I stared at him intently, unable to talk just yet. He wasn’t going to be happy and I didn’t want to ruin our relationship. I loved my brother.
“What?” He glanced at me, reading my face, and then noticed the phone lying in the dirt. “Did you talk to Dad?” He dropped his hands. When I didn’t answer, he asked in my mind. What is it? Are you hurt? Are there complications with the venom? Is it still in your body? They were all over you. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it even though you said you had it handled.
I’m fine. There’s no venom, but we have a situation. I couldn’t beat around the bush with this one. It was too big. I cleared my throat and addressed both Danny and Tyler out loud. “It seems, in order to move forward with the blessing of our father, in light of the added Underworld component, Dad has issued a new order for us.”
“What is it then?” Danny asked. “I’m all for scouting ahead without you. If we encounter any other beasts, as we surely will, we can have at them first. Even if we don’t make it, we will have cleared the road a little better for you.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not it.”
“Spill it,” Tyler said, narrowing his gaze. He knew he wasn’t going to like it. “The anticipation isn’t necessary.”
“Um, apparently”—I cleared my throat again; it felt like I had a grapefruit lodged in there—“he wants you… to be able to shift and have your full powers back. He thinks it’s necessary if we’re going to try and win a combined battle with the Underworld and Selene.”
“That makes sense,” Tyler agreed. “But how do we do that? The oath we swore as Selectives is binding. We can’t shift.”
I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. “We’re… going to break it,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
Tyler peered at me hard, his face going from animated to drawn. “How exactly did he tell you we were going to achieve that? He’s not here to break our oath.” Tyler knew Pack Law to the letter. Only an Alpha could physically release you from your vow. There was likely blood exchanged.
“He wants you to swear a vow to me instead,” I said quickly, “and by doing so, the old vows you swore become void.”
“Swear a vow to you?” Danny asked with a puzzled expression. “What vow can supplant one given directly from the Alpha? Unless… unless you’re talking about an Alpha Troth?” He read my grimace clearly. “Gods, you are! Your dad wants us to swear a pledge of fealty to you, bonded by blood, and if we do that, you become our Alpha.” He smiled like a shrew. “I’m in then.”
“Danny,” I said, exhaling on a long sigh, “you could at least let this big news marinate for a half a second before you throw all in. This is a big deal! I have no idea what will happen. You saw what my blood is capable of doing.”
“There’s no need to marinate,” he said with a surety I didn’t share. “The way I see it, above all else I want to save my arse and protect yours in the process. This is the only logical way to achieve both goals. When we get home, your dear old Dad takes our Troth again and we just had a bloody grand adventure, didn’t we? No harm, no foul.”
“The vow will work only if your wolf is superior in status to ours,” Tyler ground out, clearly warring with an order he knew came from his Alpha and how badly this news sucked. Submitting to a female was a low he’d never experienced until now. And he was trying to handle it like a champ. “Your wolf is above Danny’s, but not mine. Wolves sense power. Status swirls around us all the time. Just like what we talked about before we left—even if you were more superior in status, you still don’t smell like an Alpha. This won’t work.”
That was exactly Dad’s point, I said to him privately. He doesn’t think it’s about status. He thinks it will work because of the Prophecy, my Lycan-ness, and our sibling connection. This vow is not about “my balls are bigger than yours.” It’s purely a survival tactic to make us stronger as a unit. He said you’d feel it and know what he was talking about. He said we have a unique connection. Can you please try to feel it? Or do something so we can move this forward? We lost another day because of me.
We didn’t lose a day. The vamps had to sleep and I don’t know how to feel what you’re talking about. You feel like my inferior-status sister. Your power doesn’t threaten me. If it did, I’d feel an urge to fight you or submit. I’d feel some kind of pull, but instead I feel nothing from you.
Maybe that’s what he’s talking about! The fact you don’t feel anything. Isn’t it strange you don’t get any signals from me? Maybe our sibling bond makes the status thing between us immaterial. Which would be such a blessed-ass relief.
He studied me for a moment, clearly upset. I don’t know. It’s a possibility. I never thought of it like that before. It is kind of strange I don’t feel like fighting you.