Page 12 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

It was just anger, he told himself firmly. Anger and shock—the violation of his privacy, the sheer blinding audacity of his brother to do something so monumentally stupid. Claire clearly didn’t understand, he reflected as he pulled his jacket over his shoulders. If she did, she’d be as angry as he was. Reeve must have charmed her. Darion could just picture him now, drawing Claire into his absurd web of deceit, charming her with his quick wit and his toothy grin. He imagined Claire smiling back at his brother, and the bolt of anger that shot through him was strong enough to make him catch his breath. Was he angrier with Reeve on Claire’s behalf, or on his own? It didn’t matter, he decided. What mattered was getting this out in the open as soon as possible.

There was no question of waiting until morning. If he spent the night tossing and turning in his bed, his anger would only grow, and right now, there was no telling what he might be capable of. The night air was cool against his skin as he closed the cottage door carefully behind him, turning back only long enough to confirm that the light in the bedroom upstairs had been turned off. Claire would be asleep by now. Good. By the time she awoke, everything would be in place to get her back to her real life. His brother’s breathtaking audacity would just be something funny that had happened to her once. It was the least Darion could do to make up for the awkward, stilted evening he’d subjected her to. She didn’t deserve any of this, he thought, grinding his teeth as he walked through the quiet evening. Such a sweet, kind person—the way she’d listened to him blather on about his brother, the easy way she’d reacted to his rudely barking orders at her, that easy smile that sprang to her lips at the slightest provocation.

She’d be okay, he told himself firmly. He’d make sure of it. Whatever Reeve had done, he would undo. It was strange, to feel angry with Reeve on someone else’s behalf instead of his own. Perhaps that was why his skin had been tingling with magic all evening. Perhaps that was why he was finding it so difficult to resist the urge to shift and make the journey to Reeve and Lyrie’s cottage in his wolf form. Still, he held it back. Shifting made it harder to keep a lid on his anger, and even as it stood, he was genuinely concerned he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself from making a scene at his brother’s house.

It was Lyrie who answered the door, still blinking sleep out of her eyes with her sword in her hand. Darion bit back hard on the opening insult he’d been rehearsing—he’d hoped it would be Reeve who’d answer the door. Lyrie’s expression was sharpening as she looked at him, and he muttered an apology as he heard the distant sound of his niece’s cry.

“I need to see Reeve,” he said, holding Lyrie’s gaze. Her curiosity vivid on her face, Lyrie hesitated for a moment. “Please,” he added, as softly as he could manage.

She nodded reluctantly, calling her soulmate’s name as she turned from the door and headed back into the cottage. Darion waited uneasily in the living room, shifting from foot to foot. The baby’s cries quieted as the minutes crept by, and he could hear Lyrie’s low voice murmuring to her in a singsong, soothing cadence. The peace was almost enough to soothe his burning rage, too.

That was, until Reeve appeared in the doorway with an enormous grin on his face.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Reeve said brightly, eyes sparkling as though he was reveling in some tremendous joke. “I thought you’d be busy entertaining—”

Darion lost a few seconds after that. But when his vision cleared, he had Reeve pinned against the wall, his forearm pressed against his throat—not quite hard enough to cut off his breathing, but the threat was definitely present. There was no fear in Reeve’s eyes, but the grin, at least, was gone. The silence between them was thick, broken only by the sound of Lyrie’s voice in the other room, singing to the whimpering baby. The brothers both glanced toward the doorway. Darion grimaced.

“Outside,” he hissed, jerking his thumb toward the front door, then stalked jaggedly out into the gathering dark. His brother’s footsteps were behind him. How many times had he hauled Reeve out to reprimand him in private? How many more times would he have to confront him like this before he finally learned his blasted lesson?

“Darion, if I’d known we were going for a hike I’d have put some shoes on,” Reeve’s voice came eventually, and Darion spun back around to face him, scowling. They’d reached a clearing in the trees behind Reeve and Lyrie’s cottage—far enough, he hoped, that their raised voices wouldn’t carry to the baby’s room. “If you’ve brought me out here to murder me, fine. Just don’t make me walk any further.”

“Jokes,” Darion growled, taking a menacing step toward him. “It’s always jokes. You’ll meet death himself with a joke on your lips, won’t you?”

“Not tonight, I hope.” Reeve folded his arms across his chest, and though his lips twitched a little, Darion could tell that his brother was at least trying to hold back his smile. “Now, how can I help you?”

“You’ve gone too far this time, Reeve. Meddling in my life is one thing, but what you’ve done to this poor girl is absolutely beyond the pale.”

“Claire?” Darion clenched both fists at the way Reeve drew her name out, wanting nothing more than to knock that stupid smirk off his brother’s face. The only thing that was holding him back was his reluctance to let Reeve see how much he’d gotten to him. “If arranging a free trip to a gorgeous tropical island is meddling in someone’s life, well, I’ll apologize to her myself.”

“Stop it,” Darion snapped. “Stop performing. Stop playing games. There’s no audience here but me, and I know exactly what you’ve done.”

“And what’s that, exactly?” Darion didn’t like this. Reeve still looked too composed, too whimsical; there was a wicked, dancing light in his eyes that usually indicated he still had a trump card to play. But Darion could no sooner have reined in his anger than he could have stopped a wave from breaking.

“You lied to her,” he growled. “You told her I wanted a soulmate, a family. You brought her here under false pretenses. You made her sign the paperwork. You—”

“In other words, I…. arranged a marriage?” The grin was back in full force, dancing across Reeve’s face, vivid and infuriating even in the dim light of the moon above them. “Would that be a fair assessment of the situation?”

“That—I—you—”

“Really?” Reeve laughed breezily. “It didn’t occur to you to prepare a response to that one? I would’ve thought that would be the first thing you thought of.”

Darion gritted his teeth. More and more, he was struggling to remember why he’d opted for talking to his brother—why he hadn’t just shifted and leapt at him with his jaws wide, wrestled him into submission the way he’d always done when they were kids. His wolf was growling in his chest, urging him to strike. His wolf had never had much time for conversation, and right now he was having a hard time disagreeing. Reeve must have clocked it; his smile faded just a little, and his tone was a little more serious when he spoke again.

“I’m not surprised you’re angry. I was pretty angry myself when you sprang this on me, remember?”

Darion gritted his teeth. “That was a different situation, and you know it.”

“Whatever. You arranged a marriage without telling me, I arranged a marriage without telling you…I’d say we’re square.”

“I arranged a ceremony to unite our packs,” Darion snapped. “I did the only thing I could to avert a war so that we could focus on the demonic taint on this island. I acted according to duty, to protect the wolves of this island and further our purpose here. You, on the other hand—"

“—acted with the exact same interests in mind,” Reeve cut him off sharply, eyes narrowed. “The whole reason we’re settled on Kurivon is to establish a community, to build homes and families and futures. You’re lonely, Darion. You’ve been lonely for a long time. You said it yourself—there’s nobody on Kurivon for you. So I looked further afield.”

Darion almost wanted to laugh. “You abducted a total stranger—ahuman—from her life and dropped her on my doorstep. Do you have any idea what you put that poor girl through? How she felt when she realized I didn’t know who she was?”

“Oh, so it’s my fault you don’t know how to entertain?” Reeve scoffed. “I didn’t abduct Claire, for a start. She’s the one who reached out when she saw your profile. She wanted to come, Darion. She wanted to meet you. This wasn’t some whim.” His tone was almost reproachful. “This was months of work. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d have put a stop to it.”

A sudden realization struck him. “You kept this from Lyrie, too.”

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