His lip curled when he said it. Though all three of her brothers were alphas in their own right, they were completely different from most wolves in the clan. It was funny how with a little age and wisdom Lilith could see she’d not been cursed having been born to such mixed parents, but blessed beyond measure.
What a shame if her brothers had wound up being just as repulsive as the rest of the shifters in their woods.
“Speaking of being proud of my brothers,” Lilith mumbled.
Erich snorted. “You’re so strange, Lil, you never said anything about being proud of us.”
Uriah chuckled. “It’s because she was thinking out loud again.”
“Whatever.” She tossed a bit of bread at his head and stuck out her tongue.
Violet drank from her goblet of wine, eyes glowing as she watched the four of them interact.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” she rolled her eyes, “Llew, you need to give me the souls you took from the deadly three.”
“What!” Violet growled, eyes mere slits as she glared at her eldest cub. “What souls did you take?”
Her dark-haired, normally brash brother swallowed hard as he gazed at their mother. Violet was still the Heartsong and had powers that could terrify even the toughest of alpha males.
“I’d completely forgotten about—”
“You will give that back to your sister immediately, young man.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bobbed his head.
Violet drummed her finger on the table. “I mean now. Go get it!”
Jerking to his feet, Lleweyn shot from the room, heading to his bedroom.
“Great wolf, you boys will be the death of me.” Violet rubbed her brows and took a swig of wine.
The other two boys chuckled and snorted as Lleweyn emerged from his bedroom holding on to a glowing blue orb.
“This is it.”
He handed it to Lilith.
Violet sniffed in his direction, gave a swift shake of her head, and thinned her lips at Lilith. “Tell those girls that we’re very sorry and his father will give him a beating for it.”
Lleweyn grimaced and sat down. He was old enough to be head of his pack, but so long as he lived under their roof he’d abide by their rules.
Lilith wondered why in the world he’d ever stolen it to begin with. Lleweyn was typically not one to make waves, but Violet was done with dinner and was already handing out the chores.
Everyone set to their task, and it wasn’t until ten minutes later when their mother had walked off to join their father and Giles in the study that Lleweyn come over to her.
“I bet that wench didn’t tell you why I took it, did she?”
She turned at the sound of his voice in her ear. Her brother was gazing at her intently. He cast a furtive glance at the door and then nodded.
“No, but I didn’t ask, either.”
His lips thinned in a manner that was very reminiscent of their mother. “I took it because I told her I loved her and she laughed at me, Lili. She laughed. At. Me.” A growl rumbled from his throat.
“Rayale? But you never told me.”
His brows lowered. “Why would I? We were fifteen, I thought myself madly in love, and we did things together—”
“Ew.” She stuck her fingers in her ears. “Please don’t tell me anything else, I don’t need to know the things you do in your spare time. But lemme just say Rayale is scary—were you crazy stealing from them?”
He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. “Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“Why’d you attack them then when they came back for it?”
“‘Cause they were walking through a reaping. They’d have been slaughtered by the rabid wolves all around. I wasn’t trying to hurt them, just scare them off. And now it had been so long, I had completely forgotten all about it.”
She laughed. “You think Dad’s gonna beat you for real?”
“Nah.” He waved his hand. “Mom’s the scary one in this family.”
They laughed beneath their breath at that one.
Finally the study door opened.
“Lilith Wolf, come here.” Her father’s deep voice made him seem entirely frightening at that point.
Giving her brother a worried little frown, she walked into her dad’s room, feeling as though every step led her to the gallows.
Already she was formulating reasons to prove to her father that she and Giles belonged together, but the moment she saw her dark knight and realized that he was smiling, she knew it would be all right.
“Lilith,” Ewan spoke.
Her mother, who was standing behind her father, crossed her arms.
“We’ve had a long discussion with Giles, and he understands the nature of yer deal with Rumpel.”
Both she and Giles nodded.
“You do understand,” her father picked up, “that when you mate with him, ye are stuck with him.”
He made it sound horrible, but she understood where he was coming from. It’d been a shock to her father to discover that Lilith had chosen a demone. One, because he wasn’t a shifter, which Lilith had been adamant about in her early years, and two, because a demone match would mean she could never have pups. A thing of great importance within the wolf community.
“I know, Daddy. But I’m not going to be stuck with Giles. I love him.” She grabbed her knight’s hand and squeezed.