Alpha (4 page)

“Let's just get the key.” Marc shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and headed for the lodge. “Your dad's waiting,”

Jace and I followed without a word, but that brief, awkward silence couldn't compare to the one that greeted us when Marc pushed open the front door of the lodge. The main room was crowded with toms, and I didn't find a friendly face among them. Milo Mitchell and Wes Gardner—Alphas of the northwest and Great Lakes Prides, respectively—sat opposite each other in worn armchairs, a battered coffee table separating them. Three of their enforcers sat on the matching couch, all glaring at us with identical expressions of disgust.

We'd lost Gardner's favor when we failed to execute Manx for killing his brother Jamey. Traumatized from having been kidnapped, raped, and held prisoner, Manx was on the run and pregnant at the time, and the fact that no other Alpha in the world would have killed a pregnant tabby did little to mollify Wes. He'd felt excluded from the process and had resented my father ever since.

Milo Mitchell's son Kevin was exiled from the south-central Pride around the same time, for sneaking strays into the territory for money. Mitchell's hatred of all things Sanders was cemented when Marc killed Kevin
during a fight in the free zone less than a month before the scheduled vote.

I hovered in the doorway, overwhelmed by the waves of hostility crashing over me. Nearly everyone in that room hated me, and some of them hated Marc even more. Jace's real enemies were in his birth Pride, but his stepfather's allies were more than willing to dislike Jace based purely on his association with me and mine.

“You have a lot of nerve showing up here,” a new voice growled from my left, and I turned to see Jerald Pierce—Parker's father and Alpha of the Great Plains territory—stalking toward me from the kitchen.

“Thanks, I guess.” I shrugged and tried to let the animosity roll off my back, but it's hard to stand tall in the face of pure loathing. Especially when so much of it is coming from a close friend's father. No wonder Parker had opted to stay at the ranch, in the company of a growing collection of bottles. “Though I tend to think of it as a sense of duty and obligation to my Alpha.” My father. The strongest, most even-tempered and noble man I'd ever known.

“What about honor?” Pierce demanded. “Aren't you the one always talking about doing the right thing? Where the hell was that sense of honor when you were handing my son over to be slaughtered by a flock of dirty thunderbirds?”

Well, at least it's out in the open now….
Though that did nothing to break the tension in the room.

“Faythe did what she had to do to save an innocent tabby's life,” Marc insisted, flushed with anger, but obviously trying to keep his temper in check. “She made a decision only a real leader could have faced, and—”

“Bite your tongue before I rip it out of your mouth!”
Pierce roared, and Marc bristled like a tiger on alert. I moved closer to him, and to my relief—and surprise—Jace stepped up on his other side, ready to defend his Pridemate if necessary, in spite of their personal rivalry. “I always gave you the benefit of the doubt,” Pierce spat. “I even defended you when they said a stray could never be as good an enforcer as a Prideborn cat. But then you helped her lead my boy to the slaughter! What the hell is wrong with the bunch of you? How could you hand over a member of your own species to be pecked to death by a bunch of giant buzzards?”

I wanted to argue. To defend myself and my actions. But we'd discussed it with my father and had agreed not to comment on what happened to Lance Pierce. Including the fact that I'd ordered Marc to execute Lance to spare him from being eaten alive by the birds. Malone was sure to declare that a murder, rather than a mercy.

“I guess Cal's right about strays. You're genetically inferior. You didn't give a damn about my son because you're not even the same species. And you!” Pierce turned his dark-eyed fury on me, and I almost took a step back, floored by the depth of his hatred. “You're an abomination. Turning your nose up at your real duty and obligation to hand over one of your own in cold blood. I feel sorry for your father, saddled with such a self-righteous whore for a daughter. Refusing to give him any heirs, yet flaunting two lovers in front of the whole world. You truly have no shame.”

I reeled like I'd been slapped. My cheeks flamed. I could actually see bright red patches of skin at the bottom of my field of vision. And the double standard burned like hellflames. If there was an enforcer in the
room who'd only been with one woman, then I was Garfield.

“Jerald.” Paul Blackwell didn't even raise his voice, but every head in the room turned toward him, and Pierce went silent instantly. The senior Alpha and acting council chair stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning on a worn cane, looking every bit of his seventy-something years. “You'll have a chance to air your grievances, but this is not it.”

Pierce nodded angrily, but refused to back down, so I had to step around him to accept the key ring Blackwell held out to me. “Tell your father we vote at seven sharp. If he has any preliminary business, he'll need to present it before that.”

The slight arch in Blackwell's brow was so subtle surely no one else noticed it. But I knew what that meant. If we were going to play the ace up our collective sleeve, we'd have to do it soon.

I nodded, clenching the key ring, then turned and marched out the front door with Marc and Jace on my heels.

“If this doesn't work, we are
so
fucked,” Jace whispered, as we walked across the grass in a straight line. “They'd string us all up now, if they could. There's no way any of those three are gonna switch sides.”

“It'll work,” Marc insisted, for once forgetting to growl at his rival. “It has to.”

I could only nod, still stunned by Pierce's speech. My hand strayed to the left side of my coat, beneath which I could barely feel a long, straight ridge. Two thunderbird feathers, stained with Lance Pierce's blood. Evidence that Lance had killed the young bird, and that Malone had tried to frame us for the crime, simultaneously
weakening our defenses and diverting the aftermath from his own Pride.

Those feathers were the key to our preemptive strike. We hadn't come for the vote. We'd come to prevent it—by charging Calvin Malone with treason.

“W
e have to tell my dad.” I shoved my freezing hands into my coat pockets and sighed. My breath hung on the air, a thin white cloud I walked through with my next step.

“That Jerald Pierce has lost his fucking mind?” Jace shrugged on my left, always a few inches closer to me than Marc would let himself be. “The sooner, the better. Telling Parker will be the hard part.”

“He's already expecting it,” I said, thinking of his distraught drinking binge.

Malone's cabin was in sight up ahead, and I wondered if any more of his psychotic henchmen were ready to rumble. After being called a whore in front of half of the Territorial Council, a good fight might be just what I needed to purge some seriously unhealthy resentment and aggression.

But everything looked quiet as we approached. Pity.

“But I wasn't talking about Pierce.” Damn it, they were going to make me say it. “We have to tell my dad about us. This.” I stopped walking and pulled my hands
from my pockets to make a gesture encompassing all three of us. “Whatever this is. Now.”

“There is no us,” Marc said, his voice low and heavy. He met my gaze frankly and left two feet of cold, empty space between his body and mine. “There's you and me, or there's you and him.” He waved one hand toward Jace, and I flinched.

“I know.” I sighed. And after Pierce's public broadcast, I was hyperaware that if I didn't make a decision soon, either Marc or Jace would take the choice out of my hands. “But my point is that Pierce just told Blackwell—and the whole world—exactly what's going on.” And that came as a surprise, because we'd fully expected our enemies to keep the secret until revealing it would do us the most damage. Which should have given us time to break the news first. “And if my dad finds out from anyone other than us—other than
me
—well…I can't do that to him.”

Dealing with my catastrophic love life was the last thing he needed at the moment, but learning about it in front of the entire council would be much, much worse.

“So we'll tell him.” Jace shrugged again. He'd only agreed to keep our relationship quiet out of respect for Marc. Marc was the one really suffering, and that would only get worse once everyone knew he'd been cuckolded.

“No, I'll tell him.” I couldn't drag Marc in front of my father and announce that I'd cheated on him. And couldn't let Jace see how strongly my father disapproved of him at my side. That wouldn't be fair to either of them. I would take the fallout alone. “I just need you
guys to keep everyone else out of the way for a few minutes so I can tell him in private.”

Marc looked like he wanted to throw up. I reached out for him, but he backed away. “You want me to entertain our allies so you can tell your dad you're not sure you want me anymore?” Pain swam in his golden brown eyes, and when I couldn't figure out what to say to make it better, he shook his head slowly and took off across the cold dead grass toward our cabin.

I ached to go after him, but he wanted to be alone, and I understood why.

“He'll be okay.” Jace tried to pull me close, but I stepped out of his reach, apologizing with my eyes. If I couldn't touch Marc, I couldn't touch him, even for innocent comfort. Both because that wouldn't be fair to Marc, and because where comfort was concerned, there didn't seem to be much innocence left between me and Jace.

“I'm not sure any of us will be,” I whispered, as we passed Malone's lodgings.

The rental van was parked in front of our cabin, with Umberto Di Carlo and my father in the front seats. As we approached, the sliding door opened and Mateo Di Carlo got out to give me a hug, while two of his fellow enforcers nodded in greeting.

“Hey, Faythe, how are you holding up?”

“I'm fine, Teo. Thanks.” People asked me that all the time now, and Jace got the same questions. My brother Ethan—Jace's lifelong best friend—was only three weeks in the ground, and we'd seen so much tragedy and disaster since his death that we'd had to put true mourning on hold. But his absence still snuck up on me at night, when I was lonely and needed someone to
talk to. In many ways, Ethan had been the soul of our family, much as my mother was the heart, and his death had seared a hole through my own chest. Sometimes I thought we'd never truly recover, as a family or as a Pride.

“Did Marc come through here?” I asked, as my father rounded the front of the van.

“I thought he was with you.” He took the key I offered while the guys helped Bert Di Carlo with the luggage.

“He was. He just…needed some time to himself. He'll be back soon.”

He raised one graying eyebrow, then nodded and unlocked the front door. I followed him into the living room, glancing around at the familiar worn furniture and outdated kitchen appliances. It looked about the same as it had when we'd left—was it really just three months ago?—and without my werecat's nose, I couldn't even smell the residual blood.

Ethan's blood. My brother had been gored here, defending me and Kaci. And now he was gone. For a moment I got lost in the memory, and in the pain of my own loss. So much had changed in so short a time. Very little of it for the better.

“Faythe?” My father frowned at me as the guys trooped in with our luggage. “Quarters will be a little cramped, since we're doubling up.” Last time, only four territories had been represented; this time, all ten Alphas were coming, with enforcer entourages. “I'm putting you, Marc, and Jace in the far bedroom, but I'm guessing Jace won't mind taking the couch, if you think that would be…more prudent.”

“Yeah, about that…” My hands twisted together, in spite of my own best efforts to keep them still. To remain
calm. Then I forged ahead before I could back out. “Dad, I need to talk to you.” I half whispered, hoping the others wouldn't hear. Though they'd find out soon enough, anyway. “In private.”

Jace glanced at me on his way to the first bedroom, carrying four suitcases at once. My father took one look at my face and nodded. “Outside?”

“Sure.” I hunched into my coat and followed him back into the February cold, so much sharper and bitterer than it had been in November.

My dad clomped down the steps in hiking boots and jeans. It was too cold for his traditional suit and dress shoes, though he'd probably change before heading to the main lodge. “What's wrong, kitten?” He slid one strong arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him as we walked, treasuring the voluntary physical contact after spending most of the past week virtually untouched.

But I waited until we were on the edge of the tree line—out of casual earshot—to answer, trying to come up with an acceptable opening line while we walked. When my dad finally stopped and faced me, I made myself meet his gaze. Long gone were the days when I would stare at the ground and whisper confessions like a naughty little girl, even if that's exactly what I felt like. I'd made a very adult mistake—which necessitated a very adult decision I had yet to make.

“Faythe…?” My father prodded, and I could read growing concern in his crinkled forehead and the tense line of his jaw. He even seemed to have more silver in the gray streaks at his temples. “Is this about Marc?”

“Yeah. Um, things have gotten a little complicated
between me and Marc.” I crossed my arms over my chest to hold my coat closed. “And Jace…”

“Jace?” My dad blinked, and I saw the exact moment understanding surfaced behind his eyes. He closed them, and his next exhale was long and very, very heavy. He glanced at the cabin, then motioned for me to follow him into the woods, where he stopped before we lost sight of the van. “How long?”

“Since the day Ethan…” I leaned with my palm on a bare tree trunk. I couldn't finish that sentence. “But I'm not… We're not… I don't think we need to get into details here, Daddy, but Jace and I…
connected,
and it's not… Okay, it
is
physical, to some extent, but it's more than that. A lot more.”

He sighed again and looked at me with his poker face in place, and something in my chest tightened. I desperately wanted to be able to read his reaction. “And Marc knows?”

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath, preparing to say the worst part. “As does half the council.”

“What?”
His poker face collapsed beneath bold lines of anger and bewilderment.

“Dad, we were going to tell you when things got a little calmer and we'd had a chance to sort it all out. But when we went to the lodge to pick up the key, Jerald Pierce called me a whore in front of half the council, so I think it's safe to say that this particular cat is out of the bag. And they're probably going to try to use it against us.”

“How on earth did Jerald find out?” my father demanded softly, but I knew what he was really asking: How the hell can the entire opposing half of the Terri
torial Council know something so intimate about three of his enforcers, when he didn't know?

“Alex Malone figured it out last week, while Dean was using my face for a cutting board. Then Dean told Marc. And evidently anyone else who would listen. But I wanted you to hear it from me. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. We didn't want to give you one more thing to worry about.”

My father glanced at the forest floor, then sank onto a thick, dry fallen log. “How is Marc?”

I closed my eyes against the burn of fresh tears. “He's pissed, and hurt, and about a dozen other complicated, volatile emotions he has every right to feel. He's fighting his instinct to kill Jace, and he's not exactly happy with me, either. Though for the record, I'm not even sure he
could
kill Jace. He says I have to choose. Soon.”

“He's right. This could get ugly, Faythe. Marc's thought of you as his since you were sixteen years old, and temporarily losing you to the human world was hard enough for him. But to another tom? One who's shown some serious grit lately? I'm guessing he's juggling a lot of pain and humiliation, and coming from a potential Alpha, those are both likely to look a lot like anger.”

“I'd call it more of an encompassing, blinding rage.” I swiped one sleeve across my eyes and sat next to him. The bark was cold and rough, even through my jeans, but the trees blocked most of the frigid wind.

“And do you understand why?” My father's voice was soft, his gaze calmly searching.

The answer seemed obvious, but the quiet intensity with which he asked told me that this was important enough for me to dig deeper than my impulse answer. I was the first potential Alpha in history who didn't have
a personal understanding of the tomcat's position in our world, and how tenuous that status really was.

“Because this is about more than me hurting him. More than our relationship.”
Shit
. My heart crumpled as the system of dots began to connect in my head, illustrating for me the complicated connections and hierarchies that defined a tomcat's rank within our world. “I've damaged his status. They already see him as an outsider, as inherently weaker. Lesser. They'll see this as me rejecting Marc on some level, and if he's not good enough for me, why would he be good enough for them?” My father nodded, and I hated myself a little more.

I'd insulted Marc personally and politically. I'd stabbed him in the back and in the heart at the same time. And considering how very public our troubles were about to become, I now considered myself lucky he was even speaking to me.

“Is this going to hurt us, politically?”

“You're not on trial this time, Faythe.”

But we both knew I was. We all were. Everything a Pride cat does reflects on his Alpha, and all of it was fair game during the vote. Which is what we'd been counting on, with respect to the bloodstained feathers still in my inside jacket pocket.

Unfortunately, that sword sliced both ways.

“Are you mad at me? Or disappointed?” Somehow, that mattered more to me than the collective opinion of the entire council.

My father took off his glasses to polish them on the tail of the shirt showing through his open coat. “I would have been both, if this were just a game. If you were trying to make Marc jealous, or rebelling out of
boredom. But if this is really more than that…I don't see how I could be mad without calling myself a hypocrite. You can't help who you love, Faythe. No one can.”

I blinked, confused. “You mean Mom…?”

He put his glasses back on, and a wistful smile stole over his lips. “She was engaged to Bert Di Carlo first. But then I came to the territory to enforce for your grandfather the summer after my freshman year in college, and we both fell, hard and fast.”

I sat stunned into silence. I knew my parents were still crazy in love—how else could any marriage last so long?—but I'd had no idea there had ever been such complications in their relationship. “How have I never heard this?”

“Why open old wounds? The past is the past, and it worked out for the best for all of us, in the end.”

“Was it hard?”

My dad shifted on the log to face me, and I could see the pain on his face, still very real even three decades later. “I'm not going to lie to you, Faythe. Bert didn't speak to either of us for two years.”

“But now…”

“Now he's one of my best friends and biggest supporters.”

And if it worked out for them, it could work out for us, right? No matter who I chose. Except… “Do you think he would have gotten over it if he hadn't found Mrs. Di Carlo?” I fiddled with the zipper tab at the hem of my coat. “If he hadn't fallen in love with someone else?”

“I honestly don't know. He might not have. New love can help heal some pretty big wounds.”

Jace and I knew that better than most. But love could also open wounds. Big, gaping, gory ones.

“I don't know what to do.” The ache in my chest was as strong as ever, and it deepened at the thought of letting either of them go. “I know I'm too old to be coming to you with boy trouble, but I'm lost, and I'm pretty sure that whatever I decide, I'm only going to make things worse. But Jace loves me, Dad. For real.”