“Roy isn’t in jail.”
Oh shit. I gulped. “Is he coming for us?” We weren’t safe here and this condo belonged to the company so Roy would know its location.
“Unlikely.” Devyn slumped onto a kitchen stool.
I slapped a hand over my mouth. Gods, the guy was dead? As awful as he was, he should be locked up not six feetunderground. “I’m so sorry. He was a shit head but he was your half brother.”
“He didn’t die. No one killed him.”
My emotions swung back the other way and I gripped my belly. “Then why the long face?”
“He’s alive but part of him is as good as dead.”
My pregnant brain, my very human pregnant brain tried to fathom what he was talking about. Did he lose a limb? An eye? Did he have a stroke? Whatever it was, it sounded terrible and I almost felt sorry for the guy.
“His wolf will never shift again.”
I couldn’t imagine what had happened or what that would be like for a shifter but a half death might be the best way to describe it.
“The head of the shifter council gave Father permission to do something that is only performed on the rarest of occasions.”
Yikes. Did I want to hear this? Not really but I was part of this shifter family so I had to omega up.
“What… what did he do?”
“He declawed Roy’s wolf.”
I had so many questions and images flashed into my head. I hardly dared to breathe while waiting for my mate to share more details.
“He could shift but when a shifter’s wolf has been declawed, he is no longer part of a pack or a family. No shifter beast would bother to fight him because being declawed is a sign he has losthis power.” Devyn went on to say the beast would be ashamed to shift, knowing he was looked down on by every other shifter.
“Roy isn’t in a human jail, but he is in one of his own making.”
I clutched my chest, mourning the wolf inside Roy who would never catch another deer or feel the sun on his face. Instead, he’d be holed up inside Roy.
“That’s…”
“Worse than death?” Devyn nodded. “I never liked Roy and he hated me but that is a gods awful fate. He brought it on himself though.”
“How’s your father?”
“He’s pretending that he’s fine but he’s not.”
“Do you think Duke told him about the baby?”
“Nah. They’re avoiding one another. Duke probably doesn’t want to suffer the same fate as Roy if Father thinks he was in cahoots with him.
“Maybe telling him I’m pregnant might lift his spirits.”
Devyn tilted his head to the side. “You’re right. Our baby is his first grandchild. Want me to invite him over?”
We’d had Duke for a meal in our old place so why not have my father-in-law over to our new home.
“What about your step-mother?” I’d never met her and it seemed like my father-in-law and her were pretty much separated based on what I’d seen and heard.
Devyn shrugged. “Bea lives in her own place now. Maybe Roy is with her, holed up in one room.”
I couldn’t help but grieve for Roy’s wolf but maybe justice had been served. Devyn said he was a mean nasty beast, just like Roy.
