Luka nods, looking grim.
I frown, an unconscious growl bubbling up in my throat.“Then why the fuck is he still here?”
I also killed a high-ranking wolf once, and he wasn’t even the alpha. The fucker I killed was the beta at the time, and not nearly as well liked as Olaf was. I still got sent to Dyaspora for that, so how the fuck did Viktor get away with murdering the alpha. Not only get away with it, but he’s the beta now. It makes no sense.
“It was difficult to prove,”Luka explains.“Happened years ago. They were out on a hunt together and no one else lived to see what happened.”
I raise my eyebrows.“They were out together? The alpha and beta never go out at the same time.”
“Exactly. It was all pretty fucking suspicious. I always thought that Viktor did it so he could be alpha. It’s not like we had many other choices of dominant enough wolves.”He gives me a sideways glance.“Not since you left.”
I make a non-committal grunt.“So why didn’t he become the alpha?”
Luka laughs darkly.“Because everyone hates him. Kai is a beta, but people like him so he has more control than Viktor does even if he can’t actually compel most wolves to obey him.”
I nod slowly. It makes sense, I suppose, but it’s a tenuous situation. I’m surprised it’s even lasted this long without half the camp turning on each other.
“If we could leave, I think at least half the camp would,”Luka says, clearly thinking along the same lines.
“That was always true, doesn’t matter who the alpha is.”
He cocks his head like he’s thinking.“If you came back for good…”
“I was never going to be fucking alpha,”I snap.“I’m a half-breed.”
“Yeah, but most people ignore that. I think everyone would have forgotten except for her.”He nods to Aurelia.
I growl, and Luka quickly looks away. Reacting to my sudden tension, Aurelia shifts on my lap. Without thinking, I put a handon her thigh, hoping she understands what I can’t say aloud:“I’m fine, sorry.”
Aurelia relaxes and carries on her conversation with Inga.
“How did you meet her?”Lukaasks, his attention shifting to Aurelia.
My chest squeezes painfully.“It’s complicated,”I say, watching her profile in the firelight.“We were in close proximity.”
“Everyone’s wondering, you know,”he says pointedly.
“‘Course, I know.”
“So nothing happened when you mated her?”
“Not yet,”I mutter, not knowing what else to say.
Clearly Luka is fishing for whatever magical loophole I found that allowed me to have a mate when no other wolf has been able to in decades—not without consequences, anyway. I wish I could tell him that there is no answer, because she’s not really my mate.
“She’s not a shifter.”
My eyes narrow dangerously. “What’s your point?”
“I just assumed all mates would be other wolves, but maybe there’s more to it. There are a lot more Fae than there are of us, especially outside Thermia. Maybe we’re not looking hard enough…not that it would matter, since we can’t leave anyway.”He grins bitterly.“Who knows, maybe I have a Fae mate somewhere too. Maybe she’s from Hydratta, or something.”
I make a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat, wishing he would drop the subject.
“Like you just said, though, you’re half Fae,”Lukasays, as if thinking out loud.“Maybe that’s why.”
Again, I just grunt at him.
Truthfully, I don’t know and I don’t really want to think about it.
