AFRAID TEOWULF, INhis new mood, would grow concerned by his absence, Keon returned to the camp after an hour of crying. Walking into camp, revealing nothing of his pain. By the Mother’s grace, Teowulf and Vega had dressed, lounging by the fire to share a cigarette.
His brother raised his gaze the moment he stepped into the clearing. “What kept you?” he asked, happy and teasing.
His stomach threatened to return everything he’d eaten as Keon reluctantly sat across the fire and picked at a loose thread of his trousers. “I fell,” he lied, avoiding eye contact as the disgusting smell of their cigarette wafted across the space between them. They had switched from tobacco to something else.
Teowulf took another puff, handed it to Vega with practised ease, and tossed another log into the fire. “What’s eating you?”
Keon shrugged, not wanting to say it. How could he tell Teowulf he’d been used as a pawn? Vega’s ‘love’ was untrue? He’d mated someone who didn’t care? It wasn’t fair, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Teowulf.
Maybe if he told Simeon…but he’d kill Vega.
“Why did you let me come?” he asked, desperate to leave and hide in his tree, where it was safe. But the only escape was with more lies. Getting everyone mad, making them hate him to protect his heart from more pain.
He couldn’t watch Vega and Teowulf live as mates. Couldn’t watch them be mated by the Meskli, knowing his brother stood in his place. He couldn’t bear the thought of breaking Teowulf’s heart. Better he didn’t know. Maybe Vega could love him, in time? Maybe m’nuni would transfer the feelings of a mate, and leave Keon blissfully reprieved, giving Teowulf the happiness he thought he had with Vega?
Or he was lost in wishful thinking.
“You asked,” Teowulf replied, saying nothing when Vega snorted.
His temper rose, giving Keon the ammunition he needed to cause a fight. “No,” he said, meeting Teowulf’s gaze. A challenge he wouldn’t ignore. “You wanted an errand boy. You don’t want me here. You don’t want me to exist.” He felt the tears welling as he said the most honest words he’d uttered to Teowulf. Before he could react, Keon shot to his feet. “I’m going home. If you hear me say I want to be your friend or spend time with you, kill me!”
Terrified and devastated, Keon ran, refusing to look back or stop at Teowulf calling his name. He would go to the hollowed tree, camp for the night, and go home in the morning. His dad would be furious if he went home alone, but it was better than staying. Better than admitting what he knew, and what hurt so much he could barely breathe.
Chapter Six
Keon
Present Day
THE SAME LOOKwas in Vega’s eyes, nine years later. Understanding why Keon had rejected him. Why he’d gone to Dnara. Why he’d tried to forget.
“Remember?” he asked, wishing he had a cigarette. “I slept in a warren’s den, living as a m’weko for three days. No one but my father noticed I was gone.”
That hurt the most. No one knew he hadn’t returned from the trip. Simeon assumed he’d run scared after his warning, afraid of what he’d planned. An orgy with three women and two men from another pack. To hear Vega had participated, while Teowulf slept off their joint, hurt.
Teowulf thought Keon had been avoiding him after his tantrum. He’d always been grateful for, and hated, the fact he’d never learned the truth about Vega. His brother deserved to know. When he died eight months later, of a sickness sweeping the pack, his one regret was never taking the chance to tell Teowulf his true mate had been unwittingly rejected.
Keon had never learned who it was.
When his father found him, Keon curled into his lap and sobbed for an hour, as the sordid story spilled from his lips. He’d made his father promise never to tell Teowulf. He deserved what happiness he’d found, and the secret lingered between them, unspoken. Keon and Teowulf had found a way to live as family. As brothers. They’d grown closer, that year, Teowulf’s happiness inspiring him to mend their bond. Sod’s law he died months later, leaving a gaping hole in Keon’s heart.
Keon had stood at his grave long after everyone left, screaming as he slammed his fists into the dirt, begging him to come home. He said ridiculous shit, about Teowulf being a rotten brother but needing him to know what he’d stolen from Keon, that he forgave him. He loved and hated him equally. For dying. For not being a better brother when it counted. When Keon needed him.
Vega had dragged him from the grave with soothing words about Teowulf going to a better place and being free from pain. He’d gazed into Vega’s eyes and blamed him. The sense of betrayal had never left him, no matter how many sessions Rylee tried to instigate, and no matter how often he cried for his lost brother.
“I…” Vega floundered, not having a suitable apology on hand.
Neither did he. How did you apologise for betraying everyone who loved you? How did you transcend ‘I’m sorry’ when you’d ripped someone’s heart to shreds? Keon didn’t need words. Words were hollow. Like Vega’s mating to Teowulf.
“You’re sorry?” Keon scoffed at the idea words could fix anything. “Sure you are. You mated with Teowulf because you thought I wasn’t good enough. Yet, here I am as Alpha and refusing you. Sucks to be you,” he said, acknowledging the elephant in the room. The one Vega wasn’t brave or honest enough to utter. “Or are you sorry you didn’t trade me for Simeon, an Alpha who shared your aversion to monogamy?”
Curiosity warred with an unhealthy vicious streak. “Or for betraying the most sacred bond in Vihaan culture, a true mating, because of your ego?” he asked, offering a multitude of options. Vega kept his eyes averted, body loose, like he’d been deflated after years of tensely waiting for his secrets to be exposed. “Or is your regret being caught?”
Ah, a twitch.
Vega raised his gaze, hair falling over eyes blazing with anger. “Itried totalk to you. To make you understand,” he reasoned, words bitten between clenched teeth.
“Understand?” Keon shook his head, not sure how anyone could understand. “You thought I was too young to feel the bond. When I told you I knew what you’d done, you laughed! I was the youngest to have sensed a true mate, and youknewno one would take my word over yours.
