Page 73 of Wolf's Endgame

This was what I was fighting for. My mate’s freedom. Knowing what Bale had done to her, had been about to do to her, and what he had done to others, it was time to put a stop to it all.

Kezia deserved better, all pack members did. No matter how I waged this war, there was no point denying it anymore, the time to fight was now.

CHAPTER 19

Kezia

I was in the kitchen making nut bread when Cass found me. Her golden blonde hair was pulled back into a perky ponytail, her cheeks were flushed like she’d been running, and her smile was dreamy.

“You’re not the poster child of a rebellion,” I told her dryly as I kneaded the dough.

Cass immediately looked guilty, glancing over her shoulder to ensure there was no one listening. “I know and I feel terrible, but I have so much joy, Kez,” she told me as she rubbed her belly. “I never thought that this is what would make me feel so…complete.”

“Have you told him?” I sprinkled some nuts into the dough, watching her carefully. Cass’s lower lip trembled as she shook her head. Glowering at her, I punched nuts into the dough, ignoring how I was overworking it. “He needs to know and he needs to know now.”

“I’ll tell him when it’s the right time,” she hissed at me. Coming forward, she lifted my hands from the mixture. “You’re going to overwork that, and it will be denser than an old boot.”

“There isn’t a right time for this,” I reminded her. “We’re in the preparations of war. Kris needs to know everything before he jeopardizes it all.”

“You think he won’t fight if he knows,” Cass asked me, brown eyes wide with doubt.

“I don’t know,” I told her truthfully. “The idea of Kris being a fa—” Cass made a noise and I corrected myself. “Being that is something I’ve never thought of before. I don’t think he has either.”

Cass blew a raspberry at me. Leaning over, she took a handful of nuts. “Are you crazy? He’s raised you, hasn’t he? The man was born to do this.”

“I’m different.” Was I? I’d never thought of it that way. Kris was responsible for me when our parents died, but had he raised me? I ate a walnut absentmindedly as I considered it. He really was the only father figure in my life.

Cass was grinning at me. “Cat got your tongue?” she teased.

“Shut up.”

I went back to making my bread, and she went back to grinning like a fool and rubbing her belly. At this point, it was unlikely that she’d need to tell my brother…he’d figure it all out on his own.

“Do you think Landon is innocent?”

The question took me by surprise so much that I choked on air. When I had stopped spluttering like an idiot and taken several mouthfuls of water, I met her questioning look. “What makes you ask?”

“He’s Landon,” Cass said with a shrug as she looked away from me. “You know as well as I do how clever he can be.”

I did know. It was something I’d been struggling with for a while now. “I know. He plays the part very well.”

“Do you think he is playing now?”

I could lie. I could. She was my brother’s mate, my brother’s pregnant mate. She was also my best friend. “I no longer know what to believe.”

“Oh.” Cass’s eyes filled with tears that she was trying hard not to let spill over.

“When he told me that if I didn’t go to meet him, then Kris would die, I believed him. He was so horrible, so unlike himself, I was too stunned to react. To even think properly.” Giving up on the dough, I stepped back. “When I got there, he overpowered me and told me they had his mom. He never mentioned you.” My tone was hard, but it had to be if I was to get through this. “He touched me in ways he shouldn’t, ways he had never been interested in before. In the compound”—I took a shaky breath—“after he told me Cannon was dead, I couldn’t keep up with him. One moment he was we’re in this together, other moments, he was this isn’t as bad as you think it is. But it was. Cannon was dead, my brother a prisoner, your father was trying to break the mate bond, and Landon was trying to convince me that me giving him an alpha son was the answer…I”—I inhaled deeply—“I no longer know what to believe.”

“I knew he hated that I was mated.”

I looked at Cass in surprise. “To Kris?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it would have mattered to who; it was something I had that he didn’t.” Cass ran her hands over her jean shorts as she spoke. “He’s always been competitive. It’s a twin thing,” she added with a shrug. “But he couldn’t beat me at this. I had something that he didn’t, that he could never have.”

Wow. Just wow. That explained so much, but I wasn’t sure if Cass knew what she was implying.

“If they could break the mate bond, it would mean I was the same as him again,” she added.

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