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“What do you remember about my grandmother?”
August’s expression melted into confusion. “Just that she was good to me.” Pushing away from the counter, he tilted his head and scrunched his eyebrows together. “I know your dad had reservations about me, but Annabeth didn’t care if I was an orphan from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Gods, this was going to be harder than he thought.
Annabeth Hayden had routinely doted on August, going out of her way to make him feel included, like a member of the family. If only her insides matched what she portrayed publicly.
Just as the first-born male in Micah’s family had always inherited the position of Alpha, the women on his father’s side of the family had been the matriarchs of their pack for as long as anyone could remember.
However, Micah had no siblings, no aunts, and his only great aunt had passed when he’d been a child. With no female heirs to the matriarchy, it would have brought the end to a legacy, a fact Annabeth couldn’t accept.
“Why do you ask?” Even as August spoke, Micah could see the panic forming in his eyes. “Micah, what does your grandmother have to do with anything?”
“You know Annabeth is the last female in my family.”
August nodded.
“When she dies, the matriarchy will pass to the oldest living female in the pack.”
“Miss Lula.” Again, August nodded.
“My family has led the pack for hundreds of years, both as Alpha and as Queen.” Micah swallowed around the lump in his throat. He wanted to go to August, to comfort him, but he couldn’t, not yet. “It was up to me to produce a female heir, to make sure the control of the pack stayed within the family.”
Curling his fingers against his palms, August shook his head. His whole frame heaved, and when he spoke, his voice trembled. “She didn’t. She wouldn’t.”
“Ant, sweetheart, come here.”
“No. She didn’t,” he repeated. He opened and closed his mouth several times without actually speaking. Then his eyes rounded, glistening with moisture in the kitchen light, and he jabbed a figure at Micah. “Youdidn’t. Micah, tell me you didn’t.”
“She’s the Queen. I wasn’t the Alpha then. I didn’t have a choice.” Fuck, it was like reliving that night all over, and his chest constricted with the painful injustice of it.
“For twelve goddamn years?”
August shouted the last word, and Micah really couldn’t blame him. It didn’t change anything, though. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand.” August hadn’t fallen apart yet, but the growing hysteria lurked just beneath the surface. “Did she think breaking us up would make you suddenly like vagina? Or that you’d just stop loving me?”
Micah would have laughed at his mate’s phrasing if the situation hadn’t been so serious. “She didn’t just want to break us up, baby. The women in my family have always led this pack. She wasn’t going to just let that go.”
“Holy shit.” Falling into the nearest kitchen chair, August bent over, dropping his face into his hands as he hyperventilated. “She wanted me dead? She wantedyouto kill me? Oh, gods. Oh, holy shit.”
“Breathe. Baby, please breathe.” Micah knelt on the floor beside his mate, but he didn’t know what to do to help him. “You’re kind of scaring me here.”
“She wanted you to kill me,” August said again, but it wasn’t a question this time. “She really hated me that much.”
“Ant…”
Standing, Micah pulled his mate into his arms and just held him, lending August his strength. Silence fell over them, a comfortable, intimate quiet shared between long-time lovers. A beautiful moment completely and irrevocably ruined by Meredith barging in through the front door with a cackle loud enough to raise the dead.
“August! Honey, I’m home,” she called. “Where are you, snookums? I want to tell you all about my scandalous date.”
Micah growled, but August sniffled and wiped at his eyes. “Let her be happy. She doesn’t need to know about this.” He clearedhis throat and slapped on a fairly convincing smile. “In here, Mer!”
“Well, well,” the female sang as she entered the kitchen. “It looks like I’m not the only one having a little too much fun tonight.” Then she launched into a one-woman reenactment of her “perfect” date.
Ten minutes into her monologue, though, August jerked out of Micah’s arms, clapped a hand over his mouth, and raced down the hallway.
“What just happened?”
