CHAPTER 28

"What I want to know," I told Anthony, later that afternoon in bed, "is how he knew where Rob was shot. How did he know so much about what happened?"

Anthony stroked my naked ribs, his eyes still a little wild from the sex we'd shared.

"Wolves talk. Especially in the organization.

"Yes, but which wolf had that much information and would use it to incite a challenge against you?"

Anthony sighed and stopped his caressing his hand flopping to his side. "I don't know, Raven, it could be any one of them, for all I can tell. I'm not secure in my position yet, it leaves me with less control than a true alpha, so I have to tip toe around and be careful of who I insult. It isn't a good look."

No, I had to agree, it wasn't. You couldn't run a pack, or a syndicate like the organization without strict control over those working below you. Everything would fall to shit.

"Something else is bothering me," I told him, he grunted a sound that meant to continue. "The problem of the location. We took a break from the run beside the river, but there's no way any shooter could possibly know where we would stop. We might have kept going for miles or stopped earlier back by one of the ponds. That werejaguar was positioned to hit us exactly where we stopped."

"You think someone in the pack tipped him off? Raven, that's ludicrous. Not a single wolf there would have opposed Rob like that."

I'd thought so too, but it was the only thing that made sense. I'd been playing through it in my mind. Even if the pendant had some sort of electronic signal, and even if the security from the shipping company had managed to track him down it still wouldn't have given the sniper time to set up from where he was. No, I was certain his location had to have been scouted out before hand.

"I think..."

"No," Anthony told me, his voice gentle, but the word firm. He reached out a hand again, stroking my neck and trailing his fingers down over my left breast. "I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Most of the wolves that joined the run are my supporters. Right now I need to solidify my hold on the pack. I cant do that by pissing those that stand behind me off."

I sighed. He'd won the challenge that morning, but it had shaken him. I could see it in the strain of his posture and the sharp words that he used to ensure the mess had been cleaned up. None of Victor's supporters had put up a fight after watching Victor lose, which was the only reason any of them were still alive. That, and the fact that while Jacob had been shot, it was in a non-threatening location, indicating that their intentions were always to secure a challenge and nothing else.

"Does it bother you?" Anthony asked me, "...the other things he said?"

"What things?"

"That you're a pet, that you slept with Rob for special treatment and now..." he gestured to our naked bodies lying on my bed facing one another.

"I don't care about Victor's opinion of me, why would I?" It seemed like a strange thing for him to be worried about. Especially after a victory.

"It didn't sound like he was the only one in the pack with that kind of opinion."

"So? I don't give a fuck what the rest of the pack thinks."

He looked at me. "Maybe you should, a Luna has just as much power as the alpha."

And just like that my relaxed mood was shot. I tensed and my stomach fell down somewhere toward my toes.

"I have no desire to be Luna," I said carefully. He'd mentioned it, at the challenge, but I'd thought he was just trying to get under Victor's skin.

"Raven," he started.

"No,"* I* interrupted *him* this time. "I came here to find the answers to my parents' murder. I worked for Rob in exchange for help with that. I don't have the time or inclination to lead a pack, or have that much to do with the organization."

"I would think you might have found new reason to stay," he said sharply, rising up on an elbow.

"To stay, maybe. But I don't want to be Luna. I told you before, if that's what you wanted you should have picked someone like Leanne."

Anthony stood up from the bed, his movements quick and agitated. He picked up his clothes from where we'd tossed them on the floor and started to get dressed.

"And I told you, I don't want Leanne. I would think that would be obvious to you now."

"Yes, it's clear you want me, sexually. But you can't just make me into something I'm not, Anthony. That's not how relationships work."

"So you always get what you want, but what I want has to be laid aside? What about compromise? Isn't that your big thing? Where's your compromise?" His voice rose until he was shouting in my direction.

"When what you want is for me to change an integral part of myself then no, there can be no compromise," I shouted back.

A dark fury filled his face, any relief he'd achieved from the stress of the morning had returned tenfold.

"Fine, Raven. Do whatever you want. You always do," and then he stormed out.

I flopped back onto the mattress, tears of frustration stinging my eyelids. He was asking the impossible. The idea of having to constantly battle pack politics and play nice and smile when I wanted to rip someone's throat out was literally physically making me ill. Panic punched at my stomach and I had to hold a fist to it in order to make it stop. I couldn't. I just couldn't.

Across the room my phone chimed.

I debated ignoring it. It was probably Anthony anyway and I wasn't in the mood to continue this argument. The truth was, if this is what he wanted from me, I couldn't see how we could possibly last. And that hurt. Sure we hadn't been lovers for more than a day, but before that I'd considered Anthony a friend. I wished we'd had a chance to explore this thing between us before the pressure of Rob's death and taking alpha had put us where we were now.

I was pacing anyway, frustrated and sniffling when I finally strode to the phone and picked it up.

Only, it wasn't Anthony who texted.

*I've got a way in. Meet me in the parkade across from Defence Medical tonight at midnight.*