Wolf Betrayed

by Carrie Ann Ryan

That’s when the light dawned for Bram.

  “You’re keeping him here because people are afraid of what his existence means,” Bram bit out.

  This time, it was Charlotte who growled.

  Walker sighed and ran his hand over his face. He waved at them to come into his office fully. Now, the four of them stood around Walker’s desk—Charlotte angry as hell, Shane resigned, and Bram on the edge of a fury he couldn’t quantify.

  “It’s not safe right now,” Walker began. “There are threats against him.” He sighed. “Brandon and Kameron can feel them along their bonds.”

  Charlotte let out a curse. “Brandon is the Omega so he’s sensing others are feeling dangerous things. But Kameron? He’s the damn Enforcer. He senses attacks from outside forces.”

  “And they’re both sensing something is coming, and it has to do with Shane,” Walker bit out.

  “Then what can I do about it?” Shane asked, clearly annoyed with being talked about as if he weren’t in the room. “I’m not going to hurt your people. I refused to do it before, and I’m not going to now.”

  “They’re your people, too,” Bram put in. “That’s what I’m not getting, or rather, what I didn’t get until right now. They aren’t worried you’re going to come out and attack them. They’re worried about what you represent. They don’t want any evidence of the serum out there at all.”

  Walker pinched the bridge of his nose. “Got it in one.”

  “I’ll help you destroy the serum,” Shane said after a moment. There wasn’t anger in his tone, and that pissed Bram off. The other man was giving in because he cared about others, not about himself. Why couldn’t people see that? “I already said that.”

  “But it’s still in your veins,” Walker sighed. “And that’s why there are threats.”

  Charlotte growled. “Then fucking do something about it.”

  Bram knew he was going to cross a line with what he was about to say, but this man, this Shane could be his mate, and he was damned if he’d see others hurt him.

  “Then let us bring him into the Redwood Pack. Finn will blood bond him in, and we’ll protect him if you can’t. We already have demons in our Pack. We can handle anything.”

  Charlotte gave him a wide-eyed looked that matched Shane’s.

  This time, it was Walker who growled. “We can fucking protect him, damn it. It’s much more complicated than that.” He looked over at Shane, who gave him a nod. Apparently, the other man already knew this next part. “He hasn’t shifted yet, so we don’t know what that will do to him or the Pack bonds.” Walker met Charlotte’s eyes, then Bram’s. “And Gideon thinks Shane can’t leave the Talon Pack and join the Redwoods.” A meaningful pause. “Ever.”

  Charlotte sucked in a gasp, and Bram reached out instinctively to grip her shoulder. It was the only thing he could do then when his own world had been rocked. Beyond the idea that the blood in Shane’s veins could hold the chemicals that humans could use to make wolves, there was something much more going on. When wolves mated outside their Pack, they had to choose which Pack to join, some leaving behind their old Pack. For most, it was an easier decision because one wolf would have a stronger place within their respective Pack.

  If Shane couldn’t leave the Talons and the three of them ended up mating, Bram and Charlotte would have to leave the Redwood Pack. The Pack he had grown up in. The Pack that had taken Charlotte in when she’d had no one. He would no longer be the Alpha’s enforcer, and Charlotte would no longer have the close bonds with her family.

  It seemed the moon goddess and fate had once more thrown a wrench into their plans…if they had any additional plans at all.

  Walker slid a hand over his head. “I’ll try to get him a place to stay.” He looked over at Shane. “You shouldn’t have to be stuck with me day in and day out.”

  Shane frowned. “I’d like a…home. I haven’t had one since I was a teenager.” He shrugged. “Barracks don’t really count, you know?” He looked over at Bram and Charlotte. “Are you two ever going to tell me why you calm me? Or why you’re helping me so much? Or is this just going to be another secret?” He paused. “Why do I feel this…connection between the three of us? Is it just my wolf?” He gave a hollow laugh. “So many questions, and yet I don’t think I’m going to get any answers today.”

  Bram shook his head. “Heal first. Answers later.”

  Shane let out a growl but didn’t say anything. Bram wasn’t sure he had the answers anyway. Things were getting more and more complicated, and that was just things with the three of them. Soon, they’d have to deal with the rest of the world.

  And Bram was afraid that was where things would truly go to hell.

  PARKER

  Parker inhaled the crisp mountain air that had been part of him for so long. He was home. Finally. He’d been away from the Redwoods for years, at first laying the groundwork for peace within the multiple Packs around the country, then forced to put the plans into action once the Unveiling hit.

  He hadn’t been fully successful, but he knew there was a chance the wolves could come together as one against the humans if that ever came to fruition. The problem with how things were now, however, was that though the Redwoods and Talons were on the same page, none of the other Packs were. They were either in hiding or wanting to go about things differently.

  It was Parker’s job to find middle ground. It wasn’t easy, and he was freaking exhausted. But now he was home for a little while, and he could see his family. He’d missed new matings, birthdays, and devastating loss.

  He was home.

  He just hoped he could do some good with the time he’d spent outside the den walls.

  Exhaustion crept into his bones, and he really needed a nap—a nap that lasted forty hours. He’d met with every single Alpha in the US and in Europe. He hadn’t been able to meet with any of the others, as they were even more shrouded in secrecy than the wolves here. He didn’t know if he’d done any good, but no matter what, he knew something would have to happen soon. The tension within each Pack was at an all-time high, and he could even feel it within the bonds to his own Pack.

  He sighed then. It had been so long since he’d truly felt the bonds to his own. They’d always been there, sure, but coming home made them flair once more, pulsating between him and his Alpha, his family, and those with special connections to the moon goddess.

  As a child, he hadn’t had that, and he hadn’t known what he’d been missing. His Uncle Logan and mother had escaped the Talon Pack back in the days of the old Alpha’s reign because of Parker’s birth. He was the birth son of a traitor, adopted son of a Redwood, with the heart and soul of a true leader. Without his father, North, he wasn’t sure he’d have become the man he was today.

  “Parker!”

  He turned at the sound of Charlotte’s shout, a grin forming on his face even through his exhaustion. Charlotte was his favorite cousin, though he was sure never to tell the others that. They were similar in age, and had come to the Pack later on in life, adopted in when their childhoods were torn apart. Their adoptive fathers were brothers, twins in fact, and that had always made them close.

  He’d been gone so long, though, that he’d missed what had put the new shadows in her eyes. He would have thought by now she’d be mated to Bram, perhaps thinking of having a child of her own, but that wasn’t the case. Instead of asking, he pushed those thoughts away and opened his arms for her.

  She threw herself into his hold and tightened her grip. “I didn’t know you were coming home! You didn’t say anything the last time we talked.”

  He kissed her temple and hugged her close, needing her wolf more than he thought possible. She was family, home. He hadn’t known how much he needed her and the rest of them to center him.

  He was getting older, his wolf a little wilder. What he truly needed was a mate and to start the next journey of his life. But with the government sanctions for wolves on the horizon, and this other player, General Montag, in the wind, he was a
fraid his time wouldn’t be coming for far too long.

  And Parker wasn’t sure his wolf had that time to give.

  When he pulled away and cupped her face, he frowned. “What happened, Charlotte?”

  She looked at him, and his brave and strong Charlotte, the same girl who hadn’t cried when her world had fallen apart and she’d had to pick herself up out of the ashes, burst into tears.

  “Oh, baby,” he soothed as he held her close once more. “Tell me everything.”

  “It’s all wrong, Park. Everything.” Her words were sobs, and he knew it was killing her to break down like this.

  “Tell me.”

  And when she did, he knew there was a reason he’d come back. His family needed him. The world had changed once before, and here it was, shifting on its axis again. His wolf might desperately need a mate, but before he could worry about himself, he needed to ensure that his family was safe.

  That was what he’d been raised to do, and damn it, he was a Redwood.

  Family first. Pack first. His wolf would just have to wait.

  He only prayed he had enough time.

  Chapter Six

  Shane stood in his new home, his body tense and his mind going in a thousand different directions. He couldn’t quite understand how he’d ended up in the middle of a wolf den with a new life and the loyalties he’d once held so close torn away forever.

  He’d grown up with two parents who’d tried to love him but worked themselves to death trying to raise him and keep a roof over their heads. His mother had died when he was a teenager, his father the month after Shane graduated high school. He’d had no family, no close connections, nothing holding him to the ramshackle house he’d lived in, and had eagerly joined the military to find some sense of belonging.

  And he’d found it, that was for sure. He’d worked his ass off, learned to be the man he was today, fought for his country, and had made a new family out of the men and women he fought side-by-side with.

  He hadn’t always agreed with every decision those in higher positions made, but it hadn’t been his job to go against them. He’d done his duty, and he’d been proud. It wasn’t until the Unveiling that things had gone awry.

  He’d come to the Talon den that fateful day with the rest of his division, but he hadn’t fired a round. He’d been there on orders from his commanding officer to oversee the world finding out about the existence of shifters from this tiny part of the US. And in the year between the Unveiling and the rise of General Montag and Senator McMaster, he had considered leaving the job that had given him so much and had taken even more. His reenlistment term had come up recently, and Shane had actually put in to leave the military, rather than stay just a few more years to retire. He’d figured out that he wasn’t the kind of man this new force needed.

  So, technically, he wasn’t AWOL. But it was a murky thing. Montag was working on dangerous and highly illegal projects that he couldn’t show anyone else within the ranks. Shane hadn’t even been privy to it since Montag had figured Shane for a whistleblower. Montag had been right.

  So Montag and the others couldn’t report Shane missing because, technically, he’d been missing at first because of Montag’s projects. Shane hadn’t known it at the time, but every mission he’d been on for the past year hadn’t been ordered by anyone but Montag, who was now apparently going rogue.

  Everything Shane had worked for was gone. Everything he had believed in, shattered.

  So now, Shane had a choice: learn to live once again as the man he’d become, the wolf he was becoming, or give up.

  And Shane Bruins did not give up. Ever.

  According to Gideon and the others, he was Pack now so he would have to live under Pack law rather than human law. Only now that the humans knew about the wolves, would things change once again? Shane didn’t know the answer to that, and honestly, thinking about it too hard hurt his brain. So instead, he pushed those thoughts aside and vowed to himself that he’d fight for what was right. And that meant he’d fight for the Pack that had taken him in when he’d had nowhere else to go. So he’d work with the Pack, learn who he was once again, and hopefully find a way to have the wolves and humans work together as one, rather than apart.

  The thing was, Shane knew the vast majority of the human population didn’t care and weren’t scared. There were activist groups proudly accepting the existence of the things that went bump in the night. It seemed to Shane that it was the vocal minority who were against the shifters, as well as key players in Washington that wanted to use this new reveal to their advantage.

  Well, Shane would just have to do his best to make sure that didn’t happen.

  He took a deep breath, trying to relieve some of the tension in his shoulders, but he couldn’t quite make that work. His body didn’t hurt as much as it had the day he’d showed up on the Talons’ doorstep, nor did it hurt as much as it had in the days after, but he still wasn’t up to the level he’d been when he was human.

  Human.

  How strange that he was now thinking of himself as something other than human. Though the others swore they scented wolf on him, he wasn’t sure they were telling the full truth. They wanted to wait and see how he would react to the full moon. And because he was the first of his kind, he didn’t blame their hesitance when it came to trusting him and what he would turn into. He didn’t know either.

  He wasn’t human anymore, nor did he know if he was wolf. He was somewhere in between, and that worried him just as much as the fact that there were two wolves out there that made him want more.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Shane turned on his heel at the sound of Gideon’s voice and fisted his hands at his sides. He hadn’t heard his Alpha approach. Shane had been standing in the middle of his new house, but he’d left the door open, needing to air it out as it had been empty for a year or two. For such a large man, Gideon could sure move quietly. And though there had been something inside Shane that he could now recognize as a bond, or perhaps a sense of awareness of the nearness of Gideon, he couldn’t decipher it yet. They’d told him that would come with time and practice, but they’d been saying that about everything.

  “Like I’m lost,” Shane said honestly, surprising himself. Since he’d already started, he might as well tell Gideon most of it. “I feel edgy. Like I don’t quite fit under my skin.”

  Gideon nodded. “Come with me.”

  Shane raised a brow. “Where?”

  Gideon snorted. “You know, most people would just come with me. I am Alpha, after all.”

  Shane shook his head. “You’re not a dictator, that much I can tell. Maybe those who would come with you without question know you inside and out and figure you have a reason. But you still allow others to question you.”

  The other man tilted his head, studying him, so much like a wolf that Shane had to blink. “Perhaps. Now follow me. We’re going to take a walk into the forest so you can feel the wind on your face and the den’s magic on your skin. You’re edgy as hell, so if you don’t want to come with me, I’ll make it an order with the force of my Alpha wolf behind it. You need the walk.”

  The order bristled Shane, though it shouldn’t have. He’d been taking orders his entire life. Though the recent ones had all been lies. Perhaps that’s why Gideon’s order just then made him want to be surly.

  “Don’t even try it,” Gideon growled. “I know it sticks in your craw that you have to listen to me after your last leader fucked you over, but you’ll get over it. You’re not at full strength yet, and you need the connection to the Pack. So get a move on.”

  With that, Gideon turned around and headed out, as if knowing Shane would follow. Much to Shane’s chagrin, he did indeed follow soon after, closing the door behind him. They’d put his hand up to the scanner when they’d shown him the place, so now it would only unlock for him or one of the ruling members of the Pack in an emergency.

  He had a home now.

  And maybe he should start fighting
for it.

  Shane hurried his pace to catch up to Gideon, and soon, the two of them were jogging peacefully through the woods. He didn’t know if it was just being near a wolf of such immense strength or the forest itself, but Shane could feel himself relax a bit. It wasn’t like it was when Bram or Charlotte were around, but it was something, at least.

  The stopped by a cool stream and each drank some water before resting alongside a large rock.

  “Why did that help me?” he asked.

  Gideon looked over at him. “Because we’re not human. Not fully anyway. We have wolf counterparts within our bodies. For those of us who are born wolves, that connection is always there and always will be. We don’t start being able to shift. That comes when we are two or three, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but we’re still wolves in human form. That’s what scares some of the humans who are against us. That and a few other things. But though we’re wolves, we also have human halves that give us the ability to reason and to live like we do. We try to find peace, and we had for a long time before the Unveiling. I hope we can find that peace again in my lifetime.”

  Since wolves apparently lived for hundreds of years, that was quite a statement.

  “With wolves who are changed, things are slightly different, but not forever. They have to learn how to live with another…being within them. They need to control the wolf, to allow the moon goddess to tighten and strengthen the bonds. They need to believe. Not only do they now have the ability to shift into another form, they also have to fight the instincts they had as humans and learn to live in a new type of societal structure. There are submissive wolves, maternal ones, dominants, and those in the higher powers with gifts from the moon goddess and even more bonds to the Pack like my family. It takes time, and we are constantly evolving and changing as we learn and grow, but eventually, a Pack can lead to calm, to peace.”

  Shane listened, learning, soaking in as much information as he could. “But I’m not either of those things.”