41. Sebastian
41
SEBASTIAN
“ S o, Mother,” Topher says, lacing his fingers together as he leans forward. “Explain to me exactly how you planned to kill Ryan Grey.”
“Nothing she says is going to be good enough,” Kane hisses along our bond. “Nothing she says is ever going to take the pain away from our mate. Nothing is going to bring back our daughter’s father.”
“I’ve thought about killing her for it a few times. I’d feel no guilt,” I say, stroking my hand up and down Maia’s thigh.
My beautiful mate is so tense, so uncomfortable. Her scent is so much more potent in this state, and I’m desperate to just whisk her away and lock her up so she’s safe. She’ll never need to worry, never need to be concerned with her safety, when I’m the one in control of it.
Who gives a fuck about a custody battle when they’d never find her or Phoebe to be able to take my little pup away from her mother?
I’d keep them both safe and happy. I’d make sure they were loved and protected. They’d live happily, with me and my brothers, and want for nothing.
“You’re not allowed to lock our mate away. She’d wither away in captivity, and we love her for her spirit,” Kane lectures, and I roll my eyes. “Besides, you’d run out of things to say to her after a day once you’ve used up your fifty words.”
My lips quirk up into a smirk as he pushes forward to take control. He leans in close to Maia and gently kisses just below her ear. A shiver races down my mate’s spine, and I can’t wait to recreate this moment in a much happier situation. A much more sexual situation.
She’s gorgeous, but I hate how pale she is. This situation is taking a toll on her, and that’s not something Kane or I can abide with.
“Breathe, little mama,” Kane murmurs, and she lets out a slow breath. “Good girl.”
Our three dads are watching us, and he snarls at them for intruding on our moment. Edward smirks, whereas George and Charles both look away like the little cowards they are.
“I can’t wait until the day we can feel her as strongly as our brothers can,” Kane says. I nod my head, agreeing.
“We’re waiting, Mother,” Topher says, clicking his tongue in frustration.
My mum bursts into tears, hiding her head in her hands, but I can smell her tears and her emotions. There’s no sadness, no unhappiness, just pure frustration. They’re crocodile tears, and it’s just embarrassing to sit here and watch.
“She’s an idiot, thinking we’re fooled by her tears,” Kane agrees. “I love her, but I’ll happily allow you to slit her throat if it’ll give our mate some peace.”
“I don’t love her.”
Kane rolls his eyes. “You need help, human.”
Charles reaches over to cuddle my mum into his chest, his wolf, Umber, pushing forward as they both work to soothe their unsettled mate. I wonder if she’s able to manipulate their bond to let them think she’s sad, because this is ridiculous.
Edward offers some comfort from his own seat, although his wolf doesn’t make an appearance .
My parents have always been affectionate, and my mother truly is the light of my father’s eyes, and they’ve never once downplayed or hidden their love. It would be nice to see, if I cared.
But, whilst their individual relationships are strong, and my father’s truly are devoted to my mum, the relationship between each of them is clearly shit. They don’t know how to function as a team, as shown by all the things they’ve been doing alone, and their bonds are tense because of it.
Even worse than that is that our pack is in a state of disarray because of their continued fuck-ups.
“It’s our time now, and we’re going to fix the mistakes of the past,” Kane says. We squeeze Maia’s thigh and lean back to continue watching the dynamics.
People are so simple. So stupid.
The amount of personal information they give off in their scent, the amount of lies they tell that their body betrays them for.
“You’re so humble,” Kane says.
According to Edward, the reason they’ve been clinging to the pack for so long is they wanted to fix things before handing it to us, and whilst he believed his words, it doesn’t make it any better.
Our pack finances are a lot lower than expected, our birth rates are very low—so low, in fact, that before Phoebe, the last wolf born on our lands was five years ago—and we’ve got no pregnant women to keep the pack going. Our numbers are dropping due to people leaving and not growing by new births or new members, and that’s not a stable place for a pack to be.
People don’t want to be in our pack, and it’s not hard to figure out why.
My father’s have made a huge mess of our pack over the last few decades.
“I’d be interested in knowing exactly when the decline started,” Kane mentions .
“We’ll be able to look into that properly now that we’re in charge.”
But being able to fix the damage doesn’t change my fury over the matter. I have a mate now, a daughter. A woman to love, to provide for, to support and provide a safe haven to. A wolf daughter, who needs the stability of a strong pack. She’s so young, so little, and needs her people around her.
And what do I offer her? A pack that’s barely hanging on, that has had at least two imposter wolves in our lands, and who knows how many rogues—because we’re still pretty sure that the rogues are Ethan—have been sniffing around.
There’s no young cousins or baby wolves for her to interact with.
She’s got nothing because we’ve not given her the right kind of system.
“We’ve failed her.”
Kane disagrees. “We’ve not failed our pup. We’re in the position now to do something about it. We’re going to give her the home and pack she deserves.”
Without Phoebe and Maia, my life would be nothing. And what do I give them in return for completing my soul and giving me the biggest blessing to exist? Nothing.
“The leadership was stale, and our pack wolves can feel the instability of that. The strongest were not at the top, and their wolves knew that and sought to find somewhere that could give them that protection,” Kane says, and I nod. “Trust in our brother. Topher will have known how dire things were, and he’ll have a plan. We’ll rally the troops, and we will provide our mate with the safety she and our pup need to thrive.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that it should have been done already,” I hiss across the bond with my wolf.
“Enough of the crying,” Topher says, slamming his hand down onto the table. Maia gasps, and I lift her from her chair into my own, letting my body heat and our shared sparks soothe her .
“Good,” Kane says. “Kiss mate, hug mate, love mate. But do not lose control, human.”
“Are you okay?” Maia whispers, her warm breath tickling my ear, and I nod. I press a delicate kiss to her forehead and glare at my mother for being so pathetic.
The crocodile tears have stopped, and she wipes her eyes delicately as she moves out of Charles’s embrace. It’s laughable how quickly she changes her tune. “Your cousin?—”
“Your nephew . My pup’s father. My mate’s… something. We don’t need to be reminded of the familial connection. Not when we know what he did and who he is. What we do need to know, though, Mumsy, is what you have done,” Ben interjects, sounding more stern than usual. I can hear the emphasis in his words, and I know he’s fighting Fluffy for control.
Unlike the rest of us, Ben didn’t get the chance to unleash his fury earlier. He’s sitting here with pent-up energy and a need to prove himself as worthy of being an alpha alongside us.
Maia doesn’t say anything about Ben’s flippant comment regarding her dead fiancé, but I can feel her tense up in my lap as he utters it.
The thing is, she can feel Ben just as much as I can, and he’s not feeling very angry about Ryan’s existence. Ben, like me and the rest of my brother’s, are coming to an understanding regarding our little dead cousin.
I massage Maia’s lower back as gently as I can, trying to soothe her with my touch. My family is fucked-up, and I won’t allow their taint to touch my mate and child.
“Neither of us will,” Kane promises me.
“I understand his connection to this family,” Julie says, shaking her head as she gives my brother a look full of sympathy. She’s acting as if he’s a fool, as if she’s better than him.
I am better than him. But she certainly is not.
“Anything I did was to protect our line, to protect the Wolfe’s from… from them and their poison,” she says de sperately. “They were going to hurt us, and he was the leader of that. I did what I could—what anyone would.”
“She speaks for us all when she talks about these plans,” George adds. His words are gravelly, his tone almost reluctant. But he’s desperate to get that edge over Topher.
“Pathetic,” Kane and I utter together.
“We knew about your mother’s plan, boys. She wasn’t working alone on this,” Charles says, and Maia flinches, seeking more comfort from me. I press a soft kiss to the top of her head, annoyed that I can’t do more.
My heart is pounding in time with the way my veins burn with my fury. I’m scared to let go of my mate, to stop touching her. These sparks that occur when we touch are one of the only things keeping me sane right now.
I want vengeance, I want to fix Maia’s hurt, I need to fix her upset.
“There’s nothing that you can fix, human,” Kane warns, but it's a futile thing. I might not be able to bring him back for her—and even if I could, I’m not sure if I would—but I can send his killers out to go join him.
“No.” Kane doesn’t expand, but honestly, he doesn’t need to.
“If I can show her how far I’m willing to go in her defence, she’ll understand the depth of my love,” I argue. “She doesn’t yet have the bond with me that she does with my brother’s, but with this act, she’ll understand.” I kiss Maia’s neck, the softness causing beautiful goosebumps to appear across her skin.
“ If I go this far… she’ll not believe that we knew about this plot.”
“She doesn’t already,” Kane soothes. “She has never once insinuated that over the last month. Whenever the topic has come up, she’s never once doubted us. She’s perfect, human, and she absolutely trusts us.”
“But that was before she heard it out of my parent’s mouths, ” I protest. I lean down to kiss Maia again, needing to remind myself that she’s here, that she’s safe, that she likes my touch, that she loves me. “I can’t lose her, Kane.”
“You won’t.”
My dad leans in across the table as if he’s going to touch Maia. I snarl loudly, and Maia leans further into my touch and out of his grasp. With her left hand, she reaches for mine and squeezes so gently.
She’s so fragile, so delicate, and yet, she offers me comfort.
I’m not worthy of this love.
“Because she is perfect,” Kane says, enunciating each word. “And you are worthy of it, Seb. I understand the urge to hunt, to kill, to shed blood in our mate’s defence. I feel it, too. But she doesn’t need bloodshed. She needs answers, and we’re going to sit here and make sure she gets them.”
I nod slowly.
“Providing doesn’t always mean giving the easiest or most obvious thing,” my wolf continues. “This is the decision she needs, so this is the situation we’ll provide for.”
“We weren’t the ones to kill him, Maia,” Edward says gently. Maia flinches, and I growl once more, not liking how personal he is being. “We didn’t do that to you or to Phoebe.”
“You chose not to or your plan failed?” my mate whispers, but we all hear it anyway. Her sorrow is so obvious in her tone, the depth of her pain stinging my nose as the orange in her scent is so acidic.
Edward opens his mouth, likely to try and pretty up whatever plan they did have, but he’s beaten out by his mate, who has the most disgusting sneer on her face as she glares at my mate.
“Ryan Grey is a disgrace to wolf kind, and I wish my plan was a success. I wish it were me who managed to end his worthless life,” my mother hisses, and it’s clear to see for everyone now that those tears from earlier were fake. The disgust in her tone as she talks is so clear to see, the fury radiating from her inner wolf .
Her face scrunches up, her eyes darkening, and my true mother comes out to play. I’ve seen this side of her far too many times to count, and if she wasn’t such a vindictive bitch, it could be pretty powerful and a good asset for our pack.
Maia likely would never have seen this version, the deep hatred my mother harbours, but my brother’s and I all knew it was there.
“Envy is a deadly sin for a reason,” Kane says, eyeing our mother with as much distaste as I am. We’re ready in case she tries to attack. She’s never got violent before—not with us, or even the twins, but that doesn’t mean she’s not got it in her.
My mate will not be put in harm’s way.
My daughter will not be around this violence.
“It keeps me up at night, knowing that we were not the ones to rid our family line of that toxic boy,” she continues. Her eyes are focused on Topher, so I don’t need to intervene, but if she dares insult Phoebe—even indirectly—I won’t be held responsible for my actions.
Kane doesn’t argue, knowing that, in this instance, it’s a waste of time.
Topher’s face changes, and he hides the anger that’s brimming in his scent, as he softly asks, “I understand why you’d feel that way. What was your plan, Mum?”
Maia doesn’t react at Topher’s change, likely since she can still feel his anger through their bond. She rests her head back on me, her fluffy hair like a cushion.
George snarls, but Topher’s is louder as he gives our father a warning look. George is silenced, unhappily, and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
Edward and Charles exchange looks, but neither of them are a concern. They’re both far more level-headed, far less impulsive, and honestly, so weak that I could kill them both without breaking a sweat.
“You mean they love their pups and wouldn’t hurt them, so you’d have an easy advantage,” Kane says .
“Weak, yeah, that’s what I said.”
“What do you know about what Ryan has been up to since our Morgan died and he left the Grey pack, boys?” Edward asks as my mum regains control of herself.
She’s pushing her wolf down, locking the murderous urges back in her little box, as she delicately pretends that she’s not the unhinged one.
“You definitely got your sociopathic traits from her,” Kane says.
“Not much, outside of his life with Maia and Phoebe,” Topher says, causing Maia to flinch once more. Ben reaches over for her other hand, and whilst she doesn’t relax, her heart rate does begin to slow down.
“Ryan was a founding member of a company called Fresh Fur Creations,” Charles says, and I make sure to keep breathing in from my nose to see what their scent has to say about their words. “From our records, he started it when he was nineteen and somehow secured funding not long before his twenty-first birthday”—Maia releases a soft gasp, but based on the way nobody else reacts, I’m the only one who heard her—“which helped boost it off the ground. As it started increasing in size, we, of course, looked into it as a potential threat.”
She knows where the funding came from. I’m wondering if she gave it or if she was the one to organise it for him.
“Why would it be a threat?” Ben asks, leaning back in his chair, as he keeps a tight hold on Maia’s hand. “We’re familiar with it, but it’s nothing. A shitty little biochem company focusing on medications that help our kind, whilst advertising all of their human-led products.”
“What?” Edward asks.
Ben sighs as if the inadequate intellect of our parents is a burden on him. “Their whole business premise is hidden from the human eyes, but their goal is to alter human medications to work with our chemistry and make them work for us, too.”
“That was their cover story, sure,” Charles says dismissively. “ But we know the truth . They’re not trying to help our kind, no, Ryan was trying to destroy it.”
“And likely, us ,” George grunts out.
“You know how warped that boy was,” my mum says. She’s a master manipulator, but it’s been over a decade since we’ve trusted a single word out of her mouth. “He’s been gathering the supplies to take us out, to get revenge for something that was his fault.”
Maia tenses, and I hate more than anything that we don’t have the bond. I trust that my brothers are soothing her that way, and I focus on giving her calming touches and letting the sparks do their job.
“We had someone from our pack who was able to get a job there, and we never thought anything of it,” Edward says calmly. “Until he came to us one day with concerns.”
“Why would he come to you?” Alex asks.
“We’re his alphas,” Charles says.
“What was his concern?” Topher asks, and unlike Alex, his tone is full of impatience.
“He found out that there was a private project that the founder— Ryan— was working on, and it could be very dangerous for all of the wolf-kind. It was kept hidden from the humans, of course, but the wolves that worked there heard plenty of rumours, and a lot of them were scared.”
“And the project was…?” Alex demands.
“They were working on scent neutralising agents so that wolves could mask their scents and hide who they were whilst being in plain sight,” George says, and I let out a loud snarl as I realise the implications of what that could do.
I’m not the only one, with both Topher and Alex growling low. Orion and Max are likely as unnerved by this as I am.
This is dangerous. So, very dangerous.
And now… it all makes sense.
“They’ve done it, then,” Kane says. “We know for a fine fact that this is the only thing that makes sense. How else would he get on pack lands?”
“They’ve been playing us for a fool.”
Maia sits up, and losing some of her touch sends my anger even higher. She was grounding me, but I’m desperate to go over to the pathetic Grey pack and wipe them all out.
Ethan’s been using this little scent neutralising agent of his brother’s to get onto our lands, to try and take my daughter away.
I’m not sure if he’s been doing more than that, and honestly, I don’t care.
I’d give the pack over in a heartbeat if it meant I kept Maia and Phoebe. I don’t care about the wolves.
“No, you may not,” Kane says with a heavy sigh. “But we’re not handing over our pack to anyone. We’re alpha's. We need a pack around to ground us. We need to provide. We’d go insane otherwise.”
“I’d provide for my mate and child.”
“And where would you do that?” Kane sounds so amused. “In a pack where another alpha is in charge? Of course not. You’d be unable to function with someone else in charge, you’d be unfulfilled, and very unhappy.”
I’d kill Kane, too, and not feel any guilt.
He snorts.
Maia’s frown can be felt in her entire body as she looks over at Alex for answers. “I don’t understand what the big deal is with this.”
My mum rolls her eyes, letting out a little huff.
“We’ve told you about how important scents are to werewolves,” Alex says, and Maia nods slowly. She brings her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes so focused on Alex, and I groan as she wriggles slightly on my lap.
This is the wrong time for an erection, but I can’t help that my mate is the most beautiful and sensual woman to ever exist.
“Yes,” Maia says softly .
“She can’t understand the difference,” my mum scoffs, pursing her lips.
“No,” I snarl, glaring at my mum. She frowns at me, confusion pouring from her idiotic self.
“I think Seb’s telling you to not insult his mate, love,” Edward says, and I nod firmly. I hold onto Maia’s thighs and glare at my mum, making it very clear where I stand.
My mum shakes her head, fake shock filling her, as she appeals to my mate. “I’m sorry, Maia, honey. I didn’t mean to act like you were inferior. I just meant that, as someone who also used to be human, you won’t realise the difference of how much better you are as a wolf until you’re in the situation to appreciate it. I had all the knowledge before I was turned, but it didn’t make a difference to my actual understanding.
“You can’t grasp the level of power you’ll have, how much stronger and better you will be, once you’re a wolf, too. Right now, in your human body, you’re limited. But as a wolf? You’ll have power at your disposal that you wouldn’t even dream about.”
“I don’t care much for power,” Maia says softly. My mum’s eyes flash with shock, but Maia turns back to Alex. “So removing the scents would take away part of someone’s identity, yes?”
Alex nods, hiding his smirk. “Yes. Depending on how adept these neutralising agents are, the person using them could do so much damage.”
And we’ve already seen the evidence of what can be done with them.
Maia sits up even straighter. “They could steal a pack’s scent and intermingle or even try to imitate a familial one. They could pretend to be human and hide away completely,” she muses, and whilst my dick hardens at her intelligence, this knowledge only puts Kane and I on edge.
My superior scent tracking ability is one of the biggest things I can provide to my mate. I can smell danger, I can protect her in ways the others can't.
I might not be as much of a cyber genius as Ben, or a political genius as Topher. I don’t even have Alex’s ease or abilities to remain in control despite everything happening.
But I can sense enemies as far as a few miles away. I can scent the rogues that would seek to harm our pack, or I could determine if anyone close by was feeling hostile towards her.
This is my job.
I’ve been failing it over the last few months. I’ve been missing the signs, unable to track them, and keep her safe.
“With their new agent, they seek to take our biggest strength from us,” Kane hisses. “They seek to incapacitate us. But for what end?”
“These kinds of advancements are dangerous.”
“Criminal, one might say,” Kane says, losing some of his anger. “This can’t have been something that we’d approve of. Which would make his death… justice.”
Well, fuck.
Maia notices the way my body has shifted, and her soft blue eyes rake over my features, trying to figure out why. I bring her close and kiss her forehead before she turns back around to the group.
“And that’s the danger we’d face,” Edward says softly. “We’d lose our biggest advantage, our biggest built-in protection. If we can’t even trust our noses, what can we trust?”
“So you decided to kill him,” Topher says, raising an eyebrow, although his statement is said simply. He doesn’t have any judgement in his tone, and I don’t blame him. If they had proof of this, it wouldn’t be an illegal kill within the bounds of our laws.
And even if they didn’t have evidence… that can always be doctored after the fact.
I’d know. We’ve done it ourselves plenty of times.
Killing isn’t hard for us, as long as you operate within the werewolf laws, and they’re pretty open for the most part. We are beasts, after all.
“We realised he needed to be neutralised,” Charles corrects, shooting Maia a nervous look. My mate looks sad, as if this is bothering her, but I can smell the intrigue in her scent.
I can pick up the small hints of curiosity buried just underneath her despair, smell the layer of anger she’s trying to hide.
“Smart mate,” I say.
“Incredibly smart. She knows something—hopefully, that’ll be able to help us,” Kane says.
“We had two goals,” my mum says, now relying on this information drop to try and get us back on her side. “The first was to take out Ryan so that the progress on the project would stop, and the second was to demolish the company so that nobody else would resume something as dangerous as he attempted.”
“And did you have a whole plan on how these goals of yours would be achieved?” Alex asks.
Our four parents exchange looks, but my mum is the one who nods.
“Two years ago, as you all know, I went to our biannual meeting with the Lunas in our area, and, of course, Aurora was there with Ethan.”
“I remember,” Topher says, sneering at our mum. “I was there, too. I didn’t realise you were using that very important platform to try and launch your assassination attempt right under everyone’s noses, though.”
She rolls her eyes as if the death of her nephew is nothing. As if flaunting it in front of said nephew’s fiancé and child is nothing.
Maybe Kane’s right, and my distaste for people came from her. At least I got something handy from her, rather than her stupidity.
“You already know that I’m always right, human,” Kane says .
“I’m a woman, Christopher, I can multitask,” she says, and Topher rolls his eyes. “Whilst we were there, I met up with a neutral member of our society who was willing to… fix this little issue for us.”
Maia’s heart is pounding, pure devastation leaking out from her scent.
It destroys me having to sit here and act like this isn’t an issue.
Like the blasé way my mum is talking about her dead fiancé is nothing when my mate’s very soul is screaming out for help.
“You found a rogue willing to kill Ryan,” Topher says, and Maia gasps. Julie nods as if this is nothing. “And what happened to him, since he clearly didn’t try to kill Ryan?”
“No, he did. Unfortunately, the attempt was thwarted by Ryan,” George says. “And the rogue we contracted ended up dead.”
Maia’s doing her best to appear calm and collected. She’s trying to hide the pain that she’s in.
“It’ll not be easy for her to learn that the man she loved was targeted numerous times and could never tell her. His life was in danger. He nearly died, at least once, but more than likely numerous times , and yet, she never knew.”
I kiss her neck once more, wrapping my arms around her and our sleeping infant, hating the truth of my wolf’s words.
“Coincidental,” Topher says, eyeing up our parents. “And what did you offer the rogue in return?”
“Absolution from his crimes, of course,” my mum says sweetly.
Topher growls low. “You’re foolish. The lot of you.”
“Ryan didn’t know who was behind the attempt,” Edward says, trying to salvage the conversation.
“I bet he didn’t,” Kane snarks.
“We figured out after a couple more failed attempts that it wasn’t going to be as easy to take Ryan out as we first assumed,” Edward says, and it’s embarrassing that he once again gives my mate an apologetic look.
As if his little sad eyes are going to undo the hurt she’s feeling.
And they say I am the one with no people skills. Pathetic.
“So, instead, we started focusing on the company itself,” Charles continues.
“So you tried to kill him numerous times. Each attempt failing, which is just embarrassing for everyone involved,” Ben says. “It’s quite a boring tale, really. Three powerful alphas, past their prime, failing at life day after day, being thwarted by a little baby wolf with no mate, pack, or true resources behind him.”
I raise an eyebrow, waiting for my brother to get past the dramatics and share what he knows or ask what it is that he needs to know.
“What I want to know is, how you learnt about this situation in the first place,” Ben says, scooting his chair back from my right and kicking his feet up on the table. The sound of it dragging across the floor grates on me, and the smell of mud on his shoes tickles my nose. “It took us some digging to find the link between Ryan and Fresh Fur, and even still, we didn’t realise he was a founding member. All we knew was that he attended meetings with them.”
Maia looks up at me, silently communicating something with me, and I hate that I don’t know what. I cup her cheek, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, mouthing the words “not here” across her forehead.
Whatever knowledge she has is not going to be put in my parents hands.
In us securing the pack leadership, they’ve lost the ability to command us, and in their failures, it becomes our job to figure it out.
But that doesn’t mean my parents aren’t going to fight against this new status quo. It doesn’t mean that they don’t still have their own agenda that they’re going to try and push underneath our noses.
We just need to be ready for it, and in doing so, we’re not going to give them any information they could use to undermine us.
“As mentioned, our pack member who worked there was aware of who the founder was. It was with luck that they recognised Ryan as being a Grey,” George says. “They came to us with the information, and they asked if we’d like them to leave, since they know about our bad blood with the Grey pack.”
“And, of course, you wouldn’t have wanted that if it meant you lost eyes on the competition,” Topher says, and George shrugs.
It’s not like he can argue otherwise.
“How did you know it was Ryan?” Maia asks, the question slipping out by surprise, it seems. She’s tensed back up, and I’m not sure what she expects from them.
“Well, who else would it have been?” George asks her with a scoff. “Ryan was the only one with the ability to do it.”
I frown. “They’re not being honest. I can smell his deceit. Hear the way his heart sped up ever so slightly. He’s lying. He’s been lying for a while.”
Kane pushes forward and gently places Maia onto her own chair as he takes control of our body. I’m more than happy to let that happen, and I sit back in the chair.
“Liar,” my wolf hisses, the word echoing around the room. My three dads flinch. “How did you know about Ryan and Fresh Fur Creations?”
They can’t ignore the command, the pull of information.
Because my wolf is stronger than theirs.
As one, they all whisper, “Henry.”