Page 33 of Wolf's Endgame

“Why the fuck would you be so reckless?”

“I was researching!” he bit back.

I watched him as he glared at me as if it was my fault he was unhinged when he became focused on his work. “You put my pack at risk.”

“Unintentionally.”

“Mal…you don’t want to be pedantic right now, not if you want to walk out of here.” I focused on what he said. “Hold on…are you saying you intentionally put Kezia at risk?”

“No! Never!” He stood and crossed the room to the bookshelves. “I like her, she’s perfect for you,” he told me as he looked at me over his shoulder. “But she can resist silver. And…is your mate. Both of these things are rare. Put them together in one girl, and…”

I hated to admit that I could see how that would be the ultimate puzzle for someone like the Doc. “It’s a coincidence.”

“I’m a scientist. We don’t believe in coincidences,” he muttered. “It’s either you or her.”

“What is?”

“The anomaly.” He walked back to the couch. “One of you is powerful enough, but together? You talk all the time about Luna creating a mate for an alpha for balance. Kezia didn’t balance you out; she didn’t calm you down or make you rational. Nor you her. You’re both volatile, overly aggressive, and hated each other.” He pulled at a thread on his shirt sleeve. “So, it had to be the being inside her.”

“Kezia and I were volatile to start with, but that changed. We changed.”

“Well, I know that now,” he grumped at me. “But by then, I had already made inquiries about breaking mate bonds and if they could be broken.”

My eyes were wide with horror. “Tell me that you worded it more subtly than that. Tell me that you never asked it that bluntly?” He didn’t look at me. “Luna above, you stupid fucking idiot!”

“I know!” Mal shouted back. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Who did you tell?” I was seething. “I know you. Who did you tell when you realized that you had fucked up?”

Mal wouldn’t look at me, then finally whispered a name, “Koda.”

Fuck. “Why?”

“Too much whiskey, self-loathing, and…a pretty face.”

“You’re gay.”

He shrugged. “She was an attentive listener.”

I bet she was. “You stupid bastard.”

He stood, his posture one of a defeated man. “I never meant to harm Kezia. Or you.”

I knew that. Mal was a genius, but when his obsessive nature took hold of him, he let it. He’d been down too many dangerous paths before, and we’d made the inner joke a long time ago that he was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The obsessive-don’t-care-what-happens persona was Mal, and the doctor, the healer, was Doc.

“Tev?” I asked him.

“Wasn’t me,” he assured me quickly. “I only told Koda how a bond could be broken.”

“Get out.”

I watched him leave, and after a moment to calm my rage, I left the house to find my ex, connecting through the mindlink to Royce to let him know what had happened. Koda was in the food hall, doing as little as possible to help the others. Watching her from the shadows, I wondered what I had seen in her. Sure, she was pretty, her hair perfect even while preparing for a fight. Her clothes were chosen carefully, simple jeans and a shirt, but on closer inspection…the jeans sculpted her ass, the shirt a deep V that accentuated her chest. She was attractive, she knew it, and I never judged her for flaunting it.

It was the look of superiority she wore that turned my stomach. I watched her as she practically sneered as Willy struggled past her with a burden too heavy for an older woman, even a shifter, to carry, and Koda merely glanced at her nails rather than help.

Koda was shallow. I hadn’t lied to Kezia the day I told her that Koda and I used each other to scratch a mutual itch. Nor had I shied away from the fact I knew that Koda pretended it was more. It wasn’t because she cared for me, like Kezia thought, it was because she enjoyed letting others think she was better than them.

I may be alpha, but my shit smelled like any other. A fact Koda never grasped. I wasn’t a better shifter than anyone in my pack; I was the best shifter I could be because of my pack.

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