CHAPTER TWO
Travis
Iwasn’t sure who I wanted to kill first: the lawyer sitting across from me or the half-brother I’d just met. If my father were still alive, he’d have been at the top of my list.
“This can’t be legit.” I shoved the papers away, scattering my father’s last will and testament across the top of the mahogany table. “Darkaway Ranch has been in the family for generations.Ourfamily,” I said, indicating my sister Jada and me. Our three younger siblings weren’t present, but I meant them as well. “Not some shirttail relative.” I pointed a finger at Merrick, who just sat there, scowling like a brainless idiot.
“I’m sorry, Travis, but it’s true,” the pack lawyer said. “Your father was very specific about his wishes. It’s stipulated that upon his death, if his eldest-born son doesn’t have a mate by the next White Wolf Moon, his next eldest son—provided he was mated—would inherit the property. As the Alpha, his word is pack law.”
I growled. Even from the grave, my father was an arrogant, manipulative asshole who tried to control everything.
A friend of mine who worked with me on the set ofSecret Shadows, the supernatural soap opera I starred in, would say it wasn’t good to think ill of the dead—ghosts often had anger-management issues—but I didn’t give a fuck. My father and I had stopped being cordial long ago. Death wasn’t going to change that.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the signet ring and slipped it on my left pinkie. For decades, it had sat on Franklin Monroe’s finger as the leader of the Darkaway Island Pack. Now, it was mine. I held up my fist for them to see and gave it a righteous shake. “I’mthe rightful Alpha, and I say Jada gets the ranch.”
The lawyer shook his head. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.”
I glared at the little weasel. If I were in my wolf form, the fur on my back would be raised, and I’d be baring some fang. “Are you suggesting we fight to see who becomes the pack leader?”
The lawyer gave a nervous laugh. “Of course not. Those old ways are long gone.”
I shot a glance at Merrick, a guy whose muscles were a whole lot bigger than his brains despite the fact that he wore studious-looking glasses.
You want a piece of me?
Although we weren’t packmates and couldn’t read each other’s thoughts, he got my drift. He squirmed in his chair, his gaze not meeting mine.
Next to Merrick was his bony, angular wife, whose name I’d forgotten. Her facial lines indicated she did more frowning than smiling. I wanted to grab them by the scruff of their necks and toss them out the window. Or better yet, shift and tear them to pieces.
Jada poked me in the ribs, sensing my rising anger. “Cool it, little bro,” she whispered. “Just think how I feel.”
Irritated, I reached into her thoughts, packmate topackmate.What do you mean, how you feel? I’m trying to save the ranch for you.
She flashed me a sharp look.Think about it, you stupid lunkhead.
It took me a moment until it dawned on me, and I instantly felt like a jackass.
Our father’s will had completely skipped the fact that Jada was his first-born. An intelligent, competent daughter who was already mated. To a great guy. Jada had been capably running our family’s dude ranch for several years now. She was the one who had made it successful and profitable, something our father had never been able to achieve.
Under her watch, the place had become extremely popular with the supernatural creatures who vacationed on the island. A number of magazines and travel blogs had written about Darkaway Ranch. Nestled like a “gem” at the base of Mystic Mountain, it “promised an authentic cowboy experience for monsters of all types.” It had even made the cover of Paranormal Paradise.
The keyword being she was hisdaughter...not his son.
“Heaven’s Moon,” I muttered. “Sorry, Jada.”
If the will was legit and legal, which it appeared to be, my sister would lose everything she’d worked tirelessly for. I, on the other hand, would simply fly my private plane back to Vancouver to the set ofSecret Shadowsand be just fine. I never wanted to be Alpha anyway. Jada was the real loser in all of this. All because I wasn’t mated—and our father’s ridiculous, archaic demands, of course.
Now that I thought about it from her point of view, how could she remain so calm? I flexed my fists under this big-ass table, wanting to punch something.
“And what if that son is illegitimate?” I spat to the lawyer with as much contempt as possible. “What does pack law say about that?”
Not that I didn’t believe our father had cheated on our mother when they were married—he’d done that a lot, which was one of the reasons I hated him—I just didn’t know he had an entire second family holed up on the mainland, complete with a trophy wife, two kids and a minivan. That explained the missed birthdays, the unexpected business trips, the sudden absences. I was glad Mom told him to go fuck himself last year. Not in those exact terms—she didn’t use words like that—but she was very active in the senior dating scene now and was currently visiting her new gentleman-friend on the East Coast, a retired college administrator.
“All that matters is blood, Travis,” Merrick’s wife said with a syrupy smile. “Surely, you know that.”
Merrick shot his wife a dark glance but said nothing. Except for a few grunts here and there, the dude literally had not said one word. Maybe he was mute.
When Jada and I left the office a short time later, we took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator with my Neanderthal half-brother and his wife. What able-bodied wolf takes an elevator in a two-story building anyway?
