“If Seth is going to kill our son’s mate, then shouldn’t we strike preemptively?” I questioned, not liking what I was saying, but hadn’t I just told my pack this? Being a leader wasn’t always a party. Sometimes, you had to make the shittiest decisions imaginable.

“There is no point in trying to change the future. Seth and his sister were destined to fight. He cannot die. Neither can she. Putting distance between them is the wisest option.”

I glowered at Todd. “You say that like it’s easy. Sure, I can send him to our twin pack in Miami. They owe us a favor or two. But fuck, he’s evil. He’s a twisted little shit that gets off on making people cry.”

“Because he’s been possessed by the Father,” Todd explained. “It’s bound to flare out of him, and not always in a good way. With distance between him and his sister, things should calm down.”

“We never had any issues from Seth before Maribel got pregnant, did we? I mean, he was weird, and he creeped us all out,” Ethan stated, his tone calmer than I’d like, “but it was only once she was with child that things changed. When he started crossing a line.”

I couldn’t argue with that, because even though we’d seen Seth’s family rarely, I knew whispers would have reached my ears about his odd nature by now.

He had the ability to make grown women cry with his mean snipes now, so that wouldn’t have gone without notice before.

“He’ll get more freedom away from her, be able to live some life… Before she ends it,” Todd told us, as his hand slipped over Lara’s shoulder. She reached up to knot her fingers with his. Their bond was clear, and it ran a little differently to the bond I had with my mate. Not better, not stronger, just distinctly different—something my wolf told me, but that came to a halt when he disrupted any communication between my beast and me with his next words.

“The battle is important. Just as the hyena attack was. Sometimes, the end justifies the means.”

My nostrils flared at that. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

Ethan

I heard their laughter and had to smile. Things had been a little darker than I’d liked of late, and my own mental state was to blame for that too.

The hyena attack had been brutal. More brutal than anything I’d seen in my time.

I’d killed before, I’d attacked before. I’d seen nasty deaths, handled shootings that had gone wrong, and I’d just dealt with it. All of it.

But that day was emblazoned onto my retinas with the fine detail of a laser printer. There was no escaping it. No getting away from it.

Just the memory was enough to make my grin disappear, until I heard her laugh again, and in that sweet, sweet laugh, there was salvation.

“Are you coming?”

Her soft voice made an appearance next in my psyche, and I sighed at the sound, grateful I’d taken a walk this afternoon, grateful it had taken me to the totem.

But then, she was a lighthouse on an island in the middle of a dark ocean. She’d always beckon me toward her, bringing me forth to be captured by her light.

I saw them next, naked and unashamed, and I crossed into the sacred circle, needing that. Needing to feel clean again.

I’d done nothing wrong.

I wouldn’t have hurt anyone without them hurting me first, but truthfully, the bloodshed was a recurring nightmare I couldn’t escape from.

When she saw me, she held out her hand, and Austin stopped licking her clit to glance at me, before he went back to something far more interesting.

I didn’t blame him. We’d all been rubbing each other up the wrong way during Sabina’s milk moon, and after the attack, I’d been a little harder on him than before. He’d made up for his idiocy when it had come time to interrogate the hyenas, but still, even though I gave him shit, I was grateful he wouldn’t have the same memories I did.

As I walked over to her, I started to strip off. There was no artifice here. No coyness. No need for shyness either.

When I was naked, I got to my knees at her side, before I lay down and tipped my head toward her. She smiled, her eyes dazed with electricity that came from my brother’s ministrations, and I wanted to groan at the sight of her pleasure.

I loved that she owned her sexuality, that she reveled in it. It filled me with a joy that couldn’t be contained, and I took advantage of it at that moment, kissing her as she was half-drunk with a passion my brother had stirred in her.

She was gentle, exploring, hungry but not ravenous, and it was exactly what I needed. Her tongue slipping against mine, her mouth nibbling and tasting me. We breathed the same air, took cleansing breaths together, before she was all I could focus on, all I could see and hear.

My dick was hard, and every now and then, she’d gasp as Austin rocked her world, but I knew that, even as he helped her toward lift off, I kept her grounded too. Her base. Just like she was mine.

Austin stirred us into action when he moved off her. I half expected him to slide inside her, to find his way home, but he didn’t. If anything, he kissed his way up her body, stopping at her tits, giving them a kiss, before finding her throat. His head was so close to mine we could have knocked into each other, but we didn’t.

It was too perfect for that. Too inherently choreographed.

It was then, I knew, we were made for these moments.

We’d shared a womb. We’d shared a miserable childhood. We’d shared the highs and the lows, and we shared a mate and a son. But this? Something else for us to share.

To take our woman together.

For the first time, I resented the knot. The pressure of him squeezing into her ass while I took her pussy was something that would forever be denied to us. One wrong move on her part, or one right one, I guessed, could have us coming, have the knot forging inside her, and I had no desire to get my ear chewed off for her discovering that being knotted in the butt was not orgasmic.

Still, Austin continued to surprise me, because he moved toward her mouth, splitting her attention. I’d never know how, and could only think it was instinct, but as he kissed her too, his tongue tangling with hers, ours never touched.

It was like a magnet kept us apart, like it kept us away from one another, but Sabina? Mother, the way she responded to his joining us was impossible to deny.

Her hand moved from where she’d placed it on my belly, and I just knew it was heading down south. Just fucking knew it.

I opened my eyes, saw my guess was right, and found nothing surprising about her touching herself.

Hungry now for more, I rolled onto my back, pulling away, whispering, “Help me?”

He didn’t give me shit, not like he could have done. But just pulled away before he began coaxing her to turn on her side before he shifted her onto my lap.

She stared at me with hungry eyes, and I smiled at her, reaching down to carry on teasing her clit for her as she bit her lip, watching Austin as he moved too.

He got to his feet, making her gaze flash with hunger, and when her position put her at the same height as his dick, I knew we could enjoy this at least in one way.

I thrust a finger into her, testing for a readiness I could already feel on my dick, but as I tugged downward, her hips rocked back, and she surged up, reached down for my cock, and slotted it home. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she took all of me, not stopping until I could feel her labia against my lower belly, and when she started to rock, I grabbed a firm hold of her hips to keep her in place.