Page 56 of Wishes in the Moonlight (Rocky Mountain Wolves #4)

~Troy~

My wolf could smell blood.

It might have been Amanda’s, or it might have been my father’s own blood from their earlier battle. Either way, the scent lingered on his skin, in his hair and beneath his nails.

Or maybe it was blood from long ago, the blood of my mother that still stained his hands.

All I knew was that Hunter wanted blood in return, and so did I. Only the self-control I’d learned over years of staying away from Amanda kept me from tearing him limb from limb immediately.

I might still do it eventually, but first, I wanted answers.

Amanda gave me the floor. Her office was silent except for the creak of the leather chair under my father’s weight and the slow tick of the clock. Despite having been dismissed, Alexander didn’t move. My mate stood behind her desk, arms crossed, silent and powerful.

Backup, if I needed it.

I wouldn’t.

“What happened to my mother?” My voice scraped against the inside of my throat like broken glass, rough and raw, as I finally got to ask the question that had haunted me my whole life.

Craig didn’t blink. “She was a mistake. We only ever spent one night together. I was on a trip and my mate’s pregnancy had been… difficult. We both drank too much. It didn’t mean anything.”

My jaw clenched, but I didn’t interrupt. I had suspected as much, and his version of events matched up with what little my aunt could tell me. He didn’t seem to be lying.

“I didn’t even know her name, not until she tracked me down weeks later and said she was pregnant. Meanwhile, my mate had just given birth. I told her to deal with it.”

“Charming,” Savannah muttered, and Jasper shot her a look, half-affectionate and half-warning. She mimed zipping her lips shut as Craig continued.

“That should have been the end of it, but she came back a couple of years later. Told me she went ahead and had the baby and wanted me to acknowledge it.”

It. Hunter growled in my head at the throwaway insult, and I could see Amanda’s fists clench.

“I offered her money,” he declared, as if that should have been enough.

“But she didn’t want money,” I guessed, already knowing the answer deep in my heart.

“No. She wanted you to have a father. My name and a position within the pack. I told her it was impossible but she wouldn’t listen to reason. Tried to tell me that my honour mattered more than my reputation.”

“So you killed her.” The words barely made it past my teeth.

Craig arched a brow. “I didn’t. My men did.”

Even though I’d long suspected she was dead, hearing it confirmed landed like a ball of hot lead in my stomach. The floor seemed to tilt beneath me and I stumbled back a step. I couldn’t hear anything but the rush of blood in my ears.

Amanda moved towards me but I shook my head at her. I needed to do this on my own.

“If they killed her on your orders, it’s still down to you.”

My father’s face was all sneer. “She tried to sneak onto Battle River territory after I told her never to come back. The border team caught her at the perimeter. They treated her like any rogue would be treated under our laws. That’s not murder. That’s enforcement.”

I could feel my wolf pacing, claws digging in. “You’ll pay for it.”

“I already paid for it. I told your Alpha, who was her Alpha at the time, that one of his pack members crossed my border and was killed. I paid the reparations. That was years ago and it’s settled. You can’t touch me.”

Amanda’s silence finally snapped.

“So, you covered up the real reason she was there, twisted it into something palatable for my father, and paid him off.”

Craig offered her a cold smile. “And he accepted it, which means it’s done. Legally and politically. You want to dig that up again, you’re going to end up looking worse than I will.”

His gaze slid towards me, sharp as a knife.

“Not to mention you’d be declaring your mate’s lineage, or lack of it, to the whole world. You want to shout from the rooftops that you’re sleeping with a bastard?”

The air in the room vibrated as Amanda let out a deep growl, her wolf barely beneath the surface.

“Troy isn’t responsible for the circumstances of his birth. You are, and I’m pretty sure that makes you the bastard here.”

Craig scowled at the insult but held his tongue. Next to him, Alexander stared at his father as if he’d never seen him before.

Slowly, Amanda exhaled, her arms dropping to her sides as she looked over at me. “As much as I hate it, if what he says is true, if my father accepted payment and treated it as a territorial violation, then under the laws we’re bound to, we can’t hold him accountable.”

My voice came out hoarse as I stared at her in disbelief. “So that’s it?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and I had no doubt that she meant it. “I can’t make him answer for it legally.”

Craig pushed to his feet with a satisfied grunt. “Well then, if we’re finished here…”

It was my turn to growl, the force of it causing every head to turn my way.

“We are not finished. Maybe she can’t hold you accountable, but I can. I challenge you, Alpha Craig of Battle River.”

The room dropped into a heavy silence, charged with electricity, like the forest before a storm. Savannah and Jasper exchanged wide-eyed looks while Alexander stared at the ground in a daze. My wolf pressed against my skin, claws scraping inside my bones, desperate to play his part.

Craig blinked once, then again, like he was trying to decide if he misheard. “You what?”

“You heard me. You say the law protects you, but it’s not the only law we live by. I challenge you for leadership of the Battle River pack.”

Amanda stepped forward, concern written across her face. “Troy, you just healed…”

I held out a hand to stop her. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not letting him walk away from this.”

When no one else spoke, Craig forced a laugh. “You think the pack will follow you? You don’t even know them. Even if you pulled some kind of magic trick with your genie and force field and Goddess knows what else, Alexander is my heir. You’d have to take him too.”

For the first time since learning I was his brother, Alexander’s eyes met mine. He looked exactly as I’d expect a man whose whole world had just shattered to look: stunned and a little lost. But as our gazes held, his lips pressed into a grim line and he nodded once.

It wasn’t much to go on. It could have meant a thousand different things. But in that moment, facing each other man-to-man, I took it as a nod of understanding. A confirmation he wouldn’t stand in my way.

I looked back at my father. “No magic. No tricks. And let me worry about the pack. When I beat you, I’ll make sure they know what kind of Alpha you really are.”

Craig’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll regret this.”

Hunter howled in my head, a war cry that I echoed in my own way.

“Not nearly as much as you will.”