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“What do you mean, a partnership?”
“It’s very simple. You take me as your bonded mate and make me your Alpha. We rule our own pack together, the most powerful Alpha couple in the East, and you’ll never have to worry about me rejecting you. I don’t have to love you to be loyal, Gem.” Shane sniffs, throwing a look over my shoulder back the way we came. “Can Ryker say the same?”
Oof.
I don’t know what hurts worse? The reminder that Ryker rejected me twice, that I still don’t understand his thing with Trish, or that my only worth is a quirk of my birth.
Shane only wants me for what I can do for him. Just like I’ve always been warned.
How could I forget?
Pretty easily, actually. Because Ryker has spent the last few days insisting that my alpha status doesn’t mean anything to him, and Aleks could never be affected by such a shifter concern.
Oh, boy.
I fucked up.
I fucked up big time.
“All you have to do is say yes,” Shane tells me. As he takes a step closer, a stray moonbeam lights up his face, showing his absolute certainty that I’m going to agree to this insanity. “The moon will bless us if you agree. We can mate right here, be bonded right now.”
As an alpha, it goes against everything I am to retreat. Then again, I’m not pure wolf. I’ve got a human half that knows when to cut and run.
I move back. I just need to find the opportune moment to get the hell out of here.
Keep him distracted, Gem. Then go.
Pretending to be sweet will probably tick him off, so I just give him a disbelieving look of my own. “Yeah? What about Ryker?”
“What about him? He might not have taken the bait anytime I sent her his way, but he’ll settle for Trish when he has no other choice. An Alpha needs a mate, and he can’t stay locked in the basement for another year. Who knows? If you hadn’t shown up tonight, he might not have survived this one.”
I blink.
A low laugh, one that sends a shiver down my spine. Huh. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s been hiding just what they are from the rest of the pack.
Here, just the two of us, Shane’s finally showing me who he is.
And I hate the dickhead.
“You didn’t come to the basement because you knew I was there, did you?” Luna, I hope I’m wrong, but… “You were going to do something to Ryker, but you couldn't.”
“Plans change. They change all the time. I’ve spent years working toward this moment. You think I was going to let fate stop me? Ever since Wicked Wolf Walker promised to ally with any alpha who tamed his wayward daughter, I’ve been planning on how I’d make you mine. No one’s gonna stand in my way. Not the Mountainside Pack. Not its lovesick Alpha. Not even you.”
Forget Ryker. Forget Trish.
“Wicked Wolf Walker,” I say dully. “What do you know about the Wicked Wolf of the West?”
For almost twenty-five years, my mom and I have been hiding out from the bastard who sired me. I always knew that any male shifter who discovered my secrets would want to be my mate—and, look at that, Shane’s living proof right here—but if Jack Walker found out that I was an alpha and that I was alive? He wouldn’t stop until I was at his mercy.
And Shane’s telling me that my sperm donor knows?
“The better question, dear Gem, is what does he know about you?” Luna, I want to slap that cocky grin off of his face. “He knows Ryker rejected you. He knows you’re a lone wolf. And he knows that you’re a threat to us all unless you have a mate willing to tame you. It has to be me.”
“Like hell it is.”
“You weren’t supposed to run,” he says, as if I didn’t snap back at him. “Last year. When I finally arranged with the Lakeview Pack to let you out of their sight, you weren’t supposed to run when I finally pushed Trish to get in the way of you and Mr. Perfect Alpha.”
Oof. That sneer.
