My heart plummeted through the floor. Oh, this was going to be bad. So, so bad.
What were you thinking, Reid?
Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes. I’d been thinkingthat Ev was kind. That wolf shifters were meant to be protective.
That maybe he’d be my one shot at freedom.
I’d been so wrong.
Hot fingers gripped the back of my neck, bruisingly tight. Pain ricocheted through me, but I knew not to make a sound.
I’d learned that the hard way.
“You shouldn’t have dragged a stranger into our business.” Da’s voice was still soft. “I thought you knew better than that.”
I should have.I should have.
“Looks like I’m going to have to teach you a better lesson this time. No one is coming to save you, Reid. They never will.”
He was right. I’d been a fool to think otherwise. For a split second, I’d thought Evan McCarthy would be my saviour.
Instead, he’d condemned me.
Chapter 1
Evan
PRESENT DAY
Alot of things had changed over the past thirteen years. The most notable being my standing in the pack.
When Danny had returned last year and officially announced that he wouldn’t ever take the leadership role again, all of us betas had realised the same thing.
A spot would be open in the inner circle.
Technically, it had existed since the attack that had claimed Danny’s family, leading to him walking away from the clan. Thanks to the deal he’d struck with the council, we’d all expected him to return at some point. Well,wehad. Knowing Finn, Logan, and Calan as I now did, I didn’t think any of them had expected it.
None of them thought he’d risk taking a mate after what he’d been through. But love, and life, had other plans for Danny.Ones that involved him handing over his heart and claiming his human best friend, Riley, as the other half of his soul.Shifters didn’t have fated mates, but you wouldn’t know that if you spent any time around the two of them.
I’d wondered why the inner circle hadn’t filled his spot earlier, given none of them expected him to come back to claim it, but I think Finn had held out hope. He and Danny had been best friends growing up. Letting go of the idea of him returning and casting someone else in the empty spot…I think it was too difficult for him to do.
With Danny and Riley’s visit last year and the events that had followed, our former leader had formally ceded power to Finlay. Over a century of uncertainty had been settled in one very traumatic day. Everyone knew now who was in charge.
But to us betas in training? It meant so much more.
It meant a spot was open for one of us to rise into.
A more arrogant wolf would’ve taken being sent to the summit all those years ago as a sign that I was a shoo-in. But I wasn’t that arrogant.
And I also wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
Training kicked up several notches as the sense of competition grew. I barely slept, resting only when my wolf demanded it. I ran until I was the fastest. Sparred until no one was able to take me down.
But there was something else I did that I think gave me the edge I needed.
I studied.
I might not have been the best student as a kid, but I didn’t have the same motivation back then. Being chosen for the inner circle was an honour.
