“So then you didn’t have much of a choice. What does Cole say?”
Barge interrupted. “Not much. He hardly ever talks, but he has a big house and he offered them his protection.”
Michael felt his eyes turn wolf. “I was speaking to my mate.”
Barge’s eyes got huge and Michael realized what was about to happen. He raised his hand. “Do not shift and hit the floor. Your silence while I speak to Scarlett will suffice.”
All three of the male wolves nodded. They really did seem to think with one brain.
“Which side did my sister take?” He wasn’t going to be searching for Angel anymore, someone else from Westervelt was going to have to do it. Michael had one priority and it was getting Scarlett out of here.
“Cole wanted to tell you about Angel.”
He nodded. He’d forgotten that fact. Only to spare his mate worry had he not insisted on being told about Angel last night. The truth was, he didn’t remember her and she’d been missing for thirty-five years. One more night wasn’t going to make that much of difference. Still, he needed to report in to Tristan so someone else could be sent to find Angel.
Seamus glanced at Scarlett. “He doesn’t know Angel took off?” Scarlett moaned and covered her face with her hands. Seamus looked back and forth from Michael to Scarlett.
He was clearly confused about why she was upset.
Michael sat down on the bed. “It’s okay, Scarlett, you didn’t tell me. You didn’t break any rules and we’ll let Cole tell me where she went, shall we?”
He patted the bed and sat down next to her, putting her face against his arm so that he shielded her from the room. It was nice to have her physical proximity back even though Michael suspected it would be a long time until he had actual intimacy with her.
Now he had to deal with the three wolves who for some reason had come to make amends this morning.
“I’m going to tell you three something and you can do with it as you wish. The wolf pack functions like a very large family. There is the ultimate Alpha. He’s in charge. Then there are Alpha wolves, which I am and which I assume the three of you are if you’ve sided with Zack, even though you can’t win a fight to save your life.”
The three shifters stared down at the floor. A little shame might be a good thing for them.
“That’s not entirely your fault. Someone in the pack is supposed to teach the others how to fight. At home, I am one of those people.”
This seemed to get their attention and their heads shot back up. “Then there are the Beta wolves. Not everyone in the pack can be an Alpha. The Beta wolves are as important, maybe more so, than the Alpha wolves. An Alpha’s first instinct should be to protect the Betas, at all cost.”
Barge spoke up. “Why? They’re so weak.”
“They’re not weak, they just don’t have the same level of aggression an Alpha wolf has. They can still fight and at Westervelt we teach them the same way we teach the Alphas. A lot of them have other interests, like carpentry or technology or teaching. A true Alpha wolf never wants to hurt them. Ever. He or she always wants to keep them safe.”
Todd fell to his knees and to Michael’s ultimate horror started to bawl—big, pent-up tears flowing freely down his face. The blond haired man punched the floor. “I know that.
I know that. I’ve always known that. They told us we had to dominate. If we wanted to live we had to dominate. Nero, Cole and Zack … they’ve made it so hard and my wolf has been so angry for so long.”
“In matters of heart and conscience, I tend to listen to my wolf. He usually knows the right thing to do.”
Barge and Seamus knelt down next to Todd. Seamus’ face was beet red while Barge looked sort of green. Finally Seamus looked up at him. “When our wolves finally come to us, the elders of the pack take us out and teach us how to dominate them. They taught us it was important to make our canine instincts subservient and part of the way to do that is to eliminate or, at the very least, make servants of the weaker members of the pack.”
It was like speaking to children who had been told the color red was the color blue.
How did you undo a lifetime of neglect? You couldn’t and Michael wasn’t even sure he wanted to.
He stroked Scarlett’s hair. “Is that what Cole does? Makes you guys his servants for his big house?”
Against his arm, Scarlett nodded.
Michael turned his attention back to the three men now on the floor. “I’m not finished. There are two other groups to a healthy pack.”
You sound like your mother. You do realize that, don’t you? His wolf laughed at him.
In this area of life, she knew a lot of stuff.
“The first are the latent wolves. For whatever reason, their wolf halves never appear, but they still have some of our traits.” Without moving his gaze from the men who last night he beat up and today he had to school like teenagers, he squeezed his mate’s knee.
“In most cases, it’s the scent. They can smell like we can. Some of them can do other things too. These members are a gift to have around. They remind us of our humanity, keep us from losing sight of the fact that we have dual natures and sometimes we have to be human too. When I was growing up, Westervelt always had five or six latent shifters in the pack. Most of them got married and had full shifter children. They’re considered lucky and they hold as high a position in the pack as anyone else.”
Barge nodded. “And the other group?”
“The human mates of pack members.”
Todd gaped at him. “Y’all let them live?”
Scarlett whispered in his ear. “Zack killed my father and mother because Mom was human. He hunted them down, killed them and brought me back to the pack to see if I could shift.”
Okay, now Zack was dead. Michael felt his eyes turn wolf as he stood up. “Yes, we let them live. Come on, Scarlett, we’re going to see Cole.”
The three men jumped up from the floor. Todd spoke first. “We’ll come too.”
“Don’t you people have jobs?”
“No,” Scarlett answered. He was thrilled that his mate was speaking up so much. It meant she was comfortable. “Only the Betas and latent wolves have to work.”
“The Alphas just lounge around all day?”
She nodded.
“Of course. What else would they do?” He hoped his sarcasm translated into the brains of the other men. “Explain to me how Zack hopes to have any money after he kills off all the people who earn it?”
Silence met his question. Holding out his hand, he let Scarlett take it before he walked from the room.
“You guys can come. In fact, you can drive us.” He stared at them for a moment.
“After, I give you some clothes, apparently.”
* * * *
Climbing out of Barge’s SUV, he regarded Cole’s house. It was big but it wasn’t spectacular. Nothing that intimidated Michael in any case. He’d been alive long enough to not particularly care for wealth displays. They were meaningless most of the time.
Stopping only to make sure Scarlett was okay, he took the stairs two at a time before he rang the bell. She followed right behind him, close on his heels, and the three wolf shifters he’d now somehow inherited as annoying little brothers behind her.
The door opened and Scarlett shivered even though it was ninety degrees outside. He pulled her close to his side before he regarded the man who opened the door.
“I’m Michael Kane. I need to see Cole about my sister.”
As he watched, the man—who was at least three inches shorter than he was with blazing red hair and green eyes—let his eyes turn wolf. Michael could have laughed. It took guts to be that aggressive and that stupid. Or maybe Michael was simply unaccustomed at this point to being surrounded by power hungry males who had no idea what real shifter power felt, smelled and tasted like when they encountered it. For kicks, he should send Tristan and Cullen down here to blow their minds with power.