I don’t think I’d put it that way, but I grunt. I don’t want to be talking about this, but at least with Darragh, he’ll take it to the grave.
“Alpha, I don’t know another way to put this, so I’m just gonna say it—she’s, what, twenty-eight years old?”
“Twenty-seven.”
I wait for his point.
He coughs. “Twenty-seven,” he says again. “In the old world, she’d be a couple years away from being a grandma.”
“This isn’t the old world.”
“No. It’s not. It’s your pack.” He pauses a second and then he plunges ahead. “I don’t know. I don’t keep up with the comings and goings so much down here. You keep the lone females in the lodge basement for the males’ entertainment like your father did?”
“Fuck you.” My fists ball, fur sprouting up my spine. Those are wrongs I have long put to rights, and everyone knows not to speak of it.
“Why change things?” he pushes.
“You have to ask?”
“It’s a—what do you call it—like Socrates did? To get at the truth. Just answer the question.”
“You’re fuckin’ Socrates?”
“Not lately. We’re on a pause.” He smirks again. Asshole. “Just answer the question—why did you change the way things were done in this pack?”
“It was wrong.”
“Why?”
“She wasn’t safe.” And then the memory sails into clear view like a galleon, canvas billowing, churned up whole from the black storm of the past. The memory that had been there all along, waiting, biding its time.
In the bed at the crone’s cottage. Bundles of lavender and Queen’s Anne Lace hanging from the wooden rafters to dry. Una huddles into my side. The moon shines through the thick glass pane. My mother is asleep in a rocking chair, head tilted at an awkward angle, snoring.
My body is raw, my muscles torn and weak. All I have the strength to do is lay on my back and stroke Una’s soft shoulder with my fingertips. She shakes with fever. She’s swaddled in blood-soaked bandages. I’m feeble, painfully aware that in this state, I can’t protect her or myself. My brain is churning. I need a human gun.
I killed the male who attacked her, but there are others, always waiting in the wings for an opening, and I’m paralyzed. Thomas Fane has friends, males who covet my father’s rank, and who won’t hesitate to take out his son to deal him a blow. I don’t trust rat-faced Eamon Byrne. Who will protect Una if I’m gone?
Panic gives me energy, but not the strength to move my shredded limbs. I try anyway, but I jostle Una, and she whimpers in pain, so I stop.
My brave mate. She’s so small. And fierce. Perfect.
The crone rises from her stool by the fire. She quietly shuffles over, a chipped china teacup in her weathered hand. She sits on the edge of the bed and smooths my hair from my forehead. I jerk my head away. I’m not a pup. Not anymore.
“You did well, boy,” she said. “You protected your mate.”
“Will she live?”
“I think so.”
“How long will I be like this?”
The crone shrugs. “I’ve never seen a male shift so young. Maybe a week, a month, a year. Only the Fates can say.”
“I need a gun.”
She arches an eyebrow. “What does a shifter need with a gun?”
“I have to protect her. I can’t fight. Not like this.” I try to lift an arm, but I can hardly raise it an inch.
“You can’t shoot them all, Killian Kelly. You’ll have to beat them, one by one.”
“Like this?”
She smiles, the crinkles in the corners of her eyes deepening. “You’ll need a little more bulk, I think. Especially to best Eamon Byrne.”
“I don’t want to be alpha.” I want to spar with Tye and hunt for Una. Make her strong. Maybe teach her to fight so my heart never again stops in my chest like it did on the commons when I heard her scream. I knew in that moment she was mine. And I’ve never known such fear.
“That’s why you’ll make a good one,” the crone says.
“No.” What do I want with a bunch of ass kissers and two-faced males lying in wait to take me down?
“Oh, Killian.” She shakes her head, not unkindly. “You don’t have a choice. Do you want to protect your mate?”
“I will. No one touches her. Ever again.”
“How can you say that? In this pack?” And then she looks at my mother.