“Raoul, think!” she pleaded. “This is not smart.”
“Oh sister, don’t play with the big boys when you’re not equally equipped.” And then, just in case no one understood that he was making fun of her inability to shift, he curled his fingers into Delphine’s ruff while she jumped forward and growled. The wolf bitch looked magnificent if one ignored the spandex. Thick lush fur, sharp teeth, and a powerful jaw. And didn’t Raoul look like every guy’s fantasy—a sophisticated man restraining a powerful wolf as if it were nothing at all.
She almost did it then. She almost shifted into her hybrid state and went to town on Delphine. But this wasn’t the time to reveal her true nature. It wouldn’t win her any favors, and she couldn’t be sure she’d win in a fight against a full wolf. This was an argument for her father. He was the alpha, at least for the moment.
So she turned her back on her brother and his bitch. Her gaze caught on Noelle’s as she moved, and she saw the woman’s sympathy in her expression. But there was nothing her friend could do. Nothing either of them could do but hope that Frankie could make her father see reason.
Frankie headed toward the exit, only to be stopped short as the community center’s doors burst wide open and Wade ran in no longer brandishing his gun and looking like a badass. Wade was covered in blood, and his face looked ashen. Worse, she could smell the blood clearly and knew before he spoke exactly whose it was.
“They’ve got him!” Wade bellowed. “They got Emory Wolf!”
Horror and a cold fear froze Frankie from the inside out. She struggled to take a breath for a moment, much less ask any one of the questions burning through her brain. Her brother, however, had no such restraint. He reacted immediately, almost as if he knew this was coming.
“Tell me everything,” he ordered. “What exactly happened?”
Wade swallowed and reported to Raoul. “We went to the warehouse, just like they wanted. You know. For the meeting.”
“Did you go early? To check everything out first?”
“We did everything exactly like you said.” Wade’s eyes were wide and terrified, but he kept talking, emphasizing the wrong words. “Everything. Exactly. Just like…” He choked off his words, but Frankie knew what was missing.
Like you said.As in, exactly the way Raoul had instructed. Meanwhile, her brother held out a calming hand.
“There’s no need to fear.” He took a deep breath. “Where’s the body? Let me see it.”
Frankie’s head snapped up. Wade had said “they got him” not that their father was dead. But obviously her brother was following a different script. When she turned her horrified gaze on him, she saw him flush. He knew he’d made a mistake. But then his eyes narrowed, and he advanced on Wade.
“Who has him?”
“The bears,” Wade said with a gulp. “They took him.”
“You abandoned your alpha?” Raoul bellowed. “You left him there to die—”
“I had to! I had to get back here to report!” Wade babbled. “You had to know what happened and there were bears everywhere. Everywhere!”
Raoul reacted with a speed that shocked even her. Worse, he was precise as he swiped across Wade’s throat. He didn’t use claws. Years ago, he’d made brass knuckles with sharp claws attached so that it looked like he killed as a werewolf when it was actually a man with a very human tool. He’d told her then that it impressed weak minds, making them think he could hold a shift partway. If they didn’t know he had the brass claws, it would look like he swiped across someone’s throat with his wolf claws while the rest of his body remained human.
It did its job quickly now. One swipe of his hand and Wade’s throat erupted with blood. He grabbed his neck, trying to staunch the flow. Frankie leapt forward, too, instinctively trying to stop a pack mate from dying. But also because they needed him to tell the truth. No matter what he’d said, Frankie knew that the bears hadn’t attacked her father. She’d met Simon. He was not a man to start a war casually.
She covered Wade’s hands with her own, but it was too late. Blood was spurting faster than anyone could stop, and he quickly collapsed.
“No,” she moaned as she saw the life drain out of his face. Wade was a prick, to be sure, but he didn’t deserve to die like this, and certainly not by his own pack mate’s hand. Her gaze shot up to her brother’s. “How could you?” she breathed. She invested all her shock and horror in those three words. Not just because he’d killed their cousin, but because he’d orchestrated all of this. The attack on her father—probably by his own men—and blaming it on the Griz while he took control. She saw it all so clearly, and when she looked in her brother’s eyes, she saw confirmation. His expression went from a wide-eyed shock at what he’d just done, to regret and a flash of panic.
But then his expression locked down. She could only read it because she’d spent her life caring for her brother, protecting him when he was picked on by the other boys, even playing with him when no one else could abide his tantrums. She’d made a study of his expressions growing up, and now she saw absolute confirmation of her fears. And a dogged determination to follow his plan.
“Any man who betrays the alpha deserves to die,” he said coldly.
“No,” she said. “That’s not how it works. The pack protects each other.”
He curled his lips. “We’re wolves, silly girl. The weakest one among us is cut from the pack.”
“We’re humans, too,” she said loudly. “Evolved humans who don’t kill out of pique or fear.” She stood, her hands dripping with Wade’s blood. Her brother didn’t realize it yet, but he’d erred badly in killing Wade in front of the pack. All around them men and women recoiled, never having seen violent death before. Parents were clutching their kids and everyone was backing up, their hands over their mouths to cover the smell. She was shaking from the horror of it, but she was the daughter of an alpha, and she would not give in to weakness when the pack most needed her clarity. “Raoul, look around you. This is not the way to power.”
She watched his eyes dart around and she could tell he saw the same thing she did. The pack had turned against him, at least for the moment. And so, she pressed her advantage.
“I’ve been with you since you were a baby. I’ve held your hand, changed your diapers, and cheered the loudest when you excelled at school. I understand that you’re trying to make us stronger. You want us so powerful that no one can touch us.” In truth, he wanted himself to be so powerful no barbs could touch him, no insult could wound him. More than anything, her brother wanted to feel safe, and so she tried to give him that safety in a different way. “I understood when you injected me with your serum. I was angry, but I knew you were trying to make me and the pack stronger. But Raoul, this is not the way. Violence only makes people more afraid, more likely to lash out.” She held up her hands. “Think about it. You’re stronger than you’ve ever been before, but are you less afraid? Or more?”
She knew the answer to that. In his heart, her brother was a chemist. He’d pursued the serum as a way to make him and everyone else in the pack stronger. She didn’t know how he’d gone from injecting it straight into people’s veins to dumping it lock, stock, and barrel in the water supply, but she would bet he hadn’t intended a citywide disaster. She smiled reassuringly at him.
