, Becca. How do you think Trez feels? He’s barely an adult and just learned he’s been lied to his whole life while the person he’s closest to is missing and who knows where. On top of that, she isn’t the sister he believed she was. Now he has an entire pack expecting him to be someone he doesn’t even know. Trey may be Trez, but that doesn’t mean Trez is Trey. Give the boy time to adjust to this while we find Kate.”
“Speaking of my daughter,” Eli interrupts. “Where is she, Kane? All we know is that she showed up here, and then the next day, she took off to look for… him.” Elijah juts his chin up, gesturing behind me.
I cut my eye down to my side. Trez stops, closing the corner between Jagger and me, his eyes on our mom while his arm flies out, his hand smashing a t-shirt against Jag’s chest. Reaching up, Jagger snatches the material from him and pulls the shirt over his head and through his arms.
I’d heard him stomping toward us, but Annalise was on a roll, and it’s rare you hear her speak her mind. She’s always been reserved, whereas Jagger is more like his dad. Apparently, Kate is more like Eli too, now that I know she’s his daughter.
I glance in my father’s direction, meeting a stare already on me and asking a silent question. Elijah doesn’t know what happened between Kate and me. If he did, he would have made it known just now. The slightest shake of his head answers me, telling me he didn’t share the fact that Kate went into heat while she was here or how I reacted the following day that made her leave.
Now, I’m curious why he wouldn’t tell his best friend.
Did he keep that from my mother too?
“Tre…” Mom stops herself, her eyes snapping to mine in the briefest of moments before they glide back to her younger son. “You’re here. I?—”
“Annalise is right, Becca,” Trez points out, causing my mother to gasp in a breath through her open mouth at using her nickname instead of mom or mother. “You’ll only upset yourself more if you expect me to be someone I’m not. I’m still the person I was when I was here in February. The same man the year before that. Call me by the name you know me as, or don’t call me anything at all.”
“You don’t know who you are because you were stolen from us.” The heartbreak on my mother’s face is too transparent to go unnoticed. I feel the agony in her voice as though it’s my own. “This is precisely why Dante is the alpha our pack needs, the leader you need in order to find the person you were meant to be.”
Jagger and Ashleigh growl at the same time.
“Me and mine stand behind the true alpha and beta of the pack,” Ronnie states, gesturing to my father and Eli while his old eyes meet mine, his chin raised too high in the presence of his alpha—me. He and his small circle joined the crowd after Annalise confronted my mother.
His sister nods in agreement while his niece’s mouth hangs open in shock. Laney looks between me, her alpha and her boss, and then her uncle, unsure whose side to stand with. After a beat of silence, she steps closer to my side, picking her alliance.
“Enough,” I yell. At this point, I’ve been quiet too long. I’ve allowed this to go too far.
Something has to be done, but without my wolf present, fueling my alpha power, I’m not sure I can bring all of them to their knees. I’m about to have no choice but to tap into my reserves, and who knows how long that’ll last. I don’t need to use any unnecessary strength while Kate is missing.
I don’t have a problem being challenged. I welcome it and every pack member’s opinion. This, however, is disrespect. The nearly two hundred people watching this play out can’t see me weak.
Luckily, my father saves me from having to decide.
“Rebecca.” Dad’s voice booms before he steps forward. His face is hard, but his arm reaches up, his fingers gently taking hold of his wife’s chin and tipping her head back. “I love you, baby, but this stops now. You’ll only divide the pack, and that’s the last thing we need. Kane is alpha. He will be alpha until his last breath or until he steps down like I did, handing the role to his son.”
Or daughter, I think to myself. Jagger snickers, letting me know he heard my thoughts.
I’m not old school or have a warped way of thinking. Kate is proof enough that a woman can lead in the same way as a man. I’ve watched Ashleigh grow into a fierce fighter. Even Maddy, our human who wishes she were a wolf shifter, is resilient. She may not match a supernatural on the same level, but she’s the strongest human I’ve ever seen. And if I have an alpha-born daughter, that’s exactly the role I intend to shape her for, provided she wants it.
But first, I have to find my mate and convince her to forgive me.
Even if that means groveling until my last breath.
Because that’s exactly what I’ll do, on my knees, in front of her with my neck bared if she wants it.
For her, I’ll submit.