There were few things more likely to make Viggo explode than the implication that he was a bad alpha.
“I didn’t think it was werewolf hunters.” Sebastian’s voice was small, his gaze fixed firmly on the floor.
“What?” Viggo turned, angling his body toward Sebastian. Anger still simmered under his skin, throbbing and begging for release, but he pushed it down with ruthless efficiency. Sebastian glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, a barely-there twitch, before speaking again.
“I thought he might have had an encounter with a regular hunter, like he got shot accidentally, and then he just thought it was a werewolf hunter.”
Viggo’s fingers twitched, a sharp breath pushing out of his lungs before he gathered himself and his temper.
“There haven’t been any reports of hunters going missing,” he said, answering the unspoken accusation that Bjorn might have killed someone after mistaking them for werewolf hunters.
“So you don’t think he…?” Sebastian trailed off, not putting his suspicion into words.
“Bjorn doesn’t have the mental capacity to cover up a murder,” Viggo said, the words blunt and to the point. “Whatever he was talking about, it wasn’t something you need to worry about.”
“But if something happened, could that be the reason he’s-”
“I told you to drop it,” Viggo growled, cutting Sebastian off and sending the boy’s pulse into overdrive. “I know why Bjorn went feral, and I know how to fix it. The only thing I need from you is fucking obedience and submission. Do you understand?”
Sebastian didn’t move, his frozen body a stark contrast to the wild gallop of his heart beating against his chest.
“I said, do you understand?” Viggo asked again, his voice pitched low.
Sebastian nodded.
“Good. I think you should go to bed and have an early night. You can take the guest room across the hall from the master suite.”
Sebastian nodded again, and without looking at Viggo, jumped up and practically ran out of the room.
The silence once he’d left was jarring. Viggo looked down at his hands, fingers still twitching in agitation, his wolf just under his skin urging him to go and punish Sebastian for saying those things about Bjorn.
Viggo had kept Bjorn’s condition a secret. That transgression could only be forgiven by the council if Viggo managed to fix the situation without Bjorn hurting anyone.
If he’d killed someone, the council would put him down faster than Viggo could clap his hands.
Standing up, needing to move so that he could think, Viggo paced the length of the room. He needed to calm down, but the more he thought about it, the more worried he became.
What if Sebastian had told someone about his theory? He had a phone, and who knew how many people he’d talked to?
The thought slammed into Viggo like a freight train. He ran out of the room, taking the stairs in three bounds, crashing into the guest bedroom with enough force to nearly blow the door off its hinges.
Sebastian, sitting on the bed with red eyes and wet cheeks, jerked back and slammed into the headboard with a startled bang. Viggo restrained himself from barging into the room, not wanting to give Sebastian a heart attack.
“You didn’t tell anyone about that little theory of yours, did you?” he asked, after Sebastian had calmed down a little. The boy was breathing fast, chest heaving, but his expression was no longer locked in fright.
A beat passed, and then Sebastian shook his head. “No, of course not. I’m not stupid.”
He sounded wrecked, his voice scratchy like he’d been crying.
The knot of anxious terror in Viggo’s chest loosened. “Good. Keep it that way. You don’t discuss pack business with outsiders. Ever.”
“Okay,” Sebastian said, swallowing. He looked small and vulnerable, and Viggo felt like the worst kind of bully.
“That was all I wanted to say. I’m going to head out for a bit.” he took a step back, turning to go back down the hall before abruptly spinning back around. Sebastian jumped, startled by the sudden turnaround. “If you want to make yourself something to eat before you go to bed, you should do that.”
Viggo didn’t want Sebastian to feel like he couldn’t leave the bedroom. He wasn’t a child to be sent into timeout, and Viggo didn’t want to get into the habit of treating him that way.
Sebastian nodded, slow and careful. “Okay. I will.”
