In the next instant, Liam was jerked back.
Niko snarled at the tall, lean blonde who’d snatched the boy from his grasp. Hannah Johannsen, one of his seconds, had Liam pinned under her, a clawed hand up and poised to strike.
Boone had his hand around her wrist and it was, Nikolai knew, the only reason Liam wasn’t bloodied and battered.
“Don’t,” Boone said, his voice stark and hard, deadly.
“He insulted our Prime, challenged his authority, his leadership, his strength,” Hannah said, her body trembling with rage. “He might be young, but he’s no longer a child.”
“Get up, Hannah,” Nikolai said, his own rage nearly choking him. But there was also confusion. Liam hadn’t lied.
“Prime?” Hannah whispered, shifting slightly to glance at him.
In that split second, Alison lunged from where she’d been standing at the door and she’d grabbed the boy under the arms, hauling him away from Hannah, while Boone continued to grip the more dominant female’s wrist in an iron fist, not yielding.
“Hannah, you’re dismissed,” Niko said in a gritty voice. “Go home and collect your gear. You’re taking over patrol on the southern boundary. You’re on duty at the perimeter there until you’re advised otherwise.”
Hannah’s big blue eyes widened. “Sir, I—”
“Now.” Niko still stared at the boy as he spoke, head spinning, gut churning.
Without another word, Hannah left. Once she was gone, he shifted his gaze to Boone. “Take Alison and go.”
Boone hesitated, mouth tight. His eyes moved toward Liam and he canted his head to the side.
The act of resistance was accepted, but only because Niko knew what drove it. Boone was driven by the same innate need to protect and he saw Liam as too young and vulnerable.
“I’m not going to do anything other than talk,” Niko said quietly, forcing himself to look from the young man, who, while still teetering on the threshold of true adulthood, had told him something nobody else had ever dared. “I won’t harm him.”
Boone shifted, once more drawing Niko’s gaze. The unanswered question in his friend’s eyes brought an unfamiliar feeling to Niko and it took a moment to identify it.
Shame.
“You have my word, as Prime,” he said quietly, looking from Boone to Alison, then finally back to Liam.
Liam made another derisive sound but Niko said nothing. It was clear, now more than ever, that he’d done nothing to earn the trust of this young packmate.
His father’s voice rose once more to haunt him.
You must care for all under my aegis, Nikolai.
He will be defined by how he protects and guides all under his care, not just those who have his favor.
He’d done a fucking lousy job in caring for this boy who watched him with angry, shuttered, wounded eyes while his father lay dying on the bed just a few feet away.
Boone moved over to the teenager and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Can you control yourself, kid?”
“I’m fine,” he said in a calm voice that belied the rage he’d shown to Niko.
But, Niko realized, that rage was for him, and only him.
Moments later, they were alone, with only Samuel Day’s dying body to keep witness.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Niko stared Liam down.
But Liam didn’t look away. His eyes, as green as his sister’s, flashed hot and bright with anger and distrust. The distrust stung. He’d never had one of his own look at him like that, as if they couldn’t trust him.
But he’d done nothing to earn this trust and there was nothing he could do or say in that moment that would allow him to ease the pain he sensed within the pup.
“The Day family was accepted into Appalachia years ago by my father. Why do you think that didn’t extend to your sister?” Niko asked, his voice remote.
Liam gave a slow, almost lazy blink and shook his head.
“You have no fucking clue,” Liam said, voice again full of that sulky anger.
Niko said nothing.
“You told her to leave and never return,” Liam said pointedly.
Again, Niko felt that strange, unnatural sensation—shame.
She betrayed us.
“Jameson accepted the Day—”
Liam cut him off, a reckless show of disrespect for his Prime, and it was clear Liam was aware—he simply didn’t care. Closing the distance between them, he jutted his chin up at Niko. “When in the hell did your father go find her to offer her that protection? When did he recant your repudiation?”
Niko’s heart lurched hard against his chest. Once. Twice.
“You made a public statement of intent, told your entire pack you wanted to marry her... and she said yes,” Liam snarled. “My father’s protection ceased to extend to her the minute that happened. It doesn’t matter that you decided to change your mind for fuck-all knows why not even an hour later. You’d claimed her, as yours. Then you cast her out. In order for your father’s acceptance to extend to her, either Sam would have had to take her back under his protection or she’d have to appeal to your father.”
Niko sucked in a harsh breath.
“Zee... ” His chest cracked at that moment, ugly and bitter pain spilling out, but he ignored it. “Did your father refuse her?”
“No.” Liam shook his head, his green eyes, so like Zee’s, haunted and dark. “She never reached out. She just left. She ran and she ran and she ran. Nobody even knew where she went for more than two years.”
A band constricted around Niko’s chest, cutting off his flow of air, stifling his ability to think, see, hear.
“When did she connect back to her old pack?”
Liam didn’t speak.
Niko shot out a hand and grabbed the boy by the back of the neck, hauling him in close as he snarled, “When?”
“Zee has no pack—she’d rather die than become part of Greylock, so she’s alone. She’s been alone the past ten years.” Liam’s eyes went dull. “Because of you. I can’t even feel my sister anymore, Prime. I didn’t even know she was alive until I got Saint to talk to me—it took him two years to find her, you bastard. Two years with all of us wondering if she lived or died. I haven’t seen her since she ran. And all of it is because of you.”
Just that simply, Nikolai felt the very earth underneath him tremble, then collapse.
Chapter Three
“You should probably leave,” one of the Atargarians murmured to the tall, attractive black man who’d been all but wrapped around Zee Day just seconds earlier.
He cracked his neck and rubbed his jaw, then glanced over at the pale, trembling woman. She huddled on the floor, doubled over as if in the worst pain imaginable. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
The Zee he saw curling in on herself, as if to hide, was a far cry from the hot, sweet thing he’d been cuddling up to only moments earlier. While Duke knew he’d be mincemeat if the Atargarians made a move on him as a united front, he didn’t feel right walking away from a woman who was obviously suffering.
A slender woman with skin as dark as his own separated herself from the others and approached. “We’ll take care of this, of her. It’s what we do.”