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Zade puts his hands up, palms out, like we’re arresting him. “No, no.” His face looks genuinely shocked, like any of us really thinks he wasn’t kidding. “I know, I mean, I know that we’re not going to do sacrifices, but since it was kind of an unspoken thing, I thought it would be…”

Denvil lets out a bark of a laugh and grabs Zade, ruffling his hair before Zade pushes him off. Zade is buffer than Denvil, but the copper-haired alpha has a strange sort of strength that all the more limber Southern shifters carry with them. It makes you underestimate them

“Aw, it’s okay man. Someday you’ll get good at joking around.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m waiting for marriage.”

“Enough,” Brack says, turning to me and giving me an expectant look. It says okay, so what now?

Slowly, they all turn to face me.

“What?” I rub a hand over my face, feeling tired, feeling the ghost of a headache haunting my brain stem, feeling like the only thing I want to do is crawl back into my bed and stay there for years.

No, that’s not true.

The only thing I want to do is find that omega.

Mylah. I still remember the shape of her name as it formed on her lips. Still remember the way my body reacted at the sound of it, like a spell whispered directly to my soul. Stupid, poetic shit that I’d never thought of before laying eyes on her.

The only thing I want to do right now is go to her, take her in my arms. Kiss her. Do a lot more than that—claim every inch of her body with my hands, flatten her against the bed. Get my scent on her and promise her that not another shifter will ever lay a hand on her without losing the damn thing.

Even thinking about that man holding her—a man from my own pack, who obeyed my commands to set her down immediately—makes me want to kill someone. To rip them limb from limb and make an example of the fucker who thinks he can touch my mate.

Slowly, I come back into my head and realize the three of them are no longer staring at me. Instead, they’re exchanging looks amongst themselves, no doubt trying to figure out and communicate amongst themselves what they think is wrong with me right now.

The three of them, throughout the years, have expressed worry about the headaches. Have asked me what’s going on, said that it felt like one night I just changed. Got a lot more serious. Got a lot more secretive.

And that’s the truth.

None of them can ever know about Mylah. Nobody—not in this pack or any other—can know about her. First, because it’s not beneficial. Second, because I am already betrothed.

And finally, because if they knew that she was my mate, she would instantly become a target. I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do with her now, but it feels better to have her here than to have her out there, vulnerable.

I should have thought about this a long time ago. Getting her and bringing her here. Maybe then, her heats won’t be quite so painful for me. Maybe knowing she is, at least, safe, will keep the headaches at bay.

“Aug, man,” Zade says with a sigh, shaking his head and straightening up from the table. “Are you going to tell us what the hell is going on?”

“Nothing is going on.”

“I’m against the sacrifices as much as the next man,” Denvil says, gesturing at me with his cherry sucker, “but it was a bit of a…scene. As much as I hate to agree with Kellen, that much is true.”

“You went ballistic,” Brack adds, in the brisk manner of his.

I sigh, doing my best to keep from gritting my teeth. “You know what it is. I don’t want to be like my father. This entire plan was my idea—taking the kid, asking for a sacrifice in turn. I didn’t want to be the reason that a shifter was being sacrificed during my rule.”

They all stare right at me, as though they don’t quite believe it, but can’t come up with another explanation. Good. The last thing I want is for them to go thinking about it, coming up with what other reason might have driven me to save that woman.

“Fine,” Zade sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But next time, maybe you could clue us into what you’re going to do? Do you know how hard it was for me to get those goats?”

“Not hard,” Denvil laughs, and Zade pushes at him. “You literally just told the farmer to hand them over.”

“Yes, but the goats did not want to cooperate as I led them to their deaths.”

“Fair enough,” Denvil cackles, sticking the sucker in his mouth and cracking down hard, so the rest of us wince at the sound.

“To the goddesses,” Brack mutters, shaking his head. “You’ll crack a tooth.”