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I was as bad as my father for claiming her without her permission, when she couldn’t bite me in return. He hadn’t let any of his mates bite him, and Garth hadn’t let Nira bite him. I couldn’t stand the thought that I was no better than them.
I was probably flooding all my pack bonds with fury, but I didn’t care. When I came out of the hallway and into the rear of my brother’s stupid fucking throne room, everyone froze. With the way they stared like they were caught in the high beams, you’d think they were deer shifters.
Heath raised a hand from where he’d been sitting on the wide arm of the throne, no doubt playing up his carefree persona with whoever had been bringing issues to his attention. But when he saw me, all playfulness fled.
He raised his voice and shooed the Frost Fang wolves away. “Everyone out. The pack alpha and I have things to discuss.”
The Frost Fang wolf at the foot of the throne hesitated, glancing over at me for a moment. I recognized him — a mid-ranked beta who’d curried favor with my father, for all the good it did him.
He took one look at me, bowed, and then dashed out of the room with the rest of the wolves who’d been lined up for an audience. Frost Fang had paraded their never-ending problems past me ever since I’d gotten rid of their toxic leader. But no one would want my judgment on them today.
Once Heath and I were alone, I realized my steps hadn’t brought me to the throne room. They’d brought me tohim, my trusted enforcer, my first packmate, my childhood best friend. The only person who might pull me back from the brink of insanity.
“What happened?” Heath asked, jumping down from the throne. “Is Freya okay?”
When he got closer, his brows drew down as he noticed the mark on my cheek.
“Oh she’s fine, great, fucking fantastic,” I growled, turned away from him so I didn’t have to see his reaction. “She’s with Flint.”
“Okay…” Heath followed me around, forcing me to look at him since I wasn’t childish enough to turn my back on him again. “And how are you?”
I stared at him, waiting to see that telltale smirk of his. Or pity. Or something that would give me an excuse to lash out at him. Anger and frustration were eating me alive. I needed to put this negativity somewhere. It neededout.
But Heath’s expression showed only somber concern. Not amusement at the mark on my face. Not pity.
“I need to run,” I said.
Heath didn’t hesitate. He shrugged off his sling bag, then his clothes, stuffing them into the bag. “Then let’s go.”
As soon as my four paws hit the throne room floor, I charged back down the hallway I’d come from so we could go out the door I’d already destroyed.
“This way.”
“It’s times like this I wish the pack bond went both ways,”Heath growled.
He should be glad it didn’t… The negative avalanche of my emotions would’ve knocked my packmates on their asses if I’d allowed all of it through the pack bond. Bad enough the little I’dlet leak through already. Other alphas could dampen my sense of them through the pack bond, but they couldn’t shut me out completely. As pack alpha, I could.
When my control wasn’t already tested.
“Care to enlighten me about what’s going on?”
“Freya rejected me,”I answered, hating how easily she’d destroyed me. I raced toward some familiar woods.
Heath didn’t press me for more as he ran side-by-side with me through the forest like we’d never left. We’d run together through these woods under almost every full moon before my brother had cast me out.
And almost every full moon, Heath had ended the run with a new wolf. Sometimes wolves I knew for a fact he didn’t even like that much.
Part of me suspected it was to piss off his father, who never wanted him to mate with a wolf at all. My father often sent Heath’s father away on political matters, and anytime he returned, Heath flaunted a new wolf shifter lover in front of him. And every time, his father lectured him about how they needed to strengthen alliances by marrying into powerful witch covens and fae families far beyond nearby shifter packs.
“Remember that time Sven came onto you under the Full Crow Moon?”Heath laughed in my mind, but even though his words had no actual sound, I still sensed the tension in them.
“Yeah. I still feel bad for the way I told him off. I should’ve thought of a nicer way to let him down.”
I’d been shocked that a male wolf would ever consider I might be interested in him. All I could think of was how my father would have been horrified. He had very old-fashioned opinions, and if he thought for a second that his son might not be perfectly straight, he’d have been disappointed in the extreme.
I’d reacted on gut instinct when I rejected the poor wolf, embarrassing him in front of everyone with my resounding no.And like an idiot, I hadn’t just rejected him along a private thought. I’d broadcast it for everyone nearby to hear. He’d slinked away, head lowered in shame, and I’d heard he moved to a distant village at the edge of Frost Fang packlands where he could lick his wounds in private.
A wise decision. I felt like doing much the same right about now. Maybe that’s why Heath had brought it up.
