was. Anton, it was real.”
I’m going to go tell Preston. We’re working on locating him. Maybe the dock is real. Maybe we should be trying to look for places with bodies of water. Good work.
Anton rushed off. I smiled. Maybe I had helped. Maybe I’d done something to make things better. I kissed Kenzie’s hand, loving the feel of her soft skin. “We’re coming for you. I swear that we are. Stay there and wait for us.”
Only silence and her moving mouth, lost to her madness, answered me. When I found Ross Morgan, I was going to drown him in that water. After I let him bleed for a while for taking what was mine.
Chapter 2
Rainer
“You okay, Alpha?”
I blinked. Took me a hot second to realize he was talking to me. That was going to take some getting used to. I’d never aimed to be anyone’s Alpha, ever. Not even when I’d been the golden boy looking just like my Alpha bio-father. Kevin was Alpha. I was happy being just me. Hell, the truth was I wasn’t Alpha. I might get to lead because I was the oldest Lejeune brother, but MacKenzie was our leader. Hands down. She was the Omega, and that pretty much made her Alpha in my book. Whatever she wanted, whatever she needed. Her word was my law. Except when I had to yank her back in battle.
My mate couldn’t be at risk. First and foremost, because I loved her more than I loved anything. Second, because she was the only living Omega. But she was brave and stubborn. Wanted me to be the Alpha I’d been born to be, lowered her eyes when it suited her, and fought me like hell when it didn’t. I smiled at the thought. I loved her fucking spirit.
“I’m fine. Lots on my mind. Thanks for checking.”
He nodded. The boy was nervous. I could smell it. He didn’t know quite what to do, had never shifted, wanted it more than he wanted to breathe, and now needed me to instruct him how. In normal circumstances, I’d love this more than anything. Training our people how to be who they were always supposed to be seemed like a worthy life for me. If I could figure out how to cook for people, too, while loving on my mate every possible second, that would be all I needed in life.
But those weren’t options.
No, I had to figure out how to save MacKenzie from a Loup who had it out for her, and I was going to have to lead a bunch of werewolves who thought I was their Alpha because I was with her. My hands itched. I wanted—no, needed—to shift, but it wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon. I had to sit in this car because that stupid human-controlling Loup was making our life hell.
My fangs threatened to descend, and I held them back. This wasn’t what I was made for. Give me a target, and I’d take it down. But this whole larger than life thing with an enemy I couldn’t touch… I didn’t know how to do this.
“Now might be the wrong time to tell you this, kid. But we’re under constant attack, and there’s a Loup who is somehow like the Lex Luthor of Loups and is making everything hell. He’s got my mate, who is the Omega, trapped in madness. And he’s controlling humans and wolves alike to attack us all the time. If you don’t want to step into this, it might be the time to drop me and go.”
He shook his head. “Oh…no I’m in. But…is a… What’s it called?”
I didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. “Sorry, I’m not following.”
“Is he an Alpha who went Loup? Because my mother used to call that the Alpha Loup. She told it to me like it was a fairy tale, right? Or like humans talk about their ancestors. Once upon a time in the old country kind of a thing. I don’t know much about it, just that those were considered to be really, really bad. Because they have all the Alpha qualities. But they’re also Loup, so they’re out of control.”
My mind whirled. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard this story. We weren’t a really big storytelling family. Even when we’d lived in the swamp, we’d been sort of political. Handling everybody’s problems in the pack. Threats. My mother wasn’t ever the huggy, kissy type who rocked us to sleep with stories.