Page 119 of The Wolfing Hour
And yet, I couldn’t be sure. If he was in wolf form, he wouldn’t have his cell on him. He might be investigating some lead, far from anyone who could tell him how much I needed him.
Ida would’ve gotten my message, of course. The woman was like a teenager with her phone. Yet, she hadn’t yet shown up, either. And she’d known what I was up to, had even replied to both my texts with a “K.”
“Lie on your belly before your alpha, wolf,” Floyd commanded. “All the way down.”
Rory shook like a mobile home in an earthquake, but the command was too strong, and she went down.
“You die today,” I blurted, and instantly cursed myself. Taunting Floyd was a bad idea if I meant to wait for Ronan.
“One of us does,” he replied without breaking eye contact with Rory’s wolf. “The difference is, if I die, the pack goes down with me.” His smile was cruel. “It’s already started. The ones loyal to the traitor are dying. The rest will get in line. They need a strong alpha leader, not some touchy-feely, weak fool.”
Screw it. In for an inch, in for a mile.
“You mean an alphastrongenough to murder his daughter’s mother? That kind ofstrongalpha? Or the kind ofstrongalpha leader that ran with his tail tucked between his legs when another alpha threatened his territory? You sold your own kid so you wouldn’t have to fight. Because you’re weak.”
My phone buzzed in my back pocket, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off Floyd. I hoped it was Ronan telling me he was on his way.
“I’m a man who does what has to be done.”
“Were you a man when you dropped out of the mayoral race after I threatened you with blackmail?” I asked, hiding a grunt. My magic was holding back the majority of my pain, but I was badly hurt and a little seeped through.
“I was a good interim mayor for this town, and I would’ve been a good permanent one, too. And that was only the first step. I’d have run for governor eventually. You fucked up my plans.”
“If you hadn’t been an evil piece of shit, I wouldn’t have had the ammunition to get you to back out.” I bit back another grunt. “I can’t wait for the other shifter groups to sift through all the stuff I have on you and your wolves. You used silver on your own wolves and other shifters, allowed human poachers into your territory, and profited off the misery of your own kind. If you think you were fucked before, lube up, boy, because it’s about to get a lot worse.”
For a second, only one, his gaze flicked to me. “You got nothing on me. Not anymore.”
“If you believed that, you wouldn’t have come here with only two wolves. You saw what I did to the ones you sicced on me this morning. Coming here was an act of bravery, stupidity, or self-preservation, and we both know you aren’t stupid—or brave.”
He shook like a dog fresh out of a pool. “Nah, I don’t believe you. Why wouldn’t you use that kind of information if you had it?”
“Until recently, I didn’t have proof I dared to show you because I didn’t want to endanger my sources. But I don’t care anymore. Every alpha in the county is going to know you betrayed your own kind, you bastard.”
Sweat streaked down the sides of his face like tears. He shook again. “Do what you want. I’m the most powerful wolf in this county, and my alphas obey me. In the end, the betas will die, so will my traitor son, and so will you.”
Rory growled. Blood ran down her canines and puddled under her chin. Her muscles were taut, and she hadn’t stopped shivering. She was fighting with every drop of strength, and though she hadn’t gained much, if any, ground, she wasn’t losing it, either.
“Is this a challenge, daughter?” The way he said it, soft and almost caring, made it so much worse. “I’ll crush you. You’ll live beneath my heel until I can marry you off to another pack. TheRiverside deal fell through, but there are others. I’ll find a use for you, yet.”
She grunted, continued to fight the compulsion in her father’s command.
A vein throbbed in his sweat-slicked temple.
It wasn’t as easy to control Rory as he was trying to make it look.
“Show throat.” He closed the distance between them in clomping thuds of his booted feet. Fists the size of grapefruits hung at his sides. “You won’t take me down and neither will your half-brother bastard. Neither of you have what it takes to run a pack. You aren’t ruthless enough.”
He was talking like he’d already won. Did he know something I didn’t? Fear broke through my numbness. Pain stabbed into my slowly healing sides.
“Ronan and Aurora don’t have to be ruthless. They have true power running through their veins.”
His head swiveled in my direction. “Where do you think they got it from?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I shot him a gambler’s smile, willing him to believe I held a straight flush rather than deuces.Fake it ‘till you make it, as Ida was fond of saying. “Which parent was willing to die to protect them? Huh? Which one abandoned them to their fates the second things got hard? Come on, Floyd, you know the answer. I mean, this isn’t the Sunday crossword here.”
He spun around, chest heaving, and stomped over to me. Ironically, I was less afraid now than I’d been when he was standing over Rory.
Boy, was that a mistake.
