We lost our parents, sons of bitches they may have been. Most of our pack, and now our sister. We’ve spent all of this time trying to convince Sabrina that she needs us in her life, but we’re fucking hypocrites.
We need her to needus, or we won’t have anything left to fight for.
I realize my mistake a second too late, shutting my eyes and chastising myself for the foolish slip. We’re posturing and they all know it. Yes, we held our own against Stonewood’s men, but they were nothing more than cannon fodder, not an alpha or beta in sight; common wolves. Not only are there seventy-two people before us now, many of which openly disdain me, but six alphas and their corresponding betas? We’d be dead within half an hour.
And I just let them all see that without Bo at Sabrina’s side, I’m not confident in her safety.
Still facing her, I open my eyes with a practiced smile, beckoning her forward. “Join us, mon soleil, don’t be shy. I’m sure Emmeline would appreciate the company as she breaks a few hearts.”
Reid wraps an arm around her waist and stands, subtly attempting to hide from the others the way her leg was hurt in the attack, why we had her inside in the first place. A wound that’s barely healing faster than a human’s would, despite being one of us. It may help convince them she’s nothing more than human if they look too closely, but it also shows that we didn’t walk away from this attack unscathed, that we allowed her to be gravely injured under our care.
With a sheepish smile, she wrings the hem of her shirt. “I don’t want to get in anyone’s way, I know it’s a family affair. I can be moral support from back here.”
Rolling his eyes, Cin picks her up like she weighs nothing, tossing her over his shoulder. Striding up to me, he blatantly cops a feel of her ass as he slides her down his body and sets her on her feet beside me. “Sweet girl, don’t argue with the head of the family in front of his friends; they might get the wrong idea.” Winking, he takes a spot behind us beside his twin, and I send him a silent thanks for saving her from having to limp over.
She turns to me, confused, and whispers, “Wait, what sort of idea is he talking about?”
Brushing a lock of hair away from her ear, I lean in close and murmur, “That you like seeing how far you can push before I see how much you can take.”
Her responding blush has Boden chuckling as I tuck her between the two of us so that I can actually concentrate on the task at hand. Meeting the envious and annoyed looks with an unabashed grin, I nod at Emmy, who’s not bothering to hide her amused smile from the crowd either.
“Apologies, dear sister. Please, do proceed.”
“I've given it some careful consideration,” she announces, fisting her hands behind her back and rocking on her heels in faux casualty.
Really, it’s to hide her sweaty palms that she’s discreetly wiping on the back of her pale blue sundress. I listen with baited breath, because while I was able to weigh in with suggestions, ultimately, we all wanted this to be Emmy’s choice. If we’d known who she’d pick beforehand, we very likely might not have been able to stop ourselves from trying to talk her into a different option.
“And I narrowed it down to Gabriel, Raiden, Bellamy, Maddox, Luca, and Thane,” she finishes.
Maddox and Thane are the only ones that surprise me. While her other options tend to fly under the radar, typically mild mannered, those two are little more than sticks of dynamite. Maddox is such a frequent flier at the police station, they keep the Rivers’ pack lawyer on speed dial. Hell, I’m surprised he even showed up this morning; it looks like he came straight from a bar fight, blood still flecked across his leather jacket. And Thane?
Thane is Victor’s beta. I have to pray that she threw his name out there simply to humor the obnoxious alpha, because while Emmy appears sweet and innocent, she grew up learning to navigate these waters even better than I did. She knows exactly how far to push, when to give some slack, and the perfect way to play anyone flawlessly within minutes of meeting them, and I really did just piss Victor off pretty badly.
The men she named emerge warily from the crowd, stepping closer, but not being so bold as to come stand by her side. There’s no point; not until she names her mate, assigning herself a new alpha and beta that will approach as well. Hell, Maddox doesn’t even move from his spot at all, watching skeptically from the fringes of the crowd to see what sort of game she’s playing at.
Wetting her lips, she scans their faces one last time before taking a deep breath. “And I’ve decided... I want them all.” A confused murmur ripples across the crowd as she shrugs. “You want me to choose my mates, then I pick these ones.”
Sputtering, Callum steps forward, and I give him a sharp look before taking an obvious step closer to my sister in warning. “You can't do that,” he hisses. “You have to pick a pack!”
“She did,” Victor sneers, shoving Thane forward. “Of all of them, Thane’s the highest ranked, which means by default, they’ll merge with pack Alodia. All of ‘em.”
Voice colder than I’ve ever heard it in my life, Emmeline stares down Victor without a trace of fear. “There is no ‘default’ in this case, as it’s never been an issue before. You all assumed that alphas got dibs as well because of the pecking order, but that’s on your own arrogance; nothing I have to abide by. All I’m required to do is choose my mates, which I have. But I didn't. Choose. You.”
What was a dull roar becomes absolute outrage, chaos unfurling as people start screaming in my face. Bo shoves Sabrina into my side, stepping in front of us as I grab Emmy’s wrist to haul her back towards the house. Gabriel, Raiden, Bellamy, and Luca manage to work their way to the front of the crowd, putting themselves between Emmy and the mass of pissed off people glaring at not only me, but her with unmitigated rage.
“Hold the fuck up,” someone spits, voice cutting through the noise. “Look at the beta’s lip.” My stomach sinks as they spot Boden’s claiming mark, and I tighten my hold on Sabrina’s side. “How the hell did you pass her off as human? You fucking cheated!”
Face red, Victor storms away. “Another ploy. This is what you wanted the entire time, isn’t it? To steal from us so that you could scrape together a ragtag pack that might actually survive the year?” His disdain bounces between me, Emmy, and Sabrina. “You’ve made your bed, Hawthorne, and I look forward to watching you bleed out in it.” He makes it twenty paces before he realizes only ten members are following him, notably short one beta. “Thane! We’re leaving.”
The man rivals Bo in stature, if not even larger, but with shaggy blonde hair, and when he crosses his arms across his chest, I relish the moment Victor swallows. One simple tick, yet it reveals so much, and his fear?
Fucking delicious.
“You'd have me reject the honor of being chosen, simply to assuage your own ego?” Thane asks, not a hint of demand in his tone, but it’s clear that he won’t be budging without an answer, or stand for being ignored.
Using the distraction, I push Sabrina behind me into Cinjin and Reid’s waiting hands, trusting them to get her to safety and freeing me up to fight.
Spinning it around, Victor haughtily retorts, “You’d abandon your family for a piece of ass?”
