Something. He had to stop dancing around it.
Bite down, his hellhound had told him. Finish him!
Sheena didn’t look reassured. In fact, every time he mentioned pack dynamics, or alphas, her expression became surlier. “Well, is he right about your pack being vulnerable?”
“Caine’s mate, Meaghan, is pregnant. Twins. She’s due later this month. If Parker did want to have his revenge on Caine for taking the pack from him, this would be the perfect opportunity. Everyone will be distracted.” Cold crept up the back of his neck. “And if it wasn’t for me, he’d have no idea.”
“But he still doesn’t, right? You didn’t actually tell him about the babies. Which, congratulations, by the way.” She grinned, genuine pleasure sparkling in her eyes.
Fleance wanted more than anything to return her smile. Instead he shook his head. “Parker’s a cut-throat businessman. And his business is finding other people’s weak points. He doesn’t need to know what the vulnerability is, just that they have one. Any weakness is an opportunity.” His neck muscles tightened. “Parker might say he had no interest in his old pack, but I know better. And if there’s any chance that Parker might take back control of the pack—if he gets any power over Caine and Meaghan’s kids, or even over Rhys and Manu again—”
“Or you.” Sheena’s expression was caught in that uneasy space between extremes again. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Parker used to be your alpha, and everything you’ve said about him using his hellhound powers to do evil business deals… What did he do to you? I—ow.”
She winced. Fleance’s hellhound jumped to attention. *What’s wrong?* he asked quickly, and she raised her hands.
“Nothing! It’s—ow—just my leg. It’s itching really badly.” She made a face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It was yourself you interrupted.”
“You know what I mean.” She said it with a weak half-smile that looked out of place on her face. Her eyes were shining. Fleance looked away.
“Stop looking at me like I’m some sort of hero.”
“Why? You sound pretty damn heroic to me.” Her voice had an edge to it that went straight to Fleance’s core. “I can’t imagine that Parker having any sort of power over you was a barrel of laughs. But you still came here, to protect the people you care about.”
“And failed.” He worked his jaw, as though the truth was something he could physically spit out. Inside him, his hellhound whined. It didn’t want to tell her the truth.
Where’s your outsized sense of justice now? he asked it bitterly.
Sheena was still watching him. Not warily, but intently. He couldn’t meet her eyes.
“You saw what happened back there. I… thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could defeat him. I should have known better.”
“…What were you trying to do?” Sheena picked up her knife and fork, and Fleance couldn’t help thinking that she was just trying to act normally. Like everyone did, when faced by hellhounds. Promising herself that if she just kept acting like nothing was wrong, her magical thinking would make the world a less scary place. “When you were fighting… You two were really going at it.” She trailed off, awkwardly.
“I thought I could force him to not hurt anyone anymore,” Fleance said. “Like Caine forced him to free us and leave Pine Valley. But I’m no alpha. I should have known it wouldn’t work.” The words felt like gravel in his throat. He ate a forkful of food without tasting it and washed it down with the wine. The menu hadn’t been joking about it being selected to compete with Rotorua’s pungent air; the wine was so strong he almost choked.
“It’s a bit overpowering, huh?” Sheena waited for him to stop coughing. “What do you mean, you could force him to stop hurting people? You mean using that… fear magic?” She shivered. “You’d need to constantly chase him around, herding him away from people.”
“Not exactly. I’d thought—” Fleance broke off. What had he thought? He’d been so set on coming here, but what had he really planned to do once he arrived?
I thought that just because I was free, I could take control of him like he did me. Force him to swear he’d never hurt anyone again.
No. That’s just what I told myself. His skin prickled as he looked out the window, across the steaming lake. You know what you came here to do, a voice in his head sneered. It wasn’t his own voice, or his hellhound’s. It sounded so much like his uncle, his fists clenched. You tried to tell yourself a story, but you knew all along what this would come to. Parker knew, too. And he knew you’d never go through with it.
You’re no alpha. You can’t command another hellhound. There’s only one way to stop Parker.
“You said Parker controlled the hellhounds in his pack, and you were in his pack. You’re so scared of what he might do to your new alpha’s children that you came all the way to the other side of the world to confront him. What—what did he do to you?”
The bond of light between them pulled at Fleance’s chest, as though she was trying to psychically draw him closer. If it wasn’t for the table between them, Fleance might have crumbled to temptation and let himself be drawn.
Then Sheena winced again and rubbed her leg, and that one reminder of how he’d failed to protect her gave Fleance the strength to hold back.
The scars on his neck itched in sympathy as Sheena clutched her leg. He stopped himself from scratching them; the last thing he wanted was to draw Sheena’s attention to them. Instead he sat up straight, hands clenched hidden under the table.
“I wasn’t some innocent victim. I was part of Parker’s pack for years.
