Page 125 of Contested Crown

“Miles. Prince—” Her mouth closed, lips pursing before she changed what she was going to say. “Cade. What are you two doing here?”

“Looking for you,” I said. “What areyoudoing here?”

For a moment, she glared, her arms crossed in front of her chest. I thought she might not speak, that she might leave me hanging there, my olive branch extended to someone who wouldn’t take it.

“Leon changed things after you two left. For the worse. We got kicked out.” Her voice boomed across the empty church. “Now we’re just trying to get out of Los Santos.”

“Yeah,” I said. I waited.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “That’s it. We just want out.”

But I remembered the money that Isaac and Jay had handed over. If they wanted out, they would be gone.

“Where are your mages?” Cade said.

Coral growled, her teeth sharpening, her muscles bulging, as she glared at him. “You’re the reason all of this is happening! If you’d only been able to keep your own house in order?—”

“They’re here,” Cade whispered to me. “I can feel them.”

I didn’t ask how he knew, what he sensed that made him so positive. “Coral, we can help. I have a pack now, but we need to know what’s going on. My plan is to take out Declan and find out what’s going on with Thorn. I heard you’ve been checking out Declan’s business. It looks like we have the same goal.”

For a second, Coral’s mouth worked, and then her jaw clenched. “Get out.”

“Coral…” I wet my lips, then let it come forward, let the power come out of my voice, the certainty in my eyes. When I spoke, it was as an alpha. “Tell me.”

Church wolves were funny. They were taught to bow to humans, to men and women who weren’t their kind. Some were good, some were bad, some were weak, and when a wolf was taught to bow to that rather than their parents or alpha, when they learned over and over again to ignore their natural instincts, they slowly lost the part of them that could be in a pack.

They never learned how to place themselves in a hierarchy, to find comfort in the security of knowing where they stood. They saw every playful growl as a threat, every alpha as a potential attacker.

Coral growled right back at me, her eyes going sharp. She wouldn’t bow to my power, wouldn’t recognize that even if I wasn’theralpha, I wasanalpha. This was going to end in a fight.

I readied myself, and Cade’s hand trailed over my back, sliding magic from the tattoos he’d left on my shoulder blades.

Frustrated, I growled. This wasn’t how it had to go.

“Talk to me,” I said. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“No, you just want to own me,” Coral snapped, her fur going long and gray, her voice more wolf than human. “You just want to replace my master.”

“No,” I said immediately. “Never. That’s not what an alpha is. Not a good one, at least. We don’t ever take from you; we only make you stronger. A pack is always stronger together. I know you know that.”

“A pack is a bunch of weak-willed wolves who want a boss to tell them how to live their lives,” she snapped. “And I won’t let you hurt her.”

“I’m not here to hurtanyone,” I said. “Don’t do this. If we fight, I will win, and I have enough wolf blood on me for today. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“No!” Coral pulled off her shirt and shifted. Scars covered her throat in a thick band, a dark line trailing down between her breasts, but then she was a wolf, and I couldn’t let her hurt Cade.

I pulled off my own shirt, shifting and letting my wolf come to the front. Coral’s claws slid on the tile floor before she managed to right herself, and I met her, slamming her into one of the pews. Her head cracked back, but she let herself fall between the pews and scrabbled back, away from me.

Roaring, I felt it shake the stained-glass windows. She was across the church, circling me. Her eyes narrowed. Movement shivered the curtain behind the altar.

The moment of my distraction was all she needed. She jumped at me again, landing on the seat of a pew before leaping up again and falling hard on me. Her teeth were on my shoulder, and I spun in a circle, trying to throw her off.

Finally, I slammed back, her body hitting the unforgiving carved wood of a pew before falling to the floor. She struggled up, one paw held tight to her chest. She panted, her eyes on mine and her mouth open.

I growled, turning it into another roar.

She slunk around me, circling me, but she was at a disadvantage—she was injured, and I knew I had the strength to fight her off.