Page 43 of Scapegoat

“Of course, Anna is,” Abby blustered. She pointed imperiously to Anna’s neck. “The boys have been declared the alphas’ heirs and they’ve claimed Anna, just as I always said they would.” She shot Mum a smug look then, but whatever bullshit was going on between them meant nothing to me.

“She’s not our mate.” I was forced back, away from Anna, and so were my brothers, that feeling of wrongness only growing by the second. Bile filled my mouth, my stomach lurching, wanting to rid myself of the taste of her, of—

“No, Kaia is,” Mum said, much more calmly. “Alphas, I left her at my house in the midst of transitioning…” She glanced around then, as if her words would summon Kaia from thin air.

But my mate was already long gone, though I didn’t know that yet.

Mum’s words trailed away as she turned around, her eyes narrowing as she stared at Greg. My dad.

“You called me…” She was putting things together as she spoke, I could tell and we were getting dragged along for the ride. “You said that Atlas was hurt.”

I frowned, my body tensing, fur prickling over my skin.

“You told me I had to come… But when I got there…”

“Fuck,” Jackson said. “What the fuck did you do?”

My fangs ached in my mouth, too big for this form.

“Shut up, Greg,” Abby growled, her eyes blazing pure silver. “Shut the hell up.”

Greg started to stutter something out and as I watched his eyes shift from side to side, that expression was all too familiar. Anna stood a few steps in front of me, but I could see their faces then, juxtaposed against each other, and that’s why, when the rest of the shit came out, it wasn’t the surprise it should’ve been.

He snorted, then shook his head, that sheepish expression all fucking Jayden. I’d seen it every time he fucked up, did something stupid and then got caught.

Just like my dad, now.

“Or what, Abby?” Greg said, shooting Kaia’s mum a dark look. There was something desperate in his eyes, something wild. “You’ll tell everyone? Well, maybe you should.” He turned back to face us and the alphas. “The boys are right. Anna is not their mate.”

I didn’t realise it until that moment, but I needed that, needed an adult to recognise what I knew was true. I felt like the whole world had turned upside down, turning black to white, right to wrong, and no one else had noticed. Dad’s throat worked frantically as he fought to get the words out, Abby’s eyes boring into the side of his face.

“Anna’s my daughter.”

My fingers flexed, becoming claws.

“Shut up!” Abby snarled.

Greg swallowed too many times after saying that. “Just like the boys are my sons.” My focus shifted to Mum, who was watching this whole thing play out, the red spots in her cheeks growing brighter. “They can’t be mates. They can’t—”

“The choosing will be delayed.” Mike said to the adults. “Go home and… we’ll let you know…”

He had more to say, I know he did, but it felt like my whole world closed down right then. I looked at my brothers and they stared at me, the three of us of the same mind. Slipping skin was easy as breathing, because our wolves knew.

They’d been trapped down inside us, howling, clawing, trying to get out to show us this. Belatedly I remembered the sound of a wolf barking, barking, then howling for our attention, but that scent of Anna’s. It’d drawn us closer…

And away from Kaia.

We shifted into fur, running out of the front door, our dads, the alphas shouting for us to stop, but we didn’t.

“We knew you were out there, somewhere.” I came back to Kai’s porch, the smell of grass, an incoming storm and sheep shit grounding me. “We knew…” I forced my eyes up to meet hers, seeing she was milk pale now and I wanted to move forward to grab her. Pull her close, hold her against my body and… “We ran and we ran, finding your trail and following it right up until we reached Granville.”

Kai’s breaths were noisy, her eyes silver as she just focussed on drawing in one breath, then another.

“But you weren’t there.” My voice cracked on that because my heart was cracking, all over again.

And that’s when I understood why Kai wanted nothing to do with us.

What Abby had done had broken her, broken us, the woman’s sheer fucking cruelty blowing my mind. She literally didn’t give a fuck who she trashed to get what she wanted and we were the ones left to deal with the aftermath. But by dragging all this up, trying to explain our side of the story, it all came back.

---