Page 50 of Vendetta

Scent-match.

That hot brunette was definitely my scent-match. My pack’s scent-match. Did Nico know? Did Cruz? How could they not? It was so obvious.

Restlessly, I paced the soft carpet of my nest, letting the plush pile squish between my toes. I wanted to sleep, but how could I now?

No, this wasn’t happening.

Before my thoughts had even caught up with my actions, I was pushing open my door back into the hallway. Nico had to be around here somewhere. He’d have answers. He'd better fucking have answers.

There, in the kitchen, with a bottle of whiskey next to his hand. Okay. Well, maybe he wasn’t handling this very well, either.

“What the fuck, Nico?” I tried to gentle the turbulent emotions that infused each word, but with the way he looked up from his empty glass, I wasn’t sure how successful I’d been.

“I thought you were going to bed.” His voice oozed, thick with whiskey and repressed rage.

I pulled up a stool, filled his glass, and shot it back. “How could I sleep with that in the basement?”

“Yeah, well.” Nico grabbed another glass and poured us both a double.

I ran my finger around the rim of my fresh glass. “‘Yeah, well’? You can’t just ‘yeah well’ me when you have our scent-match locked in the basement.”

His knuckles went white around the bottle of whiskey, and I was half worried he might crush it.

I wrestled the bottle from him with some effort and moved it to the other side of the counter.

“We didn’t know at first. Fuck, I wasn’t even sure until now. You picking up on it that easily confirms my suspicion. We’ve all been on heavy scent-blockers at work. She must’ve been, too. I didn’t want to believe it.” He sat on the stool next to me, propped his elbows on the counter, and dropped his head into his hands.

“Does she know?”

“The less she knows about all of this, the better,” Nico replied.

“I don’t see the problem, just bite her in.” I waited for him to agree, but when he didn’t, I realized just who she must be. “This isn’t the girl Francisco wants, right? That’s someone else? Right?” I stared at him so hard that my eyes began to ache. She couldn’t be.

“No.” That was all he said. One word.

My head spun. This was the girl that Francisco wanted us to torture and probably kill… to avenge the death of his wife. The one Nico swore would suffer, just like his mother had.

She was supposed to be the center of our pack, the part that brought us all together, balanced us.

“Well, we can’t just…” I waved my hand in the air. “We can’t just give her to him.”

“If that’s what needs to be done, we can, and we will,” Nico said, tossing back another shot of whiskey.

My fingers speared through my tangled hair, tugging roughly at the warm brown strands. “We have to fight for her. She’s ours. Claim her. Can’t you just bond her and tell Francisco to go fuck himself? That’s what you should do.”

“She’s our enemy. Her family has to pay for what they’ve done. Even if she wasn’t, my father would decimate us and not even blink if he thought we’d consider betraying him. Not only would I lose everything I’ve worked my whole life for, but more importantly, I’d lose you, too. He’d torture you. I’d feel everything, then Cruz. He’d kill you both, making me suffer the loss, feeling each bond shredded slowly and painfully until it finally snapped. Then he’d force me into a pack so I wouldn’t die, where he’d use another alpha to control me.” He filled his glass from the nearly empty bottle on the counter. “When the time comes, we will do what we are told.” He brought the glass to his lips and let the amber liquid slide down his throat.

God, he was too hot for his own good.

“Nah, we won’t,” I replied with a confidence I didn’t feel.

“I said we will do what’s necessary, and you will follow orders. We’ve come this far without a scent-match. We don’t need one. End of discussion.”

That was not the end of the fucking discussion but based on the rapidly diminishing bottle, Nico was in no position to discuss anything.

“I need one of those,” Cruz said, appearing from the hallway that led to the basement access. He plucked the glass from in front of me and finished it off. Fine, they could get shitfaced if they wanted.

“You both owe me a conversation when you’re sober enough to have one.” I got up and went back to my nest, flopping into the mountain of furry blankets piled on my bed.