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He felt outnumbered and almost turned her out just to show these two who was boss around here. The wolf in him wasn’t pleased to simply let the matter go. But Sara was right. Veronica was family. “Okay, stay until the issue is over,” he said.
“Thank you, Xavier,” she said quietly.
He glanced at Sara, who gave him a smile that warmed his heart. He still felt uneasy about the situation, but what could he do?
“I don’t know what I would have done if you’d turned me down,” Veronica said humbly. “It wasn’t until after I left that I realized what a big, lonely place the world could be. People play by different rules out there. No one has your back, and you just can’t trust people. We may have had our differences, but we were always there for each other when push came to shove.”
“It’s a shame you couldn’t have realized that before you left,” said Xavier, still not happy that his sister had turned up out of the blue and pressured him like that.
“I did, Xavier,” she informed him. “It was the rules I couldn’t cope with. I didn’t want to be obedient like some trained lapdog. I needed to be free of that.”
“All the pack laws are still there, you know,” he replied.
“Yes, of course. But now I see that they are there for a reason.”
“As long as you understand, they still apply to you as well as the rest of the pack.” Xavier could remember all too well how Veronica had challenged everything before she left. Not only the laws of the pack but him too. He’d been trying to find his feet as a new alpha after his parents died, and Veronica had put every obstacle in his way that she could.
She’d done her best to thwart his every action, and she was completely underhanded about it too. It wasn’t until after she left that he found out the true extent of her disloyalty. She had tried to draw several high-up members of the pack to turn against him. She had told everyone he was incompetent as a leader and had done her best to undermine him.
He couldn’t quite remember how it had started. She had probably disobeyed a direct order or something, but over the following year, her behavior had become more and more extreme. Until they had a showdown. A final reckoning. She had called him out and challenged his leadership and his decision-making. They had gone into the forest and fought. As always, it had been a close call, but he had bested her in one-to-one combat. As she had lain whimpering beneath him, he couldn’t bring himself to make the killing blow. “Get out,” he had whispered in her ear. “Get out and don’t come back.”
No one in the pack had heard about their final scrap, and he had never told anyone that he had sent his sister into exile. He had sentenced her to a fate worse than death. And now she sat before him in his kitchen, wanting redemption. He was aware of Sara looking uncomfortable as they faced each other across the kitchen table. Maybe he should have asked her to leave while he sorted this out with Veronica.
Veronica spoke first. “I am sorry for my actions before,” she said. “Truly, Xavier. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened, and I know now I should have supported you. It was the one time you really needed my help, and your own sister turned against you. I shouldn’t have left you as I did,” she said.
He breathed out a sigh of relief, though even now, they were stepping around one another, dancing a perilous dance. His wolf paced restlessly inside him, uneasy.
“After Mom and Dad died, I felt trapped,” she explained to him. “We’d always squabbled, but in a way, we were always equals. But then you became alpha, and everything changed. Suddenly you were my boss. You controlled the laws that governed my life. I felt like you were lording it over me.” Her face was full of sorrow as she said this, and Xavier got a glimpse for the first time of what it must have been like for her.
“I know I shouldn’t have gone as far as I did,” she continued. “At first, I was just bitching about my big brother, but then I noticed people listening to me. Everything got a bit crazy.”
Xavier listened to his kid sister explaining herself. “I guess I didn’t realize how hard things were for you either,” he said. “But I still don’t like the fact that you have come back like this, and you’re putting both the pack and Sara in danger.” In fact, he was still seething mad inside, but if being alpha had shown him one thing, it was that a responsible leader hid their true feelings. “So, how much trouble are you in?” he asked.
“I pissed off the pack leader, so quite a bit, really. But I think it will blow over quite quickly. I saw him get mad a few times, and then he calmed down like nothing had happened.”
Veronica sounded quite dismissive, but he knew her well and could tell there was something she wasn’t saying. He decided not to press her right now. He would wait until later when his mate wasn’t around.
“Okay, I’m going to put guards on both you and Sara at all times for a while. Don’t leave the house without at least two of my best fighters with you. And remember, Sara and the baby come first, always. If anything goes down, it’s Sara and my unborn child who will be the ones protected first.”
Veronica’s face lit up. “Thank you, Xavier,” she said. “You’re the best big brother ever. And don’t worry, you will not get any more trouble from me.”
Xavier had forgotten about that side of his sister. She could be bubbly and vivacious as well as being awkward and conniving. She could brighten up a room with her smile.
“Oh, I’m so pleased,” said Sara. “It will give us a chance to get to know each other.”
Xavier’s heart sank. That was another thing he had to worry about. He still hadn’t told Sara that he thought they were fated mates. As far as he was aware, she still saw the entire situation as a business agreement. He didn’t want Veronica swaying her head against him.
But Veronica was here now, and this was the situation he had to deal with. So he left the two women to get acquainted while he contacted Carlos to sort out even more protection for Sara. He wanted to ask him to investigate this pack his sister had been involved with.
Much later that evening, he finally got a chance to be alone with Sara. They were heading to their separate bedrooms when he caught up with her in the hall. “Sara, can I talk to you about something?” he asked, dragging her into his room.
“Sure,” she said. “What’s up?”
They sat on his bed. He longed to forget about his sister and pull Sara under the covers, but he reined himself in with an iron will. He needed to warn her about his sibling.
“I know you’re pleased to meet Veronica, and she seems like a really lovely person.” He was not quite sure how to tell her this. He didn’t want to say too much because that could turn Sara against him. He didn’t want to say too little and leave Sara not properly warned. “My sister can be a bit tricky sometimes.”
“Are you sure that’s not just sibling rivalry?” she asked.
