Page 17 of The Forbidden Wolf

I looked down; my heart no longer pricked with shame but stabbed with guilt. Tomorrow evening, Kiana would be expected to do far more than simply stand before our packs and declare the vows of mateship with the Alpha Heir of Manhattan. She would be expected to physically mate with a total stranger, and if the Manhattan males I’d had the misfortune of meeting were any indication, her mate could be a great deal worse than even Cal Hockley.

And if our own young males were cut from the same cloth, then perhaps she was right. Perhaps I should count myself lucky to have secured a mate as steadfast as Blaze.

Even if he is going gray in the muzzle?

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “It was just a shock.”

“I know,” Kiana murmured. “I wanted it to be.”

She wouldn’t apologize, and she didn’t need to explain. Being the Alpha Heir had given Kiana a peculiar understanding of our biology. Rather than believing we were two distinct people who just happened to have started out as a single zygote, Kiana believed that she was our parents’ original daughter, and I was some sort of aberrant clone. Thus, it was only natural in her eyes that we experience every emotion at the same time.

Every negative emotion, I should say. To whatever extent Kiana felt positive emotions, she kept them to herself. Which made it necessary for me to do the same. For instance, I could never tell her that I’d met a male I might actually want to mate with last night, or that I was almost certainly going to see him again tomorrow, or that in my haste to run away, I had failed to properly fantasize about him asking me for a dance at her reception…

“I see now that you were only looking out for me,” I said, grasping her wrists. “But I am worried about this happening way too quickly for his pups to process. I know it isn’t fair after what’s happened to you, but since the fate of the pack doesn’t depend on me, can’t Blaze and I have a normal courtship?”

Kiana smirked. “So now you want him to get even older?”

I grimaced. “No. I really, really do not. But the pups…”

My twin narrowed her eyes and chewed on the corner of her lip. The fact that she was even considering a reprieve made it difficult to bite back a smile.

Why? What are you doing?

Trust me.

Manhattan’s Beta Heir wasn’t my fated mate—I would have felt that right away—but he was definitely into me, and we held the same rank on paper, even if I lacked the talent to actually serve as Kiana’s Beta. Father might prefer I mate with someone in the Bronx, but would he truly be able to refuse if the Beta Heir made a claim? If our packs were truly to be joined, then the Beta Heir would become the Bronx Beta no matter what once Damian kicked the bucket. It would be downright insulting for Father to deny him the highest-ranking female our pack had to offer after Kiana. If I could just drag this out…

“You’re wrong.” Kiana dug her fingers into my arms. “The fate of our pack might very well depend on you soon.”

I laughed. “What are you talking about?”

Kiana pushed me back several steps and down onto a cushioned bench beside a fake potted plant. She moved as if to sit beside me, so I instinctively grabbed the cell phone the tailor had left on the bench, but Kiana winced in pain. She plucked a pin from behind her waist and threw it on the floor. She folded her arms over her chest and remained standing.

“What’s going on?” I asked, rolling the phone over in my suddenly sweaty palms.

“Father is ill,” Kiana said bluntly. “He’s been trying to keep this from you because you’re so terribly sensitive, but I’m afraid that’s no longer prudent.”

“Ill?” I stared up at her, remembering his coughing fit this morning. It was rare for shifters to experience serious illness given our natural healing abilities, but not impossible. “How ill?”

“It’s nothing terminal,” she answered vaguely, “but it will increasingly affect his ability to lead. And to physically defeat any challengers.”

I shook my head. “But you’re the Heir. They would have to defeat you too, and I don’t know anyone dumb enough to try that.”

“But if I’m not physically present in the Bronx—”

“But you will be.” I swallowed hard. “You and Sebastian will live in the Bronx, and if Father must step down, you will become the Alpha, and no one will challenge that.”

“That was the plan, yes,” Kiana said, eyes darting suspiciously in the direction of Manhattan. “But plans seem to have changed. Very quickly. And I worry this means that Sebastian has changed his mind about becoming an Alpha Consort when he has his own throne waiting for him.”

I licked my dry lips. “But you said this morning you wouldn’t actually mate with him unless he came home to the Bronx with you. Surely that will be all the convincing he requires.”

“That was all bravado, Elyse.” Kiana’s eyes scrunched shut for a split second. “Sebastian and I might both be Alpha Heirs, but we are not equal. If he decides to stay in Manhattan, we will stay in Manhattan. If his father suddenly decides to back out of the merger after securing our bloodline for the Manhattan throne, then there won’t be anything I can do, short of killing him and Sebastian both.” She took a deep breath and slowly released it through pursed lips. “And even if I would have to think long and hard about murdering my own pup’s father.”

“I don’t understand. If you think we’re on the verge of being double-crossed, then you have to call the whole thing off. They can’t just… kidnap you.”

“Of course you don’t understand.” Kiana raked her fingers through her hair. “You weren’t trained to think like an alpha. I can’t call it off without any proof of their intention to double-cross. At this point, it might be taken as an act of war! I have no choice but to see it through and do my best to… entice Sebastian into submission. If I fail—”

“You won’t fail.”

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