Page 72 of Secrets and Ruin

“Why didn’t Heath come and order Rainer to get his shit together if your father can control him? Most honorable Alphas do executions themselves.” Niko was more confused than judgmental, so I didn’t react to him.

“Rainer Brandt is not a member of our pack and doesn’t deserve that treatment,” Landon growled over his shoulder, not caring if the words were out of confusion. “Beyond that? Fenris was capable of ripping himself out of packs without the help of another Alpha to override the previous one. Rainer probably finds it easy. My father would walk out here, attempt it, then lose the authority. Pointless when he could have spent the time in the one place I don’t excel, which is taking care of his pack as a good Alpha should. Which is where he is. It wasn’t even a discussion. We both knew where we could best help everyone involved.”

“Another fair point,” Niko said, nodding. “Dirk only has good things to say about Heath, and he’s been nothing but fair and amicable the times I’ve met him. It’s good to know he’s not doing this for the slight, but rather because there are more urgent priorities for him to manage, like the health and safety of his weaker pack members.”

“He trusts me and Jacky to get things done.”

Niko glanced at me, almost disbelieving when I didn’t feel he should have been.

“I do get into a lot of trouble but find my way through it,” I pointed out. “It’s not a new thing.”

Niko smirked, and I felt like I was finally getting somewhere with him. With the help of Landon and Dirk, we could actually start seeing eye to eye.

Landon was still looking back at us, his eyes on me.

I held his gaze until he looked forward again, watching the path ahead of us.

“Dirk said you were considering visiting him more often, no matter where he ended up. Have you ever considered leaving this place permanently?”

“I’ve thought about it and have left a couple of times, mostly during wars. I don’t want to be bombed. Somehow, the forest survives, the core of it, the fae part. I keep coming back because of that. Unless something severs the connection, the world still needs someone standing between humanity and the fae that live here. I don’t think anyone ever can break it, but I always hoped.”

“You hoped a bomb, or several, would drop on it and make it gone for good?”

“Yes. It never happened, so I returned.”

I frowned, seeing an uncomfortable truth about Niko. My withdrawn, distant brother, who never really fit in anywhere, I saw him. He’d lost his biological family to the War and gained an adopted one, but they could never really fill the space, and some of them made very little attempt to. He’d lost his closest brother to the death of Liza, and Davor was only just beginning to come out of the deepest of his grief from that loss.

Niko was alone. With the secrets and ruins of his first family and his second family never accepting him fully, he was utterly alone. Dirk had been one of his few chances at having a family who loved and accepted him for everything he was, but then Hasan broke that too. I didn’t care if it was intentional on Hasan’s part or a complete accident, driven by whatever he was dealing with at the time. Hasan had done it, then Dirk had left Niko, too.

Then, if none of that was hard enough, now Niko had a long-lost brother back in his life—something a lot of people might have been happy to learn—not to reconnect or rebuild what they had both lost. No. Rainer wanted a fight to the death, and he had waited eight hundred years for the chance.

I’m sorry, Niko, that you’ve lived this alone for so long. Is that why you want to finish this alone?

I didn’t have the courage to ask him, not sure he would appreciate that I thought he was lonely.

30

CHAPTER THIRTY

HEATH

“Perhaps we should discuss what happens when you’re forced to tell the entire family,” Zuri said diplomatically.

Heath had had to step away from the earlier call, and Zuri had agreed. Once they knew the immediate danger of where he’d sent Jacky and Landon to help Niko and Dirk, there were things they had to deal with. He needed to compose himself and had done that by focusing on his daughter and pack. They still needed him calm, able to control the situation they didn’t know was unfolding. He was certain everyone could tell something was wrong, but none of them asked, letting him hyper-focus on them and their needs.

Even Carey didn’t give him an argument when he asked her to keep to her room and out of the way. It wasn’t because she was underfoot. He knew she was safe in there and not dealing with werewolves on edge. She knew that, too.

Three hours later, he was standing for the second call. This time, it wasn’t only Zuri on screen. Jabari filled up much of the room behind her.

“I was going to raise the alarm. Multiple family members in danger and missing, but we know the area where they should be. I would have explained to everyone what dangers they were walking into if we decided to do a full search.” Davor seemed just as exhausted and scared as he had earlier. “I’m doing my best, Zuri. I’m sorry.”

“None of this is your fault,” Zuri said fiercely. “None of it. It’s no one’s fault, truthfully. This is the consequences of war. Over the centuries, we’ve all made our choices, and those choices have their ways of coming back to us. We must deal with them now, but that doesn’t make our original choices mistakes, not always. You are doing well. You made promises to Jacky and, before that, to Niko. You have been loyal to them in regard to those promises. There’s nothing shameful about that.”

“Thank you. I needed to hear that,” Davor said, visibly relaxing.

“Now, Mother is off for a walk with Aisha and Kushim, taking care of the kids. We need to figure out how we’re going to act. I don’t want to mobilize the family too soon. It would be a disaster. With the fae involved, I almost want to ask Mother if she’ll join us.”

Jabari made a choked noise, and Zuri looked over her shoulder at him.

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