“I still don’t understand why he let us go?” Sebastian said to Maverick. “None of us expected that. Why would he act differently. After all these years it doesn’t add up.”

They were standing over the desk side by side. I was curled up on the sofa, still feeling to fragile to face what was coming whether I was ready or not.

“She won’t tell me what she said to Kane,” Maverick shrugged.

I studied his features as he spoke. They were tight. He was under a lot of pressure to figure out a plan to deal with my family and my promised mate.

I had no solutions, the only thing that I felt was the right thing to do was to put enough distance between me and the problem even if running would only delay the inevitable.

“You can make her tell you.” Sebastian wasn’t letting it go.

“How?” I asked, intrigued.

“The alpha in me can force any pack member to tell me anything I want. It’s not something I have to use very often.”

Sebastian folded his arms.

Maverick flattened his palms on the desk before he looked to his Beta. “Do I like that there is something going on between those two?”

Sebastian remained quiet.

“No. But I won’t force her to tell me. When she’s ready to talk about she will.”

I frowned. I didn’t know Kane well or what lay in his past with Lark but I would bet good money they were mates. It was there to see so I didn’t know why Sebastian couldn’t see it. Maverick, I believed suspected but he had bigger problems to deal with than that.

“Kane doesn’t like you,” I said, including myself into their conversation.

“Alphas from different packs aren’t really supposed to get on. It helps us keep our territories separate.” He stood.

“It feels like something more.” I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t expanding on it.

“He is a first class asshole and then some.” Sebastian was clearly not a fan.

I couldn’t say I was either.

That wasn’t a surprise. In the short time I had known Kane I had already deduced he was ruthless, hard, cold. But when I first met Maverick he hadn’t exactly been nice either. Having kidnapped me and even gone as far as to try and torture me, he had also been ruthless to keep his pack safe from a possible threat.

Although I didn’t know many Alphas, it seemed to be a necessity to fulfill their roles of keeping their pack members safe.

“We have had a few run ins over the years and nothing good has ever come out of them,” Maverick muttered.

“You grew up with him in the territory beside you?” I asked.

He nodded. “His father was just as bad. I think it’s something in the genes.”

It was interesting. I didn’t voice what I suspected was going on between Kane and Lark. First it wasn’t my place and second I wasn’t sure how well it would go down with Maverick and Sebastian. They clearly disliked the guy and I doubted they would be happy to hear Lark had a connection to him.

“I don’t even know why Lark would give him the time of day. He made her childhood a living hell.”

“What did he do?” My curiosity getting the better of me.

“He would get her into trouble all the time. Out of everyone she had more reason to hate him than any of us especially after what happened with Milo,” Sebastian said.

“Milo?” I questioned.

“It was her childhood dog. She loved that dog more than anything,” Sebastian added, a sadness in his voice.

“What happened?” I asked, having a feeling where this conversation was headed already.

“He killed it and she was devastated.”

That was horrible. There was something fundamentally wrong with people who killed defenseless animals.

“Why would he do that?” I asked, softly. It was one thing to be an asshole to people but this felt like a step too far.

Maverick shrugged. “Apparently the dog got out and wandered onto their territory and he killed it. There is something wrong with that entire family. It’s in their DNA.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It took her years to come to terms with it. It was a dog given to her by her father.”

Maverick straightened up and I saw how his eyes flickered from mine to Sebastian. I studied him closer.

“It was harder when Mav’s parents died not long after that.”

I was a little taken aback as my attention flew to Maverick who was avoiding my gaze.

“Sebastian, could you give Maverick and I a moment to talk,” I asked. My mate had lied to me about his parents and I wanted to know why.

Sebastian looked between Maverick and I before he nodded, leaving the room quietly.

I folded my arms and stared at Maverick. “You lied. Why?”

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I didn’t want you to know how ruthless this world is Victoria.”

“At some point I was going to find out. It wasn’t something you could hide from me indefinitely.” I felt betrayed in some way. He had never lied to me before and it didn’t sit well with me. I had believed I could trust him completely and now I knew different.

“I don’t like to talk about my parents.”

I could see the haunting in his eyes and it pulled at my heart strings. Even though he had been dishonest I still wanted to wrap my arms around him and take his pain as mine.

“Why?” I had to know the truth.

“Life expectancy in our kind isn’t high and I didn’t want to scare you.”

“I’m not fragile Mav.” I hated when he treated me like I couldn’t handle things. Granted there had been a few things that had knocked my world and I was still trying to come to terms with them.

“My father was a good man, maybe too good. We are werewolves, we kill to defend our own. Some people can handle it and some people, like my father, couldn’t. Each death haunted him.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant.

“Every death weighed on him. He struggled to handle all the things that being an Alpha of a pack entailed.”

Silence hung between us. His eyes finally met mine.

“He began to drink to cope. It was a downward spiral until he finally hit the bottom.”

It was in his eyes. It was going to be bad.

“He killed my mother and then shot himself.”

I struggled to take it in. I got to my feet, shaking the blanket that had covered me off.

Never once had I imagined this was a part of Maverick’s life. He didn’t seem wounded in a way that someone who had been through something like that would be.

I wore my life battles in who I was. Maverick didn’t.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I whispered as I approached him. I needed to touch him, I don’t know if it was for my own sake or his but I needed something to ease the way my heart was aching for him, like I could his pain as my own.

“You just discovered you were a werewolf Victoria. I didn’t want to dump all the reasons why we don’t tend to live to ripe old ages.”

He had been trying to protect me.

I reached to take his hand in mine. “I get that you wanted to protect me but what I need more than that is the truth Maverick, no matter how bad it is.”

Maybe it was the survival instinct in me that needed to know everything, good or bad, so I could plan accordingly.

“I’m a werewolf. Good or bad. I need to know everything Maverick. I can’t write some happy ending when there might not be one in our future.” The loss of it would be too much to handle. Even now the thought that something could take Maverick from me at anytime nearly sent me over the edge. I gripped his hand tighter, it was a reminder that he was there with me.

“I won’t lie again Victoria, no matter how bad it is,” he promised softly, taking my hands in his.

I nodded. “And I will always tell you the truth, whether it’s something you want to hear or not.”

No matter what lay in our future, or how long we had. We would always at least have the truth, no lies to cover up the reality.