Page 39 of A Bear's Secret

“If he shoots himself, it’ll be your fault,” Trevor said. He felt like his anger might take on a life of its own and simply rip through his skin to strangle the two of them. “Or do you not mind if one more person in this family dies? Is that just fine?”

His sister Scarlet clenched her jaw. She had unsettling yellow-gray eyes, dark hair and sharp cheekbones. She stood and snatched the gun from Trevor, then tossed it onto the desk and sat back down.

“It’s just a tranq gun,” she muttered.

Their father’s eyes snapped to her, glaring. Scarlet saw, and slouched down a little more in her chair.

“Oh, that’s fine then!” Trevor shouted. “Great! Your niece and nephew will just tranquilize themselves, then. No problem at all.”

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s not loaded,” she said, as if Trevor were some kind of moron.

He was so angry he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“I hope you have kids and I hope they shoot themselves by accident when you leave a gun out,” he spat. “That’s what you deserve.”

Then he turned and stomped out of the office, out of the meeting room, and out of the workshop, back into the bright sunlight.

For a moment, he leaned against the metal workshop, feeling the ridges in his back. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm himself down, but he kept flexing his hands.

How could they?He thought, over and over again. They can do whatever they want to me. I’m an adult, I can fight them, I know what’s wrong and what’s right. But how could they be so careless around the kids?

Just then, Tim came running up, holding something in his hands and shouting.

“What?” Trevor asked, bending down.

“I got a frog do you wanna see?” Tim asked.

“Sure,” Trevor said.

* * *

It didn’t hithim until later.

Trevor was packing jeans into a duffel bag when, all of a sudden, it clicked: the guy in the woods had a tranquilizer dart in his neck, and his sister had a tranq gun.

He froze, the pants still in his hands, and stared blankly at the wall.

Fuck, he thought. It wasn’t Scarlet, right?

Right?

He didn’t believe himself, not even a little. Scarlet was, in most ways, a miniature version of their father — just as ruthless, calculating, and blindly dumb. The main difference was, where Buck Reynolds had just enough charisma to actually lead a wolf pack, Scarlet had zero.

Trevor’s stomach sank, and he put his pants into the bag.

Sloane is getting questioned right now for something that Scarlet did.

He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

How did it ever get to this,he thought. Why do I have to choose between my sister and my mate?

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb.

She’s not your mate,he berated himself. No matter how much you want her to be, it takes a little more than flirting and skinny dipping to actually make it happen.

Trevor had no idea what to do. His whole life, he’d grown up learning that, as a wolf, his priorities were family, pack, self. But how did he choose? Scarlet was family, no matter how he felt about that, but Sloane was just some girl he’d met briefly twice. Yeah, he sure wanted a lot more from her, but that didn’t make it true.

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