The four of us had a shared purpose—to protect Alara.
We lunged forward, a snarl ripping from my throat when the mate bond pulsed again. She needed me. Now.
The trees thinned all at once, and I exploded into a clearing just as Alara’s fear hit me like a punch to the throat. She was backed against a boulder, her chest heaving and eyes blazing. She didn’t seem to be hurt, but she was cornered by a male lynx who stood between us. Her gray eyes were filled with fury, and her hands were clenched in fists at her sides.
He was gaunt, with matted fur. The desperation in his eyes was mixed with hatred.
He whipped toward me with a snarl, his lips peeled back over yellowed fangs. When Caelan crashed through the brush behind me, he snapped his head toward the lynx alpha before shifting to his human form.
“The chain is rotten. The alpha is weak, and she”—he jabbed his chin toward Alara—“will pay the price for his failures.”
I raced forward, faster than I’d ever moved before, placing my body between him and Alara and shifting to human so I could warn him off. “You will not touch my mate.”
His gaze snapped to mine, his pupils blown wide. “Then I challenge you both.”
11
ALARA
My attacker didn’t even see me as a person. Just a tool. A piece on the board he could move to undermine my brother.
The insult scorched through my fear, burning it away until only fury remained. My lynx clawed at my ribs, bristling violently.
I’d been shaken until Booker arrived, but now that I was thinking more clearly, I realized who had cornered me. Ravik had been exiled from our chain only six months ago, but he’d changed so much in that time that he was nearly unrecognizable.
And now he’d come back to use me as leverage against my brother.
A low growl rumbled up Booker’s chest, and I stroked my hand down his back to reassure him. I appreciated his instinct to shield me, but I felt the same need to protect my mate. And I had information about the situation he did not.
I moved before I fully thought it through, stepping out from behind Booker and coming to stand at his side. His head whipped toward me in surprise, but I stood firm, my shoulders squared and chin up.
The moment I aligned myself shoulder to shoulder with Booker, a hush rippled through the clearing. Caelan was the only one who broke it when he demanded, “Alara. Stay back.”
My brother was still my alpha, but Booker was the center of my world. Shaking my head, I murmured, “No.”
Ravik’s eyes flickered, something ugly twisting across his gaunt face. He hadn’t expected me to stand with them against him. Or that we’d have two additional alphas at our side since Keane and Kace used the distraction I provided to flank us.
Booker’s arm brushed mine, but I kept my gaze locked on Ravik as I spoke, my voice steady even while my lynx paced inside my skin. “There’s no cause to worry. He’s just Ravik.”
The exiled lynx’s jaw clenched at the way I said his name.
I continued, louder this time. “He was a member of our chain once. Caelan had to exile him six months ago for breaking one of our most honored rules.”
Booker’s growl deepened in acknowledgment beside me, but I didn’t stop.
“He’s only a threat because he has nothing left to lose. Not because he’s powerful enough to face off against one alpha, let alone three with help from my mate and me.”
Ravik’s lips peeled back over yellowed teeth, twisted by bitterness. But I stood taller, meeting his glare head-on. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Not when he’d shown he was just a desperate man who thought he could use me to break what my brother built. With Booker at my side, I had too much to fight for to ever allow that to happen.
Ravik’s snarl cut through the clearing. “Your alpha has made the chain soft. He protects the weak instead of strengthening the strong. He doesn’t deserve to lead.”
The words vibrated with so much venom that my echo-sense burst open before I could brace myself. The raw, fractured emotion spilling off him in waves slammed into me. Anger andgrief. But it was the fear sharpened to paranoia that felt like splintered glass scraping through my skull.
I sucked in a breath, staggering under the weight of it. This was the unraveling of a man who’d once belonged to us and convinced himself his downfall was everyone else’s fault.
For a heartbeat, I saw the Ravik he used to be. A man who had once tucked flowers behind his little sister’s ear before she died in the avalanche that nearly crushed him a decade ago.
My empathy surged, but I didn’t allow it to soften me. Because what I felt pouring off him now was the hollowed-out desperation of someone who’d rather burn the world than admit he’d broken so far as to attack a female lynx simply for walking near the place his sister died.
