Silas erupts from where he stands. “What? Fucking,what?” His voice tears through the tension. “Your daughter? How could you not tell us that? And don’t tell me Mona knows, I know she doesn’t. Wait, did you two—” his head whips toward Orion and Grayson. Orion shrinks back, guilt plastered across his face, but Grayson’s expression hardens into granite.
“Kendrick didn’t want the information out there—”
“Out there?!” Silas roars. “I’m her fucking mate! I’m your brother! How could you not tell me this?”
Their voices escalate. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m going to be sick. Kendrick? My father?
“Mona?” Andrea whispers, tugging on my sleeve. “Luna, are you okay?”
The voices downwind escalate. Silas seethes on about how I’m the daughter of the most powerful shifter, and that was why Deidre wanted me, that the information might have been helpful to him sooner. Another argument ignites, accusations thrown.
My head spins, rage building like a pressure cooker. Those men down there playing toy fucking soldiers with my life. I spin on Andrea. “Did you know?”
I don’t lower my voice. And when her eyes flick over my shoulder and widen, then meet mine, I know they heard me, too.
I hear them calling my name in the distance. The sounds of shifters running toward me.
“Did youknow?” I ask again.
Andrea dips her chin.
She knew, Beep says gently, but without that bite of accusation in her tone that I’m feeling. Of all the times for Beep to defend Andrea, she chooses now?
I’m not defending her. But this is a lot, and I’m sure she had her reasons.
Ignoring Beep, I snarl, “Stay the fuck away from me,” then start walking away. Before they can get too close, before they can reach me, I turn to the five men now filling the dirt road.
And I look at Kendrick in a new light.
He looks… devastated. Quietly wrecked, like the storm has already passed through, and all that’s left in its wake is battered and broken debris. Longing—he’d done such a good job of hiding it before—leaks out of him. It whips around us, like a slow-building earthquake. My knees shake until I realize I’m not the one shaking. It’s the ground.
It’s him.
His alpha explodes outward like a nuclear blast, his eyes flashing super-nova bright, before drowning in black. Fangs ripthrough his gums as he snarls and convulses, muscles straining against his own skin as his wolf claws its way to the surface, desperate to break free. He trembles with the effort of caging his beast, while my mates slowly move to stand between me and him.
My mouth snaps shut. I don’t know what to say.
Kendrick is not some floppy-haired, mild-mannered alpha with kind eyes and a diplomatic smile.
He’s the fucking king. His power is enormous, so raw and forceful, it literally shakes the earth. Shakesme.
And I’m his daughter.
I don’t know how much time passes. The seconds stretch while he wrestles his power back into its cage. The yearning and sadness radiating from him slams into me. His eyes, still glowing at the edges, lock onto mine with such helpless desperation I have to fight not to stagger backward.
While his face contorts with such naked shame, I can almost taste the metallic tang of it in the air between us, he chokes out, “Desi—”
I don’t know where the bravery comes from. But I know—just as I know Beep is my best friend, that my mates love me, and that Andrea is in pain—I know he won’t ever hurt me. So I hold up my hand and pour Beep’s strength into the words. “Do not follow me.”
“Mona—” One, or all of my mates start, but I shake my head. “I fucking mean it. Don’t. I need a minute, yeah? Or ten?” I turn and storm off, fully expecting them to ignore my wishes.
Hoping secretly that they do, so I can scream in someone’s face.
I’m both relieved and annoyed when it’s Andrea who follows.
Andrea has the decency to look uncomfortable as we stride down the dirt road at a quicker pace than on our way here. We’verounded the bend, and only when we’re out of their sight do I feel like I can breathe again.
“He asked me not to say anything.”
