Chapter 2
Brandt
The smell of the fresh rain and tangy pine tingled my nose while I dreamt about the possibility of escape.
As I stood on the deck attached to my father’s study, I suddenly appreciated the way he had designed this house.
Being outside on the third floor made me feel like I was living in the tops of the trees.
And while the back of the house had a view of Kachemak Bay, I understood why my father had requested this side for his office space.
My heart ached as I continued to struggle with his death.
It had been a week now since his bloodied bear carcass had been found in the nearby woods—his head and skin taken as a trophy.
Poachers. At least that’s what everyone thought right now…
even though my gut told me something different.
Perhaps it was because after all he’d accomplished and overcome in his life, it was an unfit way for him to leave this world.
Or maybe I refused to believe poachers had killed him in his grizzly form because I refused to believe he was really gone.
I watched an eagle swoop past the window and into the trees below searching for its prey.
My bear stirred, unhappy with the way I’d been shutting him out of everything.
Since my father’s death, my life had been moving at a pace I could barely keep up with, let alone allow time for me to shift.
And I hated it all right now—the mess of paperwork left behind, the lawyers drooling at the mouth over potential fees, my youngest brother choosing to stay in Florida while the rest of us dealt with everything, and the poachers who murdered our clan’s alpha.
As I watched the leaves rustle in the wind, I vowed that I would find those who’d killed him and show them just how cowardly they are.
The knock at the door forced me to face reality again. “Come in,” I said, already knowing who was there. I turned to see my brother, Brennan, slowly make his way inside the room as though hesitant to enter. “Hey.”
“How are you doing?” he asked, looking around the office and not making any attempt to step closer to me.
I shrugged and sat in the leather chair at my dad’s desk. “Honestly? I’m exhausted.”
Brennan followed suit and pulled out one of the two chairs across from me. As he slapped a folder on the desk, he sighed and fell into the seat. I didn’t miss the circles under his eyes or the way they shimmered in the light.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the folder.
Brennan tilted his head up to the ceiling and let out another breath. “More contracts.”
I reached forward and slid the papers closer to me. “For what?”
“Fishing rights. Land disputes. I don’t know.” Brennan had recently cut his hair, but he still ran his hand through it out of habit. “Dad had his claws in a lot of places.”
“That’s why we’re such a successful clan.”
“If you say so.”
I shot a glare at my middle brother. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Our alpha was butchered right in our own territory. We’re obviously not as bulletproof as we’d like to think.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. My instincts still told me that there was more to his death than we knew.
And the fact that he was killed just a few miles away didn’t help my suspicions.
Or Brennan’s either. “How are the arrangements coming along?” Brennan offered to handle the funerals, and I was more than willing to give up that complication.
“The human memorial is scheduled for Friday at the community center. Then we’ll celebrate on our own later that evening.”
Two days. We’d officially bury our alpha, and my father, in two days.
I wondered if Emma would come. But as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I stuffed it away.
She’d made her choice a year ago. And even though my bear and my heart hadn’t let her go, I had no room in my brain to think about her right now.
As though reading my mind, Brennan asked quietly, “Do you think she’ll show up?”
I tried to ignore the stabbing pain in my chest. Brennan had always been able to read me. Ever since we were cubs. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her.” There was no ignoring the clipped tone.
“She should be here. She’s always been family.”
Glaring at Brennan, I shook my head. “No. She abandoned her family.”
With a sigh, Brennan leaned forward and rested his elbows against the desk. “Dad practically raised her and Mark. She owes her alpha that acknowledgment.”
“Dad’s dead. He won’t know.”
“No, but we will.”
“She’s never coming back, Brennan.”
He studied me for a moment, looking for some sign that I might believe that to be true.
Emma was my only love, my mate, my soul.
And she had crept away in the middle of the night without any warning.
The only way I could deal with her departure was to tell myself that it was permanent and that I had to move on.
But the reality was that I’d never move on.
I would only have one mate, and I’d lost her forever.
“You know you’re going to be expected to fight for alpha,” Brennan said, thankfully changing the subject.
I nodded.
“And alphas won’t succeed unless they have a mate.”
Another round of hurt stabbed my heart. So much for changing the subject. “I won’t force her to be with me, Brennan,” I said.
He stood and walked over to the side wall that housed a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. “I’m not just talking about Emma,” he finally continued. “You need someone by your side, providing you with strong cubs and giving you the support you’re going to need to lead this clan.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” I asked with a warning slipping into my words.
Brennan continued to peruse the books. “You need to mate with someone strong. And it would be even better if that someone had connections.”
“Spit it out.” Brennan didn’t hint at things if he hadn’t already figured out the solution.
“What about Portia?”
I turned toward him in surprise. “Portia Dunanski? The werewolf?”
With a casual shrug, Brennan lifted a book from the shelf. “You met her. She’s strong. And an excellent tracker.”
“And she’s a wolf.”
“So?”
“How do you think the clan would react if I mated with a wolf?”
“If you’re alpha, they’d have to go along with it.”
While he had a point, I couldn’t even fathom the idea of being with anyone but Emma. “No,” I whispered. “I can’t do that.”
Brennan watched me again, an unopened book resting in his hand and a sad smile brewing on his lips. “You still love her.”
“I’m not talking about this anymore.” I flipped through the folder, not seeing any of the words in front of me.
Instead, I saw images of Emma and me on the boat, swimming in the bay, and running through the forest. She’d left behind a deep wound in my soul—one I didn’t think I’d ever get over.
But Brennan was right. If I won the position of alpha, I would be expected to carry on our family line.
Maybe I could find a human mother. Someone who would be there to have my children and fulfill that role.
Someone who wouldn’t care if we didn’t have a relationship.
Because I could never give my heart to anyone else again.
“It’s okay, Brandt. You’re allowed to love her.”
“Where’s Dixon?” I asked with a tone that said we were done talking about Emma. Forever.
Brennan sat down again. “Don’t know. I haven’t seen him since yesterday. I thought you sent him on an errand.”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t send him anywhere.” Dixon, our clan’s second in command, would know more about these contracts than I would right now. He could at least give me the Cliff Notes version. “Has he checked in?”
“Nope.”
With a sigh, I closed the folder and leaned back into the soft leather. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.” I did my best to hold in my emotions, but it was much harder to do around my brother. We were always so close that it was easy to forget I had to be strong for the whole clan.
“Brandt?”
I looked toward the door where Derrick had just stuck his head inside. “Come in.”
Aside from my brothers, Derrick Ward was my closest friend. He was the same age as Brennan, so we all grew up together. He was also unnaturally skilled at computer programming and crunching numbers.
“Hey, Brennan. Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to let you know what I found out.”
I raised a brow in confusion, so Brennan filled in the missing pieces. “I asked him to work with the police and park rangers and see what they know about the murder.”
Cringing with the word murder, I clenched my jaw and gestured to the empty chair. “Please, sit.”
Derrick complied, his green eyes trying to portray confidence, but there was no hiding the hint of fear in them.
“Well, the sheriff and local ranger were useless. Of course, they didn’t know that was Blaze’s body they found, and I was able to forge the morgue records to show that your father died of a heart attack, even though his human body hadn’t been in the hospital. ”
“Thank you for that,” I said with a grateful smile.
“Sure,” Derrick hung his head. “And although they argued with me about getting the bear’s body, I finally convinced him that we could process it at one of our fish plants. We had to pay a fee for that, though.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “But they believed you? About the fish plant?”
This time, Derrick smiled widely. “I convinced the woman ranger.”
Brennan chuckled, and for the first time this week, I cracked a grin. “Those women can never resist you, can they?”
“Nope.”
“So, they have no leads on the poachers?” Brennan asked. He never really learned how to enjoy a moment when he was having one.
“Not really. They think there were three of them, based on the footprints. But the skin or the…head…hasn’t shown up at a taxidermy shop anywhere nearby yet. They also said they didn’t find any slugs.”
“But they could have been in the head,” I said. Everyone went silent, none of us wanting to think of our alpha dying that way.
“I’ve been monitoring their emails to see if they find anything else out that they wouldn’t share with me.”
“Thanks again, Derrick.” He was by far one of the most loyal members of the Callaghan clan, and if I won alpha, I would be sure that Derrick would play an important role in my circle.
“Of course.” He shifted in his chair to look at Brennan. “Any word from Bo yet? He knows about your dad, right?”
“He does,” I cut in sharply.
Brennan glared at me. “He’s coming back on Friday for the funeral.”
“He’s still with that woman in Florida?” Derrick asked.
“Nadya? Yeah.” Brennan shook his head. “After all that vampire chaos in New York, I think he wanted a break.”
A low growl rumbled in my throat. “We all want to get away. But not all of us have the luxury of skirting our duties and traipsing off to the tropics with a woman.” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but Bo tended to run from his problems.
Just like Emma.
Derrick stared at me, obviously wondering if he should support his friend or just shut up. He stayed silent. Brennan stood and grabbed the folder again. “I’ll come back later to discuss this.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”
Derrick pushed himself up and stuck his hands in his pockets, his chin-length black hair covering most of his face. “Don’t worry about it, man. We all understand.”
As the two of them left, I thought about his words.
Everyone seemed to understand why I was always upset.
First with Emma and now with my father—I was a perpetual pile of broken eggshells no one wanted to approach.
I’d hated the way everyone looked at me, and watched me, for months after Emma left. And now it was happening again.
I walked back out onto the deck, breathing in the fresh air and biting back my bear.
When I was upset, he wanted to protect me.
We’d been battling for a year over who would protect whom.
There was supposed to be a new moon tonight—blackness for hours.
My bear stirred, anxious to dig into the dirt and the fresh salmon nearby.
“Okay, we’ll go tonight,” I said out loud, and he settled down. “We’ll go tonight and see if we can track the poachers.”