"I'm not following."
"If my father knows you're my mate, he knows I'd do anything for you. It would kill me inside to see you sad or in pain. Unlike me, he wouldn't even blink at taking someone out to get what he wants, but I..." Tears flooded Randal's eyes as he shook his head. "I can't kill my alpha, even to save your nana. I know you'll probably hate me, but I just can't."
"No, Randal." Luca grabbed Randal's hand and brought it up to his cheek. "I could never hate you for not doing something that went against your nature. I love you just the way you are."
Randal wiped the tears off his face. He sucked in a shaky breath as he stared at his hand pressed against Luca's cheek. "I love you, too, but if I can't save your nana—"
"It's not your job to save Luca's nana," Rob said sternly. "It's mine."
Luca didn't know what to say to that. Life hadn't been horrible growing up in a shifter town, but there had always been a definite line between him and the clan. He'd never had anyone he could go to if he needed help except for his nana. He wasn't used to having someone else willing to fight his battles for him.
"I don't mean any disrespect here, but why do you care? You don't even know my nana."
"No, I don't," Rob admitted, "but she's one of mine. That means no one gets to fuck with her while there's a breath left in my body."
"It's an alpha thing, Luca," Randal explained. "You haven't really had the chance to feel the bond between an alpha and his clan, but it’s part of what makes Rob so protective of the clan and the clan's willingness to follow him."
"You're right," Luca said. "I don't get it, but if that bond means he'll help me get my nana back, I'm all for it."
Rob chuckled, which was a good thing. He could have been insulted by Luca's question. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm still getting used to the alpha end of that bond. I grew up knowing how it felt being a clan member, and I respected my alpha even when I didn't agree with him. It's only now that I understand why he did some of the things he did."
"Because you're an alpha now?"
"An alpha with a clan." Rob's hands tightened on the steering wheel for a moment. "There's this thing inside of me. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it's enraged that someone has threatened someone who belongs to me, and even though I have never met your nana, I know she belongs to me. I want to find Ralph and Raymond and rip them to shreds for what they have done."
Luca glanced at Randal to see how he took the alpha's words, and found tears swimming in the man's eyes. "I'm sorry, Randal. Maybe if—"
Randal's smile was bittersweet. "I always knew it would come to this. If my father had given up his bid to be alpha, he might have lived a wonderful fulfilling life in our clan, but he didn't, and that means he has to face the judgment of our alpha."
Randal's smile became rueful and sad. "It might have been different if he had just gone away when he was banished, but he's still trying to take something that doesn't belong to him, and he's not even doing it in a sanctioned challenge. He's involving other people, threatening them. He knows as well as I do that if I tried to kill the alpha, I'd be dead. He knew that when he took your nana."
Luca gasped as a cold dread wrapped around his spine. "He wants you dead?"
"I suspect so," Randal replied. "It's the only explanation. He wants me punished for staying in the clan when he got banished. If I try to kill the alpha, it would be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak."
"Randal, do you think your brother is involved in all of this?" Harvey asked.
"Oh yes, Raymond is never far from my father's side. If my father planned some scheme, Raymond is there to carry it out." Randal swallowed hard, a glint of pain flashing in his eyes. "He's the one who beat me, remember? And it might have been on my father's orders, but he enjoyed it. He always did."
Luca growled.
Randal's eyebrows shot up. "That was pretty impressive for a human."
Luca's cheeks flushed when Rob and Harvey chuckled.
Randal's arm wrapped around his shoulder and he was pulled close. "We'll make a bear of you yet."
Chapter Twelve
"Holy crap, that's a big man." Randal wasn't sure he'd ever seen one bigger. The guy had to stand almost seven feet tall. He looked as if he could flip a truck with his pinky.
"That's George, a new member of the clan. He came to us from our old clan," Harvey said, amusement clear in his voice. "He's a gentle soul. The one you need to be worried about is the man standing to his right."
Randal glanced at the shorter man standing at George's side. There were two of them. One with dark brown hair and one with light brown hair. "The dark haired one?"
"Yep."
He was certainly the more colorful of the two men. His dark brown hair was cut short in a military style, but he had a beard. He also had more than one piercing—including one in his lip— and tattoos.
