Alpha

  Uncle Rick handed me a dish towel and I scrubbed my face with it. My dad couldn’t be dying. He was only fifty-seven. That was too young to die. That was too young to do anything but nag his daughter for grandchildren.

  But my uncle was right, and in spite of intense, insistent denial, I knew that. I felt it.

  I dropped the towel on the table and took a deep breath. Then made myself take another. And another. Then I steeled my spine and walked back into the living room, suddenly aware of the murmuring and the stares. Marc knelt next to my father, talking to him quietly. My father gripped his hand and whispered something I couldn’t hear, and Marc nodded. “I swear,” he said, and I could see the cracks in his composed veneer. This was breaking him, like it was breaking me, and our anguish had no equal.

  Jace stood near Marc, watching me. He touched Marc’s shoulder, and they both moved aside.

  I sank onto my knees again, and this time I saw nothing else. Nothing but my father’s eyes, the same shade of green as mine. As Ethan’s. More tears came, and I wiped them away.

  “I love you, Daddy.” The words came out broken. Halting. Wrapped around a sob that speared my heart. “Everything good in me comes from you and Mom, and I’m so sorry for all the times that weren’t so good. I…”

  His hand moved. More of a twitch than anything, but I knew what he wanted. I curled my fingers around his, and tried not to notice how cold his skin was.

  “Faythe…” he whispered, and I leaned closer. “I never wanted anything else in a daughter. Nothing more or less than what you are…” He coughed, and red bubbles appeared on his pale lips.

  I sobbed again, and someone put a tissue in my hand. I wiped his mouth carefully, and he swallowed.

  “You are stronger than you know. You’re smart. You have your mother’s strength and her heart, and that’s all you need. I’m sorry it’s come so soon, but the Pride is yours now.” He squeezed my hand weakly, and I squeezed back. I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t want to be in charge—not yet. But what I wanted had never mattered less. He coughed again, and tears trailed down my face as I blotted more blood from his lips. “Take care of our Pride. Fight for them. Lead them. They’ll be counting on you.”

  “I’ll do my best.” There was nothing else I could say. I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t ready. Not ready was no longer an option.

  “I love you,” he whispered, after a moment of pained silence. “And so do they.” His glance flickered over my shoulder, to where I knew Marc and Jace were standing. Watching. Waiting.

  “You have to choose. You cannot make decisions for the rest of them if you can’t make this one for yourself.”

  There was no stopping the tears then. I couldn’t even slow them. I leaned down so far my cheek brushed his, and beyond the pervasive scent of his blood—so much like my own—he smelled like leather and after-shave, the scents of my childhood. “I don’t know how to choose.” My tears fell on his cheek, and his beard stubble scratched my chin.

  “You love them both, but you’ll survive the loss of one. Choose the one you can’t live without.”

  He dragged in another painful breath, and his gaze was so intense it burned. “Tell your brothers how proud I am of them. Tell your mother she is my whole life, and has been since the moment we met. She is in my heart, and in my soul, and this will never really separate us.”

  He inhaled one more time. Then his grip on my hand loosened, and his fingers fell away.

  My father was gone.

  Fifteen

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t make myself suck in the next breath, or even force out the old one. I still sat on the floor on my knees, my forehead resting on my father’s stomach, waiting in vain for it to rise beneath me. His blood stained my cheek. His hand was still damp in mine, and he still smelled alive. And as long as those things were true, I couldn’t truly accept his death.

  It simply hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have.

  Yet I understood that I’d failed him.

  My primary job as an enforcer was to protect my Alpha—my father—and I’d failed spectacularly. What would I tell Michael and Owen? What could I possibly tell my mother?

  “Faythe?” Marc’s hand landed gently on the side of my neck, the only part of me not covered by my robe. “Faythe, come on.”

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face them. They didn’t need me. They needed my father. So did I.

  Marc pulled me up and squeezed me so tight I suddenly missed that breath I didn’t want to take. I sucked in fresh air and exhaled it on a sob so strong it shook us both. I cried on his shoulder, clinging to him, my eyes squeezed shut, my nose dripping. The source of my tears was a bottomless well carved out of my very soul, fed by my grief and tainted by anger so black, so charred, that it hadn’t even fully penetrated my conscious mind.

  But it would soon.

  And when I finally opened my eyes, I saw the room full of toms through tangled strands of my own hair, while I breathed air that tasted like Marc’s scent and my father’s blood. Some stared at their own feet, hands shoved into pockets, tears staining usually stoic faces. Some watched me. Waiting. Expecting…something profound. Something decisive. Something worthy of an Alpha.

  And that’s when I truly understood, even if I hadn’t totally accepted it: they needed my dad, but what they had was me. Period. Nothing would change that. And I could not fail them—not without failing my father.

  I pulled in another deep breath and let go of Marc, though my arms felt unbearably, tragically empty. Jace handed me a tissue and I wiped my face, flinching when the tissue came away smeared with blood.

  “Okay…” I shoved hair back from my face and glanced around the room, distantly relieved to realize that everyone was standing under his own power. There were injuries, certainly—two toms were cradling one arm apiece, and one was favoring his left leg—and cuts and bruises galore. But by some miracle, no one else was mortally wounded, or even handicapped. And they were all accounted for.

  “We should assess our injuries and decide how to proceed from there. Right?” I glanced at my uncle, and he nodded.

  Di Carlo stepped forward, drawing attention from me while I wiped my cheeks again. “Mateo, put together a quick report on how the other side fared. Injuries, casualties, and general disposition. Anything you can find out without actually entering any of the other cabins. Take someone with you, and be careful.”

  Teo nodded and headed to his room, presumably to grab a jacket and something to write with.

  “Um…” I cleared my throat and started again. “Jace, can you and Vic get me an assessment of injuries on our side? What can be healed quickly by Shifting, and what can’t. And what needs medical attention.”

  Vic nodded, and Jace gave me a small, sad smile that somehow conveyed sorrow, sympathy, and confidence, all at once. He wanted to touch me, to comfort me, to share my grief, but he wouldn’t make trouble while we were in such pain, even if that meant watching Marc stand where he wanted to be.

  “Uncle Rick…” Meeting his tortured gaze brought fresh tears to my eyes. He’d been crying, too. I’d never seen an Alpha cry, other than my father, when Ethan died.

  “Just tell me what you need,” he said.

  I need my father back. I need another decade of experience. I need Calvin Malone’s head mounted on a post in my front yard. I need Colin Dean staked to the ground, spread-eagle, with his stomach sliced open, so I can pull his intestines out slowly, while he screams. But my uncle couldn’t give me any of that. And I intended to accomplish the last two on my own.

  “I need a cease-fire.” I could practically hear my brain whirring between my ears, searching for any memory of a precedent. Was the death of an Alpha enough to warrant a break in the fighting? “At least long enough to…bury my dad. Can you do that safely?”

  He nodded slowly, clearly thinking. “I’ll need Aaron and Bert, and I’m pretty sure Blackwell will side with us on this one. He didn’t want to fight
in the first place, and he won’t be party to disrespecting the dead. With any luck, at least a couple of the others will feel the same way. They fought against us today, but they were led by your father for years before that.”

  “Good.” I rubbed my forehead, fending off a monster headache as I tried to wrap my mind around everything that needed to be done. “Thank you.”

  The three Alphas headed for the main cabin, along with most of their enforcers, leaving me alone with Marc, Brian, and Elias Keller. Extra security was never a bad idea in the middle of a war. Fortunately, Keller showed no inclination to leave, and he wouldn’t let anyone surprise us while the others were gone. He wasn’t fond of Malone—who’d once called him Yogi Bear—and he’d shared a great mutual respect with my father.

  “Thank you for your help, Mr. Keller.” I rounded the displaced coffee table with one arm extended, though it almost physically pained me to leave my father’s side. It felt like I was abandoning him.

  “Call me Elias.” The bruin’s hand swallowed my own, up past my wrist. “There’s nothing I hate more than gun-totin’ Shifters. Cheaters, the lot of ’em. They got better’n human strength and speed, but they cart around guns like cowards.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Keller released my hand, and I already missed its warmth.

  “Um, about the guns,” Brian began, hovering in the kitchen doorway. “I couldn’t find them in the shed, and once everyone ran off to fight I looked in Malone’s cabin, too, but—”

  “It’s okay, Brian. I think we’ve accounted for them all now.”

  “Well, I hate to say it, but our gun problems may not be over,” Marc began, crossing into the kitchen. “We confiscated nine of them, and you—” He glanced at Keller. “Well, you crushed the tenth, unless I was hallucinating out there. But it looks like Malone’s men reclaimed the three we took from the toms who ran from our cabin before all this started.”

  “We didn’t have a chance to get rid of them before the shit hit the fan…” I mumbled. “And they’ll be looking for the rest of them.” I glanced at the six pistols lined up on the breakfast table, each likely loaded and ready to fire.

  “Oh, you let me worry about those,” Keller’s voice boomed throughout the cabin, and I got the distinct impression that if he weren’t trying to respect my father’s demise, he would have sounded almost giddy at the prospect. “I’ll destroy the lot of ’em. May even bring the pieces back to this Malone fellow, just to see the look on his face.”

  I couldn’t resist picturing Malone’s shock and rage—especially since there was nothing he could do about it. “Can I come and watch?”

  Keller chuckled softly. “I like your spunk.”

  That was fortunate, because at the moment, I was running on nothing but that and sheer willpower. What I really needed was a drink. And in the absence of alcohol… “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “I’d love some.” The bruin covered a massive yawn with one huge hand. “I’m not normally up until…well…around April.”

  “I’m so sorry we interrupted your sleep.” I’d completely forgotten that bruins—like natural bears—hibernated for most of the winter months.

  “Oh, I suspect you have bigger things to worry about than one grumpy old bear. I’m just glad the scent of werecats prowlin’ my mountain was enough to wake me up.” His smile was scraggly with overgrown facial hair, but it was one of the kindest gestures I’d seen in months.

  “Coffee’s coming,” Marc called from the kitchen. “Brian, if you want some, come fix yourself a mug.”

  “Thanks, Marc.” I sank into the chair closest to my father and suddenly realized that I hurt. Everywhere. My jaw ached from being clenched and my throat burned from holding back tears. But beyond that, every muscle in my body ached, and I stung from cuts and throbbed from bruises all over. The fight itself had almost been eclipsed in my memory by my father’s death. Had it really ended just an hour ago?

  Had my father really been dead for only half that? It felt like forever already.

  I stared at the couch. I couldn’t stop myself. Someone had covered my father with an extra sheet from the closet, and while I knew that was the proper thing to do out of respect for the dead, I suddenly felt antsy. On edge. As if not being able to see him somehow made his death more real.

  How would I ever be able to bury him?

  A few minutes later, Marc came in from the kitchen carrying two mugs. He handed one to Keller, then one to me, and I stood as I accepted it. “I, uh, I need to make a phone call.”

  Keller’s grizzly head bobbed. “Don’t worry about me, now. If you don’t mind, I was gonna hang around till the rest of your men get back, just to be safe. It looks to me like you guys have made yourselves a few enemies.”

  “More than a few, unfortunately.” Marc settled onto the arm of the chair and put his arm around me, and I leaned into him, grateful for the comfort when I needed it most, in spite of all the legitimate reasons he had to withhold it. “I’m sorry we woke you up, but if we hadn’t stood up to Malone tonight, he’d have had Faythe convicted and declawed tomorrow, and me and Jace executed the next day.”

  “What on earth for?” Keller rumbled, his ruddy cheeks flushed even redder in anger.

  “For doing what we had to do to get out of the mess he put us in. He framed us for the murder of a thunderbird, and last week we had to turn over the real killer—one of Malone’s men—to the Flight to stop the air raid on our home. And to keep them from killing Kaci.”

  “The kitten?” His brows drew low and his eyes narrowed. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he seemed to be growling softly, deep in his throat. Keller had brought Kaci to us, during our last trip to the mountains, for my trial. He’d found her rooting through his trash for food and mistaken her for me. He could not have been more surprised to discover his mistake. Nor could we. “That weasel tried to get Kaci killed?”

  “No, he tried to get her kidnapped. But the thunderbirds didn’t like being lied to, and they’re not the most compassionate bunch.”

  “Well, I’m certainly looking forward to returning his guns.”

  I managed a smile at the thought, but it died when I glanced at the sheet covering my father and remembered that my mother still didn’t know. “I’ll be back….” I stood with my coffee and was halfway to my room when I realized I didn’t have my cell phone.

  “It’s plugged into the charger in your dad’s room.” Marc stood and led the way, clearly having read either my mind or my expression. Or my very broken heart.

  He closed the door behind us, and I went straight for the phone. But when I sank onto the bed to autodial, I smelled my father, and started crying again. I couldn’t help it.

  Marc sat next to me, our legs touching. He wrapped one arm around my waist and I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Faythe, I know this is hard. I’ve been there.” He’d lost his mother when he was fourteen, and he’d had no other family to grieve with. If he could survive that, I could survive this. We all could. “But you have to hold it together. Your mom’s going to need you….”

  “I know. I’m fine.” Or at least I would be. Eventually.

  He squeezed me again, then stood and headed for the door, probably to give me privacy for the single most difficult call I’d ever had to make. Or hopefully ever would.

  “Marc?” I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my robe, beyond caring that my face no doubt looked like a swollen tomato. “Would you stay?”

  He didn’t smile, but he did nod, one hand on the doorknob. “I’ll be right back.” Then he slipped into the hall and closed the door softly behind him.

  It took me two tries to autodial my home number, and if it hadn’t been programmed into my phone’s memory, I might not have been able to make the call. I wasn’t thinking clearly. The endorphins from the fight had faded, along with the “spunk” Keller had admired. Now, aside from the brutal postfight aches and pains, I just felt hollow. Numb. Very un-Alpha-like.

  But the phone ra
ng, oblivious to my distress.

  “Hello?” Michael. My oldest brother. I almost cried in relief. Not that telling him would be easy, but it would be easier than telling my mother. Like a trial run for shredding a loved one’s heart with your bare claws.

  “Hey. It’s me.”

  “Faythe? Dad said you were under house arrest. Please tell me you didn’t waste your one phone call on me….”

  I could practically hear the smile in his voice, and irony didn’t even begin to describe the fact that he was trying to cheer me up. Tragic was more like it.

  “Um, I broke out.” My next breath made my throat burn with what had to be said. “Michael…”

  “You broke out of house arrest? Faythe, what’s going on up there?” he asked. I sniffled, holding back tears with what felt like the very last of my strength. “What’s wrong?”

  “Are you alone?” I sounded nasal, like I needed to blow my nose, but perfectly intelligible. So far, so good.

  “Yeah, but the office door is open.”

  “Close it.”

  He got up without a word. I heard my father’s chair squeal—whose chair would it be now?—and recognized the soft click of the door. “What’s wrong, Faythe. You’re scaring me.”

  Why wouldn’t the words come? Had I ever before truly been at a loss of them?

  “There was a fight,” I began, and pressed my fist against one eye when tears threatened again. “We had to make a stand, because they were going to try me tomorrow and take my claws. And Malone was going to have Marc and Jace executed. I know he was. We had to fight. Everyone agreed.” Dad agreed.

  But what if we were all wrong? If I’d known my father was going to die, I’d have been willing to lose my claws, and with them, my pride, independence, and spirit. But was his life worth Marc’s? And Jace’s?

  There was a bigger issue. I knew it. My father knew it. We all knew it. We weren’t just fighting for the immediate victory. We were fighting for the long-term. For what was right.