She refused to look at him, stepping around him to head toward the stairs.“I’m under orders from Peyton to keep it between him and me.”
He followed her up the stairs and into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.“I want to know what the fuck happened.Don’t make me call him and demand he make you tell me.”
She dropped her bags and sank onto the end of the bed.“If I tell you, I’m ordered to Prime you, and the only person you can talk to about it besides me is Peyton.Frankly, I’d rather not tell you.”
“Was it another lab?”
“No.It wasn’t dangerous—I told you that.But I needed to make sure we don’t have to take down another lab in the future.”
“Then fucking Prime me.”He held out his hand and, somehow, that made it worse for her.
Knowing there was no way around this, she touched his hand and silently commanded him to remain silent on the issue
“Now tell me,” he demanded.
She did, which made it even worse for her.
He looked like he’d been gut-punched.
“Measures had to be taken,” she said.“To protect the pack.”
“What about you telling me you were cutting back on field work, huh?You lied to me!”
“I didn’t lie to you,” she said.“Did I mislead you?Yes.Did I enjoy it?No.And I promise that I will never do that again.I also promised Peyton that if there’s ever a future time where I need to do something and you overrule me, I’ll bring him in for a ruling.”
He stared at her, his jaw dropped.“What the fuck, Dewi?You could have taken Duncan or Badger or any of the other Primes down there with you!That, I would’ve understood and agreed with.But you went alone?”
“I wasn’t alone.Alvarez was there the whole time.”
“You know what I fucking mean!”he yelled.“You didn’t have to be the only Prime there!”
“Yes, I did!A Prime needed to do this, and since I’m the only female Prime, I’m the only one who could get close to her without raising suspicion.And I needed to keep this operation as small as possible.”
He stared at her.“Doesn’t she count as his mate?You told me mates are sacrosanct!”
“So areourkids, Ken.”She glared at him.“And she wasn’t the mate to a shifter—she was a human actively complicit in the potential destruction of our pack.Ourchildren matter, okay?Ourmatesmatter.Ourpackmatters.We have too much to worry about already.We don’t need to worry about them being scooped up for vivisection by some fucking military or mafia doctor and taken to a lab deep inside a mountain, or spend the rest of their lives locked in a cage and being studied.Or, even worse, forcibly bred and their children studied.One life is more than worth it if it means protectingthousandsof people, including children.Ourchildren.”
“And that justified killing her?”
“I didn’t kill her!She killed herself.I gave her achoice, that she could either keep her silence and protect our secret or kill herself.Shemade that choice.”She jabbed a finger at him.“You were the one who, back in Idaho, right after you returned from the UK, said ‘whatever it takes.’You and Peyton have both said thoseexactwords.
“Well, just like I told him,thisis whatever it took.Sometimes those ‘whatevers’ that keep the pack safe are freaking ugly.Sometimes they’re taking down a horror of a lab, and sometimes they’re eliminating one person.My job is to be the one who deals with it so the rest of the pack doesn’t have to.And if you think this is the worst thing I’ve ever done to protect this pack, think again.And I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, without hesitation, if it means protecting us and ours.”
His jaw gaped again as she sensed him mentally scrabbling for a response.“Couldn’t you have ordered her to stay silent!”
“I gave her a pretty easy choice to do just that.Obviously, she didn’t want to keep it a secret.”
“There had to be another way.”
“This isn’t any different than Peyton, Alvarez, and Jake going on their little ‘fishing expedition’ to talk to Miranda Segura.”
His jaw dropped.“Seriously?You don’t see the difference?Let’s start with, oh, there were three of them, and also they didn’t Prime her to fucking kill herself!”
“You think I like this?I don’t.I don’t enjoy taking lives, Ken.I fuckinghateit!I hate that I’m the one who is in this position, but Ihaveto protect this pack, and our kids, and that’s what I’mdamnedwell going to do!”
“She was ahuman.”
“She was aliability.Forcing someone not to choose being evil doesn’t wipe away their evil, it wipes away their free will.Their heart isstillevil.It will still come out in other ways, and that was a chance I was willing to take with her because she was pregnant.At least any evil she chose in the future hopefully would never have made its way back to us.I didn’twantto kill her.Igaveher an easy damned out to live a long life.”
