“There’s no rule that females have to save themselves for their mates,” I say out loud, test if it has the ring of truth. “This isn’t the old world.”
Darragh grunts. It’s an acknowledgement of fact, but not an endorsement of the idea.
“Males mount whoever’s willing before they mate.” That’s a fact.
“Some keep going afterwards,” Darragh points out. He speaks the truth.
I’ve had plenty of opportunities to get my dick wet over the years. I always told myself I didn’t because it’d mess with rank in the pack. The natural order of things. And that’s true, as far as it goes. But I also didn’t want anyone who wasn’t mine.
I was waiting. And I knew I’d wait forever, and some nights were long, and I’d wonder why I was making such a big deal out of something every animal does when the mood strikes him. But I never changed my mind.
I never wanted anyone until Una Hayes, and it came on so gradually. She slipped into my hands, and I am so very painfully aware that she can slip right out again. Maybe she already has.
I’m an idiot, but I feel what I feel.
Why couldn’t she have waited?
I sigh. “I want to kill someone, and I don’t ever want to know who he is.”
“Did she want it?” Darragh asks carefully.
“Yeah. That’s what she says. She says it’s not my business.”
“You’re her mate.”
“I am.” Everything about her is my business.
“Heard you rejected her in front of the whole pack. Had Tye throw her out back by the trash.”
My chest aches. None of this has been auspicious. None of it has been right.
“Yeah. I made a mistake.”
“And now you’re losing your shit because—I don’t mean to presume, but—she, uh, has seen a little bit of the world?”
I don’t think I’d put it that way, but I grunt. I don’t want to be talking about this, but at least with Darragh, he’ll take it to the grave.
“Alpha, I don’t know another way to put this, so I’m just gonna say it—she’s, what, twenty-eight years old?”
“Twenty-seven.”
I wait for his point.
He coughs. “Twenty-seven,” he says again. “In the old world, she’d be a couple years away from being a grandma.”
“This isn’t the old world.”
“No. It’s not. It’s your pack.” He pauses a second and then he plunges ahead. “I don’t know. I don’t keep up with the comings and goings so much down here. You keep the lone females in the lodge basement for the males’ entertainment like your father did?”
“Fuck you.” My fists ball, fur sprouting up my spine. Those are wrongs I have long put to rights, and everyone knows not to speak of it.
“Why change things?” he pushes.
“You have to ask?”
“It’s a—what do you call it—like Socrates did? To get at the truth. Just answer the question.”
“You’re fuckin’ Socrates?”
“Not lately. We’re on a pause.” He smirks again. Asshole. “Just answer the question—why did you change the way things were done in this pack?”
“It was wrong.”
“Why?”
“She wasn’t safe.” And then the memory sails into clear view like a galleon, canvas billowing, churned up whole from the black storm of the past. The memory that had been there all along, waiting, biding its time.
In the bed at the crone’s cottage. Bundles of lavender and Queen’s Anne Lace hanging from the wooden rafters to dry. Una huddles into my side. The moon shines through the thick glass pane. My mother is asleep in a rocking chair, head tilted at an awkward angle, snoring.
My body is raw, my muscles torn and weak. All I have the strength to do is lay on my back and stroke Una’s soft shoulder with my fingertips. She shakes with fever. She’s swaddled in blood-soaked bandages. I’m feeble, painfully aware that in this state, I can’t protect her or myself. My brain is churning. I need a human gun.
I killed the male who attacked her, but there are others, always waiting in the wings for an opening, and I’m paralyzed. Thomas Fane has friends, males who covet my father’s rank, and who won’t hesitate to take out his son to deal him a blow. I don’t trust rat-faced Eamon Byrne. Who will protect Una if I’m gone?
Panic gives me energy, but not the strength to move my shredded limbs. I try anyway, but I jostle Una, and she whimpers in pain, so I stop.
My brave mate. She’s so small. And fierce. Perfect.
The crone rises from her stool by the fire. She quietly shuffles over, a chipped china teacup in her weathered hand. She sits on the edge of the bed and smooths my hair from my forehead. I jerk my head away. I’m not a pup. Not anymore.
“You did well, boy,” she said. “You protected your mate.”
“Will she live?”
“I think so.”
“How long will I be like this?”
The crone shrugs. “I’ve never seen a male shift so young. Maybe a week, a month, a year. Only the Fates can say.”
“I need a gun.”
She arches an eyebrow. “What does a shifter need with a gun?”
“I have to protect her. I can’t fight. Not like this.” I try to lift an arm, but I can hardly raise it an inch.
“You can’t shoot them all, Killian Kelly. You’ll have to beat them, one by one.”
“Like this?”
She smiles, the crinkles in the corners of her eyes deepening. “You’ll need a little more bulk, I think. Especially to best Eamon Byrne.”
“I don’t want to be alpha.” I want to spar with Tye and hunt for Una. Make her strong. Maybe teach her to fight so my heart never again stops in my chest like it did on the commons when I heard her scream. I knew in that moment she was mine. And I’ve never known such fear.
“That’s why you’ll make a good one,” the crone says.
“No.” What do I want with a bunch of ass kissers and two-faced males lying in wait to take me down?
“Oh, Killian.” She shakes her head, not unkindly. “You don’t have a choice. Do you want to protect your mate?”
“I will. No one touches her. Ever again.”
“How can you say that? In this pack?” And then she looks at my mother.
My father’s mate. The bruise on her cheek has faded yellow, but there’s no doubt in my mind, she has fresh ones somewhere else, somewhere she can cover with her long skirts and sleeves.
“I’ll never hurt Una. I’ll never let anyone hurt her.”
“You couldn’t stop it today.” Her voice is gentle, and her words cut to the bone.
I push Una’s hair out of her face. It’s sticking to her clammy cheeks. “What do I do?”
“You put things right.”
“How?”
“Everything has happened out of order. We need to pause time. Give you space to do what needs to be done.”
She’s speaking mystic nonsense now. I need to know who to kill, and in what order.
She presses the cooling tea into my free hand. “You can’t protect her like this. You need to grow into your strength. You’ll need all your focus to root out the evil in this pack.”
“Tell me what to do.” I’m so tired. So terrified. My wolf prowls inside me on shaking limbs. He’s weak, too.
“Drink,” she says, glancing down at the dark brew in the cup. I sniff. It has no smell.
My grip is unsteady. The liquid sloshes over the rim. “What is it?”
“A choice.” She covers my hand with hers. “Let her go—for now. Let her be happy while you grow strong so you can make her safe.”