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I glared at him. “Why the hell are you here, Marcus? You know I don’t have anything to do with her training. She’s in the middle of training in Red Tail.”

And I need her here to fill the void in my life she doesn’t even know she’s already made.

He glowered silently, and the glint in his eye turned dangerous. “Her failure isn’t a risk we can take. Can she shift on command now? How is she going to unify the clans?”

That was when it hit me. Emma must not be in Red Tail, or he wouldn’t be here.

Wait.

An even more appealing thought occurred to me. Marcus hadn’t been allowed to bully his way into Red Tail to see her either, so he’d brought his ass here to the only other place he believed she could be. He was trying to flush her out of the bayou and into the open.

But that still didn’t explain his obsession…

I rearranged the conclave supplies on the steps, so they created a barrier to the upstairs. “You know what? You’re right. We figured out how to mask Emma’s scent, and she’s here, upstairs, in the bedroom to the right of the landing. But I won’t let you see her.” The floor creaked as I took a stance in front of the stairs and crossed my arms, baiting Marcus. “Fuck your demands and your alpha status.”

Marcus roared and launched himself over the threshold of my home at the same moment I brought my fist around in a right hook. My clenched hand slammed into the side of his head, sending him off his feet and tothe wooden floor of the foyer in the historical manor. He hadn’t seen the punch coming.

“You fell for that hook, line, and sinker,” I said. “What the hell is wrong with you, Steele?”

“There’s too much at stake. Don’t you get it? I don’t have a choice.” Marcus climbed to his feet and threw himself at me, panting as his arms clamped around my middle, and his head smacked my bottom lip.

Both of us tumbled backward, each of us scrambling for the upper hand. We knocked the small table, breaking it in two, and the vase on top shattered against the floor with the vase.

Footsteps ran across the porch, and Olivia burst in through the front door. “What the heck are you two assholes doing?”

Marcus caught my wrists and tried to force them behind me, but I managed to bring my palms together, using his momentum to throw him off me. He crashed into the wall and slumped to the floor in a heap, his shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

“It. Should. Have. Been. Me,” Marcus said between gasps. “I should have kidnapped her from her practice and taken her to our territory. If I had, I might have been able to avoid what happened to us.”

I stared down at the hysterical alpha, touching my tongue to my split bottom lip, tasting blood. What the hell had happened to arrogant, egotistical Marcus Steele? I offered my hand, but he quickly slapped it out of his way. At least he wasn’t completely gone.

“Why the fuck should it have been you?” Olivia demanded “Was it some random prophecy in your clan? Do you have any idea how much I’m beginning to hate that prophecy shit?”

“No, not prophecy.” Marcus lay still for long moments before slowly sitting up. “Ville Platte is shrinking, and they’re considering relocating to New Port Orleans to join with the big cat clan there. Without the hope of a new alpha with the approved bloodlines, they’ll go.”

Olivia frowned down at the alpha. “Oh.”

“That’s bad?” I asked, gesturing to the smashed table and broken vase. “How does their possible relocation justify risking a battle by invading my den?”

He groaned as he climbed to his feet. “The council believed locating the multimorph would grow our clan and change our fortunes, and they tasked me with finding her. I’ve had my eye on her for several months. We were aware of her shifter genetics, but she never scented of shifter magic before she showed up at Six-Mile.”

“She suppressed her shifting ability until her life was threatened at her campsite. We think it has something to do with being adopted,” Olivia said, her expression dubious, “but I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

“And none of that explains your insanity,” I added.

“No, it doesn’t.” He crossed to the still-open front door, stepped over the threshold, and turned to face us. “Red Tail has continually denied my request for anaudience with the multimorph. However, my sister went missing this morning in a cloud of the disgusting stench of magic, and this morning, they allowed me to check out the dens to prove Emma wasn’t there.”

Olivia gasped.

“Oh, fuck,” I growled. “Fucking hell.”

“It’s worse than that. My young nephew disappeared at the same time she did, probably holding her hand as they were carried off.” Marcus swallowed. “He’s the first alpha offspring born in decades, and he would be the next in line. Now all we have left is the stench of Acheron.” He turned his glassy, pain-dulled gaze to me. “What is he doing with the shifters he kidnaps? We haven’t been able to locate a bit of skin or snip of fur.”

“Can’t be sure. Aren’t bloodlines an outdated way to choose alphas?”

The big cats had always been secretive about how they did things. Their method of alpha selection explained why Marcus always acted elitist and aloof, yet how could I tell him what Dr. Wise had uncovered, what we suspected? As much as I disliked the other alpha, adding to his heartache wasn’t what I wanted, not when I needed everyone to be focused on keeping Emma safe.

He drew himself to his full height, straightening his drooping shoulders. “But you know something, Logan. You always know something,” he said. “I apologize for my rash behavior, and I’m asking you to tell me what you know, although I now believe Emma isn’t here.”