Xander


    “What the f uck are we supposed to do now?” | exploded as soon as | walked into the room.


    come all the way here for a cure that would kill the woman Zane and | were undeniably falling for when we could''ve just let


    Mason take the fall.


    And to make matters worse, Katie was a f ucking hybrid, and from what Rhiannon said, it sounded like that put her in more


    danger than Braden drinking her blood.


    “Do you think Rhiannon would let us leave Braden here in her care?” Zane asked. “We could pay her off to burn the body and get


    rid of the evidence once the poison takes hold.”


    My mother shook her head vigorously. “She would never go for that. She’s already in hiding, she won''t risk letting someone trace


    a vampire’s death back to her.”


    But there was more to it. There was some reason why my mother wanted Braden alive, probably the same reason she was


    friends with witches like Rhiannon. As soon as we got this s hit figured out, | intended find out what that reason was.N?velDrama.Org content.


    But Zane was being way too soft with his solutions. We''d bent over backward trying to find a cure for a


    vampire we didn’t know from Adam and trying to clear Mason’s name


    Sure, he was my brother, but he wasn’t a part of my pack, and | still had no f ucking clue if | could really trust him, or if he was


    plotting against me as we spoke. Especially after he’d caught us with Katie in the


    showers.


    I''d already gotten my father out of the way; it was better if | did the same with Mason and made him deal


    with his own problems.


    “Why can’t we just drop Mason and Braden in rogue territory and let him and the other rogues deal with the consequences?” |


    asked irritatedly


    Zane’s head snapped up to look at me


    “| thought we let that go,” he said.


    “You might''ve, but | didn’t,” | growled.


    | hadn’t argued back at the house because | thought my mother was trying to protect me from more


    with the Council. But now that we were away from the mansion, how would they ever know that Zane


    or | had anything to do with this?


    “What if other vampires get wind of what''s happened to Braden?” Zane asked aloud.


    I shot him a vicious look. He was testing my patience right now by questioning my n.


    “Drop it, Zane,” | warned.


    Alow growl rumbled in my chest.


    “Listen to me, Xander,” my mother said. Her expression had turned darker and more foreboding. “If Braden’s coven finds out


    about his death, they will likely attack the rogue wolves. Do you really want that blood on your hands?”


    Rogue wolves weren’t my responsibility, but the truth was, | didn’t.


    | thought back to our brief time in Stillwood, of how kind and calm everyone had been there. | nced at Zane, and his face was


    twisted up in a kind of horror, He must''ve been thinking the same thing.


    | wasn’t the Alpha of the rogues, but | also wasn’t a killer. It would be evil to sic a coven of vampires on innocent shifters.


    “No,” | said, shaking my head. “I don’t want any shifters to die because of Mason’s st upid mistake.”


    “Good,” my mother said. “Because if vampires attack any shifters, even rogues, then the Great Wars treaty is broken, and all hell


    could break loose.”


    My mouth went dry. That’s just what we f ucking needed, a vampire invasion.


    Zane and | were already on thin ice with the Council, and if more vampires started flooding our we’d be stripped of our titles


    faster than we could blink.


    territories,


    “It''s best if Mason agrees to hand himself into the Council,” my mother said, though she seemed sad to admit it. “They''ll figure


    out a way to handle things with Braden without breaking the treaty.”


    “But what if he refuses?” Zanea asked.


    “If he won''t agree to it, then we make him,” | said simply. “He''ll do it if he knows that that’s the only way to protect his...Katie,”


    I''d almost said “his mate,” but ever since we''d gotten closer to Katie, it felt harder and harder to call her that. It didn’t seem right.


    “So that’s settled,” Zane said, breathing out a deep sigh. “Now what the f uck do we do but this whole hybrid situation?”


    My mother’s eyes suddenly widened. “Nothing,” she said abruptly. “Katie will keep that


    herself to protect Ste. As long as the spell holds and no one else finds out, everything will


    her back to Stillwood tomorrow, and she can resume her life.”


    Like hell she would. Katie wasing back to the mansion with us one way or another, but


    argument for tomorrow.


    My mother held our gazes for one long moment before sweeping out of the room.


    “What the hell is up with her?” Zane asked,


    I''d asked the same question way too many timestely.


    to


    There was something she didn’t want any of us to know, something she was protecting by keeping us an Katie in the dark...but


    was it for selfish reasons like my father, or did she think she was doing us all a favor?