Page 39 of Broken Wolf Heart
“Where’s Lexi?” he asks, voice smooth as silk dragged over broken glass.
I plant my feet out of reach and shove my hands into my pockets. “She’s not coming.”
His gaze narrows. He doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t need to. Angry power rolls off him in waves. “She and I have a deal.”
“I don’t give a shit about your deal.”
He leans forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees. Moonlight slices across the lower half of his face, shadowing his eyes. He’s always been good at this—using stillness as a threat, using silence to make me feel like the one losing ground.
“She’s your high alpha now,” I say, refusing to be baited by him. “That demands your respect. And at the very least, it means she doesn’t have to come when you call.”
“She can’t even control her fucking wolf,” he says. “And you expect me to believe she killed a high alpha?”
I stare him down, jaw locked tight. My fists itch to shatter his smug face.
He knows.
Or he suspects.
ThatItook Franco’s life. That Lexi didn’t kill anyone. That she just inherited the perks of my kill like a gift-wrapped curse.
Before I can answer, he frowns. “You smell like her,” he says, voice low, and I freeze as I wait to see exactly what my scent tells him. “You claimed her, even after all this?”
“She’s my fated mate.”
He snorts. My father doesn’t believe in mates for the sake of love—not even fated mates, not unless there’s a benefit in it for him. He believes in leverage. In domination. In obedience.
“That alpha power coming off you in waves—it’s hers. Through the bond.”
His words land somewhere between a question and a statement. Like he’s trying to process it for himself. I want so badly to tell him the truth in this moment. But I remember my pack members waiting inside. And every one of their fathers is sitting out here, ready to kill them for what we’ve become.
Let him believe whatever keeps him distracted.
“I never would have guessed that bitch had it in her,” my father says to himself. “Smart of you to ally yourself with a high alpha, I’ll give you that. But neither one of you will enjoy it for long.”
I ball my hands into fists inside my pockets. My wolf strains against my skin. I take a step forward, blood pumping. “Lexi is my mate now. That means you don’t touch her,” I say, the softness in my tone a direct contradiction to the fury I’m barely leashing. “You don’t look at her. You don’t think about her. You don’t say her name unless I give you permission.”
He raises one brow. “Is that so?”
“You want to keep your tongue in your mouth, yeah, that’s so.”
He blinks like my threat surprises him.
A long pause stretches between us.
Somewhere behind me, a cicada clicks in the trees. One of Franco’s—now Lexi’s—guards shifts his weight. I clock every single movement and breath from the heartbeats in this place. And I map out how I’ll kill every one of them if need be.
My father studies me like he’s trying to decide whether I’m bluffing. He’s looking for the boy he raised to be useful. The obedient son. The weapon he forged in back rooms and midnight meetings. That boy left the city years ago. Whatever was left of him died the moment I met Lexi.
And he knows it.
His expression twists into something colder. Crueler. “You’ve always been too emotional. A weakness inherited from your mother. It’s why you were never going to lead our pack.”
“No,” I say, voice ice. “It’s why I’ll lead better than you ever did.”
He chuckles—dry, humorless. “She’s playing you if she told you that.”
I lean closer to the open window, eyes narrowed. “You want to talk about playing people? About forcing a wedding, drugging your future daughter-in-law, triggering her wolf without consent? You think I don’t know what you did to her?”
