Fighting Fate (6 page)

Cailin swallowed hard and nodded. Though it hurt to think about, she agreed. The Pack needed

them to be strong, to be their center. Their Pack had lost their Alpha today. In some ways that crushed

her even more than losing her father.

Her wolf howled, needing to be held, but Cailin couldn’t handle that right now—not without

breaking.

Again.

Cailin cleared her throat. “I…I don’t remember much after…well, just after.” Her family looked

at her, the pity and grief in their gazes almost her undoing. “What happens now? Hierarchy-wise. The

Pack will need to know. The structure will help our wolves focus.”

Kade gave her a sad smile. “You’re right, Cai.” He took a deep breath, straightening his

shoulders. Mel bent down and picked up Finn, holding him close to her chest. The three-year-old

looked pale, his eyes wide and full of knowledge no child should have to bear.

“When…when the bond broke with dad, I felt the Alpha bond slam into me at the same time the

Heir bond severed. Jesus. The pain. I…it was like a jagged blade in some respects but quick and

white-hot at the same time. The loss…I don’t know what you all felt but…I can barely think.” He

looked down at his son and sighed. “Finn’s too young for the responsibility of Heir. We all know

this.”

Mark, his adopted son, spoke up, “Then you’ll all help him like you did us. I know Gina and I

aren’t blood, so we didn’t get the Heir powers, but when we get older, we can help Finn. We can

help him now.”

Cailin sucked in a breath, fighting off tears. Those kids had already been through so much, and

now they’d lost their only grandparents as well.

Kade dropped to his haunches and ran a hand through his son’s hair. “You and Gina are my

rocks. Both of you. I know you’ll help Finn. That part I’m not worried about.”

Jasper cleared his throat. “I’m still Beta, if that helps. I can still feel the bond within the Pack.

The moon goddess passes Alpha, Heir, and Beta by blood only, but the rest are up for grabs when the

next generation gets older.”

Adam jumped in. “I’m still the Enforcer because I can feel the tenuous bonds. Although since I

couldn’t sense the danger until it was too late, I’m not sure what my role is anymore.”

Cailin reached out and patted his arm. “Stop it. You’ve been on edge for years because right

now there’s
always
a threat to the Pack. There’s only so much you can do.”

“He’s right,” Maddox added in. “Yes, I’m still the Omega. That’s not going to change for a long

time, but while my wolf is screaming to help everyone in this room, we need this pain, this idea of

what was lost to take the next steps.”

Though it hurt to hear, Cailin agreed. She wouldn’t let Maddox take her pain. Not now. Not ever.

She needed to feel it through the numbness that had become who she was since those moments on the

field.

“What are we going to do?” Ellie asked, her hand on Maddox’s knee.

Kade’s mouth firmed. “I don’t know. I’m not ready to be Alpha.”

Cailin stood quickly and stalked toward her brother. She punched him in the chest and kept her

fist there. “Stop it. You have the power and knowledge to be Alpha. What you aren’t ready for, what

none of us are ready for, is living without them. I know this more than anyone.” Her voice broke, and

she sucked in air through her nose, pushing her emotions back.

“You can’t be weak in front of the others. You can’t show that you want to scream and sob and

try to make sense of what is going on around you. None of us can. We need to be strong for the Pack,

or all else will fail. We can grieve, but we can’t back down. We can’t show the Centrals that they’ve

won. Because they haven’t. Don’t let what happened be in vain. Please.” She rasped out the last

word, and her brother’s gaze bored into hers.

“It wasn’t your fault, Cailin,” Kade whispered, far too much knowledge in his gaze.

She backed up a step, knocking into Charlotte, Maddox and Ellie’s daughter. Her niece wrapped

her arms around her legs, and Cailin centered herself.

Or at least tried to.

Not her fault? Her father had
died
for her. She hadn’t been fast enough and had watched her

father die when it should have been her body on the ground. Then she’d watched the same thing

happen between Logan and her mother.

No one would understand how she felt.

No one but Logan.

Her wolf cried out for him, and Cailin knew she wouldn’t be able to hold it back much longer.

She needed to leave the room, leave the people that surrounded her who all had babies, mates, and a

future.

She had
nothing
. Nothing worth saving, and yet her father had died for her.

How was she supposed to live with that?

Maddox let out a pained groan behind her, and she closed up her emotions tight. She wouldn’t

put the burden of her pain on her brother’s shoulders.

She’d done enough to her family as it was.

“Cailin, it wasn’t your fault,” Kade repeated.

She backed up fully until she stood by Adam’s chair again. “He was aiming for me and Logan,”

she finally said, her voice void of emotion. “I didn’t miss that, and I don’t think the rest of you did

either.”

“Why would he be trying for you two in particular?” North asked. “Does Caym know something

we don’t?”

Cailin closed her eyes. “He knows so much more than we do it seems. Why Logan and me? I

don’t know. That’s something we have to find out.”

Kade raised his chin and took Mel’s hand. “Go home, all of you. Sleep, grieve, and find some

form of peace. Anything that you can put over yourself so we can function tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

The funeral.

There would be no waiting. Not when the Pack was at war.

“Emeline is still researching,” Adam put in before everyone got up. “She said she might be onto

something with the dark magic. We can tell her about Logan and Cailin to see if that helps.”

Emeline was an elder wolf who helped when she could. She wasn’t as sheltered as the rest of

the elders and had tried to integrate within the Pack more.

Right then, though, Cailin needed space. She needed to breathe. “I’ll help tomorrow,” she

whispered before turning away from her family.

She walked out the door while the others said their goodbyes, their heartbreak so heavy she

could feel it in the air all around her. Her wolf begged for touch, but Cailin knew she couldn’t ask the

family for it. She didn’t want to be their burden to bear while they had so much else on their plates.

Her family could go to their individual homes, hug their families, and let their wolves howl for the

loss and pain that seemed never-ending.

One wolf hadn’t been there.

One wolf with so many ties to her family that he was practically part of it already.

She hadn’t failed to notice his absence, and she knew the others hadn’t either.

He wasn’t a Jamenson, wasn’t her mate, wasn’t anything but a Pack member.

And that angered her.

Shamed her.

She’d fought the mating so hard, and now, when she needed someone the most, she didn’t have

them because she’d been too prideful, too selfish. She didn’t even know how Logan was feeling, how

she could help him.

How he could help her.

Her wolf craved a mate, and the woman within her was too broken to think past the pain, past the

thought that having someone to hold her might make it go away…at least for a little bit.

Logan could help her.

He had to.

If he didn’t…well, she’d already shattered into a million pieces; she didn’t think she had

anything else left to break.

She just prayed she wasn’t wrong.

Chapter Four

Sometimes being a wolf sucked.

Not being able to get drunk when he needed to was at the top of Logan’s list at the moment. No

matter how much whiskey he poured down his throat, he’d never get more than a buzz. Well, that

wasn’t quite true. If he drank a few bottles in a row he might be able to get drunk enough. According

to Pack gossip, Adam had done that when he’d met Bay a couple years ago, and their mating had

progressed from there.

Logan wasn’t sure he needed to be
that
drunk.

Lexi, his sister, and the Jamensons were meeting at Kade’s home. He didn’t know how long

they’d be there, nor did he know if they’d tell him what they’d discussed. He wasn’t part of the inner

circle. Not really.

He set the bottle down and ran a hand through his hair, the short strands sliding through his

fingers. It needed to be cut, but he couldn’t really care at the moment. He wasn’t equipped to deal

with what was going on inside of him, what was going on within the Pack. No one should have been

ready for what had happened.

Pat had died for him.

It made no sense.

He wasn’t worth the sacrifice. Everyone knew it. He’d left his old Pack because he hadn’t been

strong enough to keep Lexi and Parker safe. The old Alpha of the Talons had made it clear that if Lexi

stayed within the Pack, she would have been killed. It wasn’t her fault she’d been forced into a partial

mating with Corbin, the sadistic, and now dead, former Alpha of the Centrals, but the old Alpha

hadn’t wanted her taint to infect their precious Pack. Logan hadn’t been strong enough to protect his

sister or the baby in her womb, so he’d left with her. He’d vowed to protect her from the evil that

surrounded them, though he hadn’t been enough to save her from Corbin’s clutches in the first place.

She had North to take care of her and Parker now, though since she’d found her wolf, she was

strong enough to protect herself.

Logan wasn’t needed.

Again.

He knew he wasn’t good enough for Pat’s last words, last actions.

Cailin, the woman who could be his mate, wouldn’t even look at him. She’d left the battlefield,

tears drying on her cheeks, her eyes wide and dark on a pale face, and hadn’t looked back. He’d

known she’d been pulling away from him, little by little, but what had happened earlier had cemented

their break.

It wasn’t as if he deserved her and the alluring brightness that came from the green-eyed woman

he’d thought he’d one day love.

Cailin was not alone in the way she treated him, though. Most of the Redwood Pack members

kept their distance, their wariness of the darkness in his soul justified.

He’d lost control for just a moment on the battlefield. That moment could have ended so much

worse for those who fought alongside him. It was a twist of fate, a stroke of luck, that he’d only killed

Centrals in the first place.

Yet, Patricia Jamenson had jumped in the line of fire for him.

Logan had no idea how he was supposed to repay that, if there even
was
a way to repay that.

Even if he could, he wasn’t sure the Redwoods, and the Jamensons in particular, would want him to.

Would take what he had to offer.

Logan Anderson wasn’t a normal werewolf. No, he was even darker than North, the one

Jamenson brother who thought he had a grasp on the darkness that had almost claimed him. But while

North had to deal only with a wolf who craved the violence of the beast, Logan had another power to

overcome. He’d left bouts of anger, control issues, and death in his trail over the years, and he’d

fought to overcome it.

He’d been blessed by the moon goddess.

No, that wasn’t right.

He’d been cursed.

While most wolves knew the story of the first hunters—humans who had been given the soul of

the wolf to learn the value of taking a life—Logan was not like them. The moon goddess had been the

one to grant the human hunters the power when she’d walked amongst the mortals.

According to Logan’s father and legend, the Andersons were the first of that line.

That was why Lexi had been given the strength of the moon goddess to fight Caym in their last

fight with the Centrals. Without that, the demon would have killed his sister. Lexi hadn’t known the

connection, the power, the fear. It hadn’t surprised him. He’d had it all his life.

That was why he had an extra curse from the goddess herself. He’d been born for something

more, something he didn’t understand. That was what his wolf told him and what his father had told

him long ago. The extra strength, the extra adrenaline that came with the darkness of his wolf made it

harder for him
not
to act Alpha.

Though not all could feel the presence of the difference of Logan’s wolf, Edward did. He’d

watched Logan like a hawk and hadn’t let him gain too much power in the hierarchy. Logan had never

blamed the Alpha for that. In fact, his own wolf had liked the fact that another wolf had been ready to

take the reins and allow him to follow a new path.

Oh yes, that new path had been the Alpha’s daughter.

Hence the other reason for watching Logan closely.

No one was good enough for Cailin Jamenson.

From the way Cailin avoided from him, he had a feeling she knew that as well.

It didn’t matter now anyway. Her mother had died for him. There was no way he’d ever be good