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“They fear fighting me, but alpha is more than fighting. It’s authority. It’s keeping the pack together. My wolf would kill all of them. It couldn’t keep anyone together, even this pack.”
“Even this pack? What does that mean?”
“It’s not much to keep together.”
She stopped and faced him head-on. “How many wolves do you have?”
He held up his hand and started ticking them off. “Dad, Silas, and Nathan. They’re all that’s left of the older generation.”
She put her hands over his, curling his fingers back down. “You can count them on your hand.”
He held up the other hand. “I need both hands now.”
“You have less than ten wolves in your entire pack.”
“More than that. A little more than that. There’s six in my generation, and in the next, there’s Buck, the twins, Louis, and Carter, so that’s five. Well, Buck is my generation, technically. He’s a cousin too, but it doesn’t feel like it. Nathan tried for years to sire a shifter. He has five or six regular kids running around, all with different mothers.”
“So you needthreehands to count your pack.”
“We had more, but most don’t make it out,” he said as he urged her on.
“Make it out of what?”
“Childhood.”
Her face lost all color. “Why the hell not?”
Almost unconsciously, he touched his newest scar at the corner of his lip. “You can guess how well it goes when you can turn into a deadly beast with poisonous fangs at one year old. We’re careful, but it’s pretty touch and go. My mom can undo some damage for my brother and me, but her spells didn’t work for any of the others.”
“You’re not immune to your own poison? How is that possible?”
He didn’t want to tell her.
“Out with it,” she said flatly.
“The witches.”
“We didn’t?—”
“The witches that made dire wolves. The spell that created us neglected that little detail. I try to tell myself they just didn’t think it through. They couldn’t be that sadistic.”
“Well, shit,” she said and touched the corner of his mouth, too. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do it. And if you did, I think we’re more than even.”
“Not yet.”
She had a glint in her eye he was becoming wary of. “What are you thinking?”
She rubbed her hands together. “My powers of persuasion did not work. So we’re going to give Buck a taste of his own medicine.”
“We’re going to do what?”
She spun back to him. “I’m going to make him afraid and small and wondering if he’s ever going to see his home, and then we’re going to have that conversation again.”
He caught her hands in his. “Because he made you feel afraid and small and uncertain.”
She stiffened. “No.”
