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Crew was furious.

How the fuck dare Colton treat Zara that way? Like she was some pawn he could move around as he wished and not a person.

Storming into the vehicle storage barn where Ford was working on one of the tractors, he sent a quick text to Avi and Grey and let out a snarl.

“You look like you could spit nails,” Ford said, sitting up and resting his forearms on his knees. “What’s going on?”

Avi and Grey walked into the barn, and Crew appreciated their hustle.

He told them what had happened when Zara talked to Colton.

“What a jackass,” Avi said. “Can I declare that he and I are not relatives anymore? I’m embarrassed to be related to him.”

“He’s the one who should be embarrassed,” Grey said. “He’s got no hold on Zara. There isn’t a stallion law anywhere that would force a mated female to stay with a herd without her soulmate.”

The problem was that there was no real authority over the herds in general, no national herd police or a group of stallions in charge of all stallions. Each herd had their own laws, and while most would be similar, there would be differences.

Clearly, Colton believed he had the final say in what Zara did—or in this case, didn’t do—but he was sadly mistaken if he thought he could keep Zara in the Valley Herd.

“I see only one real answer here,” Ford said.

“What’s that?” Crew asked.

“Kick them out of our territory. She’s your soulmate and you’re mated now; that makes her part of our herd regardless of whether she joined ours officially. He might not want to accept her exile, but it’s not up to him anymore.”

“Why would he want to keep her in the herd, anyway?” Avi asked. “She’s mated to another alpha.”

“From what she said, the males in her herd are basically helpless to do anything for themselves. When she was the only female, she had to take care of all of them. It wasn’t like how Tris is our herd caretaker and we all have jobs that keep our herd running smoothly. It’s like she had to do everything for them while they did nothing in the name of ‘keeping the herd safe.’”

“Damn,” Grey said. “Well, that explains why they’d want to keep her around. They’re probably worried about being hungry and dirty.”

Crew chuckled. “So we kick them out, escort them out of our territory?”

“You’d have to declare them no longer welcome, our borders closed to them,” Ford said.

Crew nodded in thought. “I recall my father doing something like that when I was a kid, but I think it might have been another shifter group who shared the hunting territory and there was a fight over resources.” He sighed. “I’d hoped it would be easy and we could help them find a new place to settle without having an issue about Zara staying with us, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“We’ve got your back,” Ford said. “Tell them to take a hike, we’ll make sure they leave, and then we’ll loop in Khyle and Dexter so they know what’s going on.”

The other members of the herd were working a construction job, so they hadn’t been available for the chat about the other herd.

They left the vehicle storage barn and headed to where the other herd was staying. Opening the door, they found the herd near the cots.

“We need to talk, Colton,” Crew said.

Colton smirked. “Couldn’t come here and talk to me yourself, you needed all your friends?”

“My authority is whole when it comes to my herd,” Crew said firmly. “Zara came to you out of courtesy to let you know she’s leaving the Valley Herd. You had no right to tell her no.”

His smirk faded. “She doesn’t get to decide that and neither do you. She’s still one of mine until I say so.”

Crew shook his head. “No.” He squared his shoulders and drew on his stallion. “As the alpha of the Little River Herd, I decide who’s welcome in my herd and territory and who isn’t. Zara and I have chosen each other as mates, and she told you she was leaving your herd and joining mine. She isn’t under your authority any longer, period.

“Beyond that, your presence here has caused tension and disrupted the harmony of this farm and my herd. You sought sanctuary, and we gave it willingly, but your behavior shows you aren’t here in good faith. Herd law is clear: no herd may stay in another’s territory without the permission of the alpha. You’ve overstayed your welcome and it’s time to leave. You have until sunset tonight. If you don’t leave on your own, we will force you to go by any and all means necessary.”

Colton stared at Crew and the tension grew between them, the words that Crew spoke hanging in the air like wet laundry on a line. Weston shifted back and forth on his feet uncomfortably, looking like he wanted to diffuse the tension but not knowing how.

Finally, Colton snarled, “You’ll regret this.”

“My only regret is allowing you and your herd to stay as long as you have.”

Crew and his herd walked out of the barn. “We’ll stick here until they leave,” Ford said, nodding at Grey.

“They’ve got a few hours,” Crew pointed out.

“I think they’ll leave sooner rather than later,” Grey said. “He’s pissed but he doesn’t want a fight. And some of his males might be fighters, but not all of them are, and if Dexter and Khyle show up, they’ll be outnumbered.”

“I don’t want to have to call them in for a showdown,” Crew said.

“You won’t,” Ford said. “I believe they’ll go on their own.”

“I’m going to talk to Zara,” Crew said. “I’ll come back when I’m finished.”

Avi walked with him to the farmhouse.

“Do you really think he’ll just leave with his people?” Avi asked.

“I think so, but we’ll be prepared if he doesn’t. We’ve got security measures around our territory, and if they try to come back, we’ll know.”

Zara ran out of the house and jumped into his arms. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

Crew told her what had transpired, giving her a kiss and lowering her to the ground.

“I think Avi’s right,” she said. “I think he might cause problems. He doesn’t like to be told no.”

“I’ll keep you safe, sweetheart,” he said.

“I trust you,” she said.

That meant the world to him.

They talked for a bit longer, and then he left Avi at the house and returned to the barn to wait for the herd to leave. He texted Khyle and Dexter, promising to keep them updated if there were issues, and then he settled in near the barn to wait.

* * *

Colton ignored the herd as he and his people got into their vehicles and left. He was angry but also not surprised.

He’d known the moment that Zara and Crew met that they were soulmates and she’d mate him sooner rather than later. It wasn’t that he cared who she fucked; he cared that his only female herd member wanted to jump ship. That was simply not acceptable.

“Where are we going?” Silas asked.

Colton plugged his phone in and opened the GPS program. He located an outdoor equipment big-box store half an hour away and set the GPS for directions. “First here, and then we’ll set up outside their territory.”

“In the woods?”

“Yep.”

“Like…what? I’m lost.”

“We’re going to get supplies from the camping store and set up in the woods. Close enough to keep an eye on the other herd but out of their territory so they won’t know we’re there. Then we can plan our next move.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t just take out Crew right then and there. There were only four of them and five of us. Well, four since Weston isn’t much of a fighter. We could have easily taken them.”

Colton wasn’t so sure. He could definitely take Crew, but that one male—Ford—had a hard look that told Colton he was a fighter. Males like that were unpredictable. Maybe Colton and his herd would have been victorious, but what if they weren’t? They had hardly any males right now, and losing even one wouldn’t be worth the risk an on-the-spot fight could garner them. “A fight like that can have an uncertain outcome. We need to take them by surprise. But first, we’re going to cause some problems for them.”

“Problems? Like what?”

“Sabotage.” At Silas’s confused look, Colton continued, “I want Crew and his herd to be unsettled. To know that while it seemed like we left without a problem, we aren’t going far. They’ll know we’re going to come after them and they won’t know how or when it’ll happen, or what we’ll do.”

That alpha stole Zara from Colton and his herd. She was his to use how he saw fit. His herd had given her the training to be a forager and caretaker, and she wasn’t free to be part of any other herd, mating or not.

Herd laws or not.

Colton was above the laws.

And he would show Crew that he’d made a grave error when he took Zara as his mate.

No one fucked with Colton’s plans, period.