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Seeing Callum and the other alphas interacting with their packs was a whole new experience. I always prided myself on being a fair alpha. Yet, I was quickly learning that everything I thought was a fucking joke. I was a pawn for the elders and an enabler of all that was wrong with our society. I’d just accepted and assumed that this was the way lifehadto be, that all wolves under us had to submit.
I splashed cold water on my face as I warred with myself. The water dripped off of me as I gripped the edges of the sink, breathing out my frustration. When I swiped a hand over my face to clear the water and look in the mirror, I barely recognized the man looking back at me. My life had gotten so out of control I could barely make sense of it all.
With one last sigh I let go and forced myself to leave the bathroom. I had a lot to prove still and I wasn’t going to back down from the challenge.
When I stepped into the hall, I nearly ran into Callum.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. He held a hand up when I tried to pass him and I was forced to look at the man. He was exhausted but at least his face wasn’t full of anger or disdain. It was a welcome change.
“Why don’t you come help me with this part of the fence. I was just about to start in on it.” He handed over a pair of gloves and pliers. We both fucking knew it wasn’t about the fence. It was about talking. This mismatched pack of ours was a huge mess between his forced mating and me demanding to be Vanya’s mate. We’d thrown their dynamic wide open and everyone was still reeling from it.
We didn’t talk until we were standing by the fence. The tension between us rose steadily but he pretended not to notice.
“Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives as a pack?” I asked him. There was no need to beat around the bush. He let out a laugh that held no humor and I braced myself for the verbal assault.
“Are you asking me if I’m just going to be okay with you joining us after you clearly added to the trauma that Vanya lived through?”
“She’s my mate too,” I reminded him. “And we’ve already explained until we’re blue in the face that it was a different world for us. Does it make it okay? No. But that’s for her to forgive and us to work out. It’s up to Vanya and me to face.”
“What happens to her concerns all of us,” Leven cut in. Just the sight of him had anger rising to the surface.
“How are you going to say that to me when you’ve ignored her for days?! She’s fucking miserable and you’d rather keep your head in the sand?”
“Yet you know what I didn’t do? Scar her permanently for no fucking reason,” he growled. We were standing toe to toe now.
“That was the elder council, not me. She was older and well past the rebellious streak by the time I became alpha. I may have been forced to dole out rare punishments, but I wasn’t solely responsible for doing that to her. I tried to prevent it.”
“Yet it still happened, and that place was still hell for her until she ran. You threatened exile or punishment to a grieving pack member,” he shot back.
“I may have not made it easy for her at times and the traditions still stood in our way, but I’m not the monster you think I am. I asked her to join me from the start. It would have saved her,” I defended. “You barely fucking know her. What’s her favorite color, Leven? Favorite food? What’s something she loves to cook but can’t quite master? Do you know how she got that scar on her thigh? It wasn’t punishment but recklessness.”
“We get it, you have a history,” Callum deadpanned. “That doesn’t mean you know her anymore, Torryn. You know her past. She’s not that girl anymore.”
“No, she’s not,” I said quieter this time. She was stronger now and I wanted to be worthy of a woman like her.
“All that knowledge doesn’t erase the bad history, just because you know some of the good,” Leven added on.
“No, it doesn’t. But it means something to her and she means the world to me. I’ve already agreed to come join your pack. I’ve stepped down from my title and given over my pack to save yours and fight alongside you. I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to be the man Vanya wants me to be. But that doesn’t mean I’ll sit here and continue to take your shit. Her opinion is the one that matters.”
Leven chuckled at the venom in my last words. “Good. Because if you were a pushover, you’d never last amongst us. It’ll take time before we forgive you, but we’re not the ones you have to suck up to.”
“All right, all right,” Callum cut in before the conversation could devolve again. “We have work to do. Three more holes to go, in fact. We have to finish before the witches arrive.” He pointed out the broken portions and we focused on our work.
When Leven finished, he turned to me. “Did you know other supernaturals existed?” The question was so random it caught me off guard.
“Of course I did,” I said with a laugh.
“Then how did Vanya have no clue?” he countered.
“Probably because Vanya had her nose buried in books most of her life. She didn’t care about the rest of the world or politics, much less pack business,” I said. She’d skipped out on more than one pack meeting and I always found her afterward, tucked away on her bed with a cup of tea and a book, clueless she missed them at all.
“Sounds about right,” Callum said with a snort of laughter. “You’re right, you do have a history. That just might save your skin here. She’ll work through the past trauma, it’s the lies about Meira that will be your downfall.”
It was starting to feel like the millionth fucking time we were having these conversations. At this point we were all going around in circles and it was maddening.
“What would you have done differently?” He turned at my challenge and crossed his arms.
“I’d have told her that her sister was taken.”
