Page 89 of Dark Moon Secrets

“Why?” I lowered my voice so only he could hear. “I want to be beta. Ratting wouldn’t help my cause.”

The look in his eyes curled my guts. I believed right then and there that he hated me and wished I wasn’t his son. It had been a sign of our weakening pack that he only had me. I should’ve been a celebration, but I was nothing but a disappointment to him.

“You would do it to be alpha.”

“No one in the pack would allow me to stay as alpha. They would challenge me, and there would be fight after fight until I lost. No, that would be a stupid motivation to tell the Wild Fire pack.”

“You don’t deny you want to be alpha.” He inched closer, tempting me to fight him.

“I was born to be alpha, but not yet.”

I couldn’t deny it. It was my birthright, but at the same time, it was a position I had to earn.

My words caused him to pause. Could I really be getting him to see reason?

“I will find out who the rat was in our pack and would put our plans at risk to attack the witches.”

“You can have until we attack the witches.”

“That’s not long.”

“Even shorter than you think.”

“Why?”

“Both packs are to sit down with the witches and sort out the disagreement. All the plans have gone out the window. We need to bring forward the attack.”

“You can see how this couldn’t have been me… it has put our pack in jeopardy.”

“It will help if you bring whoever betrayed us to me.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

“No. Otherwise, I’d pull them apart right now.” He would, and he wouldn’t be the only one here thinking like this.

“I’ll bring them to you.” Nothing like a bit of a challenge.

“It’s between us. You don’t tell anyone what you’re doing,” he warned. “Someone in the pack wants to bring us down, and I won’t have it.”

“I’ll tell no one.”

I meant it. While I loved a challenge, this was going to be tough.

“Good, let’s get this bonfire started and hope that the ancestral spirits will have something to help us out of this mess,” said Rafe.

Rafe motioned for me to follow him, and we headed toward the pyre. My pulse exploded. He wanted to blame me for the betrayal without any evidence. I had been so close to being out of the pack when I hadn’t done anything wrong, at least nothing they knew about.

Standing next to Rafe now would improve my position in the pack. He was right. We had to be united in our stance. He needed someone to have his back, and I was it. Would he ever trust me enough?

For now, he was.

That’s all I was going to get.

The other leaders in the pack stood near us, closer to the pyre than the others. It annoyed me that Tyr was one of them. He had no right to be here.

Could he have been the one who betrayed us? I had no evidence, but mate or not, I was going to start with him.

Rafe raised his hands, and the pack members stilled. Everyone watched him.

---