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Knowing there was no way he would tell me what his other businesses were, or what roles his colleagues played, I just nodded.
“Okay. I guess we are done here. Tell the other Alphas to warn their females.” We stood from our stools at the same time, putting us inches from each other. The urge to sniff him again was so strong I had to take three steps away from him. “And to watch their males for any strange behavior. Chris wasn’t going to your pack meetings.”
“On it.” He took two steps forward, stopping an inch away from me. He was so close I had no choice but to look up at him. “So, Red, what do you do for fun?”
His question surprised me so much, my brain stopped working.
“All right, let me try again: Would you like to have dinner with me? This time I’m inviting you. You can wear whatever you want, and I will be on my best behavior. I’ll even talk to you.”
The sexy little smirk on his face had me tempted to say yes. But all the attacks from his pack over the years flashed through my mind. “No. I’m good, thanks.”
I turned my back to him and pressed the button for the elevator. As he moved up behind me, my back tingled from his warmth. We silently stepped onto the elevator then got in the car.
After driving for a little while, he cleared his throat. “What’s your problem with me?”
Shocked that he didn’t know why I disliked him and that he’d care to even ask, my head spun to face him so fast I’m surprised it didn’t pop off. He stared at the road ahead of him as he waited for me to respond.
“You’re serious.”
He glanced at me for a second. “Yes.”
“Do you not remember anything from last night?” His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. “Wow. You basically told me you chose to ignore how your pack has treated me over the years.”
“That’s not what I said at all. I just didn’t answer you.” He took the next exit off the highway and pulled into a gas station parking lot. Shifting in his seat, he turned to face me as much as he could. “Tell me why you hate me so much.”
“Here? Now?”
“Yes. And yes,” he said. “You have some place else to be?”
I sneered at him. “I have work to do. Not all of us are heirs.”
“Will you miss a submission deadline in the next hour?”
I glared at him, ignoring the fact that he knew what I did for a living. I’d never in a million years would have thought he’d have known that. I wanted to tell him to start driving again but decided he should hear what an asshole he is.
“First, you are not special. I also hate the Winter and Spring Alphas. Not one of you stopped your packs from attacking me daily. Even when I was a defenseless child. Your pack has been the worst.” His intense focus on me made me want to climb on top of him and ride him into oblivion. That urge just pissed me off even more. My hormones were deceiving me.
His expression changed and his gaze lowered to my lips. He could sense my arousal. I needed to remember to block myself better. Crossing my legs to stop the tingling, I continued. “I’ve seen you many times at my Council meetings staring at your phone, not paying attention to my side of things. You let them attack me, and then you let me take the fall for it.”
“You kick their asses every time. You haven’t lost a fight once.”
“Not in the past decade or so, no, but I’m not talking about now. I mean when I was little. Before I knew how to protect myself. Before my dad died, I wasn’t strong enough to fend off most of the attacks. If you’d cared enough to pay attention, you’d have noticed it wasn’t just kids who attacked me. Grown ass men kicked the shit out of me plenty of times. The only reason they didn’t kill me was because my dad was still alive. After he died, shit got worse. Much worse.”
“Give me their names.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t need you to protect me. Besides, I got my payback once my dad died. You of all people should know how this shit works.”
When an Alpha dies their power shifts to their eldest male offspring. Like with my dad, if the Alpha only had one child and it’s a girl, the power usually goes to the Beta of the pack, which had been Isaac. His dad died in a pack battle before the truce, so he’d taken over as the Summer pack’s Beta at a young age.
When my dad died, his power should have gone to Isaac, but it found me instead. But since my dad had named him Alpha, Isaac had no choice but to take over that role. I got all the power, and he got all the responsibility.
The transfer of power happens the second the Alpha dies. I had been at school at the time and wasn’t sure what was going on at first. Then I got home and found my dad’s body in the living room and realized what was happening. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but I’d gotten over it… mostly.
I laughed a little making Liam tilt his head. “The fact that I got his power, proved I was his kid. He hated my mark more than any of you. He took it as a sign I wasn’t really his. That I was a bastard. It’s part of why he treated me the way he did. He’d always thought my brown eye was a sign my mom had slept with your dad. That’s the real reason he killed him, not because Bryant wanted to kill me.”
“I figured as much,” he said.
“From what I’ve heard, Bryant was convinced Artemis had cursed me when my mom bled out after giving birth to me. He riled up a bunch of his buddies and they came after me. When my dad protected me, Bryant went after him. Dad used his power to hold the rest of them off and then killed your dad. I still wonder why the hell he didn’t just let them kill me. Why he’d kept me alive has always confused the fuck out of me.”
