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Secret snorted.
“How stupid are you?” Wilder asked, giving voice to the thing we were all thinking right then. “You saw what she did to The Den. You heard your own sisters tell you what she was capable of, and you took her at her word? You’re a special kind of idiot, aren’t you?”
Ben’s expression changed from one of sadness to one of sharp anger in the flash of an instant and he snarled at Wilder, “Don’t you dare speak to me like you know me. I’m still a prince to you.”
“You put my Alpha and my whole pack in danger. I don’t respect your fucking title anymore,” Wilder replied.
The whole room went dead quiet. There might have been other occasions where I would have defended Ben’s status, but I agreed with Wilder here. Ben was a prince by birth, but what he’d done over the last day showed that his allegiances weren’t to the pack. They were to Ben. That was lone wolf behavior, and lone wolves forfeit any of their pack rights.
Everyone in the house was a werewolf—or had once been, in Secret’s case—and they knew the weight of those words better than most. Lucas, especially, as a king, would be the one most likely to put Wilder in his place, but he said nothing.
No one was on Ben’s side here.
Callum wouldn’t be either.
My brother had fucked up in an irrevocable way. Which made him a dangerous unknown, because I still wasn’t sure whose side he was on, beyond looking out for himself above all others.
There was a chance he was here at Mercy’s request and was just lulling me into complacency so she could strike.
I didn’t think he was a good enough actor for that. Ben tended to wear everything he was thinking and feeling on his sleeve, and there wasn’t a lot of nuance to any of it. Subtlety was an art form my brother had never learned. It was the one thing he and Secret had in common.
Ben, knowing he was outnumbered and wouldn’t gain anything by fighting with Wilder, looked back at me. “She told me she wanted us to know the truth about everything. Mercy said Callum has lied to us for years, and if I went with her she would tell me who our father was, and why she left us when she did. She swore to me she didn’t want to hurt you, but she wanted you to know the truth.” Then he looked at Secret. “And she said we should stay the hell away from her.”
“Yeah. She would,” Secret replied.
“Can’t you see she’s just manipulating you?” I asked him.
“Don’t you want to know?” Ben looked anguished again, and while I felt sympathetic for him, my patience for his naivety was wearing thin. “I want to know who my father is.”
“I know who my father is. He’s the man who raised us, who gave us a home and loved us. Callum McQueen is the only father I care to know.”
“He sent you away,” Ben retorted. “Shipped you off into the swamp, away from everything you knew.”
“He was protecting me. He helped me. I wasn’t alone out there.”
Ben shook his head. “You don’t get it. Callum just uses us when he needs us, that’s how it’s always been. When you were gone he treated me like I was going to be the next Alpha, taught me everything he knew, and then you showed up again, and suddenly it was like I didn’t exist.”
“That’s what this all comes down to, isn’t it? Mercy made you feel special, and you were so fucking jealous of me you would listen to anyone who told you that you were better.”
He was quiet, and I knew I’d nailed it.
“You’re ridiculous.” I lifted my hands to the ceiling in exasperation. “I love you so goddamn much I can’t even hate you right now, but don’t you see what you’ve done? She came back to kill me. To kill Secret. And your desperate need to be the best twin means you helped her. Your need to be seen was more important than your family.” I saw he was about to argue and waved my hand to silence him. “No, don’t try to tell me she’s family. She abandoned us, she tried to murder our sister. There’s no excuse for any of this, Ben. You’re pathetic.”
I hadn’t meant to dig into him so ferociously, but he should really count himself lucky I wasn’t beating him senseless him right now. He’d fucked up in a serious way, and while I was being honest when I said I didn’t hate him, I knew for a fact I’d never trust him again.
Ben had lost his place in my life for this.
He might have very well lost his place in the pack, too.
Ben lowered his head, looking at his clasped hands where they rested between his knees. He was the perfect picture of guilt, but I couldn’t help think it might all still be an act, and even the thought made me ill.
“Tell me where she is.”
“She wanted to hurt Secret, but she couldn’t get to her. She knew hurting you would hurt her most, but she couldn’t get to you either. So she’s going for the next best thing.”
Secret let out a little gasp, and Lucas swore under his breath. They seemed to have figured it out before I was up to speed.
“What? Where is she?” I asked, not sure if I was directing the question to Ben or to Secret and Lucas.
