He pulled her tightly against him, burying his face in her hair.“And if he should die by other means?”he asked.“What then?Would you finally be with me?”
“He isn’t worth your soul, Don.”She tightly wrapped her arms around him.“Please, let us just be together for now, in the ways we can.Perhaps he will ignore us altogether.”
“Can I eventually talk you into leaving?”Although he already knew her answer.
“If my entire family would walk away from the pack, yes.But my father will not do that, and my mother would never leave him.They were loyal to your father, you know that.”
They spent less than an hour together, by his reckoning, before she felt she needed to return lest her absence be noted.
He walked with her as far as she would let him, which was not far from the path to her family’s small cottage on the pittance of acreage Faegan allowed them for themselves.
Then he slowly made his way home, already trying to formulate a plan to kill his older brother.
He was a rancid boil of a man.Donnel suspected he might have had a hand in their father’s death last year.It wouldn’t shock him in the least, and even Hamish had speculated as much to him and Bryn when their brother wasn’t around.
Donnel wandered the countryside, reluctant to return home and eventually knowing he needed to.If for no other reason than he was hungry and exhausted.
And felt sick at heart.
What he didn’t expect, however, was to find Faegan awake and sitting in front of the fire in the living room with a glass of scotch in hand.
“There you are,” Faegan said, his sourly slick tone seeping under the edges of Donnel’s soul and sickening him.“About time you returned home.”
“I didn’t realize I had a curfew.”Donnel walked into the living room.“I am an adult, after all.”
Faegan stood and approached.“You should have a curfew.Carrying on in secret with a shifter bitch the way you are.”
Donnel’s heart froze.“What do you mean?”
“I can smell her on you.And your lips are swollen from kisses.Unless you’ve been puckering up to some sow’s asshole, it adds up.”
“Fuck you.”Donnel tried to push past him, but Faegan stepped in his way.
“You don’t get to mate with a shifter bitch,” Faegan growled.“I told you that when I took over from Father.”
“He would’ve let me.”
Faegan sneered.“But he’s not here, is he?”
“No,” Donnel gritted out through his teeth.“He’s not.”Donnel had his suspicions about that, too, but kept them to himself.
“AndI’mthe Pack Alpha.Unless you’re saying you wish to challenge me?”
Donnel glared at him, his fists clenching, but he knew he couldn’t take Faegan in a remotely fair fight.Faegan wouldn’t hesitate to shift and rip his throat out before Donnel could even turn to run.
Outside, Donnel heard a coach and what sounded like a two-horse team roll up.
But it was the cruel smile on Faegan’s face that truly chilled him.
“Ah, there she is,” Faegan said.
“There’s who?”
Faegan had started walking toward the front door.“My new mate.”
“What?”
Faegan turned and glared.“Thank you for finding her for me.From the first time I scented her on you, I suspected she was just what I was looking for.”
