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"She's not yours, Robert." My voice turns icy. "You can't have her."
"Well, you sure as hell don't want her." My friend shrugs. "Or you wouldn't be torturing your fated mate. Now is the time you should be looking after her, getting her wolf's approval. But you seem more intent on making her jealous. How's that working out for you? Do you see her anywhere?"
"I don't appreciate the taunts." I narrow my eyes at him. "And I will fix this."
"I hope you do," Robert shrugs, "because if you don't, I'll be declaring my own intent. And unlike you, I'll rebuild whatever self-esteem and self-confidence your family has stripped her of. Because let's be honest, Adam. You're doing a piss poor job of that."
Robert is one of my closest friends, so I don't take offense to his words. We've often had to pull each other's heads out of their asses a time or two.
"I'll fix this."
"I'd recommend a conversation followed by a romantic date." Robert gets to his feet, heading to the refrigerator. "I know Cynthia has derailed your plans, but I'm sure Tina can convince her father to keep supporting you, regardless. Turning your back on your fated mate would be a foolish idea."
I go still at his words.
The truth is that this has been a point of contention for me. When I left my home and went to live with my relatives, it was Watson who had reached out to me and offered to help me get the Alpha training that my father had refused me. Watson had been friends with my grandfather. In fact, he had worked as my grandfather's secretary right up to the point my grandfatherpassed. Despite the fact that he, himself, was so well off, he chose to work with my grandfather. He helped me with the training and with selecting my degree in college. I owe him a lot.
It was because of him that Tina and I became friends when we were just teenagers. In a way, we grew up together, and Watson always encouraged our friendship and hoped for a relationship to bloom between us. It's not like we didn't try to date. We did, but we realized we were better off as friends. But as the years passed, Tina knew that for me to become Alpha, I would need someone to stand by my side, someone I could rely on, and she had agreed that we should get married. This is not something we communicated to her father, but he picked up on the fact that there was something going on between us.
But for the past few years, his gentle suggestions have become more vocal as he’s now fully invested in me and Tina getting married. Right now, Watson is my biggest ally. If he realizes I don’t want to marry Tina, there’s a good chance he’ll back out of supporting me. I sink back into my seat, worried. While I don't need Watson's support, the fact is that my father is playing dirty to put Norman in the seat. He seems to be under the delusion that with Norman as the alpha, my father will still retain his control. What he doesn't realize is that my younger brother is a wild card.
But this is a conundrum.
I can't lose Cynthia. There is nothing I won't do to keep her by my side.
But am I prepared for possibly having to walk away from my position as the next alpha for her?
"I was surprised, though," Robert suddenly says as he carries over a dish of beef casserole to the island counter, a spoon in his hand.
"About what?"
"She doesn't seem to know a lot about the pack and basic things that we all knew growing up."
"My father seems to have a hand in that." My hand tightens around the pen I'm holding. "What was she asking you about?"
"How blood debts work," Robert tells me, taking a bite of the casserole. As he chews, he looks thoughtful. “We had a long discussion about it.”
His words have me jerking, a niggling sensation in the back of my head. “What did you say?”
“She was asking about how to break a blood debt." Robert freezes, his words tapering off. His eyes meet mine, a slow realization forming in them.
“That’s not a normal topic to bring up,” I say slowly. “Unless she had a vested interest in it. Who started––"
“She did.” Robert looks horrified. “She began by asking the difference between a blood debt and a blood oath."
“She probably needed a way to bring it up without causing suspicion." I feel sick to the stomach. "A blood debt. That would explain a lot of things, especially the way she was loyal to my father despite whatever he put her through. It wasn't loyalty. She just didn't have a choice."
Robert looks grim. "But if Cynthia had a blood debt tying her to your family, it should have been registered."
I shake my head. "This was around the time Father was close to losing his Alpha status. The pack wanted my grandfather to resume his position as Alpha. Father was doing a shit job. He wasn't going to mess that up by declaring that he had taken a child in a blood debt. He used her to elevate his social standing in the pack. Since he was the alpha, there was no check and balance on him. That's how he got away with it."
"But a four-year-old child?" Robert looks nauseated. "You know what happens to people tied with blood debts. Why take her? She had a brother, parents… Why a child?"
"I don't know." I take out my phone and search for a phone number. "But I know somebody who might be able to give us answers."
Finnegan Henson had worked as my father's valet for forty years before being fired a year after I left. I never liked the man, personally, but he would be the only one who knows the truth. He and Tony, my father's current right-hand man.
Finnegan answers the phone on the fourth ring.
