Chapter 10 DANE

My wolf snarled.

I wanted to rip off Holden Coleridge’s smug face, but pack gatherings like this were sacred. Times when we made alliances, business deals, when pack members could meet each other, and mating bonds could form. Ripping off the faces of other Alphas was discouraged.

Besides, he couldn’t be telling the truth. If my ex-mate was engaged to the Alpha of Fall Line, I would know.

Ann Reed had come into my life and destroyed my family. I’d broken hers in return, but at least they were alive. If she was engaged to someone else, why should I care? The thought made my wolf snarl again. She had escaped from me, and I wasn’t done with her yet.

As I stared her down, noticed the way the years had only made her more beautiful, I told myself that was all it was. Not the strange dreams I still had about the girl I’d saved eight years ago. Dreams where I saved her, protected her, and it felt so damn right. I hated those dreams. I had to believe I hated them, because that was the only way it was normal to feel about the woman who had destroyed my life.

I couldn’t let her go.

I leaned in toward her and growled, “I need to talk to you.”

She stepped back, toward Holden. My wolf went feral. I had to tense every muscle in my body to keep from transforming. There was never an excuse to lose control. Ann was the only person who ever made me come close.

“We’ve already…talked…in private enough.” Her eyes swept around the gala, especially over the high-ranking Alphas and Lunas gathered on the balcony. “I’m finished for tonight.”

“I can take you home,” Holden said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm and patting it.

“You’ve just arrived,” Aurora protested. “I’m sure you have business here. Don’t all packs have business at the gala?”

“Maybe you are my business.” He grinned down at her. I saw the slight darkening of her eyes, the pink in her cheeks.

Again, I clamped down on my wolf with iron control so I wouldn’t rip the Fall Line Alpha apart.

Then Ann gasped. Her face went dead white, like she’d seen a ghost. She stared over my shoulder in utter horror.

Before I could turn, I heard a voice that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.

“Well, look at this. Our little Ann, returned home to the nest. It’s so good to see you, sweetheart.” Esther and Waylon Reed, Ann’s parents, were coming toward us.

AURORA

“Trajan,” I snapped. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the people who’d tortured me for more years than I could remember. I couldn’t find the words to explain, but he could hear the panic through the pack bond we shared.

He stepped in front of me and Holden, his bulk blocking my “foster” parents from reaching me. Holden’s grin was gone, and he tugged me close, putting his arm around me and turning to hurry me away.

I had no idea what my friend was thinking, pretending to be my fiancé, but once he’d said it, I realized what a good idea it was. I needed Dane’s cooperation, and if I was going to be around him, any excuse to stay emotionally distant was welcome. An engagement to the wolf he hated more than anything was very convenient.

At this moment, though, I was more grateful to have Holden’s friendship than anything else, because I was terrified and numb. When I agreed to come back to the States, and especially when I agreed to come to the gala tonight, I did it because I didn’t think I’d have to see them.

The people who had lied to me, called me worthless, and pretended to be my family for the first twenty-four years of my life.

“Move,” I heard Waylon Reed grate coldly at my bodyguard, who was still blocking them from me as Holden hurried me toward the door.

“Ms. DeVere doesn’t want to see you right now,” Trajan grated back.

“DeVere?” Esther Reed tittered in her high voice. “What are you talking about? That was our missing daughter! We haven’t seen her for years. We thought–”

“Enough.” Dane’s voice cut across Esther’s like a knife. “The Council demands I tolerate you here, but you will not make a scene, or there will be blood.”

Then we were out the door. “Come on. Our car is here,” Holden said.

“What about your parents?” I asked. There was no way the former Alpha and Luna, who were still very active in their pack, hadn’t come with him.

“I’ll send someone for them, or come back myself, once you’re wherever you want to go.”

He grinned at me, and I was struck again by how handsome he was. We were just friends – we met by chance when he and his parents had come to Europe three years ago.

He led me to his car and opened the door for me just as a tall figure darkened the door of the Blue Ridge pack house.

Dane. How had he already shaken the Reeds?

I slipped into the car. “Drive,” I commanded Holden. I knew Trajan would follow in our car when he could.

“The lady’s wish is my command.”

Holden pulled out and started down the country roads. Just as we left Blue Ridge lands, my phone rang, and I looked down at the reason I couldn’t let Dane get to me.

The reason I had to make sure this deal between our packs went through with no deeper complications.

The reason I had to become a Luna so powerful, no one could hurt me again.

I swiped to answer the phone, held it up, and smiled at the two cherubic faces on the other side of the screen.

Two faces that were so clearly a mix of my own and Dane’s.

“Mommy!” my four-year-old twins said at the same time. My son leaned in, so his little nose was practically pressed against the camera. “You finally answered your phone!”