Page 91 of A Wolf's Heart

“I keep staring at the cameras. Fairly sure her surveillance team thinks I’m micromanaging them, at this point. I just wish she had left the cameras that were inside her house.”

“Can you find more discreet ones? Replace them?” I asked.

“Already looking into it.” Detecting he wanted to say more, I walked into the bathroom, ready to take a shower while I waited for him to say whatever he was pondering. “Does it hurt you too?” he finally asked.

“Yes.” I was ashamed to admit iy.

“And we are still not claiming—”

“No.” I ended the conversation right there. “There is still too much we don’t know. Has the council gotten back to us?”

“No, not on the alpha case or inquiries about Scarab Pack.”

Hm. “Well, freeze their stipends, and if we don’t hear back from them in the next forty-eight hours, we’ll pay them a visit. I want the commanding tactile team to accompany us.”

“Yes, Alpha.” Rainor hadn’t called me that in a while. Back to formalities again.

Rainor

“I wantWeylin to attend the first two meetings I have scheduled.” Kage continued on the phone. His request might be problematic.

“If we can pull him from the arena. Last I heard, he worked his men until they all about dropped, and then he spent the night in the bunks down there. He hasn’t been back to the condos since leaving Lila.”

I stood in front of the coffee maker in my condo, staring at the two cream, one sugar coffee I had just made. I didn’t normally take sugar at all; most days, I drank it black, if I had any.

“He’s going to have to get over it, or I can find a new guard. The pack comes first.”

The pack comes first?I wanted to raise Kage’s father from the dead and ram those words back into his fucking mouth so hard, his dried-up, dusty brain popped from what was left of his decomposing skull.

“The pack comes first” didn’t mean we sacrifice everything in order to uphold the pack. It meant we worked together forthe better of the pack. Did Kage not see us losing our mate as a potentially weak link?

A stabbing knife twisted in my chest, as it had been since I said my goodbyes to Lila. Every instinct told meIwas supposed to be with her, not some damn tactile team. It was me who was supposed to be guarding her.

From what? I wasn’t sure. Weylin was feeling the same thing; he did little to mask it from the link.

“Stop acting like he’s replaceable,” I said in a hushed tone. Talking back to Kage wasn’t something I was afraid of. I respected most of what he had said, but it pissed me off that he fought so hard for the better of the pack, yet his choices and words could be what harmed the pack. Those little comments pointing out that Weylin was not pack born was going to push Weylin further away. “We’ve given everything for this pack, and now you ask us to give up our mate. I get that you’re taking your anger out on him, but if you keep pushing, you will drive us apart.” I felt the tinge of guilt before Kage swallowed it up.

“I can’t find my fucking watch,” he growled, ignoring everything I had just said.

“I’m heading to the arena.” Sleep was lost to me now. “In case you missed the message, Kage. We aren’t okay, but we are following you. Don’t fuck us up more than we already are,” I snapped, hanging up.

I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. What the hell did I just say? And why did I say it?

Weylin

I closedmy eyes as the hot water came down on me, burning and stinging the multiple lacerations that covered my body. Thefat lip and black eye were already healing. Blood fell from the cuts, mixing with the water that pooled at my feet.

No matter how many times I’d pulled back, or how often I’d yelled at my men not to hold out, the pain they’d inflicted was still nothing in comparison to the ache in my heart. It had fucked up my whole day. I’d missed the meetings for Kage, and I could barely focus on my normal duties.

I stood in the shower where I first tasted my mate, angry I couldn’t pick up her scent here but glad that no one else could, either.

Something has to change. Either she has to bend or we do. I spoke into the link.

Our mate? Give in?Rainor said.She will never bend.He was searching for something back at Kage’s condo.

The fates did this to cause the death of us, Kage said.

It will only be the death if we choose to ignore their plans.

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