Page 5 of The Sacred Wolf

There was a decent chance someone might take it the wrong way and try to kill me. Luckily, I’d learned more from training Evan over the last four week than I’d ever really been taught in the Bronx. Now that I knew who I really was, I found that I could rely on my wolf’s instincts to fill in a lot of the blanks in my physical education. And now that I knew who my sister really was, it made sense that she’d needed to work so hard to become something she actually was not.

Still, I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley. She fought with a machine’s relentless precision, totally void of the negative emotions I felt when I thought about getting hurt or hurting others. She had nearly broken our father’s neck without batting an eyelash. But I held onto the delicate thread of hope I’d found in the fact that she didn’t finish the job. She’d beaten him only just enough to take over.

He knew it too. That was why he’d chosen to follow her home instead of accepting Sebastian’s offer to seek sanctuary with me in Manhattan. It stung that he had still chosen her, after everything that had happened, but Alpha Max had helped me understand why Father would want to return and claim his rightful role as an Elder Wolf, even though he wasn’t nearly old enough for it.

He shouldn’t have lost that battle.

He wouldn’t have killed Kiana.

He shouldn’t have had to. He should’ve been able to subdue her.

I know. But Damian was messing with his mind for so long… I don’t think he was letting him eat properly or stick to his fitness regime. Remember his cough?

Yes. It was gross.

Thank you for that brilliant insight.

My wolf huffed and curled up under my ribs, ears pricked for danger in spite of her petulance. We were pulling up to the main entrance of the high-rise. My childhood home. I hadn’t been back since the day of the mating ceremony, and the familiar black-and-white striped awning was drudging up all kinds of memories. We’d been a happy family once, and there was a part of me that wanted to believe it could happen again, but the sane part of me knew I’d told Evan the truth. Things happen. People grow apart.

But I’m the sane part of you, and I—

Don’t. We’re just here to find out if Father’s still alive. I can’t make any kind of decision about what to do next until I know how far Kiana went.

And if she killed him?

Then I guess we get strong enough to take what’s ours.

And if she didn’t? You just let her keep it?

You know I never wanted it.

You didn’t know it was yours to want.

What difference does that make?

She didn’t answer, and the cabbie was glaring at me in the rearview mirror, so I dug the fare from my jeans pocket and thrust it into his upturned palm. Then I hopped out onto the sidewalk, barely getting the door shut before the taxi shot back into the flow of traffic. We hadn’t exactly been the best of friends, the driver and me, but his sudden absence pinched like a bite on the ear. I was alone. And nobody knew where.

My eyes traveled up the front of the non-descript building, past row after row of glinting windows until I found the third row below the rooftop. The northern corner of that floor had belonged to Kiana, so she could look out over our own territory in the Bronx, while I’d been stuck with the southern corner and its allegedly inferior view of Manhattan. The top two rows of windows had belonged solely to my father, who had spent the last seven years alone in the two-story lofted penthouse with plenty of room for all of us. But surely my twin had taken the best for herself, so where would Father be now?

Six feet under?

Not cool!

Evan has his dark humor; I have mine.

Well, be quiet. I don’t want anyone else seeing my tennis ball eyes.

I dropped my gaze to the double doors nestled in the shadow of the awning. I would have felt more comfortable sneaking in the service entrance like I always had before, but I knew if I got caught, it would look super shady. Walking confidently through the front doors like I owned the place would ironically make it look less like I was trying to own the place. Also, if the lobby guards tried to attack, I’d have much better odds of survival if I could just run right back through the doors.

And no, I couldn’t just pretend to be my twin and say I’d forgotten something I needed for the meeting because Kiana had cut her hair and dyed it brown after the park photos went viral. I hadn’t bothered altering my appearance since I’d been cooped up inside for a month, so hopefully a messy bun and giant sunglasses would be enough to blend in with humans again.

Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and straightened out the defiant T-shirt I had chosen for the occasion—a loose black number with the words ‘Everything I Need to Know I Learned from 80s Movies’ written in famous film title fonts. If my father was alive, then he needed to know the truth about his true heir. And so would the rest of the pack if I ever came back to claim my throne.

No more hiding.

I lifted my chin, stepped under the awning, and pushed through the black wooden doors into the unassuming lobby with its brass light fixtures and old-fashioned chess board tile. Because our entire pack lived in this building rather than being spread out in single-family homes around the borough like the Manhattan pack, we saved all the luxury for the uppermost floors so the servants and other low-rank wolves wouldn’t forget the difference between us. I’d always hated that—why couldn’t we all just have nice things?—but my opinion had never mattered.

Imagine if it did…

---