AllFreeNovel
Share Us
From what Secret had told me, Desmond had offered to give Lucas the throne back as soon as he was out of the hospital, but the former king had declined outright. Desmond was in charge now, and it was as it should be. Lucas had decided to spend some time experiencing what life was like without the crushing expectation of leadership on his shoulders.
Secret said he’d bought a one-way ticket to Peru and hadn’t told anyone when he’d be back.
And Wilder?
Wilder had gotten in a fair few I told you so barbs on our flight back to Louisiana, and since then we had tried to put the entire thing behind us. A light load of pack drama heading into the holiday season certainly helped. Callum was distracted with rebuilding the bar, a job he had enlisted Ben to do all the physical labor for by way of penance for his betrayal.
It would be a long time before anyone in the pack trusted Ben again, if they ever did, but Callum pointed out that we couldn’t exactly bring Hank back into the fold and then banish Ben for the very same crime.
Still, I didn’t know when I’d be able to look my brother in the face again and not feel repulsed by him.
The nagging, insidious little voice I’d heard in the back of my head at the hospital hadn’t returned since, which I was hoping meant it had just been a weird thing I had imagined, but I hadn’t forgotten it, not for a second.
It had sounded just like Mercy.
And that was a voice I didn’t need popping up in my head.
Wilder hit play on the first episode of the season and I sipped my wine contentedly, but we weren’t even through the opening credits when his phone started to ring.
“Ignore it,” I pleaded.
“I can’t just ignore it, it could be important.”
He glanced at the screen and frowned, then paused the show and immediately left the room.
This hadn’t happened since before we left for New York. It had been over three weeks, which was plenty enough time for me to have forgotten the wave of messages he received before the ordeal with my mother was resolved.
Other women might have worried about their boyfriends leaving the room because of a potential secret lover. Wilder didn’t have time to date someone else, he was with me almost every waking hour.
What did set my Spidey-sense a tingling was the fact he might be in trouble and hiding it from me. Was Hank up to no good? It seemed the most likely explanation.
About ten minutes later, when my nerves were in full on jangle mode, he returned to the room looking pale and grim. He didn’t look at me until he sat on the coffe
e table in front of me and set the phone down on the couch.
“What is it?” I asked, knowing something very obviously wasn’t right.
“I need to go.”
“Go where?”
He glanced away, as if he was frustrated with himself for not knowing how to tell me what he was trying to say. “I have to go away.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t have to go anywhere.”
“Genie, just listen for a second. Do you remember when I came back? I told you I’d been living with the Shreveport pack, and I’d been groomed by their Alpha to take over?”
“Yes.” I understood each of these words individually, but together they were still impossible for me to comprehend.
“He died last night.”
“Okay.”
We stared at each other for a moment until he said, “I’m still in line to be the Alpha.”
I blinked at him. “No, that’s impossible. You’re my second. You belong here. We can talk to Callum about this and he’ll fix it, he’ll find someone else, and—”
“Genie, no.”
