Page 62 of Mated

“I have decided she can,” I say. “Stand aside.”

Abel shakes his head. “The pack has spoken, Cain. You know it.”

“The pack does not speak on matters of my mate. I do. Get out of my way.”

Abel plants himself even more firmly, his jaw set with determination. “I won’t, Cain. It’s for her good, and for our good. You know that.”

“I know no such thing. I know that you have been making trouble for me and my mate since I found her. I know you set up the conclave early. I know…”

“I was excited for the pack to meet her!”

“Nonsense. You wanted to sabotage things because you knew she was a dilute. You wanted to humiliate us. I let it slide. I will not let anything else slide.”

“You can’t keep her outside these dungeons,” Abel says. “She has the blood of evil in her veins. She is a monster, even if you don’t see it. The rest of us can. Her presence inside Denholm is like poison flowing in our veins. I’m sorry, brother, but you have to sacrifice her. It’s the only way.”

“Sacrifice her?”

“The preparations are being made for the next full moon. Her blood will be studied. She will not go to waste. And you will not have to suffer the shame of having a mate of Russian blood.”

My fury becomes a cold thing. Abel has more than overstepped. He has begun to act as alpha.

In an instant, I see it all so clearly. He has used my mate as a distraction, and now he intends to destroy me by destroying her. He knows what happens to alphas who lose their mates. They are broken shells of the men they once were. The surest way to bring an alpha down is to attack his mate. That is another one of the many reasons why there is a place in the dungeons for an alpha mate. Abel is not the first to come up with that plan.

I wonder if he was not behind the initial horrid words she overheard to begin with, the first day she discovered what a domestic dilute was. I wonder if he did not use Isabella for his own ends. She was certainly bold to act against an alpha’s mate.

“I’m doing this for your own good,” he says. “I love you, brother, and I can see this situation more clearly than you can. To earn the favor of the fates, we must offer appropriate sacrifice. She needs to die. Then you’ll be free of her, and the pack will be cleansed of her tainted blood.”

I realize in this moment that it’s never going to be over. They’re never going to accept Kira. They’ve undermined her so thoroughly, she can never be a part of the pack.

“Let me do it,” he says. “Let me put her out of her misery.”

“Get out of my way. Stand down. Accept your place as beta. You are acting unacceptably, and we both know it.”

“I’m the not the one fucking a Russian whore.”

Every man has his limit, and every alpha knows his breaking point. As I reach mine, all anger fades from me. I know what must be done. And I know I will do it, because there is no alternative. Free will is an illusion in this moment. This moment feels fated. Inescapable. Love couldn’t stop it from coming. Careful decisions could only delay it. My brother has decided to stand against me and the woman I love. He has turned my position into a prison, and my love into a lever with which to yank me this way and that.

It ends now.

I put Kira down very carefully.

I shift.

I attack.

CHAPTER 15

Kira

There’s blood fucking everywhere. I have seen dogs fight before, and I saw Cain deal with my cousin Colton, but what’s happening now is a fight to the fucking death. The snarls and growls coming from both brothers are beyond feral. They are ferocious and terrible, and they are frightening.

I am far too vulnerable in my human form, so I shift, the change coming over me in a moment of desperation and fear. We are all animals down here with nothing to save us from our own brutal instincts. Cowering in the corner, I feel hot splashes of wolf blood spattering over my nose and fur.

Cain’s fury is biblical. His jaws tear flesh, snap bone. This is what it looks like when an alpha reaches the end of his tether. I am not witnessing a fight. This is a straight up murder.

Cain is killing his own flesh and blood for me, for my freedom, for my safety. For everything he always said I deserved, for everything he has tried to give me and failed because these wolves would not allow it.

It is done quickly, and the sights I see as it is done will never leave me. I will see them when I close my eyes, when I sleep, and sometimes for no reason at all.

---