For a second, I felt sure my eyes were bugging out, then, when I figured they actually were, I sucked them back in—metaphorically speaking—and stated, “Where you’re concerned, Seth, there’s no higher law than the alpha.”

His smile, when it came, had me gritting my teeth. Especially when he looked right at me and murmured, “We’ll see, Ethan. We’ll see.”

The anger that filled me wasn’t something I was used to feeling. I considered myself to be a calm and rational man. One who prided himself on being logical and sensible.

I wasn’t someone who allowed fits of temper to stir me into action.

I wasn’t the kind of person who’d let a child goad me.

Yet, here I was.

Goaded.

I balled my hands into fists, and the sudden urge to beat the shit out of the kid hit me. It hit me so fiercely that I took a step forward, until someone grabbed me, pulled on my shirt and wrenched me back.

“Seth, stop it.”

Twisting around at the sound of Daniel’s voice, I frowned and asked, “Daniel, what are you doing here?”

“I’m watching over Seth. He needs me.”

The simplistic answer in no way explained just how peculiar any of that was.

But even worse? The notion that if this small child hadn’t stopped me, I’d have beaten Seth.

When pain hit me behind the eyes, enough to have me staggering to my knees, Daniel rasped, “Seth! Stop it! Right now!” He stormed into the room as I collided with the floor, and when his hands grabbed Seth’s shoulders and he shook him, with more strength than was wise, I felt the sudden release like the pressure on a vacuum seal had just been ruptured.

I gasped, sucking in air like I’d been drowning, the burden off my shoulders, even though they still felt like they were caving in. Which was how Lara found me.

She knelt at my side and asked, “Seth isn’t himself.”

Somehow, I knew she wasn’t talking figuratively.

I twisted to look at her, and when I came face to face with her calm, I shook my head in bewilderment.

Why was everyone, apart from me, calm today?

Sinking back onto my heels felt far too difficult, but every single bone in my body ached with a misery that made me feel about a hundred years old.

“What’s going on?” I rasped, watching her stare at Seth and sensing she somehow had gotten a read on things.

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “But what’s inside him can somehow attack what’s inside you.”

My nostrils flared at that news. “Have you spoken with Sabina about this?”

“No. We had other things to discuss, and I only just learned this so how could we have talked about it?”

I ignored that to sharply question, “Other things? What kind of other things? What else could be more important than—”

She grunted at that, then reprimanded me, “What’s discussed between sisters is none of your business.”

Then, of course, I remembered what they had to talk about—how she was mated to Choi, and the whole, ‘how the hell she’d transformed’ thing the night before, plus a decade’s worth of stuff they had to share.

I reached up and dug into my eyes, which hurt, but it made me feel awake, and hey, at the moment, everywhere was damn well hurting so feeling more alert was a boon.

Her hand on my shoulder snagged my attention, but it was Daniel who I listened to as he said, “Ethan, Seth is being very trying right now.”

Bet your ass he was.

“Think he figured that out already, Daniel,” Lara muttered.

But I looked at the boy who was becoming like a son to me, saw the earnestness on his face, and asked, “I thought you and he weren’t friends?”

“We weren’t. Until I realized Maribel was having a baby.”

I froze at that. “Why would that matter?”

He blinked at me. “I can’t say.”

“Why can’t you?” I demanded, not appreciating that answer. I hated it when my mate stonewalled me because she was hiding a new talent that she thought would make us think she was nuts, but this was even less tolerable.

Lara laughed softly. “Can’t you see? He’s been given a duty.”

My mouth rounded at that as I whipped my head around to look at her, wondering how on earth she’d even know that was a thing, then I flickered my gaze back to catch Daniel’s with mine. She couldn’t know what that phrasing would mean, not with her so recently having arrived in this society, but I knew what it meant.

Especially when his cheeks turned bright pink and his line of sight was on par with the carpet beneath his feet.

“Covenant?”

Just one word, and a simple nod would make me accept what he was saying. Which he gave me.

Which, in turn, had me blowing out a breath.

The Mother knew about Seth.

I mean, she had to know, of course. He and the baby in Maribel’s belly were the first true siblings to ever be born—not like twins, who were ‘accidents.’ The entire family was important to the Mother’s plan. But this went deeper than that.

Daniel had appeared out of nowhere, reprimanding Seth like he was a guardian or something. Whatever Seth had done to me, Daniel had managed to control it.

Was that a gift she’d given him?

I rasped, “I understand, Daniel.”

His shoulders hitched like he felt guilty for withholding things from me, but I understood. What happened during our covenant was something we had no control over, and something we’d never forget.

I could remember mine as if it were yesterday, and with the current ache in my bones, I could confirm that, most definitely, my covenant hadn’t been the day before—I was a hell of a lot older now.

Blowing out a breath as I remembered that eerie place, where the mist surrounded a forest of trees, where I stood looking up into a sky that was filled with nothing, and a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere like the best stereo system in the world, I carefully got to my feet and rasped, “Whatever you need to fulfill your duty, son, you just let us know.”

Daniel’s head jerked back at that, and tears pricked his eyes. The sight of them made me want to walk over to him, to hug the kid, but I couldn’t.

Not when Seth was there.

So close.

Too close.

What he’d done to me, I didn’t appreciate.

And the thought of having him in the house with my woman and child, and that Daniel was evidently tasked with a duty that would require him to be near Seth at all, set me on edge. But Daniel saw my hesitant step forward, and those tear-brimmed eyes filled with disappointed understanding.

I knew why he cried too.

Acceptance.

Blind acceptance. Not just because of the covenant, but because I trusted Daniel too. I knew him and would fight for him.

Ah, fuck.

I forced myself to move forward, ignoring the evil kid on the bed, and strode over to him. Grabbing his shoulder, I hauled him into me and hugged him tight—if ever there was a kid who’d needed hugs, it was Daniel. And I knew that because the lonely boy in me had needed them just as much as he did now.

While I knew Sabina was incredibly affectionate with him, he was an alpha whelp. He needed to know that being so strong didn’t mean he couldn’t get a fucking hug every now and then.