Page 36 of Tangled Fates

I rolled my shoulders back. “People talk around the compound. I hear things.”

“Well, unhear them.”

I simply tilted my head, though. “Didn’t you ever wonder why she saw that reel and you didn’t?”

His eye twitched. “I’m not talking about that right now. I’m talking about?—”

“Well, I’m talking about it right now. Your Alpha is talking about it, so you will, too. Why do you believe she didn’t see the reel, but you did?”

His voice lowered into a dangerous octave. “I have no doubt in my mind that she saw it. I simply think she wanted a different path for her life. One that didn’t include this place, like you.”

“Hey,” I barked, “I didn’t make that decision for myself. That decision was made for me, asshole.”

He cloaked me in his shadow. “You don’t get to call me the asshole when you’re the one who keeps running away every single fucking time things get hard. You think this is easy for us? Chasing you down and trying to keep the pack together while you have your existential crisis?”

I gnashed my teeth together. “I’m allowed to go run and blow off steam.”

“That train of thought alone tells me you’re not fit to run our pack.”

“Everyone was lying to me, for Christ’s sake! Who the fuck is going to take responsibility for that, huh!?”

But he simply shook his head. “You have no idea about the responsibility you now have to us. Don’t you get that? This pack doesn’t give a shit about who was lying to you. What this pack cares about is whether or not the leader that currently stands at the head of us is going to lead us into prosperity or ruin. And right now, the only thing you’re doing is leading us into the bowels of hell while you try to figure out your past instead of embracing your future. And I won’t allow you to take down everyone I love just because you’re on a tirade to stick it to some God you believe in because you hate your life.”

I placed my hands against his stomach and shoved. “Fuck you, Hudson.”

“I’d say the same thing, but you don’t even know how to shift back into human form without putting a decent set of clothes on. So, for what it’s worth, you’re not even fuckable right now.”

I looked down at myself and found that I had been standing butt-ass naked in front of him, fighting like an idiot. I clenched my fists at my sides, wanting nothing more than to rip his throat out through his god damn ears.

“Fine,” I growled as I hunched my back, “you want to fight? I’ll give you a fight.”

And as I shifted back into my wolf form, Hudson was right on my heels. Standing in front of me, his snout shoved into my personal space, while those shimmering black eyes of his stared me down.

I wasn’t going down without a fight.

No one got to talk to me that way.

No one got to dictate my life, my future, or what I did with my past.

Especially not Hudson.

12

HUDSON

I don’t want to do this, but if you make me, you’ll be the one bleeding on the ground.

She was feisty, I’d give her that. But maybe if she had her ass handed to her, she’d think differently about the people around her. She honestly, genuinely thought she was the stronger one simply because of the position her father had given her. However, no king forced into his circumstance ever performed the way he wanted to, and I wasn’t going to let her destroy my family because she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing.

So, until she could prove to me she was ready, I took it upon myself to defend my pack.

I’d love to see you try, Raven. Genuinely.

She raked her talons across the dirt. Fine by me, then.

She leapt into the air, which was always a mistake. Wolves were agile while their feet were planted, but we were helpless soaring through the air. Of course, she didn’t know that because she didn’t grow up the way we did, but she was about to learn.

I lifted my paw and raked the tips of my claws across the underside of her belly.

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