Page 33 of Bully Wolf's Nanny
He never pushed her on it. She would tell him when she was good and ready. He suspected whatever relationship she had had with Thea’s father had turned sour. Perhaps there had even been abuse involved. Unfortunately, it wasn’t uncommon for alphas from rougher packs that didn’t govern their own well enough to take out their aggression on those closest to them.
The thought set his teeth on edge.
“You were asking about Felix,” he said, and she shot him a grateful smile for the conversational redirect.
“It’s just so different now. The pack still feels strong. If anything, it feels stronger. But people aren’t scared like they used to be.”
Nicolas smirked. “That tends to happen when a pack works together instead of being blindly commanded to by some power-hungry dickhead.”
“How did you do it?”
Nicolas leaned back with a sigh, debating ordering himself another drink.
“Felix’s father began grooming him for leadership when he was still a boy. All of us, sons of the Old Guard, were being taught and trained to take up the mantle when our father died in some territory brawl or other. And we all bought into it. Felix especially. He was very different when he was younger.”
Daisy leaned forward, her wide eyes fixed on him, utterly enrapt.
“But then something changed. We all got big enough, old enough, that we were being sent out to fight. Me, Felix, Dane, a few others too. And we saw what it was like.”
Her lips parted slightly, her eyebrows knitting together. “I didn’t know that,” she said softly, and Nicolas could have sworn he saw tears glinting in her eyes.
“You aren’t an alpha,” he said, but without any bitterness. “You would never have been sent to the front line. Or even involved in any of this. The Old Guard valued the strong. The rest were…well. I don’t need to tell you how the rest were treated.”
“No,” she said, “you don’t.”
“Felix saw how utterly pointless it all was. And saw the discontent among the rest of us. He saw an opportunity. And so he formed the New Guard. At first, we all thought it was some bid for power. The older alphas respected that. It’s not like it’s rare for a pack Alpha’s son to come of age and overthrow him. But there were a few of us, a very select few, who he told the truth to. He didn’t just want to take power. He wanted to fundamentally change the way things were done. And we believed in him.”
“And so you fought,” Daisy said.
“And so we fought. We secured a couple of powerful allies within the pack. And several of the old alpha’s strongest sensed the changing tides and left before the real fighting started.”
“They just…abandoned the pack? Why not join Felix?”
“The kind who ran—they wouldn’t have been welcome in the new order. Felix would have put them to sword, so to speak.”
“Surely nobody deserves that,” Daisy said, her voice soft and full of sympathy.
Ah, Daisy. Trust her to feel bad for the sorry sons of bitches who had abandoned the Old Guard. “The world would be better off with them dead,” he said, his voice hard. “Most of them are. Dead, I mean. Lone wolves with a penchant for savagery don’t fare too well in the wilds.”
“But some are still alive?” Daisy asked, her voice close to whisper at the hint of intrigue.
Flashes of memory. Of Red Teeth crushing another’s alpha’s skull between his fists. His yellow eyes shining beneath the bone-white mask he wore. The screaming from the cells beneath the Pine Shadow Club.
“Yes. Some are still alive. And we may not have won if they decided to fight instead of run when Felix first made his move. Again, we had other powerful allies in the pack. Rick was a deciding factor. He was already in the process of dethroning his father and claiming the family seat when we convinced him to throw his weight behind us. I think he saw the opportunity Felix’s rule would give him.”
“Rick?”
“Frederick Reinhardt,” he said, and Daisy’s eyes widened in recognition of the surname. “Five years older than us so you won’t have met him at school. For a while, it looked like he wanted to make a bid for leadership. And he probably would have succeeded too, if it weren’t for the deal he struck with Felix.”
“The deal he struck?” Daisy asked, leaning forward, eyes shining. Nicolas couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face. She was like some keen student, desperate and hungry for knowledge, taking each tidbit and hoarding it away.
“You know,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “I probably shouldn’t be spilling pack secrets to a woman who is adamant she doesn’t want to take her place in the pack.”
Daisy blushed, casting her eyes downward. “You’re right. You probably shouldn’t.”
There was a definite hint of Thea’s churlishness in her tone.
Impulsively, Nicolas reached forward to take her hand. She gasped and looked up, blinking at him in the soft light of the restaurant.
