unless the job description included a translation of the prologue to The Canterbury Tales, I was dreadfully underqualified. And completely unmotivated to remedy the situation.
Marc thought he was offering me a deal I couldn’t refuse, but he didn’t understand. Giving me the Pride wouldn’t be giving me freedom. It would be chaining me hand and foot to a responsibility I didn’t want, and probably couldn’t handle.
Or maybe he did understand. Maybe he wanted me tethered to him and to a life I’d already rejected.
In the foyer, my mother’s antique grandfather clock chimed, and I counted along with the tones. Both of them. It was two o’clock in the morning, and I saw no end in sight for what had already been one of the longest evenings of my life.
“You’ll have to give them a leader one day, whether you like it or not,” Marc said on the tail of the last chime. “You can’t lead them by yourself.”
“The hell I can’t.”
Damn it! I stopped, squeezing my eyes shut in frustration. I’d been so ready to argue with him that I hadn’t actually listened to what he was saying.
Wood creaked as I leaned against the bedpost and rubbed my forehead, trying to clear away a thick mental fog. “I don’t want to lead them—with or without you.” Opening my eyes, I stared at him, letting him read the conviction on my face. “I don’t know anything about defending a territory, and I’m not interested in learning.”
Marc favored me with a patronizing smile, yet another of my many pet peeves. “You know, for a smart girl, you sure can act dumb.”
I frowned, unsure how to take the combination compliment/insult. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You already know most of what you need to know. All you need now is some experience.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I snapped, clenching the footboard behind me. I rubbed my fingertips over the polished grain of the wood, using the sensation to ground myself in reality, in the world where I spoke with poise and confidence, and Marc spouted his usual nonsense with the fervor of a true fanatic. My mind rebelled against the idea that Daddy had been cultivating me as his replacement for years and I’d never even noticed. That wasn’t possible. Was it?
“Shut up and think about it for a minute.” He pulled out my desk chair and sat, staring at me with an irritatingly smug confidence. “Have you ever taken dance lessons?”
“Is there a point to this question?” I put my hands on my hips, tapping my foot with exaggerated impatience.
“Just answer me. Have you ever had a dance lesson? Or a shopping spree? What about a manicure?”
My decidedly unmanicured hand clenched around a handful of denim, one finger snagging in my belt loop. “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny. You know me better than that.” Unfortunately.
“So does your father. He never encouraged your interest in anything frivolous, but he made sure you had a say in every decision about the Pride from the time you were twelve years old, even if he didn’t actually use your input.”
Marc let his gaze slide to the floor, clearly searching his memory for another example to support his harebrained theory. “He taught you how to fight.” His eyes snapped back to mine, as fast as a flash of lightning. “Why would he do that? None of the other Alphas teach their daughters to fight. You’ve never worn a tutu, but how many afternoons have you spent in sweatpants, sparring with the guys?”
I studied my fingernails, bitten to short, jagged edges. “Too many to count.” The sparring sessions had started when I was ten and wanted to take karate with a girlfriend from school. Daddy wouldn’t let me. He was afraid I’d really hurt someone. My first face-off against Ethan had proven him right, to my simultaneous horror and delight.
“Who taught you to control your breathing when you sprint and how to pounce from the trees?”
My father. There was no need to say it aloud because, like any good prosecutor, Marc never asked a question unless he already knew the answer.
“What about council diplomacy?”
I groaned and glanced at the clock on my stereo. Apparently time really could stand still. “What about it?” I asked, turning back to him reluctantly. My father had dragged me to at least one Pride council meeting a year until I left for school. After listening to two Alphas negotiate interterritory traveling rights for their college-bound sons, staving off boredom in Advanced Grammar class hadn’t even been a challenge.
“You know the details of every treaty negotiated by the council since you had your first Shift.”
“So what?” I tossed my hands into the air in exasperation. “What’s the point?” But understanding came even as I asked, and his next words only confirmed it for that last, stubborn part of my brain.
Marc stood straighter, barely pausing this time when his full weight hit his injured ankle. “Those are the things you’d have to know to lead a Pride. Your father doesn’t just want you to marry the next Alpha, Faythe. He wants you to be the next Alpha. To succeed him.” He searched my eyes, trying to gauge my reaction.
It struck me all at once, as if hearing it spelled out in small words made it real.
I’ll be damned. Daddy wasn’t teaching me to be independent. After all, how would that benefit the Pride? He was teaching me to be responsible.
Still staring at Marc, I sat down on the bed—not because I wanted to, but because my legs refused to support me any longer. Numb with shock, I let my gaze drift down from his face to the Berber carpet. I studied the familiar design, tracing the overlapping diamonds one at a time, as if the answers to every question floating around in my head must lie hidden somewhere within the pattern. But if they did, I couldn’t find them.
“All this time, I thought you understood,” Marc whispered. I glanced up to find him staring at me with wide eyes, the surprise in his expression bordering on disbelief. “I thought you knew what he wanted and were refusing on general principle. I can’t believe you never realized.”
“Yeah. Me neither.” I barely recognized my own voice. I sounded dazed, or maybe drugged. But then a deeper understanding hit me like a slap in the face. Everything he’d said was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Not by a long shot.
My eyes returned to him slowly. “You have all the same qualifications, Marc.” The stunned quality in my voice had been replaced by an unsettling calm, and as I watched, his face flushed. “You know everything I know, and you already have the experience.”
Yet without me, he would never be Alpha. And we both knew it.
Marc studied the collection of CDs lined up next to my stereo. “My training as an enforcer was very thorough, and my areas of study often overlapped yours.” He was hedging, covering up the truth with a thick layer of bullshit.
“How long?”
He met my eyes, his own carefully blank. “How long what?”
“How long has Daddy been grooming you? How old was I when he chose you for me? Eight? Ten?”
He
