26. Aleks #2
“That’s really not the way it works,” Ajax was saying as his mate slipped out of his chair and headed for the bathroom.
“If it were, there would be constant challenges for every pack’s leadership, as though we lived in the dark ages.
Honestly, only the most backward packs ever have to deal with challenges in the modern era.
We’re civilized people, and we don’t need to fight to make points, unless the people we’re forced to fight are incapable of reason. ”
It was damned impressive, insulting Grant and the pack a dozen ways with a single little speech, and even though it annoyed me to be called backward, I couldn’t dispute it. He wasn’t wrong.
But then something occurred to me.
The witchwolf was alone. That could be good for me, or if the wrong goon headed to the bathroom right that moment, very bad for everyone.
I wouldn’t have put it past any one of them to follow him and try something, only to end up dead, because clearly, from the way Giselle had dropped her fork five times during dinner, and how she kept whining that the food tasted like metal, the witchwolf was no one to fuck with.
So I slid myself out of my chair and tried to be unobtrusive as I made my way to the bathroom. Sure enough, Marcus was staring down the hall thoughtfully, like he was thinking about going.
I almost stopped myself and let him.
It would take one ugly thing off my plate if Marcus forced the witchwolf to kill him, wouldn’t it?
But no. I needed to speak to a member of the San Francisco pack, and this might be my best chance.
My best chance to betray my own pack.
But I had to. I wasn’t betraying the future, I reminded myself. Only the past. A past that we would all be happy to leave behind.
I went in after him, and almost immediately, was inundated with the stink of a public bathroom.
I made sure no one was following us, pressing the door closed with my body.
I doubted it would intimidate the witchwolf, since he could probably kill me with a flick of his fingers, but I didn’t want Marcus coming in to listen to what I had to say.
There was no one else in the room, so I turned my attention back to him.
“I do not know how wolves can live in city like this,” was the first thing I said.
Huh. Hadn’t been expecting that to be what came out. It was true, but oddly honest and not related to the subject I’d come to talk to him about. I shook my head, trying to clear it, but instead of the plan to finish Grant, only one thing came to mind. “Cash. Cash is . . . is alive?”
He cocked his head at me, his whole body relaxing. Odd, but good. It probably meant I wasn’t about to turn into a toad or trip over my own feet.
“Why?” was all he asked.
I swallowed hard and tried to search for the right words.
For some reason, English was coming harder than usual.
Well, not “some reason.” Stress. Cash was in trouble, Leo and Evie were in trouble, the whole damned pack was in trouble.
My pack. It was my responsibility to take care of them, and I didn’t know how to do it.
Instead of trying to explain why Cash had left and what he meant to me, I decided to start simple.
I didn’t know what Cash had told them, but I did know he’d left us to find them, and then been attacked over it.
“If . . . if Cash wishes to leave us, then . . . is his right.” I stopped, frowned, and huffed a sigh.
“Right, yes? There are too many rights in English.”
What the fuck was wrong with me? My thoughts were slipping sideways into Russian, and forming sentences was hard.
I’d have wondered if the witchwolf had already hexed me, but I couldn’t smell magic in the small, enclosed space.
Also, “rights” weren’t something we talked about much, back home. We didn’t really have any of those.
Beside all that, I did this when Grant was stressing me too. Sometimes on purpose, because it made him so irrationally angry when I dropped my articles, and sometimes just because I forgot them.
The witchwolf narrowed his eyes at me, then jerked back a bit and his mouth fell open. He really was a very pretty man when he wasn’t glaring at me.
“Yes. It’s his right if he wants to leave,” he said, nodding, interested in this conversation rather than nervous or angry.
“But he didn’t come asking into our pack.
He just came to warn us that your people were planning to attack us.
But . . . he’s not well, but he’s alive, and he’s healing.
Slowly, but we think he’ll be okay, thanks to some quick work by my mentor. ”
I would kill Grant.
I wanted to rush out of the bathroom and kill him right then.
Just push my way back into the dining room and rip his throat out with my claws.
Or Marcus, or Adam, or . . . No. I had to focus.
Get my head back in the game. I couldn’t forget my purpose here.
Couldn’t disappoint Viktor and Mama, and let Cash and Evie and Leo down.
I took another deep breath, steadied myself for the rush of feeling, and forced the correct words out. “This is trick.”
He seemed even more confused than before, and not at all enlightened and angry. Because I hadn’t explained how it was a trick, so he didn’t understand.
Obviously.
I sighed.
“I don’t imagine you speak Japanese?” he asked out of nowhere.
Odd that he’d even think that, but also kind of flattering. Still, I wasn’t going to lie to him, let alone say something so easily disproven. “No. Only Russian.”
He gave me a very cute smile and shrugged. “Sorry, I can’t help with the language barrier, then. I’ve only got Japanese and some German.”
That was . . . one of the kindest things I’d ever heard.
He was trying to help me, a stranger who’d cornered him in a bathroom.
Grant was such an incredible fuck up. He could have made friends with these people.
Allies. Come in peace and friendship. But he’d done this.
I shook my head and refocused again. “My English isn’t so bad, only frustrating. You are alpha mate, yes?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You know that.”
I shook my head. “No. Is . . . this is not normal. Most alphas do not make their mate alpha mate. You are alpha mate. Equal.”
He stared at me, confused, for just a fraction of a second, as I tried to figure out how to say it better without just saying what was going on. As it was, I hadn’t actually betrayed anyone. Hadn’t said anything out of turn.
I had only pointed out a simple fact.
One could never be too careful around werewolves with our hearing.
Clearly, though, the witchwolf was smart, because a second later, his eyes widened in shock, then narrowed again. “That fucker. He’s not going to challenge Jax. He’s going to challenge me.”
Thank fuck. I nodded to him, turned, and left the bathroom. It occurred to me on the way back to the table that they would know I hadn’t used the bathroom for anything, and question me about what I’d been up to, but I didn’t get that far.
Ajax was walking down the hall toward me as I headed out.
Behind him, Marcus was standing at the end of the hall, watching.
Instantly, I was composed, as calm as I’d ever been in my life.
I gave the alpha a wide smile as I passed him, deliberately letting our shoulders bump.
That part was easy. Playing the asshole with other enormous assholes who all wanted to play alpha power games.
The hard part was using my damn brain.
More than that, it was, in essence, betraying my pack.
Which was precisely what I had done.
Because I’d had to. Grant had forced all our hands, and I was doing what I had to do.
The future, I reminded myself. It had to be better than the past, and it was my responsibility to make sure of it.