Page 66 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

The three men shared horrifying smiles as Harlon and Samson unlocked her shackles and dragged Tavi into the next room. Now alone with Troy, I fought to return to an upright position. I hated him so much, it burned my eyes. Troy released a low whistle as he crouched in front of me.

“Look at that glare,” he said. “It might be enough to scare me…if you weren’t still the same weak girl I grew up with.”

“Monster!” My voice was little more than a croak, but at least my throat had healed enough that I could speak at all. “Bastard! Your father would be ashamed of you.”

He gave another dark chuckle. “You don’t know anything about my father.”

“I know he cared enough about the pack to make sure it succeeded. I know he never lost his temper. I know he wasn’t a fucking madman.”

He slapped me. My teeth bit into my cheek and it hurt something awful, but he hadn’t hit me as hard as he had Tavi.

“My father was nothing like the man he pretended to be. He was a cruel, selfish bastard who only cared about appearances.”

Angry words lingered at the tip of my tongue like my own blood.

The last thing I wanted was to hear Troy’s sob story.

It didn’t matter how difficult his childhood was; it could never justify what he was doing to me and Tavi.

But something was telling me that I needed to listen.

You need to find out why he’s doing this, that voice told me.

Find out what his plan is. It’s the only way you and Tavi are getting out of this.

I doubted that whatever info he gave me now would get me out of my restraints or provide anything that would be immediately useful, but perhaps more intel could work in my favor down the line.

I turned my head to spit the blood out of my mouth and returned my glare to Troy.

“Then who was the real Gregor Redwolf?” I demanded.

“Because from where I’m sitting, there’s no way his treatment of you could hold a candle to the way he treated me, my mom, or any other female wolf.

You sound like a pup bitching about his daddy not hugging him enough. ”

He slapped me, much harder this time, and then wrapped his hand around my throat again. He brought my face close to his.

“The only bitch here is you!” he snapped, spittle flying from his mouth.

“You want to know what my father was like? He relished torturing me. He was a sadistic fuck who beat me every time he was bored or angry. He made me watch as he tortured wolves who trespassed onto his territory, even if all they wanted was a few scraps of food. You know how he celebrated my sixth birthday?”

I didn’t answer. I wouldn’t play his shitty guessing game. I waited for him to tell me the answer.

“He forced me to kill one of the wolves he had been torturing. It was my only birthday present.”

I couldn’t care less for the man who stood before me, a man who seemed to have made it his mission to hurt me and everyone I held dear.

But there was a small part of my heart that mourned on behalf of the boy I’d known when I was a little girl.

Though he’d tormented me my entire life, no child deserved to be mistreated—especially not by their own parent.

But that sympathy could never stretch to the Troy of the present day.

“Why do all this?” I forced out. “Why go after Night or me or any of the Wargs when your father was the one who hurt you?”

Troy’s angry expression shifted into a sneer. “I can’t believe your mate didn’t tell you. Keeping you in the dark isn’t very loving of him, is it?”

My wolf bristled, growling at Troy’s words, but I didn’t let that vexation show on my face as I stared at him, again waiting for his answer.

“The answer is simple, Bryn.” He pressed his thumb against the spot where my pulse beat hardest, pressing just enough to sting. “Night was Gregor’s first child.”

Surprise hit me so hard, I couldn’t keep the shock from my face.

“Ah, so you really didn’t know,” he chuckled.

“Yes, Night is my older brother. Not that he was ever there for me. The only thing I wanted when I was growing up was someone who would stop the pain. My own mother was fucking useless. She was even more scared of him than I was, but she chose him over me every time.”

The last time I had seen Nora Redwolf was at Gregor’s funeral, and she had seemed so broken up, so sorrowful about the death of her husband.

But knowing more about the situation behind the scenes made me question if she had been crying because she mourned him or because she wouldn’t have the same amount of protection and power that she enjoyed while Gregor was alive.

The moment Troy found his own mate, her privileges would wane at least somewhat. Given how poorly Troy spoke of his mother, it was clear that he planned to do only the bare minimum for her. If that.

“I had believed I was the only one who would have to endure my father’s torture,” Troy went on.

“But when I was six and I’d had my first shift, he told me the truth.

That he’d abandoned his true mate to become Alpha of the Kings, and that because Night is older than me, he is the real heir to the pack. ”

I closed my eyes as the news washed over me.

Did Night know the truth? Yes, of course he did.

When Violet had told me the story about Craig, the Wargs leader before Gregor, she had spoken of love and loss, and she’d started to cry.

I hadn’t really understood why at the time, but now it became so clear.

That story had made her miss the man who’d slept with her—Gregor Redwolf.

Violet wouldn’t have kept Night’s parentage a secret from him. So, it was no wonder Night was determined to take control of the Kings pack. It wasn’t just to ensure that the Wargs had a better way of life, though I was sure that was a big part of the reason. It was also his birthright.

My wolf whined. This was one of the few times that she and I were in perfect sync.

The ensuing sense of betrayal stung my heart.

Why didn’t Night tell me the truth? If Night were here with me now…

well, first he would probably tear Troy and his goons apart.

But after that, I would demand to know why he had kept something like this a secret from me.

Was he worried that I wasn’t trustworthy enough to know?

My eyes opened as Troy tightened his grip around my throat. He was getting worked up again, and his claws pressed into my skin.

“After everything I did for that bastard, after everything he put me through, I still wasn’t good enough. I did everything he asked without question. Still, the son he tossed away, the son who slummed with weak wolves—Night was his favorite heir.”

I tried to keep my breathing even and slow, though my instinct was to gasp for air. I had barely enough room to breathe, I just needed to stay calm. In the meantime, I forced my pounding head to think through what I’d just learned.

I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this.

I’d imagined that Troy was just born violent and cruel, or that he’d become that way due to his own actions.

But now I understood that he was driven by pain, betrayal, and angst. All of his worst qualities were connected to his father, and after living under Gregor’s leadership as both a human and a woman, I was surprised that the Alpha had treated his own male heir so poorly.

“If Night was your father’s favorite, why did he let you lead that raid on the Wargs’ compound? Why did he let you attack Wargs who were on patrol or hunting for no reason?”

“Now you’re asking the real questions.” He let go of my throat, allowing me to fall back against the wall.

“To show me that those attacks wouldn’t crush Night the way they crushed me.

Night knew about me that entire time, but he never once reached out.

I tried to speak to him, you know, on the day my wolves and I infiltrated the Wargs’ compound.

I went to speak to him myself. I found him while he was out patrolling.

Before my men did anything, I wanted to bridge that gap.

I thought, maybe he’s been busy. Maybe that’s why he never reached out to me.

Maybe Father led us both astray and we got off on the wrong foot.

I tried to get him to listen to me, but he attacked me the moment he saw me.

He didn’t let me get a word in. I said, ‘Let’s talk, let’s bury the hatchet’, but he rejected me. Just like Dad. Just like you.”

Troy’s eyes were soft, even sad as he spoke, but his gaze hardened again as he continued, “I tried to warn him what would happen if he went on like that. He ignored me. He hurt me. He tried to kill me. So, that night, I let my men do what they wanted.”

He looked at me like everything was supposed to make sense to me now that he’d spoken his piece, like I would understand him now. “Don’t you get it, Bryn? All of this would have been prevented if he had just spoken to me man to man. All of this was Night’s fault.”

My lips pulled away from my teeth. I thought about Tavi, and how broken and vulnerable she had been the night I found out about Troy’s raid. I thought about the way anger darkened Night’s eyes when he remembered that night.

“No, you psycho,” I said. “You expected him to welcome you just because you went to see him? You expected him to just accept your olive branch if you threatened his pack? You tormented the Wargs! You hurt his friends and his family!”

“I wasn’t attacking him when I went to find him,” he said, as if that were an argument. “If he had listened to me, maybe I wouldn’t have let my men go as hard as they did.”

His dark eyes showed no remorse. He reached for me then, and I flinched, expecting him to grab my neck again. Instead, he placed his hand on my chest, between my collarbones. I shuddered at his touch.

“It hardly matters now that I have you, Bryn. Night is going to pay for leaving me alone to deal with our father. And he’s going to regret trying to show up to take the Kings from me.” He let his hands trail further down, over my breasts and stomach.

“Stop!” I jerked around, wanting him as far away from me as possible. “Fucking get off me!” But when I felt the press of his wolf claws in my naval, I stopped, lest my movement force those nails to puncture my skin.

His answering smirk revealed the sharpened points of his teeth. “I’m going to take everything from him. His mother was first, and now his mate.” Slowly, he removed his hand and stood up, backing into the darkness the same way he’d come.

I trembled now that he was gone. I was alone, but I still felt the phantom sensations of Troy’s hands on me, feeling me up in the darkness.

I understood now that things between Troy and Night were very, very personal—especially on Troy’s end.

He had tormented the Wargs and killed indiscriminately, but he still viewed himself as a pup who had been wronged because his older brother wasn’t there for him.

Tavi had told me that it was typical for rival Alphas to play dirty to get what they wanted, but what Troy was doing was so, so wrong.

He felt he was entitled to vengeance, entitled to his brother’s life, and that meant that there were no rules, no morals, no mercy.

This could only end violently and bloodily.

I only hoped that Night could find us before the distance between us weakened him too much.