Page 89 of Scapegoat

“The alphas called around this morning.” Mum was trying to keep her tone light, but we knew when she was irritated. It was like the fact she barely showed it made us pay more attention, trying to work out what she was feeling without asking her what was wrong, and then silently trying to correct what had upset her. “I think they expected to hear from you before now. They’ll be at the pack house all day.”

“Good for them,” Jayden said, going to get himself a bottle of water. Mum tried to fuss, but he just waved her off. He handed each one of us a bottle too and I cracked mine, glad for something to do with my hands.

“But Jay, you need—”

“To keep Kai safe,” he told our mother bluntly. “To look after her, make sure she’s happy. The whole fucking town seems convinced that we’ve just been away for a bit, taking our time to earn some money while Anna matures and can become our true mate.”

As he frowned, Mum’s hands started to flutter.

“Yes, I know, but—”

“You didn’t say anything about that when I rang,” Xavier said with a growl.

Her hands went to her hips then and we saw the other side of Mum rise to the surface, the one that was a wolf shifter. We were alphas and we could stifle the flash of anger in her eyes with one bark, but you couldn’t resolve conflict by controlling people’s reactions.

“And would you have come home if I did?” She stared at each one of us. “Any of you? I knew you were out there looking for Kai. But when you found her? Did you call? Let me know you were all OK? This is your home and—”

“Mum.”

Xavier walked over and hugged our mother and she fought it initially. It took a lot to make her mad but once she was riled, she needed to stay there for a bit. But everything in her seemed to crumble as he held her.

“We know you were worried.”

“Something could’ve happened!” We heard the tears in her voice and all of us boys stepped up then, moving closer. “You might never have found Kai and then you’d be lone wolves for life and I’d never see any of you—”

“Being a lone wolf isn’t so bad,” Jayden said, hugging her tighter when she started to splutter. “We earn damn good money because we’re faster and can work harder than human men. Moving from place to place and sleeping in swags got old, but—”

“There’s no guarantee we’re staying.”

I dealt the death blow to my mother’s hope, but I couldn’t let it live, not while Kai was here. She was the one who decided, the one we needed to look after. Mum had Dad and even Greg—if she could bring herself to forgive him. I heard Mum’s little sob and held her closer, but her emotions weren’t going to have me pulling my punches.

“I’ll let you—” Kai said, getting to her feet, her cheeks flushing bright red but I shook my head.

“No.”

I pulled away from Mum, despite feeling her hand grasp at my arm. But while my mother had been the most important person in the world to me in the past, Kai was the centre of my world, now. That was just how it went once you found your fated mate.

“What you want,” I told my mate. “That’s the way this works. The moment you want out of here, we’re gone.”

Mum had always been so supportive when we’d said we thought Kai was our mate and I felt like I was only now working out why. Mum’s eyes narrowed as she stared at my girl. Kaia had always been so quiet and respectful, biddable, but her time away had changed more than just her hair colour. Kai had come into her omega nature, and I’m not sure if our mother liked that. Perhaps she’d entertained ideas of having an easy to convince daughter-in-law, of being the power behind the throne when we took control of the pack, but that would never happen.

“Did you want to go and see the alphas?” I asked my love, and she stared up at me, thinking.

“I guess we need to.” I heard Mum sigh, but I ignored that. “We need to find out what the hell is going on.” Kai looked past me to Mum. “Whatever we end up deciding to do.”

Mum didn’t pester us about making us breakfast after that, instead finding something else to do. That was fine, we made our own toast and then got ready to ride over to the pack house.

It was the largest building in the town. Anyone who happened to drive through would’ve thought it was the council building, but it wasn’t. The alpha pack lived there but the whole of Stanthorpe used it for town meetings, weddings, funerals and other significant events. When none of that was happening, it was mostly empty. It was weird just walking in like we owned the place, but in some ways we did. This was what we were the prospective heirs to. We walked through the hall, our footsteps echoing on the tiled floor, until we reached the reception desk that was the buffer between the public and private areas of the pack house. Nelly worked the front desk most of the time and she perked up when she saw us.

“I heard you lot were back!” Did everyone in this fucking town look past Kai to us? The older woman barely registered our mate, beaming up at my brothers and me. “Here to see the alphas now you’re going to reclaim your mate? Anna’s been very patient you know.”

“Anna’s not our mate.” People often accused me of being blunt but, to my mind, people talked way too fucking much. When you said something, you needed to get to the point. I wrapped my arm around Kai’s shoulders.

“But you and Kai are just friends…” Nelly insisted, but her voice trailed away as Jayden shifted Kai’s hair, making clear our claim. “Oh, I thought—”

“We’ve got this.” The deep voice had us all turning. Mike, one of the alphas, was standing there. He nodded in recognition of us, all of us for once and then said, “Come through. We’ve been expecting you.”

Chapter 51

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