Page 45 of Fetch Me A Mate
"I didn't break anything."
"Didn't you?" Kael stepped to Danarius's left, flanking maneuver disguised as casual positioning. "Walk me through itagain, brother. The night you decided pack law didn't apply to you."
Rowan's wolf stirred beneath his skin, memories rising like bile. "That's ancient history."
"Not to Sarah's family. Not to the pack that trusted you to make the hard choices."
Hearing her name hit him hard. Sarah Trident, nineteen years old, eyes bright with rebellion and a smile that could light up rooms. Sarah, who'd fallen in love with a human boy and thought love could conquer pack law.
"She broke the rules," Rowan said quietly. "Not me."
"You were alpha." Max spoke for the first time, his voice a low rumble of violence. "Your job was to enforce those rules. Instead, you helped her run."
"She was pregnant."
"With a human's child." Danarius's tone carried the weight of absolute judgment. "An abomination that would have weakened our bloodline for generations."
"She was nineteen and terrified. I wasn't going to let you hunt her down like an animal."
"So you let her escape. Helped her disappear into the human world with our pack secrets and a belly full of mixed blood." Kael's smile was sharp as broken glass. "Very noble. Very stupid."
Rowan remembered that night three years ago. Sarah's desperate phone call, the way she'd begged him not to let them take her baby. The choice between pack law and basic humanity.
He'd made his choice. Helped her reach the safe house network, given her enough money to disappear completely. By morning, the pack council had voted him out and Danarius in.
"She's safe," he said. "That's all that matters."
"Is she?" Danarius grabbed his phone, scrolling through messages with theatrical casualness. "Because I've got someinteresting updates on our runaway. Seems she's been living in Portland. Had her little mongrel child. Even got married to her human."
Rowan's wolf pressed against his ribs, reading the threat in Danarius's tone.
"You leave her alone."
"That depends entirely on you." Danarius pocketed the phone. "Come home, Rowan. You can take over the position as beta. Help us handle the... complications... that arose from your previous choices."
"What complications?"
"The human boy she ran with? Turns out he's been talking. Told his family about the monsters his girlfriend was running from. Some very specific details about pack structure, territorial boundaries, transformation cycles." Max cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing across the water. "Loose lips sink ships, as they say."
"You're talking about exposure."
"I'm talking about a human who knows too much and thinks he can use that knowledge for leverage." Danarius began walking along the shoreline, forcing Rowan to turn to keep him in sight. "He wants money. Protection. Guarantees that we won't come after his precious family."
"So give him what he wants."
"We did. For a while. But his demands keep escalating. Now he's threatening to go public with everything he knows about our kind." Danarius stopped, fixing Rowan with pale eyes that reflected no mercy. "The Council wants him handled. Permanently."
Rowan's wolf snarled fiercely, recognizing the trap closing around them.
"You want me to kill him."
"I want you to clean up the ridiculous mess you made. The boy dies, Sarah and the child disappear for good, and we can all pretend this unfortunate chapter never happened."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then we handle it ourselves. But first, we eliminate any other potential complications." Danarius's gaze drifted toward the town beyond the trees. "That pretty little innkeeper, for instance. Seems to know an awful lot about your daily routine. Where you work, where you live, who you care about."
"She doesn't know anything about pack business."
