Alpha. Rachel Vincent
glaring at Marc as they both stood with me. “Look, I know this whole thing is my fault…”
“Not just yours.” Marc glowered at Jace over my shoulder.
“…and I know the timing could not have been worse. And I’m sorrier about both of those than I could possibly explain. But if I have to spend all my time and energy trying to keep the two of you apart, I really am going to get myself killed, and it’ll be your fault.”
Marc reeled like I’d punched him. But he recovered quickly, with a fresh dose of anger. “You reap what you sow, Faythe. And I’m still going with you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to ignore the fresh chill bumps. “I think you and Jace should stay away from each other until you’ve cooled off.”
“Why? So you two can top off your hunt with a little more…reaping and sowing?”
I closed my eyes, breathing through the acute ache in my chest, which had nothing to do with the midtom collision. Then I made myself look at him. “Do you honestly think I’d do that to you?”
“I think you already have.”
He was right, but the barb still stung. I hadn’t even come close to earning forgiveness yet, but this was not the time to try. Something always seemed to get in the way. “We’re going after Ryan. You’re welcome to join us, if you can control your temper.”
I’d never seen Marc as bitter or openly antagonistic as he’d been over the past week. His anger was getting in the way of his concentration, his sleeping pattern, and his job, but he couldn’t work around it because he couldn’t solve the problem—that was up to me—nor could he get away from it. Every time he turned around, Jace and I were there, our very presence reminding him of what had happened.
This wasn’t going to get any better until I made a decision, one way or another.
Marc’s dark brows dipped low and he stepped closer, so that I had to look up to meet his eyes. “I’m going—on my own terms.” He pulled his black T-shirt over his head, and my gaze caught involuntarily on his chest, sculpted by years of enforcer training and scarred by the rogue who’d brought him into my life fifteen years before. I wanted to trace those scars with my fingers, but I wasn’t sure I had the right to anymore. He’d barely touched me since he found out about me and Jace.
“You don’t outrank me yet,” he spat. “So put your shirt on—you’re staying on two legs. And this time see if you can keep them together.”
I actually staggered backward, floored by the depth of his anger. But not really surprised. I deserved the worst he had to dish out, and he deserved the outlet, especially considering that he couldn’t vent where anyone else could hear him. But damn, the venom in his voice stung.
Jace growled and stepped forward, but I put a hand on his stomach to stop him.
I wanted to yell at Marc, to fight back, but that would only make the whole thing worse. So I swallowed my anger and stuck to the subject. “Hell, no. I’m faster on four legs.” My private run had been cut short by the unauthorized scent in the woods, and I was dying for some exercise in cat form to help clear my head and fight off the bloodlust we’d all been battling for the past couple of weeks. Ever since Ethan died—my brother murdered on our own property.
Marc snatched my shirt from the ground and shoved it at me. “Unless you’re planning to kill him, claws and canines won’t do you any good this time.”
He was right, so I groaned and shoved my arms through the sleeves, then turned my back on them both, already running toward the spot where I’d first caught Ryan’s scent. “Catch up with me when you’ve Shifted.”
I wasn’t a leader. Not really. Not yet. But my father was training me to replace him as Alpha someday, and an Alpha had to be ready to ask questions and issue orders, both of which were hard to do in cat form.
Normally, an Alpha—even a trainee—wouldn’t haul ass through the woods on her own while looking for a known trespasser. Especially in human form, and virtually defenseless against someone with claws and canines. However, this particular trespasser was more than merely known. He was reviled, scorned, and pitied. But he was not feared.
Also, he was my brother.
My pulse raced as I ran and each breath came faster than the last. I tried to exhale it all—to purge my body of the poison I’d been living and breathing since I’d started lying to Marc. That was all over. He knew that I’d slept with Jace—once, in the onslaught of grief for Ethan, while Marc was missing and presumed dead—but the truth had only made things worse. I could apologize, and I had many, many times, but I couldn’t tell him it was over. I couldn’t tell him I didn’t love Jace. Not without lying to him again.
I hated myself for that, but it was a useless hatred. It changed nothing. I loved Marc, but I didn’t deserve him. I loved Jace, but I couldn’t give up Marc. And no matter what I decided, Marc had made it clear that he couldn’t live with Jace anymore. Once the war was over, one of them would have to go. But I didn’t want to lose either one.
Lost in my thoughts and ungainly in human form, I tripped over an exposed root and caught myself on a twisted branch, sparing only a moment to regain my balance. Then I was off again, my lungs burning from the cold.
A few steps later, two sleek, dark forms passed me so quickly I couldn’t even focus on them. But I could smell them. Marc and Jace, fully Shifted into cat form and embroiled in an impromptu race. Everything was a competition now, whether or not it involved me. Everything was tense, and dangerous, and painful. And I could practically taste Marc’s frustration. He could probably have outrun Jace—except he didn’t know where they were going. He hadn’t been there when I told Jace where I’d smelled Ryan.
By the time I got there, they had him treed, a slim human form clinging to the branches overhead. Ryan was little more than a patchwork of shadows cast by the crisscross of branches, but I could swear I saw those shadows tremble.
Marc had wanted him dead all along for what he’d done to me. For giving me to South American tabby traffickers, who would have sold me to the highest bidder.
“Stand down,” I said, and both toms obeyed. Even in his unprecedented state of rage, Marc wouldn’t expose the dissention in our ranks to the enemy. And despite my mother’s soft spot for her second-born, the rest of us definitely considered Ryan an enemy.
“Get down. Now,” I ordered, and after a moment’s hesitation, Ryan dropped to the ground in front of me, knees bent, arms spread for balance. I tried not to acknowledge the skill in his dismount. I attributed it to the frequency with which a coward like my black-sheep brother was probably treed.
“Faythe.” Ryan nodded in tentative greeting, careful not to bow his head too low. He wasn’t prepared to acknowledge my rank in the Pride. Not yet, anyway. Even though he was no longer a member.
The shadow of a bare branch fell across his face, and in my mind I saw steel bars. He’d shown up under a truce flag of sorts for Ethan’s funeral, but there was too much else going on then—I’d hardly given him a second thought. But seeing him here, hiding in the shadows, brought it all back…
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t let them tear your arms off and watch you bleed out.”
“Because Mom would smell my blood the next time she gets within half a mile of here.”
I raised both brows, reluctantly impressed. I’d expected him to beg for his life, or at least appeal to our frayed familial bond. But he obviously knew that would do no good. And that even if I were willing to kill someone who posed no immediate threat, I wouldn’t hurt our mother, even to punish him. She’d already buried one son, and I would not put her through a second funeral in less than a month.
“What the hell are you doing here? And keep in mind that Shifters can take a lot of pain without actually dying.” I’d know.
Ryan had seen me beaten into a