Chapter 2
On his way out of Jude’s office, Byron slammed the door shut.
Fuming, he snatched his jacket from a hook near the entrance door.
Why Jude asked for his advice in business matters when he had no intention of following it was beyond him.
Every time his new alpha, the very man who’d killed his brother Cameron, exiled his father, and humiliated his sister, Eve, by choosing to mate with Danielle, the lowest-ranked female of the pack, met with him to discuss pack business, they butted heads.
It didn’t matter that it turned out that Danielle was actually his half-sister, a bastard his philandering father had sired.
He tolerated her but felt no brotherly love for her.
When it came to Jude, his feelings were much more pronounced: he despised him.
For the past ten weeks, Jude had been ruling the Gallagher pack by authority of the Werewolf Alliance, and more and more pack members seemed to succumb to Jude’s smooth-talking and accept him as their alpha.
Byron pulled the heavy oak door open and stepped outside when he heard rapid footsteps approaching from behind. He didn’t stop, not even curious who entered the large foyer. All he wanted was to leave the house tonight and forget about all his problems.
Before the door closed behind him, somebody called out to him.
“Byron!”
It was Flora, his aunt, and after Jude, the last person he wanted to speak to right now.
He ignored her and took a couple of steps.
The motion-sensor-activated light above the door suddenly illuminated him.
It was part of the estate’s security system, a network of cameras at various points around the perimeter of the main house and the surrounding woods and grassy areas, to make sure nobody who was unauthorized was able to approach or enter unseen.
A whole lot of good that had done them when a nest of vampires had attacked two and a half months earlier.
Apparently, they’d been able to hack into their system and disable the cameras.
Spencer, his cousin who was responsible for security, had been blindsided.
According to him and Francisco, the Werewolf Alliance member who now shadowed Spencer on all security-related matters, the flaws in the system had been corrected, and the network was now ironclad.
“Byron!”
Flora met him on the stairs, pulling her cardigan closer around her body to ward off the cool evening air.
“What is it now?” he snapped, impatient.
“What’s wrong? I heard you slam the door to Jude’s office.”
Of course she had! Nothing ever escaped his aunt. After all, she’d been responsible for the management of the household, and now that Danielle had taken over that task, Flora seemed to have even more free time on her hands.
“What do you think is wrong?” With a grunt, he motioned to the door behind her.
“Everything is wrong! He’s ruling this pack as if he owned it.
I hate these meetings with him where he wants suggestions from me about how to improve the businesses, and then he never implements a single one of my ideas. It’s a farce!”
“At least you still have a real job,” Flora said. “I, on the other hand…”
She shrugged, and he understood. But if she expected him to console her, she was talking to the wrong person.
“This wouldn’t have happened if he’d mated with Eve!” Byron ground out.
“And hadn’t killed Cameron and exiled your father,” she added.
“But no, he snubs Eve and humiliates her in front of everybody. As if she’s a nobody! I can’t forgive him for that.”
Even if he didn’t always see eye-to-eye with his sister, she didn’t deserve to be discarded like that.
“I get it,” Flora said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t like it either if somebody did that to his sister! Then Jude would be just as pissed off. Maybe then he’d understand what he’s done.”
Flora’s words made him snap his gaze to her.
“He has a sister?”
“Yes, I overheard him and Austin talking about her a while ago.”
“I didn’t know that. You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I believe she’ll visit at some point. Danielle mentioned something the other day.”
“She’ll visit? Do you know when?” His mind was working overtime. Maybe there was a way of making Jude understand that he couldn’t just discard people without a thought.
“Byron!”
At Flora’s harsh voice, he stared at her, realizing that he’d been zoning out.
“Don’t tell me you’re planning something. I know you, Byron. If you try to seduce Jude’s sister and then decide to publicly dump her, I’m warning you: don’t do it. It will not end well.”
His head was spinning now with possibilities, with plans of how to deliver payback for all the things that Jude had done to him and his family. Then they would all see if Jude could take the same pain and humiliation that he’d doled out to the Gallaghers.
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll end badly, but not for me. For him and his family. When I break his sister’s heart, then he’ll finally realize what he’s done to me. The humiliation I suffered at his hands…”
“Are you talking about the fight? When he defeated you in wolf form? Is that what this is about?”
The sound of a car driving up the gravel path toward the house filled the silence. Byron glanced over his shoulder and saw Owen arrive in his SUV.
Byron turned back to Flora, growling. “It’s about all of it. About Eve, about Dad, about Cameron.”
Flora shook her head. “It’s not.” She scoffed. “You’re sore because he beat you in a fair fight. That’s what this is about. You challenged him to a fight, thinking you were stronger than him. And you lost.”
“How would you know what that feels like? Your life hasn’t changed. Mine has.”
“What’s going on?” Owen asked, walking up the stairs to the entrance door, his gaze swinging from Flora to him. “Mom? Byron?”
“Nothing is going on,” Byron replied. “As usual, your mother isn’t getting the point of what I’m trying to explain.”
Owen narrowed his eyes, then addressed his mother, still pinning him with his gaze. “Mom, does he owe you an apology?”
“It’s fine, Owen. Don’t worry about it,” Flora said. “I was simply trying to give Byron some well-meant advice. But you know him. He’s never been one to follow good advice.”
She turned on her heel and pushed the entrance door open, then walked inside.
For a moment, Owen remained standing where he was. “Anything you wanna tell me?”
“I’m going out for a drink.”
“Bad timing. There’s a big accident on the 101 North just before San Rafael. I’d avoid that area.”
Byron nodded and headed for his car. Maybe it was best to avoid bars in the vicinity altogether for fear of running into somebody he knew. He needed to be alone right now to think about how to get back at Jude.
At the main road, he followed the signs for the 101 freeway, but he didn’t take the northbound on-ramp and instead went south.
San Francisco was only thirty minutes away, and it offered more anonymity.
Besides, he needed a night away from home, and since he had the keys to Cameron’s flat in San Francisco, he could stay there for a night or even two.
The flat was still furnished, and nobody had made a decision yet about what to do with it now that Cameron was dead.
Sell it, or keep it? Real estate was always a good investment in San Francisco.
It would be a shame to let go of a property that would only appreciate over time.
And for once, this was a decision he and his siblings would get to make—not the new alpha.