Page 54 of Wolf Tamer

I’m bleeding on the inside, where no one can see.

Because this means that not only is Reid a user and a liar but that he’s known where Carmen’s been the entire time, and he’s been malicious with intent. And now, I’m going to make him pay.

ChapterEighteen

Reid

Fuck, I’m exhausted.

Dealing with pack business isn’t always fun and games and maiming. There’s rarely any of the former, and the latter only for special occasions. Now, even my joke isn’t enough to keep me in good spirits.

My feet feel like they weigh a ton a piece.

There are still several of my wolves who don’t take kindly to having Tasha around. They will not expressly say it to my face, but they don’t need to. I know. They think I’m not utilizing her for her purpose and wonder when I’ll harvest her magic to feed our wards.

The easy, fast answer would be never.

The real answer is much more complicated than that.

I still haven’t figured out exactly how to keep her safe and still bolster our spells to keep the territory safe. I’ll get there eventually. For now, I’ve been struggling to keep justifying her presence in my life without giving away the whole “mate” secret.

I’ll get there eventually because I know my placating words to the rest of the pack will only get me so far.

Gritting my teeth, I make my way back into the main house with the wind at my back and wonder if there’s any time to sneak in a nap. It’s not something I do often, and I’m going to go ahead and blame it on the attack last week. I haven’t had a moment to really allow myself to sit and heal. My energy levels have been consistently low, and my nights are spent making love to Tasha.

There’s been no news on my missing female wolf. No one seems to have any idea where she’s disappeared to or why she felt the need to challenge me in the first place.

No one seemed to have heard anything about their double cross until I brought it up.

Which is strange to me, because they couldn’t have planned to take over the entire pack alone. Two of them were not enough to dethrone me.

Which means I’m the head of a pack of vipers, and I’m not sure what to do about that.

I know what the older alpha would have done. All too well.

I close my eyes and shudder against the force of the memory. It smacks me in the face before I have a chance to push it aside, the way I always do. My father, in a dark room with me and Julius and Liam, looming over us, threatening us to tell him the truth about who had scratched the toilet seator else.

It seemed like such a trivial thing, and yet he’d been absolutely furious with the three of us, screaming in our faces to see which one of us would break first. When none of us were willing to come forward or, as he put it, rat out the others, he punished all three of us and ended up beating me until I couldn’t walk. He beat Julius until he screamed that it had been Liam, and our youngest brother stepped forward, willing to take the brunt of the punishment just to get the torture to end.

My bedroom door creaks open, and I look up from the floor at the towering, furious figure of my father standing there, staring at me without blinking.

Fear immediately chills my heart.

“You’re supposed to be outside with the others, Reid.” His voice is a whip of sound, and although his words are sweet, I know otherwise. I recognize the force behind them. “What are you still doing in your room?”

I glance out the window and once again contemplate jumping out despite it being impossible. Ten years old and already I’ve considered every single means of escape and disregarded them all. Ten years old and willing to drop two stories down a steep cliff.

Father would only catch me. He’s stronger, faster, everything I’m not, and he never misses an opportunity to remind me of that. Remind me that I’ll never be as great as him.

The only person who seems to have a worse time dealing with him is Mama. And she doesn’t escape his form of justice either.

“Mama said I could stay in and miss the ceremony. I don’t feel well,” I tell him.

Edmund shakes his head. “I’m afraid she’s wrong. You will join your family for the ceremony if I have to force you to stand.” His voice drops an octave, and the longer he stares at me, the more his thin veneer of civility begins to crack.

“But I’m sick,” I insist.

It’s the wrong thing to say and I know it. He lurches forward and grabs me, yanking me off the floor, and when I look up at him, I see nothing but cold, unyielding control there.

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