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  After several hours, Robert called for everyone’s attention. Drawing Wyatt to the front of the room, he posed the question. “Wyatt, you’ve done me a great service today,” he said. “Wolves shouldn’t be alone. When we find each other, we form packs. We’d like to officially invite you to set aside your solitude and join our pack. Will you become an official member of the Hell’s Wolves?”

  Wyatt nodded. “Thank you. I’d like that.” And I hope I’m not making a mistake.

  Chapter Three

  WYATT

  “How long have you had the bike?” Van asked.

  “Not long,” Wyatt admitted. The two of them had been in the garage all afternoon sharing beers and cleaning their bikes together. Van was the only other person Wyatt had ever met who seemed as enamored with motorcycles as he was. The younger man was content to spend hours in the garage and was often called upon to do maintenance and repairs on bikes belonging to other members of the pack. He was knowledgeable and handy with a wrench, and he’d had an eye on Wyatt’s bike since the night Wyatt had arrived at the house.

  “What kind is it?” Van asked. “I don’t recognize it. What’s the make?”

  “I built it, actually.” Wyatt was a little embarrassed. He hadn’t been able to afford a real motorcycle, a fact his old pack had constantly thrown in his face. His might look pretty with its coat of paint so carefully applied, but Wyatt knew that beneath all that it was scrap metal.

  His bike’s humble beginnings didn’t affect his love for the machine at all. If anything, he felt like it was more his, more a part of him, than any bike he could have purchased. But life with his old pack had taught him that other people weren’t likely to see things the same way.

  To his surprise, though, Van had no words of mockery. He whistled and looked the bike up and down, examining every inch. “How does she run?”

  “Well, I think. I don’t really have a lot to compare against,” Wyatt said. “My last pack weren’t bikers.”

  “Really? What the hell were you doing with them, then?”

  “Well, they were wolves,” Wyatt said.

  “Is that it?”

  “It’s a big thing to have in common with somebody,” Wyatt said. “It’s a bigger thing not to have in common with somebody. How old are you, anyway?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Have you been with the Hell’s Wolves all your life?”

  “Yes,” Van said. “Lena’s my aunt. My mother’s youngest sister.”

  “Is your mother here? Did I meet her?”

  “She died years ago,” Van said. “Giving birth to my sister.”

  “Oh,” Wyatt said. “I’m sorry to hear that. I lost my parents when I was young too.”

  Van nodded, acknowledging that. “It was my father’s fault,” he said. “He was the alpha before Robert, and he was determined to grow the pack as quickly as possible. Any woman who was of an age to have children had to be pregnant or trying to become pregnant at all times.” He shook his head. “That many births in succession is too much strain on the body. We lost three women before Robert eventually rose up and managed to take power from my father, killing him in the process.”

  “Wow.” Wyatt was stunned. “And now you follow Robert? Even though he killed your father?”

  “I have to. He’s the alpha,” Van said. “But I don’t mind. By all accounts he’s a much better leader than my father ever was. I don’t have any loyalty to the man who brought about my mother’s death.”

  “That’s fair,” Wyatt admitted. “But shouldn’t you be the new alpha? Wouldn’t it pass from your father to his male heir?”

  “I probably would have been,” Van said. “But when Robert overthrew my father, he severed the dominance of our line.” He cocked his head at Wyatt. “You don’t know much about pack dynamics, do you?”

  “I wasn’t raised in a pack like you were,” Wyatt said. “I was raised in a small family. We didn’t have an alpha. And I was on my own by the age of fifteen. Later I joined a pack that already existed, but they were disorganized and their leadership was weak. This is the first time I’ve really belonged to a pack. So, I’m just learning a lot of this for the first time, yes.”

  “I see.”

  “So, who takes over for Robert when he dies?” Wyatt asked, picking up a wrench and loosening the lug nut on the rear wheel of his bike. “Does he have a male heir?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Van said. “Lena couldn’t have children. By pack law, the alpha is within his rights to mate with a second woman if his wife can’t give him children, because the alpha gene needs to be passed down. But Robert wouldn’t do it to Lena. He’s too nice for his own good, maybe. She would have given him permission, I think.”

  “That’s decent of him,” Wyatt said. “But it poses a problem, right?”

  “Who becomes the new alpha.” Van nodded. “There are a lot of theories among the pack about that, but Robert doesn’t look like he’s going to keel over any time soon. He’s only in his fifties. We have a while before this becomes an issue.”

  “And?” Wyatt pulled the tire off his bike and reached for one of the replacements the pack kept on hand. “What will happen then? What theories do people have?”

  “Why so curious?”

  Wyatt couldn’t have said exactly what motivated his interest in this topic, apart from the fact that he’d never belonged to a pack before. He’d never been subject to an alpha’s control before. But now, after only one week with the Hell’s Wolves, it was clear that Robert’s dominance applied to him as much as it did any of the others. To his surprise, he hadn’t really minded taking orders as much as he’d expected to. In fact, it had felt kind of pleasant. There was a satisfaction in doing the things Robert told him to do, as if he was fulfilling one of the needs of his body. It was like quenching a thirst or scratching an itch. And Robert was generous with his control, always taking care not to use his power in a way that would make the rest of the pack angry or uncomfortable. He only issued orders when it was for the greater good, and he was careful to phrase things as requests when he could.

  All in all, Wyatt expected he would be a part of the Hell’s Wolves for a long time to come, and he wanted to know what the future held for him. He was happy with the alpha who sat over him now, but how would things be in ten years, or twenty? Who would come next?

  “Well,” Van said, “One theory is that power would revert back to me, since my father was the last alpha before Robert and I’m his oldest male heir. That the broken bloodline would be restored.”

  “Do you think that’s true?” Wyatt asked.

  “Definitely not,” Van said. “I would feel something, right? Some flicker of power? I mean, I’ve never known of a case like mine, so I can’t say for sure. But it doesn’t feel true. I don’t think there’s any alpha left in me.”

  “That doesn’t seem to bother you,” Wyatt noted.

  “No. I don’t want the responsibility. And that’s part of it, you know? I think if there was alpha left in me, part of me would want to be alpha. You know the way you feel when Robert gives a command? Like you have to obey, but then part of you also wants to obey?”

  Wyatt nodded.

  “Well, I feel that. But there’s no part of me that wants to be the one giving the commands. It just seems intimidating and unpleasant. So I hope I’m right, and that that job never comes to me.”

  Wyatt finished tightening the bolts on his wheel and sat back taking a swig of his beer. “What are the other possibilities?”

  “Some people say the beta of the pack will ascend,” Van said. “That’s Gunner. He’s the one who’s always powerlifting in the weight room.”

  “I don’t think he likes me,” Wyatt said.

  “What would make you think that?”

  “He was giving me dirty looks my whole first night here,” Wyatt said. “It was like he was pissed off just to see me in the room. And he hasn’t taken the time to get to know me since then, or to explain what the hell his problem
was.”

  Van laughed. “He was mad because you were in his seat.”

  “What?” Wyatt frowned. “Robert told me to sit beside him. I didn’t pick my seat.”

  “I know. We all know that. Even Gunner knows that. But you know the seat beside the alpha is supposed to go to the beta, and that’s Gunner. And he worked a long time to earn that rank, so I imagine it was hard for him to see Robert just hand it off to you.”

  “He earned it? How did he earn it?”

  “He fought everyone else who challenged him,” Van said. “By defeating them in physical combat, he proved his dominance, so they could never assert themselves as higher on the chain of command than him. The only person he can’t beat is Robert, of course, because they both know Robert can just order him to stand down and he’ll have to do it. And when Robert ordered him to move over to the third seat and let you sit down, he had to do that too.”

  “He hates me because he thinks I’m trying to take his place.”

  “Or that Robert’s trying to give you his place.”

  “But Robert wouldn’t do that. He was just being welcoming because I was new.”

  “I don’t know,” Van said. “He likes you a lot. You saved his life. And he’s let you keep the beta seat at the table all week, hasn’t he?”

  It was true. “He’s just making an effort to get to know me better,” Wyatt protested. “He seats me beside him at meals so that we can talk.”

  Van shrugged. “Maybe he does or maybe he doesn’t. I don’t know. But what I do know is that it’s only a matter of time before Gunner challenges you and tries to take his place back.”

  Wyatt took another uneasy gulp of beer. Fighting the two Death Riders in the bar was one thing—those had been two humans, and they hadn’t seen him coming. He’d fought shifters before, but he hadn’t been in a serious fight in at least fifteen years. He remembered the difficulty of those fights, though. The snarling and snapping, the pain when claws and teeth made contact, the delicate dance as you tried to run your opponent off without mortally wounding him. If Gunner came to fight him, would they be fighting in wolf form? And if so, would it be a fight in which he was allowed to wave a white flag?

  “I don’t care about being beta,” he told Van. “Gunner can have it.”

  “You’d better take that up with Robert, then,” Van said. “It’s not up to me. And Robert’s the one who keeps putting you in that seat.”

  “Great.”

  “Don’t worry too much,” Van said. “Robert wouldn’t let Gunner hurt anyone too badly, and he clearly likes you. He’ll call things off if they get ugly.”

  Wyatt nodded and drained his beer. “So, it might be you or it might be Gunner,” he said. He had to admit, as much as Van insisted that he didn’t want to take power, submitting to the kid seemed like a better option than submitting to the angry bodybuilder.

  “Or it might be you,” Van said. “If you do end up holding the rank.”

  “Never happen. Throw me another beer. I’ll just go find Gunner tonight and tell him I’m not going for it.”

  Van shook his head. “You don’t always get to choose your rank,” he pointed out. “Alphas don’t get to choose. A lot of people don’t get to choose. You can’t just say you don’t want to be beta. It’s possible you’ll end up with it, particularly if the alpha wants you there.”

  This whole line of discussion was making Wyatt uncomfortable. He was new to the pack, after all, and now he was faced with the idea of going to battle for a rank he’d never asked for and didn’t want. Not only that, it seemed likely that the person who ended up in the beta position might someday ascend to become alpha of the pack. I’d make a terrible alpha, Wyatt thought. He knew nothing about pack dynamics, as was becoming abundantly clear. Not only that, he had no offspring to continue the line. He might be a bit younger than Robert, but if he became beta and then alpha the pack would really just be delaying the problem. Van should do it. If it’s between me, him, and Gunner...he’s the obvious best choice.

  “Are there any other options?” he asked.

  “For beta? No.”

  “Not for beta. For alpha. For the line of succession. Say it isn’t you and it isn’t the beta. Is there any other person who might ascend after Robert dies?”

  Van hesitated. “There’s one possibility. It’s not very likely, though.”

  “What is it?”

  “Some people believe that the male in the pack with the greatest potential to father the next generation ascends if there’s a break in the lineage. If an alpha dies and doesn’t leave an heir, power would fall to whichever member of the pack was most fertile, or had the greatest likelihood of producing a lot of offspring.”

  That’s definitely not me, at least. Wyatt knew he was too old to be a serious contender for that title. “Who do you think that would be?”

  “No idea,” Van said. “There’s a lot of debate. Some say it’s just a young and virile member of the pack. Others think it matters how the women in the pack regard each man—that the real power rests in their hands, and in their willingness to mate with the men in question. Of course, that doesn’t really matter, since as soon as an alpha takes power, he can mate with anyone he wants...”

  “Would anybody really do that?” Wyatt was sickened at the thought.

  “My father did it,” Van pointed out. “But no, I don’t know that any existing members of our pack would do something like that to our women. That seems unlikely. If somebody like that rose to power, though, that would be the worst-case scenario.”

  “Would there be another rebellion? Like when Robert took control from your father?”

  “I don’t know.” Van drank deeply from his beer. “Things like that are once in a lifetime. Power shifts aren’t common. It seems pretty unlikely that something like that would happen again so soon.”

  AT DINNER THAT EVENING, Wyatt was summoned to sit beside Robert again, earning threatening glares from Gunner, who was still seated on his other side. It’s not like I can help it, he thought unhappily. I don’t want to take this seat and this rank away from him. I was literally ordered to sit here. I have to obey. He knows that.

  But it didn’t seem to matter. Gunner was angry, perhaps, at the fact that he was being visibly demoted in front of the entire pack. Wyatt thought that, in his shoes, he probably would have been angry too. If Van was to be believed, the reason Gunner spent so much time in the weight room building up his muscles was so that he’d be unbeatable in fights, enabling him to comfortably rest in the number two spot. And then I came along. A stranger and an upstart who did absolutely nothing to deserve this rank.

  Why was Robert so determined to have him here? Was the man blind to the power struggle he was creating, the conflict between two of his pack that grew every day? Did he not realize he was adding fuel to Gunner’s anger every time he called Wyatt to sit beside him? What could his endgame be? Wyatt resolved to ask him about it at the next possible opportunity, and after he’d finished helping to clear the table, he went looking for Robert.

  But Gunner found him first.

  Wyatt had gone into the library, in part because he knew Robert often spent his evenings there studying history and in part because he liked the room himself. After the garage, it was his favorite place on the Hell’s Wolves’ grounds. In the library, one could really tell how long the pack had been living here in this house. They’d collected hundreds of books, books of all kinds and covering all subjects, and anyone could come and read one. One of the pack members, Lionel, had purchased a large notebook and created a registry where you were supposed to sign out books if you were taking them out of the room, but that was only loosely adhered to. Wyatt thought it was a good system, though, and as a newcomer to the pack, he always cooperated with it.

  Today, he had barely entered the library when the door was flung open behind him and Gunner came barreling in. Wyatt clenched his fists and stood his ground, determined not to back away or show fear as the bulky man descended o
n him.

  “What are you doing here?” Gunner demanded.

  Wyatt blinked. It wasn’t the question he’d expected. “I’m looking at the books.”

  “Not the library. What are you doing with us?”

  “I needed a pack,” Wyatt said.

  “Okay. Why our pack? What brought you to us?”

  Wyatt was completely nonplussed. “You found me. I was just in a bar having a drink, and Robert—”

  “Robert provoked a fight to see what you’d do. You must have known that by getting involved you’d be earning his favor.”

  “How could I have known that? I didn’t know he was an alpha. I didn’t even know he was a shifter.”

  “You smelled it on him. You must have.”

  Wyatt was perplexed. “What are you accusing me of?” he asked. “Joining your pack on purpose? I didn’t. But so, what if I had? What difference would that make?”

  Gunner’s eyes were narrowed. “Remember your place asshole, that’s all,” he said, and his voice was nearly a growl. “Keep your hands off things that aren’t yours.” And he turned and stalked out of the room.

  “I don’t even want to be the beta,” Wyatt murmured. But he was no longer sure at all that rank was what Gunner was angry about.

  Chapter Four

  WYATT

  Determined to get to the bottom of things, Wyatt sought out Robert the very next day. The alpha listened carefully as Wyatt explained his concerns and described the confrontation between himself and Robert in the library the night before. “I don’t want there to be any unpleasantness between us,” he said. “I’m still new here, and the last thing I need is for him to hate me. I don’t want to have an enemy.”

  “Betas don’t establish their own position in the pack,” Robert said. “I’ve tried to make Gunner see that. The rank is given by the alpha. An alpha chooses his beta.”