Read an Excerpt

Eight Weeks Ago

Shay couldn’t identify the startling sound that woke her from a deep, dreamless sleep—the kind of perfect sleep she had lacked for many weeks. She stared at the shadow-striped ceiling of her bedroom, listening for that strange noise as her newly awakened mind filled with old worries. As the daughter of the run’s Alpha, Shay had no shortage of suitors. Her father, however, had picked through them and given her two choices—both strong Black Wolves who would step up and make an excellent Alpha one day. She needed a strong mate, because of her own inborn weaknesses.

An abbreviated scream sent her upright in bed, clutching the sheet to her breasts. Heart pounding, pulse racing, she listened. The scream had been close by, perhaps in the house next door. The Dennison’s lived next door. She’d invited their family over for supper last week because their eldest son, Edward, was one of her mate choices.

Shay climbed out of bed, her t-shirt and sleep shorts twisted and uncomfortable. She tried to right the clothing as she scrambled for the window. Her bedroom faced north, out over the main street of their small Connecticut town. Everything seemed quiet, in order, and yet a deep sense of foreboding pressed heavily into her chest, crushing her heart beneath its weight.

Something was wrong.

Her beast stirred, snarling its agreement—an instinctive response from her animal nature when her human half was threatened. The loup garou’s beast was fed by instinct, ruled by emotion. Shay soothed her beast as best she could, determined to remain in control and not shift until she knew what was going on.

She left her bedroom for the eerie silence of the upstairs hallway. Her father’s bedroom door was open, which meant he wasn’t there. He always slept with the door closed. “The Alpha is part of all his people, shared by many,” he’d told her once. “That room is my sanctuary, sweet one, my only chance to truly be alone.”

Downstairs, something thumped.

Shay opened her senses, listening, scenting the air. Her skin prickled with awareness—others were moving around in the house. Her father’s cedar and pine scent filled her nostrils, a stronger waft that told her he was home somewhere. Had he dropped something? Bumped into something? Unlikely, as loup garou had excellent night vision, even in their human forms.

A new scent, one of rot and decay filled her with dread. Her stomach curled up tight. Adrenaline surged through her blood, riling her beast. She had never smelled a vampire before, but Father described it to her once. Her nose told her that one of her people’s deadliest enemies was in her home, but that was improbable. Those creatures had been hunted to near extinction long before her father was born.

Another thump preceded a pained grunt. Fear froze her voice, preventing her from calling out to her father.

Outside, a man screamed loudly, painfully.

Shay’s beast snarled, urging her to set it free. Shifting would take too much time, at least a full minute if she pushed herself, and she may yet need her voice. Loup garou protected their own. They didn’t fight within the run. Internal attacks were dealt with swiftly and fiercely by the Alpha. Life was about solidarity and supporting your neighbor . . . so where were all of her neighbors? She couldn’t possibly be the only one to sense trouble. She didn’t dare wonder if she was the only one left alive.

She knew only one thing for certain: something was very, very wrong in Stonehill tonight.

The lingering stink of vampire grew stronger as she went downstairs, taking each step carefully, as swiftly as caution allowed. At the bottom of the stairs, Shay turned the corner to run for the front door. In the near darkness, she tripped over something warm and large. She hit the hardwood floors on her hands and knees, jarring her teeth and neck. The odor of fresh blood choked her, a living thing invading her nose and lungs. She twisted around.

Her father gaped at her through sightless eyes, cheek-down in a pool of his own blood. The flesh of his throat was torn out, ripped to pieces, exposing meat and tendons. Shay shrieked, horror and anger filling her in equal measure. Grief battered at her, wanting a hold, but she beat it back. Grief meant accepting her father was dead, and she couldn’t do that. Andrew Butler was indestructible.

Behind her, a woman laughed, and rage surged through Shay like an electrical current. Her beast roared, demanding vengeance, and Shay gave in to the instincts of her hidden predator. She had no time to shift now, but she could damned well fight.

Shay rolled onto her knees and launched herself at the source of the laughter. In the dim light cast by the half-moon outside, Shay saw a black-clothed shape seconds before she slammed into a small, feminine body. Her hit cut off the girl’s horrid laughing. Shay reached for the girl’s head, intending to slam it into the wood floor as hard as her loup garou strength would allow.

The girl blocked her arms. A forehead connected solidly with Shay’s chin. Shards of pain raced through her face and blurred her vision, her disorientation fed by the warring odors of loup and vampire that surrounded her. She couldn’t locate the vampire in the room, couldn’t get a good scent on her unknown attacker, who smelled strongly of loup. But the scent was muddled, the downstairs hall rife with warring odors, and Shay was too busy fighting for her life to puzzle it out.

All she knew was that the tiny woman below her had murdered her father, and Shay would kill her for that.

The girl gave her no quarter in the fight. She lunged upward, knocking Shay to the side. Shay screamed when the middle of her back slammed into a doorjamb, and white fire surged up her spine. Bladelike fingernails scored her chest and arm, each wound blazing with agony. Blood flowed, slicking her skin and the floor.

“You’re adorable when you fight back,” the girl said in a singsong tone, as though she was commenting on a nursery rhyme. “Fight more.”

“Bitch,” Shay said. “You killed my father.”

“Yes, I did. I’m going to kill you, too.”

The girl swiped out again. Shay rolled, catching a few deep cuts on her shoulder. She crashed into the girl’s legs, sending her tumbling to the floor with a surprised shout.

“This grows tiresome,” the girl snarled.

The girl moved faster than Shay imagined possible in a living creature, suddenly on top of her, and then all Shay knew was pain. Pain and blood and tearing flesh. Her beast roared in agony and anger, unable to take over and protect her, to fight this hellion taking her apart a piece at a time. She closed her eyes, strength draining out of her with each ounce of blood that oozed from a dozen wounds.

The attack stopped. Shay dragged in a ragged breath, positive it would be her last. She waited for the killing blow, the hand that would rip her throat out as it had her father’s. The stink of dead things turned her stomach.

Warm breath puffed over her face. The girl inhaled deeply, then exhaled hard. Her weight shifted.

The girl snarled, a guttural sound that terrified Shay right into her bones. And then Shay relaxed, no longer possessing the energy to fight death. She welcomed an end to her pain. The battle was over, and she accepted her defeat.

“Why?” Shay said, the single word barely audible to her own ears, even though she was screaming it in her head. “Why?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” her attacker said. “You may not like the answers you receive.”

Shay thought it a strange thing to say to someone you were about to murder—an even stranger thing to ponder seconds before you were about to die. She thought of her father instead. His strength and wisdom and iron rule of the people he protected. Who would protect the run now with the Alpha family dead?

Who would avenge their deaths?

Chapter One

Knight McQueen had anticipated the speed and fury with which his younger brother, Rook, would approach Dr. Mike’s house, and his guess was proven wholly right. Rook ran down the tree-lined street like his tail was on fire, intent on his target, nothing in the world standing between him and his mate.

There was really no tactful way to tell someone his wife had fainted at home while doing nothing more stressful than bending over to rescue a dropped napkin, and that Knight had carried her over to Dr. Mike’s for an exam. She’d woken up before he could cross the street to the other house, embarrassed, but also slightly out of breath. Knight adored his pint-sized, china doll of a sister-in-law, and he hated to think anything was wrong with her.

Knight had left Brynn McQueen in their town doctor’s capable hands and then gone out to the front porch to wait.

He put himself directly in Rook’s path, raising both palms to make Rook stop all forward motion. A waft of irritation and dread rolled off of Rook and tickled across Knight’s senses. He carefully took the edge off of Rook’s emotions, using his empathy to dial it back a bit for his slightly panicked younger brother—the gift of being a White Wolf, something he both loved and hated.

“She’s still with Dr. Mike,” Knight said, using his best calm the hell down right now voice. “Pull it together, pal.”

“People don’t faint for no reason.” Rook was stating the obvious, but in the two months since he’d first met Brynn, he’d fallen head over ass for her. He elevated worrying about her safety to an art form.

“No, but that’s why she’s getting checked out. I need you calm when you go inside. If Brynn sees you pissed off and panicked, it won’t help her. She’ll want to make you feel better.”

Rook grunted, but didn’t argue. “Yesterday morning she said she felt dizzy, but I thought it was because she’d overslept. She’s been tired lately. I should have made her see Dr. Mike then.”

“One thing could have absolutely nothing to do with the other.”

“Or it could be symptomatic of a larger problem. She’s the only one of her kind alive, Knight. We don’t know what this could be.”

Unlike the vast majority of the population of the small town of Cornerstone, Pennsylvania, Brynn was not a full-blooded loup garou. She was half Magus, raised by a Magus father to believe that loup garou were animals who deserved extinction. Falling in love with Rook and being taken in by his family had undone those lies, but Brynn was still an anomaly.

The only other known Magus-loup, Brynn’s twin sister, Fiona, had been killed more than a month ago.

“Look, don’t let your imagination make this worse than it is,” Knight said. “Maybe it’s low blood sugar.”

“Maybe it’s a brain tumor.”

“You’re impossible.”

Rook pulled a face. “She’s my wife, Knight.” The naked emotion in his voice said more than the four simple words. She was his entire world. His love, his beast’s chosen mate.

Knight understood how it felt to find your mate and then lose her. His had been missing for almost a month. “Brynn is a fighter. She’s proved that over and over. Whatever it is, she’ll be fine.”

“Saying that is your job.”

“I’m not saying it as the White Wolf, I’m telling you as your brother. She’ll be fine.”

Rook took a few deep breaths, visibly relaxing with each one to a less than nuclear level. Still a scary look. Taller and more muscular than Knight, Rook had the strength and speed of the Black Wolf lurking beneath his skin—the protectors of their people. A near fatal fight two months ago had left him missing his left earlobe and with enough scarring to give small children a good fright.

Knight was used to the new Rook, but sometimes his pissed face was epic.

“Thanks,” Rook said.

“You calm enough to go inside?”

“Yeah, I’m calm.”

“I don’t care what Dr. Mike tells you. If you look like you’re going to explode on him, I will tackle you.”

“Good luck.”

“Test me, little brother.”

Rook grinned. “Come on. Let’s go hear Dr. Mike say it’s blood sugar or something easy to fix.”

Knight followed Rook into the waiting room that made up the entry to Dr. Mike’s house. Three other doors led to exam rooms, and upstairs were recovery rooms. Dr. Mike himself lived on the third floor, a bachelor his entire life.

Only one of the exam room doors was shut. Rook knocked, three rough taps of his knuckles, and a distinctly feminine voice told them to come in.

Brynn sat cross-legged on the exam table, her dress swapped out for a cloth gown, straight black hair fallen forward to curtain her pale face. Her cheeks were rosier than normal, her blue eyes bright.

“How do you feel?” Rook asked. He tugged her into a hug. “You okay?”

“I feel fine.” Brynn pecked his cheek, then nudged him away a bit. She tossed a chagrined smile at Knight. “I’m sorry for scaring you earlier.”

Knight shrugged. “I’ve had worse scares. What did Dr. Mike say?”

“Blood pressure, pulse, and temperature are all normal for me. He’s downstairs checking some blood that he drew.”

“Did he say what he’s looking for?” Rook asked.

“No.” She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. Nervous. She had an idea, only she wasn’t saying. Knight didn’t have to open his empathy too far to sense her anxiety.

“Did he give you any sort of hint?”

“He asked me a few questions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as how she puts up with that nosy husband of hers,” Dr. Mike said, his big voice filling the room before his body did. He was smiling like Knight had never seen, and his joy soothed some of Knight’s own nerves.

“Is she all right?” Rook asked.

“So far so good, but Miss Brynn and I will be needing to make regular appointments for the next few months to make certain she stays that way.”

“Why?”

Knight saw the answer coming before Dr. Mike said it.

“Because she’s pregnant.”

“She’s what?” Rook blinked hard, one hand snaking out to grab his wife’s. Brynn’s wide eyes got impossibly wider, her mouth opening but only a sharp squeak coming out.

“She’s late and her blood test confirmed it,” Dr. Mike said. “You two are pregnant.”

“How’s that possible?” Brynn asked. “Half-breeds are always sterile.”

“Loup-human half-breeds, yes. History has long told us that, but as I said when you first came to us, you’re unusual. There was no way to know if you could have children with a full-blood loup.”

“I’m pregnant.” She spoke the words as though trying to convince herself of the reality. “Sweet Avesta, I’m pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

Rook still looked shell-shocked and slightly pale. Knight studied his brother, concerned by the reaction. He didn’t seem upset, exactly, but he also wasn’t shaking for joy over the news.

“How far along?” Knight asked.

“Six weeks,” Dr. Mike replied. “It’s still very early, and since we truly don’t know what to expect from the pregnancy, I’d advise against telling too many people right away.”

“You think something could go wrong?” Brynn asked.

“Every pregnancy comes with risks, especially during the first trimester, and I would hazard that yours comes with more risks than most. To be frank, I’ve birthed hundreds of loup, but I know nothing about the Magus gestation cycle.”

“Magi get pregnant the same way as loup and humans. Our cycles tend to be faster, thirty-two weeks rather than thirty-eight. Babies are smaller and weigh less, but they’re fully developed. How do loup go?”

“The child of two full-blood loup garou can develop for anywhere from forty to forty-two weeks.”

“Ten weeks is a big difference,” Knight said.

“Hence the extra caution we’re going to take.” Dr. Mike gently cuffed the side of Rook’s head. “You with us over there, lad?”

“Yeah, here.” Rook shook himself all over. “I can’t believe it. I mean, we weren’t even trying.”

“We weren’t exactly using protection, either,” Brynn whispered, even though all three men could hear her.

Something fierce and protective settled over Rook, and he tugged Brynn closer. Wrapped his arms around her waist. “Are you okay that this is happening?”

She tucked her head beneath his chin, making such a beautiful picture of two people in love that Knight’s gut hurt. “I’m scared. I can’t explain why, but I want this baby so badly now that I know it exists, and I’m scared of losing it.”

“We’ll do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Dr. Mike said. “Light activities, frequent checkups, a very healthy diet.”

“I can’t believe we’re having a baby,” Rook said. He laughed softly, his joy finally peeking through. “I’m going to be a father.”

Knight’s insides went cold. He shuffled to the corner of the room, giving his brother and sister-in-law space for their happiness, while his own world tilted into something gray. Something unsettled and marked with bad memories.

“Brynn?”

The concern in Rook’s voice snagged Knight’s attention. She’d gone ashen, leaning hard into Rook’s chest, her arms rigid.

“I didn’t know my mother,” she said. “I don’t know how to be a mother.”

“You’ll figure it out, love, I promise. I didn’t know my mother, either.”

“But you had your father to show you how to be a good parent.”

A soft pang of regret pressed against Knight’s heart. Their father had died a month ago defending his people from their enemies. Some days Knight woke up and it took him several minutes to remember his father was dead. He hadn’t been there to say good-bye like his brothers had, and he regretted that every single day.

Rook stroked his wife’s hair. “Sweetheart, you had my father, too.”

Brynn made a soft noise, not quite a sob. Grief hung heavily in the room. “If it’s a boy, I know what I want to name him.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Thomas Joseph.”

Knight swallowed hard against a knot in this throat. His father’s name had been Thomas, and Joseph the name of his other sister-in-law’s father. Both men had died heroically in battle.

“T.J. for short?” Rook asked.

“Yes.”

Rook was going to be a father, and he wanted to name his child after their father. The tribute was perfect. He and Brynn would make fantastic parents. Knight was going to be an uncle, and so was their eldest brother Bishop. Knight should have been over the moon, but all he felt was dark. Angry.

Hollow.

I wonder what Crazy Bitch would have named our child?

The unprompted thought made the darkness rise up, threatening to swallow him.

“What if it’s a girl?” Rook asked.

“Your mother’s name was Andrea, right?”

“You don’t have to use her name. What about your mother?”

“No, I’d rather not.”

“You young’uns have time to figure out names,” Dr. Mike said. “Right now we need to suss out the next step.”

“Of course.” Brynn kissed Rook’s chin, then gave the doctor her complete attention. “You mentioned limiting my activities.”

“Yes, staying close to the house, not overexerting yourself.”

“What about sex?”

Too Much Information alarm bells rang in Knight’s head, and the room was too damned small. “I’m going to step out,” he said, “and give you three the space you need to, um, talk about things.”

The happy couple was too distracted to pay much attention to him leaving the room. Knight didn’t mind in the least. He was more than happy to be invisible for a while. It was difficult to be alone or have any real privacy around a thousand other loup determined to keep him safe.

He stepped out onto Dr. Mike’s front porch and did a quick visual sweep of the yard and street. Spotted Luke in the front yard of the McQueen house, leaning against a small tree. Tanner had a position farther up the street toward Main, hands clasped behind his back at parade rest. The Westfeld brothers had made it their personal mission to bodyguard Knight at all times, day and night. The dedication was a pain in the ass, but Knight couldn’t fault them for it.

Knight’s father, Thomas McQueen, had been the Alpha of Cornerstone, and he hadn’t officially named Bishop as his successor before being killed. Bishop’s petition for the title had come with a ten-day challenge period, during which another loup from any other run could fight him for Alpha. Colin Corman had done just that, arriving in Cornerstone with Luke and Tanner as his sidekicks—no one knew at the time that the three of them had grown up together and were good friends. When Colin was killed protecting the McQueen house, Luke and Tanner received permission from their Nevada Alpha to stay until their enemies were found and Colin’s death avenged.

They’d come to an agreement with both Bishop and Knight to shadow Knight until their enemies were found and destroyed. Enemies that had slaughtered hundreds of loup garou in three other neighboring sanctuary towns. Four enemies had been reduced to two—a pair of loup-vampire hybrids that were fast, fierce, and brutal, and they hadn’t been heard from in weeks.

More than their unpredictable attacks, Knight found their silence these few weeks unnerving.

Shay.

His beast growled its rage over the loss of their mate.

No, not loss. She wasn’t lost to them, she’d been stolen. The two remaining hybrids had distracted the entire town with a fire, and then waltzed in and kidnapped Shay Butler, the beautiful and damaged young woman that Knight had finally come to recognize as his mate. A woman he would do anything to see returned to him.

He had no idea where she was, or if she was even still alive.

She’s going to be an aunt.

Through a strange twist of fate, Shay and Brynn shared a biological mother. But while Brynn was half Magus and raised as one of them, Shay was fully loup, and had been the daughter of an Alpha. A strong, determined Black Wolf who would have led her people one day had her town not been destroyed by the hybrids. And now she was gone.

He snarled at the sky, hating his inability to change it. To find her. To do anything other than get through each day as best he could, doing his duty as Cornerstone’s White Wolf. Soothing emotional upheaval, tending to the stressed, and keeping the large population of volatile men and women on an even keel.

Not an easy job when he was flailing, his grip on his own tangled, tattered emotions often slipping away and leaving him in darkness. It loomed in the distance more often now that Shay was gone. A living, shifting thing waiting to take him away again. To protect him from the pain and give control to his beast.

No. Not again. Never again.

He’d lost himself to his beast once. He wouldn’t do that again. Not while Shay needed him.

Knight sent a quick “where are you?” text to Bishop.

Instead of texting an answer, Bishop took his overprotective nature in hand and called. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Are you busy?” Knight asked.

“Inspecting the new apartments with Jeremiah and the electrician. They should be move-in ready by the end of the week.”

“That’s good news.” With more than a hundred new loup joining their town in the last two months, they’d built apartments and homes with enough space to permanently house the newcomers. Newcomers who’d spent the last few weeks sleeping in spare rooms and on sofas all over town.

The human electrician had been a compromise, since no one in Cornerstone was qualified to wire up entire buildings with multiple apartments, and Bishop had spent the better part of the week overseeing the project.

“Yeah,” Bishop said. “It’ll be good to give everyone some stability.”

“You’re right, it will. And I’m sure your wife will be glad to have some of your attention back.”

Bishop’s sharp laughter bellowed over the phone. “Trust me, when Jillian wants my attention, she gets it.”

Knight heard the affection in his brother’s voice for the woman who’d stolen his heart. Maybe not in the ass-over-teakettle way that Rook had fallen for Brynn, but Bishop and Jillian had a fierce bond. They were both stronger together than apart, and as they eased into their roles, they would easily put any other Alpha couple to shame.

Both of Knight’s brothers were married and in love with their mates. He envied them their joy.

“Knight?”

“Huh?” Had Bishop been speaking?

“I asked you what was wrong. You sound off.”

“I’m fine. Rook just got some big news, though.”

“Big good?”

“Very good, I hope.”

“What’s going on?”

“Forget it. Call him, it’s not my place to tell.”

“Okay, I will. Are you sure—?”

“I’m fine.” Knight ended the call before he had to defend his tone of voice anymore. He couldn’t always control how he came across lately, and it bothered him, but there was nothing to be done. In truth, he’d been lucky to come out of his forced shift at all. The fact that his mind was mostly intact was a small miracle. He could deal with the occasional outburst.

His family might feel differently, but whatever. He was the one the hybrids had targeted. He was the grand prize for them. He welcomed another attempt at acquiring him.

Come and get me.

***

Familiar, high-pitched wailing roused Shay Butler from a restless, feverish dream full of dark shapes and whispers that always seemed to linger in her waking state. She pushed off of the thin cot that had been her bed for countless days now, its metal frame squealing as she stood, relieving it from her weight.

Less weight than from her life before this. The plain dresses she’d been given to wear had never fit well, but Shay felt it in the sharpness of her hip bones, in the aches of her knees and shoulders. Her hair was falling out more frequently. She wasn’t starving, but she wasn’t being given enough to eat. Not in order to maintain a loup garou’s metabolism.

The dim, single-room apartment gave her little light. All of the windows had been painted over and barred. She had managed to scratch away a bit of paint in one corner, which gave her a view of a brick wall. It was all the natural light she’d had in ages.

She switched on the table lamp and blinked hard against the yellow glare. It illuminated her prison, chasing out the real shadows and doing nothing for those lingering from her dreams. Beyond her cot was the crib and the source of the crying that had woken her. She stared at it, trying to remember what she was meant to do.

Stop the crying. Keep her calm.

Shay shuffled across the bare wood floor until she reached the scarred crib. Tiny fists jabbed up into the air. Tears streamed down red cheeks. Her thatch of black hair was sweaty and damp. Shay picked up the squalling creature and held her against her chest. The baby settled quickly, the cries becoming whimpers.

She slowly paced the sparse length of her prison. The corner farthest from the cot had a small stand with bottles, formula, and several jugs of water. Next to it was a tiny refrigerator, and beyond that the bathroom. No door, giving Shay no real privacy. Not that she had frequent visitors.

The hybrid sisters had broken into the McQueen house while the majority of the town was occupied by a fire. Shay had heard the commotion downstairs, heard Colin yelling. Then Winston. A woman had screamed in anger. And then a black-haired pixie of a teenager had turned the corner and jumped on Shay before she could defend herself. Bit her neck. Drank enough blood to make her pass out.

She’d woken up alone in this room.

Hours had passed. She had raged, pounded the walls, tried to find a way out, and failed. Failed because of her lack of strength. They had attached a leather collar around her neck, the soft material woven through with thin chains of silver. None of the silver directly touched her skin, but she couldn’t remove it and the proximity prevented her from shifting.

At her kidnapping, she had been a month from her quarterly. Every one-hundred-one days, a loup garou endured a biologically forced shift that lasted from sunset to sunrise. The loup often became violent, so they were caged for the night. Without the quarterly, a loup garou could go mad.

My time is soon. Too soon.

She’d tried to explain the quarterly to Allison and Desiree separately, because the pair never came together. Neither of them understood. They’d never felt the power of the quarterly shift. They didn’t care. All they wanted was for Shay to look after the baby. Nothing more, nothing less.

A baby with no name.

Who are your parents, little one?

The child had no answers, only a vaguely familiar scent Shay’s addled mind could never place.

Her beast, long quiet these last few days, stirred from the deep place she’d gone to hide from the silver. They both knew her quarterly was close. If she wasn’t allowed to shift . . . Shay wasn’t certain what would happen. Physical pain. Emotional stress. Madness. She could potentially hurt the baby she’d been told to look after.

Maybe the hybrids would understand that. If she explained the collar would make her attack the baby, maybe they would listen and release her. She wanted to go home so badly her chest ached with it.

Oh Knight, I miss you. I miss you so much.

The baby’s tears had stopped, but Shay’s had only just begun.

Chapter Two

Inside of the large, three-story McQueen house was the only place that Knight received any measure of privacy, and he often found it in the conservatory off the rear of the house. Luke and Tanner backed off, one of the two usually taking a break to sleep or eat, or do whatever it was that robots did when not guarding their charge.

Okay, so the robot thing was a little mean. They were overdoing it a bit with the protecting, but Knight wouldn’t fault them for being overzealous. Hell, they might be the only reason he didn’t end up kidnapped and held prisoner as a baby-making machine.

Except no one could be certain what the two hybrids wanted now. It had been exactly thirty-two days since the last attack, and no one could come up with a good reason for kidnapping Shay. The fact that she was their half-sister didn’t explain the risk they’d taken in attacking Cornerstone directly.

“I’ll get you back, love,” he said to a potted yellow rose bush. The conservatory was Bishop’s hobby, and he kept a variety of roses alive year-round to honor their late mother. Roses had been Andrea McQueen’s favorite flower.

Deliberately heavy footsteps outside the half-closed door announced the new arrival before he had a chance to knock. His elder brother, Bishop, stepped inside, filling the small room with an air of stability and strength that only the Alpha could exude. Their father had done the same thing, and no one could say that Bishop was not his father’s son.

He closed the door, which set Knight on alert. He hadn’t spoken to Bishop since their brief phone call a few hours ago, and despite the neutral expression, Bishop’s eyes were shining with pride. The pride of an uncle-to-be.

Pride Knight hoped to feel himself one day. All he felt right now was numb. And dark.

“I thought talking to the plants was my job,” Bishop said.

“You talk to your plants?”

“Sometimes.”

“Promise me if they ever answer you, you’ll go see Dr. Mike immediately.”

“Smartass.”

Knight shrugged one shoulder. “You’re the one who talks to plants on the regular.”

“Yeah, well, whenever I talk to Jillian she tries to give me advice. I love her, but sometimes I just want to vent, you know? Advice-free zone.”

The visit came into perfect focus for Knight. And he wasn’t biting. “So should I leave you with your roses so you can vent or chat, or do whatever you need to do?”

Bishop plunked himself down in one of the two armchairs in the room. “I’m not kicking you out.”

“You came to check up on me.” Off Bishop’s surprised eyebrow-arch, Knight added, “I know you well enough to read between the lines. I’m fine.”

“Sit down.”

The hard, don’t-ignore-me voice of the Alpha put Knight’s ass in the other armchair.

Bishop leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, his expression daring Knight to move or speak. “For weeks all any of us got out of you was ‘I’m fine’ and you weren’t. I don’t want to hear you say that ever again, do you understand?” The entire speech came out with all of the inflection of an essay recitation, but even when he was quiet, Bishop was firm. Like their father, he didn’t have to yell to get his point across.

“I understand.” Knight didn’t like it, but he got it. The order was born from fear, and Knight didn’t want to be the source of fear for his brothers ever again. Not like before.

Twenty-four hours out of his mind from a forced shift, unable to tell friend from foe, had been more terrifying for his family than for Knight. He didn’t remember much from that time. Only the rage and hunger. And Shay. Even when he couldn’t hear her, he’d felt her close by. She’d pulled him out of the darkness.

He never got the chance to tell her that he’d brought some of that darkness back with him.

Bishop leaned back in his chair, relaxing a bit, an expectant look on his face. “And?”

Knight grunted. The trouble with their relationship was a lack of interpersonal communication skills. Knight never had a problem talking things out with Rook. Bishop had always been different. Seven years older, he’d often come across more as a second parent than a big brother—not only to Knight, but to Rook as well, who’d only been an infant when their mother was killed. Knight vaguely remembered her. Sometimes he was positive he only recalled seeing her in photos.

He would do everything in his power to make sure his siblings’ children grew up knowing both of their parents.

“Knight? You with me?”

He blinked Bishop into focus, surprised to find him squatting in front of his chair, close without invading Knight’s personal space. “What?”

“You went away for a bit.”

“Sorry, I got lost in thought.”

“You get lost a lot lately.”

Ever since the forced shift. Worse since Shay’s kidnapping.

Why can’t I say that out loud? Why can’t I confide this to my brother when he’s practically begging me to talk to him?

Oh yeah. I’m sick and tired of being the fucking weak one in this family.

“I’ve got a lot of crap in my head to sort through, don’t I?” Knight asked.

“Such as?”

“Are you being deliberately obtuse?”

“Yes.”

Knight frowned. “Why?”

“So you’ll say it out loud.”

Something ugly rolled in his gut. “Say what?”

Bishop watched him steadily for what felt like forever. Knight refused to blink. “So you’ll say whatever it is you’re thinking about when you go away.”

He had to give Bishop something, or he’d never leave. “I was thinking about Mom.” The scent of roses in the room seemed to intensify, but it was only his imagination.

“Because of the baby news?”

“Yeah. I was there when Rook found out. Brynn was worried about being a good mother, because she never knew hers. I keep thinking that Rook was three months old when our mother was killed. He doesn’t have a single memory of her.” Knight tapped Bishop’s shin with his boot. “And don’t you start getting morose and blaming yourself for her death. You nearly died, too.”

Bishop’s answer was to stand and wander over to a potted white rose bush. “Believe it or not, I’m starting to let go of the guilt I used to feel over that night.”

The admission shocked Knight into a rudely blunt “Finally?”

“I know I deserve that. I’ve carried it around for twenty-two years. It isn’t easy to stop feeling responsible.”

Knight risked opening his empathy to his brother’s emotions. He was pleased to sense a measure of concern tempered with peace. Bishop really was coming to terms with his guilt. He’d only been ten years old when several loup from another run broke into the McQueen house intent on stealing a three-year-old Knight to replace their dead White Wolf. Their reasoning was that Cornerstone had a White in Andrea—idiotic, considering Knight was a toddler and would have been unable to act in any real White Wolf capacity for several more years. The three children were being watched by Mrs. Troost, and Bishop was seriously injured trying to keep his brothers safe. Knight was briefly kidnapped, but during the pursuit and recovery, their mother was killed.

Bishop had spent the rest of his life trying to make it up to his brothers for not saving them or their mother—no matter how many people told him that it wasn’t his fault. No matter how many times Rook and Knight told him to stop blaming himself, because they didn’t blame him. Being unable to help last month when Rook was kidnapped by the hybrids had torn at Bishop. Finding out what had happened to Knight when he tried to rescue Rook had devastated him.

Hearing and believing that Bishop was getting past it all gave Knight hope.

“You never were responsible,” Knight said.

“Not back then, but I am now.”

“As our Alpha, yes.”

Bishop studied the rosebuds in front of him, tracing over the delicate petals. “And our mother was the only thing you were thinking about?”

Irritation prickled Knight’s scalp. “If you want to ask me something, then ask me.”

“Fine.” He turned, arms crossed. “Did Rook’s news make you think about Victoria?”

Finally a blunt question. Talking to Rook about things like this was easier, because he flat-out asked. They didn’t do this verbal dance that he did with Bishop, and it was a lot less exhausting.

And the simple mention of that crazy bitch’s name made Bishop’s beast stir with anger—and with the need to protect Knight from something as innocuous as a name.

“Yes and no. I didn’t consciously think about her.”

“You thought about the child she was carrying.”

“Yes.”

His heart ached with the memory of a brief meeting he’d had with Dr. Mike two days after he came out of his forced shift. They’d managed to keep hold of Victoria’s body after she was killed with the intention of potentially studying her, possibly finding a weakness in the hybrid’s genetic makeup. During his examination, Dr. Mike had confirmed what Victoria had taunted Knight with for weeks: she was pregnant when she died.

With his child.

A child that had died with her, killed by its own grandfather in a brutal, bloody battle. An attack that left three hundred loup garou dead and almost a hundred more temporarily homeless. The survivors had been folded into the Cornerstone run, as had a small group of loup, humans, and loup-human half-breeds from another destroyed run. Patchwork though they were, Bishop had managed to unite the entire town in the fight against the hybrids.

Mostly.

“Knight, may I ask you something?”

“You can ask.”

“If that child had made it to term and actually been born, would you have been able to love it?”

Something cold trickled down Knight’s spine. “That’s an impossible question to answer.”

“Is it really?”

“Yes, it is.”

“But you mourn for its death.”

He mourned for a lot more than the death of a fetus whose very existence had been a result of violence and violation. He mourned for his father, who’d been killed trying to save a town from extinction. He mourned for his childhood friend Winston, who’d been slaughtered trying to protect Brynn and Shay. He mourned for the hundreds of loup garou who’d died over the last two months, all because a couple of insane hybrids decided they wanted Knight to father the next generation of murdering psychopaths.

His beast mourned the loss of his mate.

No, Knight didn’t mourn the child he’d lost. “I don’t mourn its death, Bishop. I’m angry. Angry that I had zero choice in its creation, and angry that I had no choice in its extermination. I have been nothing but a victim in all of this, and I’m fucking sick of it. I’m pissed, but I’m not sad. Not anymore.”

Knight’s voice had risen a bit, and Bishop was watching him with an intense expression. His nostrils flared, and his eyes were hard, and it took Knight a moment to realize it was his own fault. He’d let his guard down, allowed his own anger to reflect back onto Bishop, resulting in Bishop’s increased agitation. Only one of the many dangers of his empathy. He drew back on that rage, kept it for himself, while feeding Bishop what few shreds of calm he still possessed.

“I’m sorry,” Knight said.

Bishop shook himself, like he could shed the extra emotions that way. “It’s fine. It’s actually kind of refreshing to see you mad. You hide what you’re feeling way too often, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know. But that’s what all this is about, right? Making me talk about it, instead of stew over it?”

“It’s supposed to be about that.” Bishop exhaled long and hard. “Maybe I should have asked Rook to check on you. He’s better at this than I am.”

Knight laughed, soft at first, and then harder at the confused look on Bishop’s face. “Dude, you’re the Alpha. You check up on people all the time, but you still can’t have this conversation with me.”

“It’s different with you and Rook, and you know it. I’ve been your Alpha for a month. You’ve been my brothers your entire lives.”

“Yeah, and we’re both about to become uncles. Can we focus on that for a while, please? The positive?”

Bishop grinned, then sobered. “It’s still a risky pregnancy.”

“I think we’re all aware of that. But Rook and Brynn got married knowing full well they might never have children. They have to be cautiously over the moon.”

“They are. We all are. Right?”

He kind of wanted to punch Bishop for questioning him. “Yes, we are. I would never begrudge Rook a family. He’ll make a great dad.”

“Brynn made him promise that, boy or girl, no piercings until they’re at least fourteen.”

Knight snickered. Rook had pierced both ears when he was twelve, mostly to rebel against whatever he wasn’t liking at the time. At fourteen, he’d traded in the studs for steel gauges that had gradually gotten larger. One .00 gauge was still in his right lobe. The left had been ripped off during a fight with a shifted loup back in early August.

Bishop’s cell trilled with the tone he’d chosen for calls from the other run Alphas. He glanced at the screen, then mouthed “Weatherly” at him before answering. “This is McQueen.”

Knight didn’t strain himself trying to listen in. He studied Bishop’s expressions instead. The wide-eyed surprise that melted into anger. Not good news.

“When?” Bishop’s jaw flexed. “How many dead?”

Oh please, not again. Knight gripped the arms of his chair so he didn’t fly out of it and demand answers.

“Yes, of course, thank you, Carl. Please, let me know if there’s anything we can do.”

A waft of rage rolled off Bishop as he ended the call, then started tapping off a text message. Knight ignored his own phone when it beeped with the text. “What happened?” he asked.

“The quiet streak is over.” Bishop flexed his shoulders, settling a mirage of calm over his features that didn’t extend to his actual emotional state. “Four half-breed males attacked the run in Skydale, Iowa, with shotguns. Sixteen injured, five dead, including their White Wolf.”

“Shit.”

“They caught one alive.”

“What did the bastard say?”

“Only that the runs were militant and cruel, and that we all deserve the deaths coming to us.”

“What the hell?”

Militant and cruel? Sure, some of the older run laws were a bit uptight, especially the ones regarding interactions with humans and half-breeds, but it was also well-known that an individual Alpha could challenge the old laws for the good of his people. Bishop had done just that when he allowed the Potomac half-breeds, as well as the displaced Jones family, to join their run.

“They’re keeping the man alive for now,” Bishop said. “Until they can get more information out of him.”

Knight didn’t want to imagine how the Iowa run’s enforcers were going about that little task. He honestly didn’t care. The murderer could rot. Five more lives had been added to the death toll. Five more souls gone from the world because of Knight.

“Stop it,” Bishop said.

Knight blinked. “Stop what?”

“Stop blaming yourself for their deaths.”

“I know, I know, it’s the hybrids’ fault, not mine.”

Bishop frowned. “Hearing you say it and believing you mean it are two different things.”

Knight ignored the spot-on comment by checking his phone for the text. “We’d better haul ass, or we’ll be late for your meeting.”

“We’re going into the next room.”

He double-checked the text. Library, not the office. The library was one door down. Bishop’s office was half a mile away, in a rented trailer that they’d installed in the auction house parking lot. With the actual auction house burned to the ground, and rebuilding stalled because of an insurance investigation—no one was accusing them of arson, but the insurance company needed that on record—the trailer was a temporary measure. It gave Bishop a place outside of the house to deal with official run Alpha business.

Since he was in the house, it made more sense to bring the meeting to him.

Grateful for an end to their conversation, Knight left the conservatory for the library. He bypassed the two leather couches and matching armchairs, choosing instead to stand by the window. He preferred having a view of the backyard when the hybrids came up. He liked seeing freedom.

The library quickly filled with the usual suspects. Rook didn’t have a smile in sight, but something still shined in his face. Pride and joy he had to hide for a little while, so they could deal with this latest drama. Devlin Burke came in next, grim and stiff. Despite being married to a lovely young lady named Rachel, Devlin hadn’t cracked a single smile in the month since his cousin Winston was killed. Jonas Geary and Mason Anderson arrived together, their conversation ending at the library door. Both Black Wolves, the pair could easily challenge Devlin and Rook as their strongest enforcers.

Jillian and Bishop entered last. Something in the room changed with the arrival of the Alpha couple. A shift of energy and respect that Knight had often felt when their late father walked into a room. Somehow it was stronger with the pair of them.

Bishop filled everyone in on what he’d already told Knight. Knight ignored the looks tossed his way, not interested in their concern or sympathy.

“All of the other Alphas are being informed,” Bishop said. “Everyone is tightening security now that we know the hybrids are expanding their reach.”

“Are we certain it’s the hybrids who are initiating these attacks and recruiting the half-breeds?” Jonas asked. “Fiona was the brains of the operation and she’s been dead for almost two months. The other three never struck me as planners.”

“You think someone else is helping the two hybrids?”