Page 9 of Tangled Fates

I shook my head. “No. We didn’t even know that your parents weren’t fated mates. That’s news to us.”

She stared down into her coffee. “Did he tell anyone what he was doing? Where he was headed?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “None of us knew he was leaving to go anywhere. We didn’t know until we found the house empty one morning when Colin didn’t show up for an Inner Circle breakfast.”

Levi prepped coffee for the rest of us. “I followed his scent all the way to the edge of Bend, and it continued down the highway that cuts straight through Portland.”

Raven side-eyed him. “But you didn’t go after him? Why not?”

Levi handed Dean filled mug. “Because I didn’t have his permission as Alpha. There was only so much I could do.”

Dean took the mug and settled it between his legs. “My best guess with everything going on is that he was on his way to see you and had to stop for something in the city.”

Raven’s body went limp at that proposal and the crumpled piece of paper slipped from her palm. It floated to the floor where Dean scooped it up, and as Raven’s tears struck up all over again, his eyes flickered across the paper.

“Shit,” he hissed as he handed the letter to me.

And when I was done reading it, I knew that we had found the missing pieces.

“Jesus, Raven,” I murmured.

“He got killed coming to see me,” she said through her broken sobs. “Elias said—h-h-he said he—he lost control of his—his wolf. In the city. A-a-and—and his healing. Why…? Why didn’t he—he heal? Isn’t that?—”

“Come here,” Levi murmured.”

He wrapped his arms tightly around her, stroking her hair as he buried his face into it. The sound of her crying broke my heart, but it only fueled a need to get my hand around that lawyer’s throat. He needed to speak with us before he spoke with her. News like this needed to be delivered by family. Loved ones.

Not some fucking lawyer none of us approved of that Colin sought out by himself.

“Jesus Christ,” Raven said after she got her crying under control again. “Why the hell didn’t you fuckers lead with all of this when I first got here? Why am I just figuring this out now?”

Dean and Levi looked up to me, and I rolled my eyes. “Fine, make the Demon Dog the bad guy.”

“Hudson?” Raven asked.

The faint sound of desperation in her voice caved me in. “We needed the rightful Alpha to lead this pack, and we didn’t want to add on to the stress that you were already under.”

Levi chuckled softly as he handed me a mug of coffee, too. “If you don’t remember, you were pretty hellbent on leaving this place in the beginning.”

Raven shoved her way out of his grasp. “That doesn’t mean you keep my fucking life from me. Got it?”

The three of us nodded our heads as she raked her hands through her hair.

“You have to understand that we had no proof,” Dean said after clearing his throat. “We had no way to prove any of this to you. We knew that something was off about things, but we were under constant attack from the bears in the mountains. So, getting the rightful Alpha in place took precedence regarding the health of the pack as a whole.”

“Does that mean you have no plans to ever investigate my father’s death?” she spat.

“Hey, you watch your mouth,” Levi snarled as he stood. “That man was our Alpha.”

“And he was my father!” she yelped.

“Hey, we just got her calmed down,” Dean said as he moved to massaging her other foot. “Let’s not work her back up because we’d rather place blame than find answers.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Spoken like someone’s hundred-year-old great-grandfather.”

“Look,” Raven said as she heaved a bombastic sigh, “just because I’m under stress doesn’t mean I should be lied to just to be protected. I’m a big girl. I can handle things.”

The three of us looked at one another before our attention fell back to her.

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