My gut knots. My memory offers nothing, but my wolf is alert. On edge. Like he knows what’s coming.
“Fane staggered over and punted the baby’s basket.” The crone sneers in disgust. “He would have stomped his own child to death if not for Una Hayes. She put her little body between Thomas Fane’s wolf and that baby, and she nearly died. She would have.”
Abertha pins me with blazing eyes.
“Except?”
“Except for Killian Kelly. The alpha’s nine-year-old son. He raced to the rescue, and on his way, he shifted for the first time. His wolf was a beast. He rent Thomas Fane limb from limb. It took Declan Kelly and three enforcers to drag him away from the corpse.”
“Bullshit.” That’s the kind of story that gets told at every bonfire. I’ve never heard it before. And I sure as shit don’t remember it happening.
“If the pack knew you shifted before your heat, you’d have a target on your back. Your father knew this. The others wouldn’t wait for him to die to challenge you. And you might have a beast inside you, but in human form, you were seventy pounds soaking wet. Eamon or Dermot or anyone with ambition could’ve easily beat you so many times, no one would’ve looked at you and seen a possible alpha. You’d be out as a contender before you could grow a beard. So your father swore his enforcers to secrecy, and it was never spoken of again.”
“My father would have told me about it.”
“Would he?”
The kettle whistles. The crone rises to take it off the fire.
I don’t think about my father much. He was an asshole. He started me sparring at five and let the males a few years older whale on me. He got off on watching me come back and take them down. He thought he taught me how to recover, and in a way, he did. He put me on the ground plenty before he put me in the ring.
He was always clear that I was to succeed him as alpha. His seed was the strongest. I was his trophy. His belt.
You don’t explain shit to a belt. So, yeah, maybe he wouldn’t have told me.
“How do you know all this? You were there?” The crone avoids the commons like the plague, and everyone is cool with that.
She comes back to the table, setting mismatched tea cups in front of us both. I give her a nod of thanks.
“I see all.” She rounds her eyes, and then she snorts. “Your mother brought you and Una up here afterwards. You were almost dead. You both were.”
I’m surprised my father let her. He was big on rubbing dirt in it.
“Fane didn’t get the chance to leave a mark on you, but your wolf tore you up.”
“He’s a monster.”
The crone uses her spoon to strain the tea bag and then sets it on the saucer. I follow suit and put my thumb through the wet sack. Now there’s flakes in my cup.
“There wasn’t much I could do but treat the pain. There were a few days—” Her eyes grow distant. “We didn’t think you’d make it.”
“But I recovered.” I always do.
“You did. But you weren’t the same.”
“First blood changes a male.” It is known.
She shakes her head. “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. You weren’t the same as other wolves anymore. It was as if to let him out, you had to consume him. Become one with him.”
“The wolf and man are one.” It’s such a common saying, it’s out of my mouth before I think.
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t bring that bullshit into my house. That’s just how backwards folk justify behaving like animals to each other.”
“Don’t tell the elders that. They’ll burn you at the stake.”
She snorts. “Not a single one of those mouth breathers could catch me when they were in their prime.”
“No doubt.” I’ve seen her wolf. She’s sleek and silver, and she’s got uncommonly sharp fangs.
“What I’m trying to say is that I thought it’d undo. Repair in good time. I thought the Fates would prevail. But I was wrong. You aren’t like other males.”
“Yeah. I’m a flip-shifter.”
“I’m not talking about that. You’re—” Her face scrunches like she’s searching for the right words. “You’re getting in your own way.”
“Yeah? Maybe so, but I’ve done all right so far.” I abandon the tea and lean back.
“Have you?” The crone sinks back in her chair, mimicking my posture. “Is everything right?”
What kind of philosophical bullshit is that?
“Listen, I came with a question. Are you gonna answer it? Is Una Hayes my mate?”
“You honestly can’t tell.” Her brow creases. There’s pity in her gray eyes. “Yes. She was.”
Every muscle tightens, and I push back, the chair screeching on the hard wood. “What do you mean—was?”
“Sounds like she told you. I pulled the mate bond out of her.”
I bound to my feet. “You what?”
My wolf is choking my voice. The words come out a garbled growl.
The crone doesn’t move. My rage fills the room, clogs my own nose, but she’s unaffected. She takes a slow sip of her tea.
“You knew this. She told you she was your mate. You rejected her. She told you I fixed it. You must have found her nest in the woods. I can scent traces of her heat on you. You know all of this. But you’re deaf to it. Because you are getting in your own way.”
My clenched fists shake. Fur has sprouted up my spine, and my bones are stretching, my muscles swelling.
“Your wolf recognizes his mate,” she says.
“I am my wolf.”
The crone tuts. “Don’t start lying to yourself now, Alpha. Your wolf and you are like that mutt Eamon lets his mate keep in the backyard. You coexist.”
“Why didn’t I feel the bond when she shifted?”
“Do you let yourself feel anything?”
I do. Every nerve in my body is screaming. I have to wade through the thoughts whirling in my brain.
“You pulled the mate bond out of her?” I spit the question through elongated fangs.
“What would you have had me do? You scented her nest. She was in pain.”
“You had no right.”
She laughs, and it is bitter. “Don’t talk to me of rights. Una claimed you, and did you stop for a second to consider someone else knew a truth you didn’t? You’ve grown arrogant, Alpha. You think you can’t move this pack forward because they’re too stubborn, but pup, you need to attend to the mote in your own eye.”
“I didn’t come for a lecture.”
“You came for me to tell you what Una already did. Why take my word over hers?”
My back teeth clench so hard they ache. “You do not have the right to take my mate from me.”
“You have no claim over something you so carelessly threw away.”
“Put the bond back.” I instill each word with alpha command.
“I don’t know how.”
My wolf howls, shaking the rafters, making himself known.
The crone narrows her eyes. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t do it.”
“Put it back!” I slam the table. The tea cups rattle, and a crack appears in the solid wood.
“I can’t, but I’ll make you an offer.” Her lips curl. “I’ll take the bond out of you, too.”
My hand flies to my chest. It feels no different. There’s no pulse, no burning fire like the mated males describe. There’s—silence.