He tilted his head back to see Vane standing a few feet away, looking puzzled by Fang's pose. "Nothing."
"Why aren't you with Petra?"
"Why aren't you?"
Vane sat down beside him. "I can't stand her. She claws like a cat. However, that's never stopped you before."
Fang shrugged as he tucked his hands under his head. "There's more to life than sex."
Vane scowled at him. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"
Fang gave him a droll stare. "Don't be an asshole."
"All right. I'll leave you alone. But in all seriousness, are you okay?"
"When have I ever been okay?"
Vane laughed. "Good point. I still think it comes from Anya pushing you down that ravine when you were a pup. Definite head injury that screwed you up for life."
"I think it was from you always sleeping on my head when we were pups. Years of nightly oxygen dep do take a toll."
Vane laughed. "Yeah, I probably killed all six of your brain cells before you even reached puberty."
"Probably so. Explains so much, doesn't it?"
His expression sobering, Vane stood up. "By the way, I overheard Markus last night. He was talking about replacing us as his heirs."
No big surprise given his hatred of them. But even so, Markus had always been careful in the past about breaking the clan up with an all-out confrontation. "Why?"
"Because neither of us has mated. He thinks it's a sign that we can't. That we're genetically deficient and therefore unworthy to be Regis."
Fang felt the heat of anger rush through him. He hated his father with a passion so strong, he wasn't sure how he kept from lashing out. "I really wish you'd let me challenge him. Then he'd see just how genetically deficient I am . . . not."
"Don't get so upset. Look on the bright side, at least we're not impotent."
Maybe Vane wasn't, but Fang . . .
"Little consolation," Fang groused as he refused to think about Aimee's hold on him. "Tasting his blood, however, would appease me to no end." He shifted his head to get more comfortable. "So who's he looking at as our replacements?"
"Stefan, who else?"
It just got better and better. Why did he even bother asking? He should have known the answer. "I'm sure Stefan's not championing our cause."
"Nope."
"One day I'm going to rip out his throat and you won't be there to stop me."
Vane froze as he heard the raw animus in Fang's tone. And the anguish. He knew how hard it was for his brother to rein in his fury. How hard it was for Fang to stand down and be subservient to him or anyone else.
It was against everything in Fang's genetic code. And it made him wonder what Fang would have been like had Vane not switched to Arcadian during puberty.
Gods, how terrifying that had been. It'd taken him weeks to even understand what was happening to his body and then once he was sure . . .
Telling Fang had been the hardest part of all. Even though they'd been littermates, a part of him had feared that his brother would attack and kill him for it. Who could've blamed him? The Arcadians were forever attacking them.
And they had killed the only woman Fang had ever cared for.
Instead, Fang had accepted it calmly and vowed his eternal protection. Loyal as a wolf . . . and a brother . . . to the end.