But if I stumbled, it would fall, shattering into pieces. There would be no fixing it. No saving it.
No stopping my brothers if something happened to either of their mates.
Isaac and Eli were always under my protection. No matter the cost. Now Cady and Tara would be too.
I inhaled, tasting salt and mud on my tongue.
I wanted to be happy for them. Wanted to see them live those impossible lives Jacques dreamed up for us.
I just couldn’t swallow past the lump of dread in my throat. The certainty that this was only the beginning. That pain like we’d never known was coming. That there was nothing I could do except stand in the way of it, bearing the brunt of it.
Like I always did.
Like I should have done for the lesser wolves the way Jacques was trying to do.
Those wolves were out of control, though. Untrained or unwilling to hold themselves back. One messy fight away from exposing themselves and the rest of us.
That was why my father had no tolerance for lone wolves in our territory. It wasn’t worth the risk.
In my nightmares, their bones washed up on the shore. Carried upstream in the river, polluting the bayou with the empty eyes of their fractured skulls.
There would be no more werewolf blood spilled on this bayou, if I could help it. We were kin, if only distantly, and they didn’t deserve to die like that.
My brothers and I had a choice. The lesser wolves never did. They had no property, no heritage, nothing but the clothes on their back—if they were lucky.
Many of them had no idea how they came to be. They were only boys, feral and angry and left to figure it out alone.
My cousin thought I was the one to teach them.
He didn’t understand that I couldn’t. That no one could. That we weren’t made for that.
We destroyed.Idestroyed.
I didn’t know how to be any other way. Not anymore.
A gentle wind shifted off the bay, weaving between the branches and finding me. I froze, nostrils flaring, as the acrid scent it carried sank into my lungs.
Smoke.
Electricity crackled in the air, like a thunderstorm waiting to rain down on me. Except the storm overhead was passing.
I knew what I would find as I cleared the trees, slipping from the edge of Isaac’s property onto mine. A barrier of magic slithered across my skin as I crossed the last line of the ward, and I shivered in disgust.
It was only a matter of time before they came for me, but I didn’t think they would come tonight. Jacques was one to lick his wounds.
Or that was how he used to be. Before I killed him, and he was reborn as the vengeful monster he was now.
I had to stop expecting him to be the same. He wasn’t, and it took me so long to realize it that I gave him the upper hand.
Six sets of eyes glowed in my direction, reflecting the flames that were devouring the remnants of my house.
Some of the men standing boldly in my territory were battered from their battle with Isaac, but it hadn’t weakened them enough to make this an easy fight. If anything, it strengthened them, fueling them with a rage I was all too familiar with.
“He sent six of you to handle one of me?” I asked, fingering the hem of my shirt and deciding if it was worth keeping. It wasn’t new, but it was now the only one I owned, seeing as the rest of my belongings were up in smoke.
“One-on-one wouldn’t have been a fair fight,” one of them spat.
I crossed my arms. Eli’s shirts would probably fit me just fine. “Who said anything about a fight?”