“I grow another nose all of a sudden?” she asked him.
“You’re Argents,” Karl said, incredulity in his voice. “You’re fucking Argents.”
The words were unfathomably loud in the sudden silence.
Leon stopped breathing. It sounded impossible, but Karl said it like it was fact. He’d thought Jesse’s pack was dead, and therewereno other Argents, so how—
He shoved all thoughts aside because Michael’s face was hardening with wrath, his shifters coiled to strike. Leon stepped more firmly in front of Karl, his cat twitching beneath his skin. If this broke open, he’d take down anyone who tried to touch Karl.
“What did you just say?” Michael’s voice was low and deadly.
“God, how didn’t I see it before?” Karl continued, and that wasn’t helpinganyonecalm down. “Jesse said—”
And then Ruth made a sound that stopped everything. A whimper, low and agonized, that sounded like it had been pulled from the deepest part of her soul. Leon had never heard anything like it, and he never wanted to again.Even Michael turned.
Karl’s gaze flicked to her and then back to Michael, just as the alpha took a step forward, voice rough and furious. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Leon’s focus was splintered—Ruth, with Hailey next to her, hand tight on her shoulder, the three shifters who now looked seconds from shifting, and Karl, who didn’t flinch under Michael’s fury. He stood tall and resolute, even though his leg must be screaming at him.
Leon stayed where he was, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to protect them both. He hoped to hell Karl knew what he was doing.
Chapter Thirty
KARL
That hadn’t been one of his better ideas.
Karl didn’t usually blurt. He was trained, deliberate, and always careful. But he’d looked at Ruth—reallylooked—while wrestling yet again with why this pack was so desperate to avoid contact with anyone. And the pieces had slammed into place so hard they’d knocked the sense out of him. He’d love to blame the pain meds for the way he’d announced his conclusion out loud like that, but he hadn’t taken any.
Once he’d seen it, Ruth’s resemblance to Jesse was unmistakable. It had been bothering him a while without surfacing, tugging at his subconscious. Now, it screamed and everything clicked. The secrecy and isolation, the fear of outsiders only made sense if they believed discovery would destroy them. Because last time someone found them, it nearly had.
Dave and Christian had found no remains at the old camp where the massacre had happened. They’d thought the other local pack had done the decent thing and laid the dead to rest.
But there was another explanation. One standing right in front of him.
“Jesse,” he said. “He’s an Argent and part of our pack. He remembers…” he hesitated, adjusting what he was about to say. “Something terrible happened to his pack when he was a pup, and when he remembered more about it, we tracked them down to New Mexico. There was no trace left, so we thought they were all—that the pack no longer existed.”
He looked straight at Michael. “But it does, doesn’t it?”
The wolves around Michael were poised and ready to attack, held in check only by his will.
“Why did you want to find his pack?” Michael’s voice was low, tight, threaded with a snarl.
Karl didn’t flinch. “Because it’s hispack. He’s only been with us a few months. Before that, he was alone. After—after losing everyone.”
God, why wasn’t Matt here? He’d know how to phrase things so every sentence wasn’t a minefield, threatening to shatter the parlous peace in this room. Karl had none of those skills. He had blunt truth, a bad leg, and a protective mate standing between him and a potential execution squad.
Karl kept his gaze locked on Michael’s, letting him see everything—his exhaustion and pain, the absence of threat, and the weight of truth.
For a long moment, Michael didn’t blink. Then something in his face changed, the hard mask slipping to something more human. Still wary and guarded, butthinking.
Behind him, Ruth made that sound again, smaller this time, but raw. Hailey murmured her name and gently pulled her aside,easing her down into one of the chairs near the wall. Ruth sank without protest, one hand pressed over her mouth, the other clutching the edge of the seat like it was the only solid thing in the world.
“You say one of your pack is an Argent,” Michael said, voice like years of rough road. “Jesse.”
“He is,” Karl said, daring to take his eyes from Michael long enough to glance at Ruth. His next words were for her. “He’s safe with us, and he’s found his mate.”
Hope flickered in Ruth’s eyes, fragile and so very painful.
