by May Dawson
God, Jensen, close your eyes. He didn’t need to see this again.
“Holy shit,” Rafe said softly, his eyes going wide as he stared at the magic. Through the pain, I almost smiled. Maybe I’d win him over one day.
The world we were watched spun around us sickeningly. We saw through Eliza’s eyes as she and her patrol walked into a trap, betrayed by Tommy. They fought fiercely against both witches and shifters. Their small patrol was surrounded by a dozen shifters and even more witches, and watching their fierce, hopeless battle made my heart hammer in my chest.
Eliza had been the last to die. That’s my nightmare. To watch my team die in front of me, to realize I was the last…
She ran, trying to get away, trying to get justice. But she didn’t make it.
She was scared when she was dying, when Tommy kicked her over and put the bullet through her head, but she was fierce more than anything else.
“Fuck you,” she said out loud, then it all ended.
The docks faded away, replaced by the same bland hotel room we’d left just minutes prior.
Jensen stared for a second, his jaw set, before he suddenly leapt up and strode out of the room.
“Let him go,” Lex warned me, catching my arm.
Penn’s face had gone pale. He said, “You don’t need to go back to your pack, Lex.”
Lex hesitated, as if he sensed a trap. “Why’s that?”
“Because we can go to mine.” Penn said calmly. “I saw my father in Eliza’s memories.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Penn
Maddie grabbed the top of the car door and yanked it out of my hands. “Penn, wait.”
“What, Maddie?” I demanded.
We’d driven to the outskirts of my pack territory in North Carolina. I’d done my best to avoid her. But apparently, she wasn’t going to let me get into the damn car for the last leg of the trip.
It was bad enough to face what my pack had done. But it was worse if Maddie thought I was as rotten as they were. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d looked at me that one day back at the academy, with disgust written across her face.
Maybe right now, when the mission was a distraction, she wasn’t looking at me like that. But when she had time to really think about who I was—and who I’d have to be to protect Tyson and Mel—she’d look at me that way again. Not just once, but every time.
“Be careful.” Her blond brows pulled together over those bright blue eyes.
Even when she frowned, she was so damn cute.
“Of course I’ll be careful. I’m the alpha’s son, Mads. I’ll be fine.” I told her, with confidence I didn’t feel. I swiveled in my seat to face her, putting one boot outside the car.
“Come back to me,” she murmured, resting her hands on my shoulders.
“You sure you want me back?” I asked, my voice rough. I’d known my pack was mixed up in dark stuff, but I didn’t know it was like this.
Her frown deepened. “Penn. This doesn’t change anything.”
I twined a strand of her long blond hair between my fingers. I could never resist the pull of touching her. “It does, Mads. You have to see that.”
She shook her head. “You’re still the same person. You’re trying to fix what your pack did—”
“You can’t fix dead,” I interrupted. “You think Jensen’s just going to get over my pack working with the witches responsible for his sister’s death? Does he strike you as the forgiving type?”
Her pink lips parted, and I shook my head, cutting her off. “Mads. I can’t get into my feelings now, all right? Let’s end this. Then we can talk.”
“You promise you’ll come back to me.”
“Yeah.” My voice came out rough. “Always, Mads.”
She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, leaning into me until her forehead brushed mine.
Just for a second, I lost myself in her touch. The sun shone down on her, brightening the small freckles that dotted her cheeks and haloing her golden hair. She felt so good in my arms, warm and lithe. When she was close to me, I almost believed in happy endings.
Gently, I disentangled from her first. I swung back into the car. “Got my back? If things go wrong?”
“Always, Penn.”
“Good.” I winked at her, pretending everything was fine, then closed the door between us.
She stepped back, the expression on her face still worried.
Jensen was right there, sliding his arm across her chest. He nodded goodbye to me, his face the usual impassive mask. She leaned against him easily, and her hands came up to grip his forearm as if she found comfort in his body.
Fuck my life.
I drove for home.
“Hey, Dad.” This time, when I stepped through the door, I expected to see him in the hospital bed. But somehow, it still wrenched my heart with the same jolt as the first time.
He’s an asshole. Don’t forget that.
His eyes brightened. “Penn. I thought you went back to the academy.”
“Eventually.” For as long as I can stay there, anyway.
I took a seat next to his hospital bed. His eyes looked as though they were caving in, sunken in his wan face. He looked so frail, and as soon as I’d leaned forward and hugged him, he fell back into the pillows as if he couldn’t bear sitting up.
“I have a question,” I said. “And I need you to tell me the truth.”
He watched me curiously. “Wow, that’s ominous.”
“Is our pack working with witches? Is that where the drugs come from?”
“We’re out of the drug business—”
“But you weren’t,” I interrupted him. “Is that why you never sent me to pick up a shipment when it came in? You said you needed me elsewhere—”
“Penn.” He sighed. “You don’t understand. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You didn’t have a choice about selling drugs,” I said flatly. “Whatever, Dad. Tell me how I find the coven.”
He shook his head.
Anger tightened my chest, and my voice came out low and fierce. “Let me rephrase. Tell me, or I’m walking away. If I don’t get the chance to fix your shit, I’m done. I’ll go lone wolf. No alpha. No fucking legacy.”
What a goddamn legacy it was, too.
He stared back at me. His gaze was probing, and then he sighed.
“You don’t want to find them,” he warned me.
“No, I really don’t,” I said. “I don’t want any of this, remember? I don’t want to be alpha. I don’t want to go to the academy. I don’t want to hunt down a murderous coven. But here we are.”
He tilted his head to one side. “What do you want?”
“Not the time for philosophical discussions,” I told him.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” he promised. “If you can tell me that.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why does it matter?”
What I wanted had never mattered before. The pack mattered. That was all.
“You can’t live your life avoiding what you don’t want,” he said. “It’s a big world. So what the hell do you want, son?”
Funny how even now, he managed to sound as exasperated as he so often had when I was growing up. It was almost comforting.
“I want to be worthy of the girl,” I said. The rest of them came to my mind, too—the way she’d found comfort in Jensen’s arms as she watched me drove away, the way Tyson had always had my back even when the two of us were bitching at each other, the way Rafe tried to look out for us even if he was a goddamn sadistic know-it-all. “And of my team.”
“The girl I told you to find? To claim?”
“Don’t look so smug, Dad. I know you’re a murderer, that you—”
“Did what I had to do to protect the pack,” he interrupted. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t. How do I find the coven?”
He sighed. “I have one last payment to make before we sever ties. They don’
t exactly appreciate the end of our business relationship. I was going to send Anton.”
“Send me,” I said.
“I don’t want to put you in that kind of danger—”
“Dad. You asked what I wanted.” And to be the kind of man I wanted to be—one who deserved Maddie and the team—I’d have to face plenty of danger.
“Fine.” He told me where on the docks they were going to meet the coven’s boat, and all the other details I needed to know.
I listened intently, the same way I had for dozens of other missions my father had sent me on over the years. Some for good causes, some for bad.
This would be the last one.
“After all, you’ll do a better job than I ever did,” he said, and even though I knew he was a bad man, the affection in his eyes still meant something to me. “It’s time for a new legacy, Penn.
“Yes, it is.” The gravelly voice came from the doorway.
I whirled to face the newcomer.
Anton stood in the doorway. He had one hand shoved in his pocket, but his other hand was down, concealed by his side. I didn’t need magic to know he was carrying a gun.
I’d trusted him. But now the prickle of disquiet crawling up my spine told me I’d been wrong.
“What do you want?” my father demanded.
“To challenge for alpha,” Anton said.
“My father isn’t dead yet,” I said. “Give him the respect of waiting—”
Anton brought the gun up and fired.
The shot echoed in the room.
Blood blossomed across my father’s chest as his head slumped forward.
I stared at him. That hadn’t just happened. One second I was talking to him, then he was gone.
“Like I said,” Anton repeated, “I want to challenge for alpha.”
I stared at him. He still held the gun. He could just shoot me, but the pack would never accept him. To be alpha, he’d have to beat me.
And to get past him, to get off pack land, with the info that Maddie and Jensen and the team needed, I’d have to defeat him.
“Let’s go,” I said softly.
When I walked out onto the front porch, the pack lined the yard. Their faces were a blur, but I picked out a couple of kids in the crowd.
“Hey,” I called to one of the parents I saw. “Get the kids out of here. Anyone under twelve.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd, and I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring them down.
I was going to do things my way. No matter what my father would have thought—no, I couldn’t think of him now. I’d grieve later.
For now, anger washed over me. I didn’t even want to be alpha, but I wasn’t letting this asshole take my place, either.
I yanked my shirt over my head as I came down the stairs of the front porch.
“Do you want me for alpha?” Anton demanded of the crowd. He was still standing on the porch as if it was his stage. “Or this child who doesn’t even want to be here?”
This was never a democracy. Today wasn’t the day we started, either.
“Less talk,” I told Anton, raising my voice to make sure it carried to the crowd. He’d made sure to gather them before he came in. How long had he planned my father’s murder? “More fighting.”
He raced across the porch and jumped into the yard, racing toward me.
I danced out of his way at the last moment, then kicked my foot into his calf with all my power behind it. He stumbled but kept his balance as he whirled to face me.
I took a step back, bringing up my fists. He had a lot of weight on me. I had to stay out of his reach.
“Shouldn’t have taught you everything I knew,” he said.
He was still putting on a show for the crowd. A whispers raced through the crowd, he glanced their way.
And I jabbed my fist into his gut.
He grabbed me as he doubled over, and I almost managed to slip away, but he drove his knee up into my abs.
Pain exploded in my torso, but I punched into his kidney as we locked up close together.
The two of us traded furious blows. I got in a good hit across his face, then another. Blood flew but he didn’t stop coming.
He managed to close his arms around me, bulging with muscle. He bit into the side of my throat hard enough to draw blood, his teeth lengthening, cutting into my throat as he began the transformation.
I slammed my forehead into his face as hard as I could, and his grip loosened, and I did it again.
He stumbled back and I kept going after him. Blood kept running into my eyes, though. It burned as I blinked, red clinging to my eyelashes. I’d burst my forehead open getting out of his death grip. I swiped it away as best I could with my arm, then went after him again.
But I couldn’t see well enough, and he managed to punch me across the face with a right hook, then hit me with a left that lifted me off my feet. I slammed into the ground.
My breath was knocked out of me, but I scrambled to my knees, launching myself to my feet.
His bulk landed on top of me, driving me to the ground. Pain arched through my back from the way I fell even as he punched me in the chest, forcing me to my back.
I shielded my face with my arms as he planted his fist into my face, and the blow glanced off my crossed forearms. Fuck. This was the worst place for me to be.
He had a lot of size on me, he had reach. He sat back on my chest and pummeled my face and I couldn’t reach him without opening myself up to another blow.
He rained blows down on my face and head. My head thudded into the ground, and I heard a crack as some of my bones broke.
The world was a red blur, and through it, I could barely glimpse his smug face.
“Sorry it had to end like this, kid,” he said. “I always liked you.”
I lunged up and grabbed him around the waist like I was hugging him, like I had when I was a kid. With my head buried in his chest, he couldn’t nail a good punch into my face again.
He was looking for somewhere to strike another blow, but I trapped his right arm with mine, got my left heel into the ground, and exploded up. He fell to the side, unable to stop himself with his right arm, and I swung on top of him.
I punched his face over and over as hard as I could, feeling my knuckles pop as they broke. His blood sprayed over me.
Once I was sure he was staying down, I scrambled to my feet and moved back in a hurry. Then I took a fighting stance again, waiting for him to come at me again.
But he just lay on the ground, groaning.
“Are we done?” I demanded. My voice came out rough.
The iron tang of blood was in the back of my throat. I staggered on my feet, but I drew myself up to my full height and squared my shoulders.
He tried to get up, but he couldn’t. He collapsed in the grass.
“He’s done.” His brother stepped out of the crowd and crouched to check on him. “He yields.”
“Alpha.” Everyone in the crowd repeated the word, as they knelt, facing me.
Jesus, that was embarrassing.
“He murdered my father,” I said. I should kill him. I could ask any of the men in the crowd for their gun, and they would hand it to me, and no one would think I’d done anything wrong if I stepped up behind him as he crawled across the grass and blew his head off.
But I didn’t want to kill anyone today. I added, “Throw him in the cells. I’ll deal with him later.”
I staggered past my pack to my car. My hands weren’t working quite normally when I tried to open the car door, and my fingers were slippery with my own blood, but I managed to get it open and throw myself into the seat.
“I’ll be back,” I said. “Try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone.”
I collapsed into the front seat. I’d left a sweatshirt on the passenger seat, and I wiped away the blood covering my eyes. Just touching my face lightly made it even ache even more. I was pretty sure he’d broken my nose, my cheekbone.
I’d barely hung onto
my position as alpha. I’d barely survived.
I started the car and drove away, leaving the pack behind me, wishing I could leave for good.
But at least this time, I was driving toward something, too.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Maddie
When Penn got out of the car, he moved slowly. He looked like he’d been beaten half to death, and my heart stopped.
“Penn!” I would have rushed into his arms, but I stopped because I didn’t want to hurt him.
He gazed into my face through an eye barely slit open, surrounded by a dark bruise, but didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled me against his body in a tight hug. He made a small sound of pain as my arms wrapped around him, but he hugged me fiercely anyway.
“What happened?” I demanded. “Who are we going to kill?”
He grinned. “That’s my girl.”
When I turned my face up to his, he kissed me, even though it must have hurt. Our lips brushed softly together. I ran my hands over his leanly muscled chest, cataloging him for damage, avoiding his bruises. Seeing him like this made me ache. “Oh, Penn.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I think I’m not hurt too bad to shift, and that’ll fix this. But I wanted to get to you guys first. Plan for tonight.”
“What’s going on tonight?” Rafe asked over my shoulder. Then he interrupted himself as if he’d just realized how hurt Penn was. His jaw tensed with anger, and his dark eyes smoldered. “Who do we have to kill?”
“You two are so in sync and you can’t even see it,” Penn said, with a glimmer of that usual Penn sarcasm. “My pack’s meeting with the smugglers tonight. I was right, but my dad was trying to get us out of business with them.”
“He’ll still have to deal with the Council,” Rafe warned.
“He’s dead,” Penn said shortly.
I gasped, but he went on without any emotion.
“I’ll have to go back and deal with my pack. Another day.”
I slipped my arm around his waist, and he half-leaned on me.
“Let’s make a plan,” he said simply.
He looked so cool as usual, so… Penn. Even with his face bruised and swollen and bloodied. But his father had just died.
