“So you decided theft was easier than leadership.”
“I decided survival was more important than pride!” The words exploded out of him, raw with years of accumulated bitterness. “Do you know what it's like to watch everything you've built crumble because you weren't born with a silver spoon and a forest full of magic at your back?”
There it was—the wound that had festered until it poisoned everything he touched. Calder hadn't fallen to evil so much as he'd drowned in his own inadequacy, and now he wanted to drag everyone else down with him.
“So you partnered with Silas Duvall,” I said, watching his face for confirmation. “A witch who wants to see every wolf in the Evernight Forest dead or worse. Real smart, Calder. Really shows that strategic thinking that made you such a legendary Alpha.”
His grin was all teeth and malice. “Silas wants the forest's power back where it belongs. I want your father's territory. We both get what we want, and your precious pack gets to learn what it feels like to lose everything.”
“And after? When Silas has corrupted every inch of sacred ground and turned the Evernight into his personal playground? You think he's going to let you keep breathing? You think a man who spent decades planning revenge is going to honor deals made with the wolves who killed his mother?”
For just a moment, uncertainty flashed across Calder's features. Like maybe, in the deepest part of his mind, he'd wondered the same thing.
“Silas needs me,” he said, but there was less conviction in it now. “My pack, my contacts, my knowledge of wolf politics. He's not stupid enough to throw away a useful alliance.”
“Silas needs you the same way a hunter needs bait,” I said, letting contempt drip from every word. “You're a tool, Calder. A weapon he's pointed at us because he's too much of a coward to face us himself.”
The uncertainty vanished, replaced by rage so pure it made the air around him shimmer with heat. “At least I'm fighting for something! What are you fighting for, heir? Your father's approval? The right to inherit power you never earned?”
“I'm fighting for family.” The words came out steadier than I felt, carrying the weight of every person I loved, every bond that made life worth living. “For pack. For the people who chose to stand with us instead of against us.”
“Family.” Calder spat the word like it tasted foul. “You mean the humans you've dragged into our war? The photographer who thinks his camera will save him when the real monsters come calling?”
My wolf snarled, pressing against my control with such force that I felt my human mask slip. Threatening my pack was one thing. Threatening Nate was something else entirely.
“Careful,” I said, and my voice carried harmonics that belonged to wolves who'd learned to kill with purpose. “You really don't want to go down that path.”
“Why? Because you'll get angry?” Calder laughed, wild and bitter. “Because the soft little heir will finally show some teeth? I've seen you fight, boy. I've watched you hold back, pull your punches, try to find the gentle way through every conflict. You'reweak, Evan Callahan. Just like your father before he learned better.”
“My father built something worth protecting. You're trying to tear down other people's work because you couldn't build anything yourself.”
“Your father stole everything he has!” The accusation rang through the clearing like thunder. “The Evernight Forest was neutral ground before the Callahans claimed it. Pack territory that belonged to whoever was strong enough to hold it. Your grandfather took it through violence and treachery, and your father's spent forty years pretending that makes it rightfully yours.”
“And you think partnering with him makes you the moral authority here?”
Calder's grin widened, showing too many teeth. “I think it makes me practical. Silas has power you can't imagine, connections to magic that goes deeper than your pathetic pack bonds. When he's finished with the Evernight, when he's twisted every tree and poisoned every stream, your precious territory won't be worth having.”
“Then why do you want it?”
That was the flaw in Calder's logic, wasn't it? If Silas was planning to corrupt the forest beyond recognition, then conquering it would be meaningless. A poisoned prize wasn't worth the cost of winning it.
Unless Calder knew something I didn't. Unless this whole conversation was just another layer of deception designed to keep me from seeing the real plan.
“You're not planning to keep it,” I said slowly, pieces clicking together in my mind with sickening clarity. “This isn't about territory at all. You're just the distraction while Silas works his magic somewhere else.”
Calder's expression didn't change, but something in his scent shifted. Satisfaction mixed with malice, the smell of a predator who'd successfully led his prey into a trap.
“You always were too clever for your own good, little heir. Yes, I want your father's territory. But what I want more is to watch the Callahan line end with you bleeding out in sacred ground, knowing that everything you loved died screaming while you played at being a hero.”
The casual cruelty in his voice, the almost bored way he talked about murdering my family, made something deep inside me go very still and very cold.
“Is that what you told yourself when you sent rogues after the Harringtons?” I asked, and watched him smile. “When you had them kill Anna because she had the misfortune of loving someone connected to our pack?”
“The human was acceptable losses,” Calder said with a shrug. “Collateral damage in a war she never should have been part of. But her death served its purpose, didn't it? Turned your little photographer into someone willing to pick up weapons. Made him think he could play in our world without paying the price.”
My control snapped like an overstretched wire, and the shift took me before conscious thought could interfere. Bones snapped and reformed, muscle and sinew reshaping themselves into something designed for violence, and I launched myself forward with a snarl that belonged to nightmares.
“Let's see if you bleed like the monster you've become,” I rumbled through whatever psychic bond connected pack wolves, voice sliding through his head like a promise wrapped in fury.
