“That fuckin’ son-of-a-bitch,” Marcel said, storming down the hall.
Liam was my second-in-command and had all my trust, but he’d kept something this big from Charolette? I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t feel right. Whatever the reason for Liam hiding something this big from her … I needed to find out myself. And if he had betrayed us and told the rogue about my family, then we’d have bigger problems than him lying to my sister.
Chapter 47
Aurora
Marcel flung the front door open, nearly taking it off its hinges, and sprinted out into the forest.
Charolette still stood in the hallway, rocking back and forth on her heels. “No … no, this can’t be happening. Why would Liam do this? He’s a good guy. He’s our beta.”
By the mere look on her face, I could tell that she was thinking the worst. But if Ares had lied about knowing another woman and had been checking up on her without my knowledge, I would be thinking the worst too.
I grabbed Charolette’s hand and hurried through the woods, following the hazelnut trail.
“I want more information on Jeremy.” Elijah hurried right by my side. “But we have more pressing matters. The hounds didn’t attack last night. They just camped out by my property. I didn’t engage … but something isn’t right,” he said, his voice heavy with concern. “They’re planning something, something terrible, and I can’t figure out what it is.”
Deeper into the forest, someone growled.
“Marcel,” Charolette whispered and sprinted away from me.
And though she might love Liam, her heart belonged to Marcel. It always had, and it always would.
Grabbing Elijah’s hand, I pulled him as fast as I could run in human form. “Did you see Tony?” I asked, brows drawn together.
There must be something more going on because it was unusual for the hounds to camp out near a pack and not attack it.
“I haven’t seen him, but I heard that he was spotted with hounds.”
I cursed under my breath and clenched my free hand into a fist.
What was Tony’s damn problem? Why had he betrayed his own people? Had the hounds promised him something? My stomach tightened. Maybe they had promised him the Malavite Stone—the one Jeremy had.
But it still didn’t make sense. Tony had always lusted over my place as alpha, but he knew about the stone in my back. If he’d wanted just the stone, he could’ve killed me for half of it.
What’d Tony want?
Power? The hounds were some of the most feared creatures in Sanguine Wilds.
Reputation? He had blown that the moment he ran from the hound attack.
Me? I blew a breath from my nose. Well, he had tried to protect me from the hound attack, had tried to get me back from Ares by pinning the stone on Elijah even though he knew I had it, had purposefully tried to get Ares to lose control just to show me how unstable he was.
Maybe the hounds had promised him the other half of the stone for me.
It might be the craziest thing I had come up with, but it was the only damn thing that made sense at the moment.
Charolette disappeared into a house that had its door wide open, and suddenly, Liam was thrown through the front window. He landed with a thud on the grass, glass raining down around him, completely naked and … hard. Elijah grabbed my hand and stopped me in the middle of the street, watching the drama unfold.
Marcel leaped through the window in his human form, stalking around Liam, who had stumbled to his feet.
“Do you know how fucking much she loves you?” Marcel shouted, the vein in his neck pulsing violently.
Charolette appeared at the front door again with Ares behind her. He had a look on his face that told me he wanted to kill, slaughter, and take Liam’s head for something.
The woman rogue stepped past him, trying to button up her shirt, and Charolette lunged at her, but Ares held her back.
Oh my Goddess. Liam had been doing more than just telling pack secrets. He was cheating.
Marcel threw Liam to the ground, straddled his waist, and rained down fists on his face. Blood spewed everywhere. Bones cracked. Teeth broke. Liam tried helplessly to get Marcel off him, but Marcel refused to budge.
“Do you know how fuckin’ much she does for you? And you repay her by fucking the woman you were supposed to be watching as the beta? You’re a fuckin’ ”—punch—“no good”—punch—“piece of shit.”
Liam lay lifelessly underneath Marcel.
With swollen biceps, a twitching jaw, and golden eyes, Marcel pulled him up by his throat. “You’re not getting off the hook that fuckin’ easily.”
“Alpha Ares,” a warrior said through the mind link.
I listened through the pack mind link, as this was one of the first times I could listen through it since our mating bond was complete, and hoped that there was nothing to worry about because we couldn’t deal with another problem at the moment.
But I was wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong.
“There is a hound at our border. Not showing signs of aggression, but he wants entry.”
My eyes widened, and I pulled Elijah toward the edge of Ares’s property, knowing that it wasn’t just any hound. It was Jeremy. Jeremy was back to see us, and I couldn’t wait another minute to see him again.
Sprinting even faster, Elijah tried hard to keep up with me. There was some yelling behind me, coming from Charolette, Marcel, and Liam, but I ignored it, needing to get to Jeremy after all these years.
“Kitten,” Ares said through the link. “Don’t engage with the hound.”
“It’s Jeremy, my brother,” I said back, inhaling Ares’s scent behind me. “I know it is.”
The guards stood heavily at the border, all staring at the monstrous hound with the stone in his back, who anxiously paced back and forth in the woods a few meters ahead. When Jeremy saw me, he ran over. Upon Ares’s orders, guards stood in front of me to protect me, but I
