Rebecca Royce - Wolf Reborn

He can smell that you're hiding something. Everyone in the room can. There is still so much you don't listen to, don't understand and you won't learn about it if you don't listen when I instruct you. Lies, falsehoods, and misdirection all have a smell and a taste. Haven't you noticed that?

Damn it. She needed to get better at disguising her scents. Most of the time she couldn't smell what the Kane brothers were thinking, or if they hid something from her, obviously since she hadn't known they'd hidden Theo.

"I should tell you it was immediately obvious he and I are mates." There she'd said it. Gotten it out there. So why did she want to choke on her confession? It felt like a betrayal to have told all of these people without discussing it with Theo first.

"You're his what?" Tristan's eyes, always in their wolf form because he was the Alpha, got large. For a moment, she wondered if they would fall out of his head. Ashlee placed a hand on his shoulder for comfort and he visibly relaxed. Faith could still see a small vein throb in the upper right corner of his forehead.

Cullen sat back in his chair. If he hadn't been married to Summer, Faith would have found him pompous and intimidating, but the other woman made him more approachable. Just watching the way his eyes lit up when he looked at his pregnant mate made him ten times less of a bogeyman.

"I warned you this could happen."

Cullen had known? Faith rolled her eyes. Why shouldn't everyone know she had a mate except her?

"You never told me Faith was his mate." Tristan's roar had her jumping backwards. In fact, every person in the room startled, with the notable exceptions of Cullen and Ashlee.

"I warned you Theo's mate could very well show up and complicate this 'leave Theo and let him be' attitude you all adopted last year. Did I know that it would be specifically our security expert? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous. I would have to own my mate's abilities to do that and I don't believe she foresaw this."

"I didn't." Summer's voice sounded calm but Faith could smell her tension.

"Um, if I could interject here, why is this a problem? I thought it was a bad thing I didn't have a mate. Now I have one."

Tristan rose, his chair flew backwards. "No one is upset with you Faith. It's just that Theo is complicated and it is the opinion of some people in this room," his gaze flew to Cullen, "that I have mishandled my younger brother's situation. He's only in his current condition because he rescued Braden. I should have gifted him with the role of my second. Instead, three months later, I found myself agreeing to let him leave the pack and go live in woods as an animal."

Gabriel rose and crossed to Tristan. He spoke low, he always did, but Faith could hear him perfectly. As the second oldest Kane brother, and the one they called the Warrior, Gabriel frightened almost everyone he came in to contact with. "Let's go get him back. If there really is a security threat, Faith could certainly use his help. Ironically, she has his old job. They're mated. That has to mean something."

Michael snorted. "It means the universe, again, placed two shifters who have a lot in common together. Much as they did with the four of you." He waved his hand at Cullen, Summer, Tristan, and Ashlee. "And the other three couples that recently formed." There was something that always spoke of pain when Michael communicated. Faith had never been able to put her finger on exactly what it was.

"Maybe he'll come back on his own now that he's found Faith and I can resume his treatment." Ashlee looked remarkably hopeful and sweet, as she always did, hiding the depth of strength and ruthlessness Faith knew she possessed within.

Azriel, the quiet intellectual one of the brothers, shook his head. "He's a stubborn S.O.B. He thinks we're all safer without him, he'll stay away, mate or no mate."

Rex stood. His hair had grown long in the year since Faith had come to Westervelt. All of the brothers were dark haired, but Rex's was like midnight. There was no other color to his hair and eyes. "I'll go get him. He'll come back whether he wants to or not."

"One of you will end up dead." Tristan shook his head. "I'm not even sure having Theo back is the safe and smart thing. His mind...I can only imagine how deranged he's gotten. He thought he'd been shot at but Faith didn't scent anyone anywhere."

Silence met Tristan's declaration. Faith's hands clenched and her jaw tightened. How dare they doubt him so profoundly? She'd only met him for moments and despite whatever doubts she'd initially had, she already knew whatever he might be, an absolute lunatic he was not.

"I'll go and ask him if he wants to go back." Seconds after she made that announcement she wasn't sure why she had. All eyes stared at her. Clearing her throat, she continued. "And if he doesn't want to or if I judge him insane, although I doubt that, then I will remain there with him." She had to hope that he was as lucid as she'd found him to be, considering the promise she'd just made. Faith spoke her words through gritted teeth. Wanting no argument, and suddenly not feeling quite as submissive to Tristan, Faith turned on her heel and walked with determination from the room.

Behind her she heard Ashlee sigh. "You just goaded her into doing that, didn't you?"

Tristan's baritone voice answered as she turned the corner. "Sometimes a person has to want to do what they should want to do."

So she'd just been manipulated by her Alpha. There was no time to dwell on it. She had to go find her mate, find out if he was insane, and if he was she had to find a way to live with it.

Theo ran through the woods. He couldn't get caught unawares again. Whoever had pursued him had been crafty and disguised his scent, a trick Theo used to teach people to do. Hell, maybe he'd instructed the would-be assassin in the technique. He wouldn't be fooled by his own skill set.

He sniffed the ground, and the scents wafted through his bloodstream showing him pictures of what had been there before him. Three deer had crossed here not an hour earlier.

Let's go get the deer. It's time for a good chase .

Theo scoffed. We have no time for hunting prey. Someone is out here, they are our only objective.

But that's human concerns. I thought you were all wolf now .

He hated to be called out on his inconsistencies and nobody did it more often or in a more aggravating manner than his wolf. We'll get back to being a wolf. I still owe our Alpha allegiance and for him I will find whoever this person is .

His wolf snorted. I'm bored. I want to go find our mate. She smelled like home .

We can't go home. I'm not safe around anybody in the pack but especially not the children .

We saved the children .

His wolf sounded furious at the presumption of being unsafe to his niece and nephew. They had, indeed, saved Braden from the flying demons which was how his nephew was still alive and why he, Theo Kane, would-be second-in-command to their Alpha, was now living like an animal out in the woods.

Theo sighed. He'd grown up knowing nothing was fair. Out of all of the brothers, he'd been most likely to earn the back of Kendrick's hand to his face or the cold heel of his boot to his gut. He'd never complained about his treatment. His brothers had each been beat down in different ways and had he dared to tell their mother, it would have placed her in graver danger than he was in himself. While everyone else had thought Kendrick a god, he'd seen right through him, which was probably what earned him the whipping boy position in the first place.

Now the problem was that either the poison had distorted his brain or, as a much less palatable option, he had simply grown into his father's son. He couldn't escape genetics. Theo shook his head. He wasn't Alpha. His lunacy didn't have to infect the entire pack. That's why he'd taken himself out in the first place and that's why he'd stay out. A twig snapped and he whirled around.