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“What about the baby?” It wasn’t mine. A fact I hoped my father never found out.
My dad frowned. “I have no intentions of killing either of them. All the women will be brought in alive. The baby will be raised with us in the house. Willa will go with the rest of the women to the enforcers once she gives birth.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Willa would crumble if we took her baby and gave her to the enforcers. She’d barely held it together living in my room, and I’d never touched her.
A loud thwack crackled through the air, and Lincoln cried out, drawing me from my thoughts and back to the conversation.
“We’ll need more men to do that.”
Lincoln groaned in the distance, and a fleeting image of Sloane that wasn’t mine filled my mind, making me stumble.
Thankfully, my distraction went unnoticed.
Dad didn’t miss a beat. “We will be taking a lot more men with us next time.”
“If we take too many men, we could leave our pack vulnerable.”
My dad put his arm out in front of me, forcing me to stop and turn to him. “I’ve called for reinforcements. The packs we have taken on are stable now. I’m bringing more of our men home. It’ll take a couple weeks for the men and the wolfsbane, but the next time we go, there will be hell for what they’ve done to us today.”
I bowed my head. “Good. I’m glad to hear things are going well with the other packs.”
This was horrible news. I had hoped that some of the packs would rebel, put up some sort of fight. It looked like we weren’t going to be that lucky.
My dad clenched his hand into a tight fist and shook it. “Once we squash the last bit of resistance, we will have the entire West Coast, and then we’ll start working our way east.”
I forced a smile. “We are making quick work. How long do you think it will take us to cover the entire upper forty-eight?”
“It took us three years to get to where we are. A little over, actually. With our manpower now, we should be able to move faster. And there are fewer packs in the more populated areas.”
My dad dropped his arm and motioned for me to follow his lead. We were almost at the barn now.
“And what happens after we take all the packs in the US?”
My dad put his hand on the barn door and gave me a wicked smile. “Why would we stop there? We will move into Mexico, Canada, maybe even to Europe. But I think most importantly, we need to build our numbers.”
I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re still intending to tell the human world about us?”
He looked at me like I was mad for not seeing his master plan the way he did. “Of course I am. They need to know that we are superior to them. What they did to your mother and sister is unacceptable. I won’t see any other pack suffer at their hands ever again.”
My father and I have had this fight over a dozen times. There was a reason we didn’t tell people that shifters existed. Sure, we could shift and we were fast and strong, but they had guns and tanks and bombs. At the end of the day, we could be as strong as we are, and it wouldn’t matter going up against any of that.
My dad patted my shoulder before throwing the barn door open. He strode toward Mikey and greeted him with a clap on the back.
I stood in the doorway for a long moment. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Lincoln. He was lying on the dirty barn floor. Cuts and bruises riddled his body, and dirt and straw stuck to the dried blood.
The smell of his blood and sweat mingled with his natural earthy scent, making me gag. I put a hand over my mouth and feigned a cough.
I needed to figure out how to get him out of here. That wasn’t going to be an easy task. My father was watching everyone like a hawk.
Speaking of, my dad turned back to look at me.
I forced my gaze away from my twin and marched into the barn. I stopped a few feet from Lincoln and did my best not to look at him. As I swept my gaze over the barn, I exhaled slowly, realizing that Sloane wasn’t here. Lincoln was blocking her. He’d gotten good at that. I was both glad and sad about it at the same time.
No one should have to endure Mikey’s torture alone, but Sloane didn’t need to see this.
My dad looked between Mikey and me. Then he moved closer to Lincoln and kicked him right in the side. I gnashed my teeth together and forced myself to watch without flinching.
Pain ricocheted down my side, making my vision tunnel.
