“What’s going on?”
Lee, looking troubled, braced his big hands on his hips and tilted his head toward his companion. “We’ve got a complication.”
Viktor raised his eyebrows. “I see that.”
Lana fixed him with a fathomless look. Her eyes were hazel bordering on a peculiar natural gold, and when she looked at him, he felt like she was trying to peerinsidehim.
A natural born alpha, she had a presence that immediately raised his hackles. “Alpha Hamilton, I’m here to ask you if you would be willing to cede your place in the circle to me today.”
Viktor stared at her. “You… want to fight your father in my stead?”
“Yes.” It was an unflinching affirmative.
His eyes bounced between the two somber faces, looking for answers. “What is happening here? You do know that this is a death match, right?” Protective rage, summoned by the awful memory of that night on the beach, strained the muscles of his neck when he added, “He tried to have my mateshot.”
Lana was perfectly calm when she answered, “I understand. That is exactly why I’m here.”
It took a second for it to click, but when it did, Viktor could only rub his palm across his face. “Gods, you’re challenging him for the pack, aren’t you? That’s what this is.”
“Yes.” She cut a look at her father. There was not even a hint of warmth in her gaze when she looked at Andreas, and it appeared he felt similarly. A snarl lifted his lip when they locked eyes. There was no love lost between father and cub. “That man is going to get my pack expelled or killed orworse.It’s time. It’s wellpasttime.”
Viktor shook his head. “Lana, I’m not going to request your pack’s expulsion as recompense. You don’t have to do this.”
“I do. It’s about our honor, Alpha Hamilton. If it was your pack,yourfather, what would you have done? Would you let him send one of yours out on a fool's errand like he did to Damon? Would you let an alpha like that represent your pack?”
It was well known amongst shifters that Viktor had challenged his father when he was eighteen, the youngest age a person could claim the legal status of an alpha. He couldn’t very well deny that he did exactly what Lana was trying to do — killed his father before he could drive his pack into the ground.
“Shit.”Viktor scuffed the toe of his shoe against the platform. Glancing over his shoulder, he soothed himself with a brief look at his mate’s grim, expectant face before he asked, “Did you give him the choice?”
“To step down? Or his choice between fighting you or me?”
“Both.”
Lana gestured to Lee with one long-fingered hand. “Lee gave him the choice and he picked me. And yes, the pack’s seniors gave him the chance to step aside. He refused.”
Gods.Viktor struggled to imagine what kind of monster voluntarilychoseto fight his own daughter. He didn’t care what kind of bad blood might exist between himself and his offspring — he would never willingly raise a hand or a claw against them. He’d die first.
“It’s up to you, Viktor.” Lee’s voice was a dark rumble. Nothing about the situation pleased him, and that came across loud and clear in the harsh lines of his normally reserved expression. “If you let Lana do this, it’s over.”
Unspoken was the knowledge that if shefailed,he would have also forfeited the right to his justice. Their laws were the wild kind, but that didn’t make them any less firm than that of the EVP: Once a challenge was issued and accepted, it could not be done so again without severe censure to the challenger.
Shit.
“Let me talk to Lana alone for a second, Lee.” When he stepped away with a solemn nod, Viktor said, “Listen, Lana… I know that you feel like you have to do this to save your pack’s reputation, but you shouldn’thaveto. If they’re already behind you, then you’ll become alpha anyway. Why risk it?”
Why do this to yourself?
“Because I have to.” Her expression grew stark. Tension stretched her skin taut over high, blade-like cheekbones and around her hooded eyes. In an inflectionless voice, she explained, “The bastard killed my brother.”
He stared at her blankly for a moment. Over their heads, a hawk let out a piercing cry that tore through the silence.
“I…what?I thought Juan died in a boat accident.”
“That’s what he had the pack say, yeah.” Fury made her hazel eyes look like two hard chips of green-gold stone. “Who could tell the difference between a cougar’s bite and a gator’s after a few days in a swamp, right?”
A deep chill spread through his veins. It was one thing for Andreas to be a lying, manipulative bastard. It was quite another to know he was a cub killer. “Why?”
Lana shrugged. She wasn’t particularly muscled, but every movement was catlike, almostsilkyin its gracefulness. “Because Juan disagreed with him? Because he didn’t like the shirt he wore that day? Because he argued against my exile? It doesn’t matter. He did it, and now I’m here to kill him for it.”
