35. Kane
Her paws push off the ground, propelling her into the air.
My lips part, my eyes unblinking as I watch the attack unfold. It’s beautiful and so goddamn tragic at the same time.
I wanted this for her. For Kate to get retribution for Ronnie’s ambush in her kidnapping. At this point, his reasoning doesn’t fucking matter, and perhaps that’s unreasonable on my part.
Do I care?
No.
I watched him shoot a debilitating poison into my mate multiple times. He’s lucky I was more worried about finding Kate and having the restraint to give her this moment.
Because it was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, and if it had been me, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have dragged his death out.
Her wolf’s jaw hinges open, her teeth sinking into flesh, muscle, his jugular veins, then her mouth closes as Ronnie falls backward with wolf paws on his chest and the top of his jean-clad thighs.
Before they crash into the shifter sitting beside Elijah, Kate’s father jumps out of his chair, his eyes wide with horror. He grabs her wolf, banding his thick arms around her middle while every nerve in my body pinches. I jump over the railing before my mind catches up with my reflexes.
In Eli’s attempt to save Ronnie, he shoves her wolf back, and I see motherfucking red.
But it’s too late.
Everything of importance within the structure of his neck was ripped from his body as Kate’s wolf flies through the air. I experience Kate’s shock as if it were my own. The surprise catches her off guard and forces her to shift into her human form a beat before she slams to the ground, landing on her tailbone with the contents from Ronnie’s neck beside her.
“What did you do?” Elijah bellows, his mouth hanging open, his hands covering the sides of his head in disbelief.
I’ll deal with him in a minute.
He isn’t my priority, and I know if I go at him now, Ronnie won’t be the only shifter to perish tonight. I’ll kill my best friend’s dad—my mate’s father—without thinking my actions through.
I yank my t-shirt over my head. When I’m close enough to Kate, I squat down in front of her to help shield her naked body from everyone while I use the balled-up material to wipe the remnants of blood from her mouth.
Kate stares wide-eyed at me.
“Kane, I—” A whimper slips from her lips.
I shake my head while handing her the shirt to put on, unsure if she’d let me do it for her and not wanting to push for more than she’s ready to give me.
“It was over quickly. He was given better than he deserved.”
She pulls the shirt over her head and down her torso. As she comes to her knees, I push off mine, taking a moment to breathe in through my nostrils and blowing out through my mouth. I slowly turn to face the pack, my eyes going straight to Elijah, and the restraint it takes not to unleash every last bit of alpha power that remains charging me is almost more than I can hold onto.
I stalk toward him.
“Kane,” my father calls out from ten yards behind Eli, my mother beside him.
I don’t even glance in his direction. Instead, I force a rumble from deep within my chest as warning enough. If he chooses to intervene, then thank fuck I’m his alpha because if the roles were reversed and someone had laid their hands on his mate the way Elijah did mine, he wouldn’t have hesitated in unleashing all his alpha power on top of his physical strength the way I’m restraining myself from doing.
Hell, a part of me wishes my wolf would jump out of my skin to handle him like a feral animal’s instincts, showing no mercy. At least then, I wouldn’t have pause, because I wouldn’t be the one in control of our actions.
“She can’t?—”
Elijah begins, but he’s cut off when I snatch him by the shirt and yank him forward within inches from my pissed-off face. “If you were not like a second father to me, I swear on everything… you would not be breathing right now.”
“She attacked a member of the pack. She can’t do that no matter whose daughter she is or who her mate is.”
“You put your hands on my mate,” I say, clenching my teeth so that I don’t let my canines elongate and tear his throat out.
“Goddammit, Kane, she fucking killed someone.”
Try not to kill him, would you? Jagger says in reason in my head.
“My pregnant mate,” I finish.
His face pales as he swallows, his eyes growing round with surprise before his expression turns grave and he darts his gaze over my shoulder. I let him go, releasing my hold, but I don’t step away from him.
Female wolf shifters aren’t treated differently than the men in our pack. We play rough, train aggressively, and we fight dirty. They would kick our asses harder for even thinking about treating them delicately, and being alpha, I’d sense if the pup inside Kate was harmed. That doesn’t mean I’m okay with the way Elijah handled her.
He interfered.
He sided with the wrong shifter without asking questions, and maybe he did so unknowingly. But Kate is his daughter, and he tried to prevent her wolf from killing Ronnie without pause as to why she’d do something that permanent.
I glance over my shoulder, seeing Trez pull Kate to her feet, my T-shirt covering down to her mid-thigh while Jagger firms his stance on the other side of his sister as he stares at their father. My beta’s eyes flash a vibrant tint of reddish-orange, which is rare for him. He doesn’t usually allow that side of him to come to the surface in front of the pack.
“Eli, what did you do?” Annalise calls out, and my head whips back around, seeing her standing on Ashleigh, Storm, and Maddy’s porch.
Only a small bunk-style house separates their cabin from the lodge. From here, I can see her emotions across her pretty face, as well as feel how raw they are, more so now than they were when I eased her heartache.
I changed my mind. Make him hurt before I do.A low, angry growl follows the words Jagger bit out inside my head.
I tilt my head, my eyes falling back on my mate’s father.
“She can’t do what she did, no matter the reason, Kane. I was trying to stop her before it was too late.”
“He’s right, Kane,” my father adds, his voice seemingly closer than before. Still, I don’t turn or seek him out with my eyes. Instead, my gaze remains on Eli.
“Kate’s a Luna wolf, the alpha’s mate,” I continue addressing Elijah, my voice slow and elevating with every word to make sure not only he hears me but so Kate and the pack does too. “Technically, she can dole out whatever fucking punishment she deems adequate in her pack.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Kane.” My father’s tone is starting to grate on my nerves.
“Jagger, you want to explain to the former alpha how it works, and if he doesn’t like it… well, the world is a fucking wide open space. Have at it.”
I’m aware that our pack has never had a Luna wolf, at least not to my knowledge anyway, so it’s fair that no one here has ever been lead by a female shifter. They wouldn’t know how to deal with a change like that. Neither my mom nor Jagger’s mom weighed in much when it came to Dad and Eli’s rules unless they did so in private. I know my father values my mother’s input, so I wouldn’t think he’d share old-school ways of thinking or be closed-minded.
“I could elaborate that a Luna wolf outranks everyone, our alpha included, but I’m still pacing back, wondering why the hell no one told us my sister was a goddamn Luna in the first place,” he spits out.
“We don’t belong here. You know that, right?” Kate follows, her words like barbed wire wrapping around my heart with every syllable that falls from her lips.
I can only assume she’s speaking to Trez because I can’t bring myself to turn my head to look. Instead, I swallow the lump in my throat and continue to stare Elijah in the eyes. His jaw unlocks, and a barely audible gasp escapes the sliver of space between his lips.
“Maybe she wouldn’t think that if you’ve paid her a visit,” I whisper so low that only he can hear me.
“She killed my brother,” Ronnie’s sister screeches from my left side, her banshee voice causing my ears to ring. “Murdered him, and you aren’t going to do anything about that? What kind of?—”
I turn my head and unleash a roar so intense that the ground shakes beneath my feet. Veronica sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes going wide and freezing in place when my alpha power wraps around her throat. I only hold it in place for the length of two slow breaths, enough to catch her attention. Without my wolf aiding me, I would have gone to my knees if I’d held her any longer.
Laney dashes in front of her mother, shielding her, I presume, not that it would do anything to protect her from an alpha’s wrath. Lucky for V, I’m not the type that takes out his anger on undeserving people.
“Kane,” Laney starts, her voice soft with a whine. “He’s… was her brother. Come on, go easy on her. Uncle Ron was the one who?—”
“Traded two lives for two lives.” A chill runs down my spine as Ashleigh’s words sink in.
I hadn’t noticed she’d joined the gathering crowd while focused on too many things at once, but as silence follows the bomb Ash dropped, Veronica’s eyes double in size. Her bottom lip drops in surprise, giving her away despite me not feeling the emotions her face isn’t hiding.
Boots stop next to me on the right, Ashleigh’s sleeveless arm brushing against mine.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I ask, my eyes never blinking away from V.
Laney takes a step back, closing the distance between her back and her mom’s front, but Veronica is taller than her daughter, so V’s suddenly scared expression is on full display to me, as well as everyone else.
“Yes, alpha,” Ashleigh confirms, using my title rather than addressing me at ease and showing me just how serious the situation is.
“You discovered this information inside his cabin?”
Jagger steps forward on my left side, his wolf on the edge of jumping from his skin.
“No,” she answers. “His house was clean. An asshole beta playing alpha supplied the info when I called him fifteen minutes ago.”
There’s a bite to Ashleigh’s tone that makes me think there’s more to her call with Caleb Drake than she’s saying, but it’s neither here nor there at the moment. Not when there is other pressing information I need to know.
“Kane,” Laney all but breathes out while shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s going on, but my mom wouldn’t have been involved with anything you’re thinking my uncle did. Right, Mom?”
“Riii-ght,” V stutters, her eyes finally flicking down and off me, showing her submission, but something feels off. I just have no fucking clue what.
“Who?” is the only word I can muster out of my mouth without growling as I continue to stare past Laney at her mother, the alpha power inside me vibrating with a need to strike out and not having the person I know to be responsible for my mate and brother’s disappearance alive to target. I’m not a man who would ever knowingly harm an innocent person, which is why Veronica remains standing.
“His sister’s life, as well as her unborn baby, in exchange for two wolf pups of greater value,” Ash informs.
Before my foot comes off the ground, Eli is in my face, his palm displayed across my bare chest, pressing against me with the slightest amount of pressure.
“Kane, that isn’t possible.” Elijah’s head swings back and forth. “I was with Dante when he grilled everyone. And I do mean everyone, so before you do something you’ll regret, remember she’s pack. Drake isn’t,” he tries to reason, making my blood boil.
Before I can blink, my father is next to Eli, his bulk moving Ashleigh back a step. She growls but doesn’t assert herself like I’d prefer her to do in this circumstance. When it comes to my dad, she always hesitates, and I guess that’s because he used to be her alpha.
“Caleb also wants Richard’s territory more than anyone, son,” Dad adds. “Who’s to say he isn’t saying this to further his gain, to make us help him fight the Marked Crest pack.”
“Drake may be a dick, and he doesn’t just want that providence, he needs it for the space his pack has outgrown, but he in no way needs our help to get it,” I tell them. But I can’t say I’m not curious as to how Caleb came to have this information and didn’t share it with me on our call a few weeks ago. Then again, I did hang up on him. “They have enough shifters to fight The Marked Crest pack on their own. Not sure why they haven’t done so already, but I don’t care either way.”
I throw my hand up, my forearm connecting with Elijah’s outstretched arm.
“Move,” I order, and luckily for him, he takes a step back and then another. Dad follows and it’s then I see my mother a few paces behind her husband, but it’s not my father who holds her attention. She’s staring at Veronica, an expressionless mask on her pretty face. If it weren’t for the conflicting emotions warring inside her, I wouldn’t think she was affected by what’s taking place right now.
“Ask her, Kane,” Ashleigh says too nonchalantly that I know she has an agenda up her sleeve. “You’re alpha. You can taste our lies on your tongue.”
“Which is why I know she isn’t guilty of anything,” my father states. “I don’t know why Kate did what she did, and I expect you to tell us her reason for attacking a pack member, Kane.”
“She showed him more mercy than I would have, so you should thank my mate for a quick end. Ash, show them the video from the diner since they’re reluctant to trust that the punishment he received fit the crime he committed.”
“Already texted it to the entire pack. Everyone should know what a piece of shit traitor he was, after all.”
“Wha-at did my brother do?” V speaks up. Stepping slowly around Laney, my eyes going back to hers. “Ashleigh is correct. You can tell when any of us aren’t telling the truth. Ask me anything, alpha. I’ll tell you. I swear it.”
“Come. Here,” I bite out.
With every slow step forward, my heartbeat kicks up a notch. I called Caleb Drake a dick, but at times, I can be just as big of one as he is. That doesn’t mean I take pleasure in hurting others, and if I find out she betrayed my parents the way I wholly believe her brother did, I’m not sure I can refrain from killing her in a similar manner as Kate killed Ronnie.
“What the fuck?” Eli’s head snaps up from his smartphone.
“He did the same to Trez and I let it go, chalked it up to a mistake. The same can’t be said after watching that video, now can it?” I don’t wait for a reply, one isn’t needed, and anything out of Elijah’s mouth other than he fucked up will not go over with me in this state of mind. “He led her to them. Had Henrik not fucked over a dark witch, Kate would not be here. Your daughter would still be missing, and who the fuck knows if we’d have ever found her. Let that sink in… to you both,” I spit out and then cut my eyes to my dad.
“We’re missing something,” Dad says. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about Ronald. But something isn’t right. I questioned him. I questioned Veronica. They never lied to me. I asked them multiple ways. Neither could have lied to me.”
“Alpha, please, I?—”
“Did you have any part in my mate or my brother being kidnapped twenty years ago?”
“No!” her reply is instant, no hesitation, no sour taste pooling onto my tongue. She’s being honest.
“Did you know that Kate was Anna and that Trez was Trey at any point before I announced it to the pack?”
“No, of course not, alpha.” Her bottom lip wobbles but the answer she gave was an honest one.
“Did you know Ronnie shot Trez with Wolfsbane weeks back?”
“I did. He told me it was a misunderstanding. That he thought you banished him and his sister from here.”
Hearing that again stings, but it’s nothing I didn’t explain to the pack when I revealed Kate was Anna. That she and Trez had been spelled, that I fucked up and missed every small detail that pointed to them being one of us. Like the connection Trez and I had from day one or mine and Jagger’s intense attraction to shifters we believed to be from an enemy pack.
“Did you know Ronnie followed Kate when she left after I was an asshole and kicked her out?”
“I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, alpha. If Ronnie betrayed anyone, I wasn’t aware.”
I roll my head, my frustrated gaze finding Ashleigh’s calculating green eyes staring back at me. “You want to help me out here?”
“I think you should repeat every one of those questions again, or maybe just the fir?—”
“Enough of this,” my father butts in, cutting her off. “You interrogated Veronica. She answered. Be done. We have a pack member who needs to be prepped for a funeral despite what it might look like in a video you seem to have had for weeks, yet you’re just now sharing with the rest of us.”
“Or, you can do that. Go ahead, tell her she can leave, Kane.” Ashleigh shrugs her shoulders, up to something, but clearly playing a baiting game with prey.
“You’re free to leave, V,” I say, eyeing Ash the whole time and silently ordering her to tell me what the fuck she’s doing.
“I-I can’t m-move,” V announces.
My head whips around, seeing her body swaying, but her feet rooted to the ground like they’re cemented in place.
A snicker comes from my right side, but Ashleigh’s amusement isn’t having the same effect on me. Instead, it’s slipping under my skin. Theatrics aren’t usually her thing, at least not since adulthood, but I know she wouldn’t be making an ordeal of this without purpose.
“Guess you won’t be leaving just yet,” she quips.
“What’s the meaning of this, Kane?” Dad voices, but since I don’t have an answer, I look to my cousin, who better supply a good fucking reason to be playing with Ivy’s earth element.
There is no way Storm would have assisted without checking with me first. Her sister, on the other hand, is far too impressionable and much too eager to use the magic in her veins.
“Ash?” I grit out slowly.
“You’re no fun, you know that?” She steps forward, her eyes losing every ounce of humor and hardening into two emerald-like stones.
Pushing my father and Eli out of the way, much like my father bulldozed her several minutes ago, and not bothering with pleasantries to excuse her manners, her eyes remain locked with mine. Jutting her arm out with lightning quickness, Ashleigh snatches something from beneath Veronica’s open flannel-covered t-shirt.
V gasps and tries to grab the item back, but she lacks the controlled speed Ashleigh has mastered. When Veronica’s wolf claws extract, Ash’s head swings toward her as her fist tightens and a warning growl releases from deep within her chest before the tips of V’s nails touch my third in command.
Veronica yanks her hand back, her claws disappearing under her nail bed just before a shuddered breath leaves her open lips, her gaze darting to mine. Her body starts to tremble as sweat beads down her brow.
Needles prick the base of my skull, and one by one, they stab down my spine in a slow cadence, the sting increasing in intensity along each nerve.
V swallows. Laney, standing next to her mother, wraps her hands around V’s long-sleeve-covered arm just above her elbow and huddles close to Veronica. In fear for her mom or herself, I’m not sure. The emotions pouring out of Veronica overload anything coming from anyone else around me, and it’s now that I realize I’ve never felt V like this; this magnitude of feelings coming off her, slamming into me like waves.
Kane, what the fuck is going on? Jagger’s thoughts push through my own. Why does she feel different… like?—
Like there was some kind of cloak around her, and now there isn’t?
From the corner of my eye, I see Ashleigh lifting her arm. My gaze drops to where her fingers are balled into a fist, a gold chain spilling out the sides dangling from her hand. Seconds tick by, the sound of a non-existent clock clicks inside my head, then her digits unfold.
“What is it?” I ask while looking at a flat gold pendant, unfamiliar symbols etched into the metal.
“A talisman.” Ashleigh holds it out for me to take, her voice thundering against my eardrum. “If I’d have to guess, it was created to hide someone’s deceit, their lying tongue,” she grits out, her own anger so sharp it could slice through stone. “Betrayal to their pack, their former alpha who openly welcomed her back into the pack after she’d been gone for five years… or so I’m told. Did you know that, Kane? That V ditched The Bloodmoon Pack for a period and just so happened to return months before your brother and mate went missing?”
I snatch the jewelry from her palm as my eyes seek out my father. “Is that true?”
There isn’t any doubt in my mind that the information is false. Ash wouldn’t have told me if it were rumor or hearsay. She would have confirmed those details before bringing it to me.
“Mom, tell him that’s not true, that it’s only a coincidence,” Laney urges, but V’s lips remain fused shut. If it weren’t for her heavy breaths and the tremors racking her body, I would think more than just her feet are stuck to the ground.
“Yes, Kane. It’s true.”
My father’s claws slowly push out from his nail bed as a change in the air crackles around us, but that confirmation didn’t come from his mouth. My gaze shoots over V’s shoulder, finding my mother suddenly behind her.
I blink, and then Veronica is yanked away from her daughter’s tight hold, my mother’s hand wrapped around her throat with her claws sunken into flesh, shattering whatever spell Ivy had holding V in place.
“No,” Laney screams, her hands going to her mouth. “Becca, please don’t.”
“I haven’t done anything… yet,” my mother tells Laney as her volatile eyes land on mine. “Ask her again, Kane. I want to hear it from her mouth despite knowing the answer. I felt what Dante did. I know.”
I hadn’t expected my mother to say that, but I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked. My father doesn’t keep anything from her, not even his emotions.
When a pack alpha chooses to step down, to hand his title over to another instead of through a challenge to the death, it is done through a ritual during a full moon. We lose the power to control the pack, not the alpha abilities we’re born with. Those we learn to harness over time. He’s still an alpha, just not the pack alpha, which means he felt the same facade vanish when the enchanted necklace was ripped off, exposing her deception.
“Did you have any part in my mate or my brother being kidnapped twenty years ago?”
Spells are tricky. It’s all about the way you phrase a question, which is why I didn’t say Kate and Trez or Anna and Trey the first time nor now. Kate is my mate. Trez is my brother. Those are facts.
When she doesn’t offer anything up immediately, I close my fingers around the talisman and squeeze as I release what little power I have left. I’m running on empty, but I’ll use it all if that’s what it takes.
Veronica’s legs quake, but she doesn’t drop to the ground like she would have had my mother not had her locked in her grasp.
“I didn’t have a choice, Kane.” She gasps when my mom’s razor-sharp claw sinks deeper into her neck. “He… the Marked Crest alpha would have given Laney over to the demon king if I hadn’t given him what he demanded.”
The king of the underworld is what humans refer to as the devil. Wolf-shifters don’t serve a purpose for him. Why would we when he commands legends of hellhounds who are a hundred, maybe even a thousand times stronger than us? We might as well be newborn puppies in comparison to those creatures.
“Why did he want us?” Trez asks from over my left shoulder, his voice making me forget the confessions coming out of Veronica’s mouth.
If he’s behind me, where is my mate?
When she was close by, there was a tether connecting us. I felt it when I was in the lodge, and when I walked outside, it strengthened a fraction. When I was in front of her, handing over my T-shirt, it was the strongest it’s ever been.
Now… nothing.
Like she isn’t here.
The muscle in my chest seizes.
The chatter around me fades away, replaced with a glass-shattering ringing vibration.
I swing around, my eyes flicking everywhere at once.
“Where’s Kate?”