“Inside, Evelyn, please,” Victor growls, and Evelyn moves away from him. She looks between the two brothers for a moment, and though she would usually push against an order like that from Victor – or anyone, really – something, in this case, suggests that it’s best not to engage.

So she simply moves away, quickly climbing the steps to the porch and disappearing through the cottage’s front door.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” Victor snarls when she’s gone, advancing on his brother, feeling the tips of his claws start to poke at his fingertips.

“What’s wrong with me?” Rafe challenges, holding his ground. “What the hell is wrong with you, Victor!? Letting Walsh go, because Evelyn decided that she wants her dad to go free?”

“Enough!” Victor shouts, slashing the air between them, his fangs lengthening. Rafe’s eyes go wide at this – Victor is usually in perfect control of his transformation, but something about this has really set him off –

But still, this decision – it goes too far –

“You can’t let her do this, Victor!” Rafe shouts, his own fangs lengthening in response to his brother’s threat. “He will do it all again! Everything you fought for, he will take from you!”

“And you think I can’t manage that threat?” Victor asks, still advancing on Rafe, their bodies close together now. Violence is in every line of Victor’s muscles as he stares his brother down. “You think I haven’t considered this? You think I have made this decision easily?!”

“However you’ve made it, it’s the wrong decision! You’ve got to make him pay!”

“It’s not my decision –“

“You’re going to let her decide! Her be the arbiter of justice in your pack – in our pack!? And Walsh’s too – the pack your sons will inherit – she gets to decide its future?”

“Who else should do it, Rafe,” Victor asks, his voice low, his pulse racing now, barely keeping a leash on his rage as his brother insults his Luna again and again. “Who would mete out justice in this pack, if not her? It is her father’s fate, hers, her sons’, for which she decides –“

“She’s too close to it!”

“Precisely why she should decide!” Victor cries, shoving Rafe now, making him stumble back a few steps. “There is no one for whom this decision is harder, you i***t! She has spent days being tortured by this – having to face the actual people who this decision would affect! And she’s sobbing in my arms because she’s had to make it – and you come along and challenge her on it!?”

Rafe snarls but Victor lashes out, pushing him again – hard enough that he falls to the ground.

“Stay down, Rafe,” Victor snarls, standing over him. “You will learn your place in this pack – even if I have to teach it to you by force –“

“My place!?” Rafe rages, snarling at his brother. “On the ground – lower than her – I’m supposed to take the decision of a Luna as law!?

his brother, disbelief written all over his face, completely appalled. But Victor, to Rafe’s surprise, just shakes his head at him, taking a step back.

hear what you just said, Rafe?” Victor asks, still panting with anger, but

“What?” Rafe asks, baffled.

the idea that you’re lower than a Luna. That you’d never take a Luna’s word

not what

you said,” Victor barks, the noise of it shaking Rafe. “You f*****g i***t,” Victor snarls, “don’t try to deny it – try to get one over on

hadn’t been his exact

“This is why she won’t come

now, filled with objections, with defiance at the

Rafe realizes that he can’t speak them. Because Victor

an Alpha, who always

He lets himself fall backwards into the gravel of the drive, his head bouncing, but he ignores the pain. He hadn’t realized…hadn’t thought that those ideas lived

But clearly…

his voice. Replaced, now, with disgust. “You have got to get it into your head that being Alpha is not about having complete control and shaping the world into what you want. It’s about building the

moon. The sooner you figure out that you’re not the earth in this metaphor – the thing around which she revolves? The

his brother go,

brother, desperate, just as he reaches the stairs. “If

back to him. “You rise to her when she calls. You drown cities at her command. You lay

then, Victor walks up the stairs and into

head back against the gravel of the

_______________________________

staring out the front picture window with me as Victor stalks up

to get run over

a moment to

“Should

whisper, still a little mad. “Let him risk it.

when Victor opens the door, coming into the dark house and looking around. It takes

his hands in his pockets, shaking his head

but even. “You wouldn’t want us to miss the show, would

Ian calls, curious. “What is the

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