It choked him out, and he screamed, yelping helplessly.
“Yield to your alpha,” I snarled.
Tyson struggled but finally went limp. He pulled up his chin, revealing his throat. Immediately, I let go of Basil, pulling him off Tyson’s neck.
I should have felt proud. I should have felt satisfied. In all my years with Declan’s crew, I had never tried to claim a position as alpha. I had always been too scared of what it would mean.
My stomach churned. It didn’t feel like a victory.
Turning away, I walked off into the darkness.
ChapterForty
Cade found me, his footsteps quick as he caught up to me. He wrapped one hand around my wrist, and his magic squeezed us tight. When we appeared in his bedroom, I welcomed the pain, the agony of having my skin stripped off millimeter by millimeter.
“Here.” Cade reached out, grabbing a robe from the bed. He wrapped it around my shoulders. I stared down at the ground, my body aching, my muscles in pain. The scratch on my face was trying to heal, but it was too dirty, and sweat clung to my body.
“You won,” Cade said. He stared at me, his mouth working for a moment before he snapped it shut.
I screwed my eyes shut, grinding the palms of my hands into my eye sockets. I’d won—I should feel victory. Instead, Tyson’s submission hung over my heart, weighing me down. I had claimed another werewolf, one I had no interest or ability to protect.
The pups’ cries still rang in my ears. Tyson’s submission wrapped around my lungs, making it impossible for them to expand.
“Here.” Cade grabbed hold of my wrist, then slid his hand down to my palm so that our fingers were intertwined. He drew me into the bathroom, turning on the shower and waiting with one hand under the spray. When he was satisfied, he slid the robe from my shoulders and nudged me inside.
He stripped, and then he was in the shower with me. I couldn’t even look at his skin, still remembering how Tyson had been covered, how every inch of him had been given to Sonja’s magic.
Using one of the washcloths, Cade worked it to a lather, then began stroking it gently over my neck and chest. As he washed me, the fake tattoos he’d painted on me faded away. I closed my eyes, but I felt none of Cade’s soft strokes over my body, the gentle way he worked sweat and dirt from my skin.
I heard him inhale once, as though struggling before saying something. But then he exhaled sharply, staying silent.
“Come here,” he coaxed, pressing his thumbs to the back of my neck. I tilted my head back into the spray of water, letting it sluice over my face and dig into my hair.
With a sigh, I let the tears begin to fall. They were covered by the water cascading over my body. Cade worked his fingers through my hair, the shampoo a gentle, nearly floral scent.
As he rinsed my hair, the hiccuping sobs lessened, so when he turned me around, my eyes were clear.
Even though I wasn’t crying, he traced his thumbs under my eyes, wiping away the last of the moisture. He frowned. “But you survived.”
“It’s not that.” I swallowed.
Cade reached behind me. He turned off the water and stepped out the door. Grabbing one of the fluffy towels, he wrapped it around my shoulders.
Using one corner of the towel to dry my neck, Cade said, “Then what is it?”
“I’m not an alpha. I can’t be.” I swallowed the words that wanted to come out, that wanted to explain.
“I think it’s pretty clear that you are. That was how you won without killing him.” There was something hesitant in Cade’s words. He was feeling in the dark, looking for a light switch.
I shook my head. It was too hard to explain—there were too many pieces that I couldn’t. Finally, I settled on the one thing I could tell him.
“My mother never would have had to do that.” It was true, but it was nowhere near the whole truth.
“Your mother was an alpha?” Cade asked quietly.
I nodded.
“She was an alpha by blood, like me. My dad used to tell the story about how she became his alpha. He’d grown up in a fundamentalist pack—the ones with the strict hierarchy,” I explained when Cade frowned in confusion. “You don’t question your parents, you don’t question your alpha. The word of the alpha is the word of god.”
