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“Worse than him following her every time she leaves the house?” Topher demands, his tone as hard as his eyes.
“Much worse.” Seb grimaces. “He’s been here. To our home. And none of us fucking noticed.”
The temperature in the room drops a good ten degrees, and each of us are lost in our anger and confusion.
“Not possible.”
“Our mate is not a liar,” I reply with a frown. Relief fills me quite quickly, though. “But that just means Ethan has crossed pack lines, and his life is now forfeit. We marked him for death years ago. Now, we can legally follow through.”
“I don’t care about the law,” Fluffy says angrily. “I care about justice.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Inside?” Topher’s mouth is pressed in a straight line, and I can feel the dominance pouring off him in waves. It only powers Fluffy and me up that much more, and we’re practically vibrating with energy.
My shift is so close, and I’m about to hurl over the edge and become my wolf when Seb growls low. I freeze, waiting to see how he responds.
“Calm, brother,” Alex says, and I can’t tell if he’s talking to me, Seb, or Topher. We’re all just as reckless and agitated.
“No. Outside. But so were we. The night Maia met the twins, he came here to see her and Phoebe,” Kane says. “My mate was in danger, and none of us fucking noticed. Our pup was around that vermin, and nobody knew.”
“Maia is an idiot for keeping this to herself.” The words tumble out of my mouth without my permission, and despite Fluffy’s angry growl at me, I can’t bring myself to listen to him.
She is.
She’s put herself and our pup in danger by being this... stupid.
Did she really think she was seeing Ryan? Ignoring the fact that nobody would want to see that cowardly fucker, she really thought that seeing ghosts was a good thing?
She was pregnant. She had a baby.
Did she really think she was the peak of mental health when she’s fucking hallucinating?
“She would have been scared. She was alone because he left her,” Fluffy says angrily. “She protected herself and our pup. She kept them both safe until she came to us, and it’s meant to be our job to now keep them safe. We failed. All of us failed.”
“Do not dare say those words to my mate,” Kane roars, stepping forward, and I have no doubt that if it weren’t for Alex’s intervention, those clenched fists of his would’ve met my face.
“Our.” Alex’s one word has my head snapping over to look at him, just like Kane’s does. “Maia is our mate, and we’re all entitled to our feelings over our mate’s actions.” Alex waits until Kane nods before turning to me with a raised eyebrow. “What was she meant to say to us, Ben?”
“The truth? Hey, guys, I’m a fool who thinks I can see the dead. I’ve spent the last eight months hallucinating your dead cousin. Don’t worry, though, rather than invite him into the bedroom to watch me get myself off, I let our pup meet him, instead.” I clench my jaw and desperately try to hold Fluffy back.
Mainly because my wolf is likely going to want to hurt me and not anything else.
“She should have told us tonight,” Topher says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “The moment she heard about Ethan and started putting this all together, she should have said something.”
“She never intended to keep this secret,” Seb says quietly. “Forgive her. Now.”
“Not how it works, brother,” Alex says, and Seb growls low. He storms over to the armchair and sits down with a heavy sigh. “Maia made her choices, and whilst we all will have a united front when we address them... we are allowed to be upset whilst we work through them. She did omit a very big secret, and it’s something that is hugely concerning from a safety perspective.”
“Which is why she was so scared to admit it,” Kane says, and I missed that change. He looks at Topher. “She knew you’d be mad. Ben, she wasn’t surprised about. But she thought you’d understand, Alex.”
Alex shrugs. “I do, mostly. I’m frustrated that, once more, our family has lowered the bar, yet again, and has hurt her. I’m concerned that if they’ve been following her for as long as they have that there was a reason Ryan was reckless enough to give our mate our baby. I’m scared that this ploy is going to end in Maia being hurt.
“And I’m fucking terrified that they’re hanging around, waiting to snatch our pup away from us. It would destroy Phoebe. But worse than that, it would kill Maia. Our family doesn’t have a good history of protecting the women in our family... so what hope does that leave when we can’t even figure out what the fuck is going on?”
I blink at him in surprise before dropping my head in my hands.
“She’s in danger. Our pup... our mate... what the fuck is going on, Fluffy?” I moan to him, not wanting to vocalise my words to anyone and cause more issues.
