Fur brushed against his mind when he eyed her over the bottle. So what if he read more into the words than what was probably there. She defended him in her quiet way, and his inner beast purred over it.
She leaned against the paddock fence and looked everywhere except at him, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d left the others to stand near him, and she held the carving he’d made in her hands. Her fingers didn’t stop running over the figure as she turned it this way and that. His lion rolled to his back and left off a heavy sigh at that, and Rhys swallowed back his own low groan. Too easy to imagine her running those fingertips over him instead of something he’d made.
“How did you know about my scar?” she asked with a frown.
He yanked his eyes away from her hands and gestured to the high collar of her sweater. “The top is sometimes visible, especially if you don’t wear your hair over your shoulder.”
“That doesn’t explain all of it.”
Her voice was quiet, but firm, and Rhys knew he shouldn’t lie. Even if she wouldn’t hear the falseness in his voice or scent the lie in the air, she demanded honesty. Deserved it, too.
He gestured to his own collarbones with his bottle. “You trace it more than you think. Wasn’t hard to figure out what it was. Kyla confirmed it.”
“Gossip hound,” Sage muttered without a shred of heat. She flashed a small, private smile to her toes, then snuck a sidelong look at her friend.
“Is that why you don’t shift?”
She sat back and blinked. “You noticed that, too?” A wry smile twitched the corners of her lips. “Should I be considering a restraining order?”
He spread his hands wide. “You haven’t told me to get fucked, so…”
She laughed. A handful of notes before turning serious again, but she laughed. Rhys mentally chalked up the victory as his lion circled and settled inside him with a contented sigh.
“I’ve tried. She won’t come out. She hardly makes sense these days.”
“Or maybe,” he said, taking another sip of his beer, “she makes more sense than you’re willing to admit.”
She cocked her head, expression hooded. He didn’t drop his eyes, silently daring her to say whatever lurked in her head.
She opened her mouth, only to dart a look to his phone rattling on the lid of his toolbox.
Motherfucker.
“Get that, will you?” he asked as he set his bottle on the ground. He reached for a clean rag to wipe his hands, but no way he’d get to the phone in time.
Sage shot him an unreadable expression, but answered anyway. “Hello?” The hum of words he couldn’t quite make out brought her eyebrows together. After a moment, she held the device out to him. “He says he’s your father.”
Shock slapped him in the face. Even his lion sat back, dumbfounded. Father. Father? The same fucker who’d declared him exiled and drove him over the pride territory lines? Who’d condemned him for avenging Hannah? That fucker wanted to call him up and claim fatherhood now?
Rhys surprised himself by calmly taking the phone instead of smashing it into a million pieces. Not that it’d do any good. The man wasn’t living inside the device, and he’d just have to replace the damn thing.
He pressed the phone to his ear, but didn’t say anything.
“Rhys.”
Fuck. That was his father, all right. The deep, husky voice. The commanding tone. He could still hear Alton Chapman’s last words telling him to never return. Why the fuck did he call?
Rhys’s ears buzzed, and the rest of the world dropped away.
“Who answered your phone?” his father asked. “Should I be congratulating you for moving on?”
“What do you want?” he rasped.
His father paused, and Rhys could picture the slight tightening of his mouth. “Your new pride has made quite the name for itself. We’ve heard the stories even in our neck of the woods.”
Careful words. Measured words. No telling if he was friend or foe when he stayed neutral to both sides. With dragons deep in the mountains to their north and a handful of bears to the south, the alpha of the Blue Ridge Devils had to know how to keep others satisfied through more than force.
“I want to talk. In person. Don’t you think it’s time we buried the hatchet?”
A snarl worked its way up from Rhys’s middle. Motherfucker. He still carried scars from the last time he’d been under his father’s roof. He wasn’t welcome inside his territory. After all the years, he thought he could swoop in with a fucking attaboy and pretend none of it was his fault?
He’d lost everything in the space of an afternoon. No mate, no home, no pride. The people he should have been able to depend on were ripped away with a few words uttered by the man on the other end of the line. All because he killed men who needed killing.
Fuck it. He couldn’t handle another dose of bullshit on top of the threats the pride already faced. He killed the call, but couldn’t kill the snarl rolling out of him.
“Rhys?” Sage asked softly.
The alarm in her voice tore him to shreds. The fear in her scent threatened to bring him to his knees. Neither touched his lion. The beast wanted out.
That was his honest self. Out of control. Murderous. Best she learned it now than after he lured her closer. Best they both recognized the danger he posed.
He wasn’t any good for her. He would destroy the soft, good parts and set fire to what remained.
Sweet fuck, he needed a brawl. A flash of conscience kept him from throwing a punch into the nearest face. Their mates watched. They didn’t need to see the violent shit he wanted to get up to at that moment.
“I’m going to fight night,” he snarled, spinning on his heel. His lion roared at giving them their back, but Rhys ignored it. His truck was right there. The escape hatch was opening. He
