Trial by Fire (Raised by Wolves #2)(51)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“Knowing that you looked away first,” Devon clarified with a pointed grin. “How do you like that?”

Shay didn’t answer Devon. Instead, he turned slowly back to me, and though I could sense an animal rage building inside him, his tone never changed.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t reconsider a trade?”

I didn’t catch Shay’s exact meaning until he elaborated.

“You keep the runt. I’ll take my brother.”

Devon? Shay wanted Devon?

I hadn’t been expecting that. To my left, Devon managed to force his features into a mildly bemused expression, but not before I saw the flicker of hunger and violence cross his face.

If I sent Devon with Shay, there was no way things would end without bloodshed. As much as I wanted to believe that Devon could take his brother, I wasn’t sure of it. I had doubts, and I told myself that was the reason I was going to say no.

It had nothing to do with the fact that sending Devon with Shay would mean losing him. It had nothing to do with the way that losing Dev would feel like cutting off a part of my soul.

“No.”

“No trade?” Shay repeated. “Pity. A wager, then? Or should Lucas and I just be on our way?”

He said Lucas’s name in a cold and careless way, and I tried not to think of the bruises, the scars, the haunted eyes too timid to look me straight in mine.

“What kind of wager did you have in mind?” I asked evenly.

Shay met my eyes. “Before we talk wagers, show me the boy. I assume you’re keeping him close by? He’s a bit of a runner and more than a bit of a coward. I’d hate for you to wager something dear only to find out that the prize you were after had drowned himself like a kitten.”

“He’s close,” I said, not wanting to call Lucas out, because I couldn’t trust myself to look at his face the moment he saw Shay and still do what was best for my pack.

“Define ‘close,’” Shay said, his tone demanding an answer I wasn’t willing to give. The silence that stretched between us was charged, and I could feel the need to challenge him rising again.

“Here.” The word came from the vicinity of the kitchen, where I’d told Lucas to wait, but he wasn’t the one who said it. Maddy stalked into the dining room, looking like some kind of Valkyrie come to gather the souls of the dead. There were dark circles under her gray eyes, and her lips were swollen.

Freshly kissed.

“Lucas is here.” Maddy’s voice was quiet, but there was something regal about the set of her chin, and I knew, maybe even before she did, what she was going to say next. “If you let him stay here, I’ll go with you.”

Her words felt like lightning going off in my brain. She knew what she was saying. She knew what it would mean. She wasn’t asking permission.

She was sure.

“No.” I didn’t raise my voice, but Maddy’s pack-bond pulled her closer to me, forced her head down. “Not going to happen, Maddy.”

“Making the decision for her, are you? And here I thought you weren’t that kind of alpha.” The emphasis Shay put on the phrase told me that he’d been watching us more closely than I’d realized.

“I’m whatever kind of alpha I need to be.” Saying the words made them true, and suddenly, I knew that I could do whatever was necessary to protect my pack.

“Bring me the boy.” Shay issued the words like an order, like he had a right to come here to my territory and demand anything. I moved forward, my steps slow and even, my hands loose by my sides. I walked up to him—right up to him—stood on my tiptoes, and blew in his face. It was a childish, human insult meant to emphasize that Shay was being insulted by just that: a human. A child.

For a moment, I thought he was going to hit me. I hoped that he would, because if Shay attacked me based on little more than an insult, my pack would be justified in fighting back. But instead of hitting me, Shay moved in a flash toward Maddy. Our entire pack flew into motion, but almost too late, I realized that Shay wasn’t going after Maddy.

He was going after Lucas, who’d come to stand by Maddy’s side, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop him.

Shay caught the smaller boy roughly by the neck and pulled him out from behind Maddy. I knew the second before Maddy leapt for Shay that she’d lost it, but it was too late for me to pull her back through the bond. Luckily, Lake was close enough and fast enough that she was able to take Maddy down before she could lay a finger on Shay.

“Maddy. Madison. Mads.” Lake had her pinned, but Maddy wouldn’t stop struggling against her hold, writhing on the ground like someone was shooting electric shocks through her body with the voltage set to high. A sound like thunder and the cracking of wood brought my eyes back to Shay, just in time to see Lucas go down.

Standing over Lucas’s prone body, Shay brought his eyes up to mine. I’d pushed him to the edge, hoping to goad him into attacking me, and instead, he’d turned on the only person here that he could, by Pack Law, beat to a broken, bloody pulp.

This is your fault, Shay’s eyes told me. The boy. The coven. The bloodshed.

It was all for me, and for a split second, there was something in Shay’s eyes that made me wonder if hatred was all he felt when he looked at my face.

“Bryn—” Lucas managed to choke out my name before Shay’s foot connected solidly with his ribs, popping the bones like bubble wrap.

Shay was going to kill him. Right there, right in front of us, with Maddy watching and Lake holding her down.

“Touch him again, and I won’t even think about your wager.” My voice was so steady it surprised me, and I could hear a hint of Callum in my words. “Damaged goods.”

Shay took a single step away from Lucas, but before he did, he leaned down and whispered something in the younger boy’s ear. “Stay.”

It was a direct command from Lucas’s alpha—one he’d be physically unable to disobey.

“Now that that’s taken care of, would the alpha of the Cedar Ridge Pack rather choose the game we’re betting on or the stakes?” Shay asked, his pupils dilated with an appetite I recognized all too well.

Violence. He wanted to hurt me. He wanted to hurt all of us.

“The game or the stakes?” I repeated.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Shay had offered me a choice, but I was. He wanted to be able to say that this had been a fair wager, aboveboard, completely legitimate. He didn’t want anyone to be able to say that he’d strong-armed me into doing this.