Page 40 of The Forbidden Wolf

“Found what?” Father asked, his voice perhaps slightly less hard now. As far as I knew, he was the only person in this room who had any idea what meeting your fated mate should actually feel like.

“Very attractive,” I mumbled, cheeks flushing hot.

“That’s all?” Father pressed. “That is why you swore?”

“It was a very brief moment.”

“That’s all it would take.”

I shrunk beneath his condescending gaze. “Perhaps my great love for my sister obscured the sensations. I would rather die than cause her pain.”

“No,” Father said. He looked from me to Sebastian to Max to Mateo. “Once recognized, nothing will stand in a fated pair’s way.”

“Then why are you here trying do just that?” Max demanded. “All things considered, you have no right. This is an unprecedented display of unwarranted aggression.”

“And this is a farce!” Father roared in Max’s face. “Your heir has made a fraudulent claim to cover up an unapproved courtship being carried out in secret with my youngest daughter who is not available for mating until after her sister has done so.”

“For the love of Halo,” Sebastian moaned. “They’re twins. What does it matter?”

“And there was never any secret courtship!” I grasped Father’s sleeve, twisting it tight about his wrist. “I swear to you on my mother’s soul, I am innocent of any wrongdoing.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Kiana sneered. “Swear on the life of the woman you murdered that you’ve never done anything wrong.”

“Murdered?” Sebastian’s brow creased. “Elyse?”

I froze. Everything froze. She had never said it so directly, and so I waited for someone to correct her. For Father to correct her. For him to say she had finally gone too far. I was just a baby. I had no control over my position. No say in how the midwolf chose to remove me down there in the Whelping Den with no helpful human tools.

But my father only turned his head.

“Elyse,” Sebastian whispered, his breath falling warm across my forehead. “Nothing can change the way I feel for you, but I… I would like to know what she means.”

I looked up into his golden-brown eyes. He meant what he said, however disturbing that might be. Generally speaking, I would want my mate to have enough of a moral compass to know that literally murdering your own mother was unforgivable. But maybe I also wanted a mate who could lay down his enormous pride and let his fragile mother treat him like a little pup.

“Did it ever occur to you?” I asked, turning slowly to face my twin. “That I might have had room to turn around if you didn’t insist on taking up all the space in every room we’ve ever been in since the moment we first split?”

Chapter Sixteen

Kiana released the battle howl before she’d even finished shifting. I didn’t have time then to think about her audacity—only the Alpha could make that sound—because it took only a second for her enormous white wolf to pounce.

Mine exploded to the surface, shredding my T-shirt and jeans with the force of her arrival. She pushed her sharp rows of teeth into my elongating jaw, her claws through the tips of my widening paws. My ears stretched out in a rush of sound as if someone had turned up the volume on the whole city. Muscles bulged and bent in previously impossible directions, molding me into a canine shape. My fluffy tail blossomed from my tailbone like a flower on a vine.

Our bodies collided like thunder, rattling the windows and the floor and the doors across the room. We rolled over and over like puppies, forelegs locked around each other’s ribs, back paws scraping at each other’s soft underbellies. Our jaws snapped at each other’s fur, seeking the tough flesh buried deep underneath.

The Edwardian Room rocked again and again as if bombs were going off, each one followed by a new set of yelps and snarls. I shoved my muzzle against Kiana’s, pushing her away from my throat, and from the corner of my eye I saw a patchwork quilt of pelts spreading to all corners of the room as the Bronx and Manhattan shifters went for each other’s throats.

“You jealous little bitch,” Kiana’s voice punched into my mind. “Just couldn’t pass up a chance to take something else of mine.”

“She was my mother too.” My fang sliced Kiana’s soft loose lip. “You cruel vindictive bitch.”

Kiana didn’t even yelp. She slammed the side of her muzzle against mine, vibrating my teeth in their sockets. “How could she be your mother? You weren’t supposed to be there. She didn’t even know you were.” Kiana brought her muzzle back against the other side of mine. “Once a sneak, always a sneak, hmm?”

“I didn’t consciously sneak into existence.” I gripped her lower jaw, sinking my fangs into her gums. “I just happened. Same as you.”

“You are nothing like me!” Kiana wrenched away, leaving the salty tang of blood on my tongue. “You’re nothing at all!” Her nose plunged toward my throat like a striking snake, and I felt the fur along my jugular pull tight. “You could never deserve a male like that!”

“Is that all this is?” I pushed up with all four paws and threw my twin off me. “You would start a war because you can’t stand the thought of me being wanted?”

Kiana and I scrambled to our paws and began circling each other with lowered heads and bristling hackles. As I made the turn around her, I saw the full scope of the carnage she’d unleashed with the howl she had no right to release. Chandeliers swung from the dark wooden trusses that crossed the high ceiling as if a furious wind were moving through the room, yet there was hardly any air at all, according to my burning lungs.

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