Never Keeping Secrets

Oliver

Half a bottle of wine and a couple burritos later, I was starting to see Tala peek out from behind Lya’s eyes. The difference in your own eyes versus your wolf’s is never that dramatic. Everything about your wolf reflects you - their coat color would be your natural hair color; the eyes stay the same except for a slight change in the shape of the pupil. As someone who had been raised in a werewolf community, spotting the presence of someone’s wolf had become second nature. For Lya, I’m sure she couldn’t see the difference.

I hadn’t heard from Adair, probably off attempting to get in touch with Tala. They weren’t pack or marked, though, so his attempts would be futile. They already had some kind of link, but it was more like emotions being thrust upon him and able to feel her presence.

The more I tried to think of it from a human perspective, the more I could see how the whole mate thing would seem absolutely bizarre to Lya. For one, it was a connection amongst the four of us, nevermind the whole destined other half gifted by a moon goddess. As much as Adair disagreed, insisting Tala would help bring her around, I knew Lya and her wolf needed to be in sync with each other before we dropped that bombshell. Ideally, she’d figure it out before I had to.

I held up the bottle of wine and cocked an eyebrow. Lya nodded and held her glass out.

“Allyssa is a woman after my own heart if she springs for the big bottles,” she laughed. “So my turn again?”

I nodded. By this point, we had far surpassed twenty questions, but I wasn’t about to point that out. We still had another half a bottle to go.

Lya chewed on her lip, any trace of the lighthearted smile leaving her face. “What exactly was it Trevor was trying to do?”

I sighed. The logical side of me was telling me not to divulge too much pack information just yet, but emotion won out. “That’s a very long story.”

“I don’t want to hate him,” Lya confessed.

I looked up at the clock. Gavin and George would be home from training soon, and they certainly didn’t need to hear this. Not yet. I dumped the rest of my wine into her glass, grabbed the bottle, and stood up.

“C’mon,” I said, and turned to my office. Once there, I went for the scotch.

“So it’s that kind of story…” her voice trailed off.

“And not the pack’s shining moment,” I confirmed. I went over to my desk and started searching for a particular file.

“Twelve years ago, a family of hunters decided they needed to take out this pack,” I started. “Any idea what a hunter is?”

“I’ve seen Supernatural, I can connect the dots,” she huffed.

I nodded. “Well, my father had done a lot to foster positive relationships with rogues in the area, and they play a big role in pack security. Namely, covering our tracks and relaying information they gather from other rogues. One heard a rumor about this particular family of hunters, and got the information back to us. They were definitely coming, there was no way to stop that part, so we just did what we could and tried to fool them into thinking our pack was somewhere else. Best bet was college towns because there are usually enough werewolves around to make it seem like that could be a pack, albeit a small one. Definitely not big enough population numbers to mimic the largest werewolf pack in North America.”

“This is the biggest pack?” Lya choked out, eyes wide.

I smirked. “Yes, ma’am. Run by yours truly. But that’s a story for another time.” I dreaded when that story came up. “My father was still alpha then, and he thought the best way to utilize the rogue wolves in that area was to not tell them they were being used as bait. Thom and I were vehemently against this. Our parents kept insisting none of them would ever find out, because we’d meet them before they actually could lay a hand on them. But that would only work if everything went perfectly to plan, and that never happens in war. So, the betas - Trevor’s parents - went out to organize our warriors and my parents stayed home until the last moment to make sure Thom and I didn’t sound any sort of alarm within the rogue community.”

I downed the glass and refilled it before continuing, refusing to look Lya in the eye. “They got there before my parents and the rest of reinforcements could. We took out all the hunters, but at the cost of several rogues and a few of our warriors - including Trevor’s parents. But, the key hunters of this particular family weren’t there, so I think they knew it was a ruse.

“Trevor left the pack when he turned twenty - six years after this battle. He kept hopping around for a while, before he settled back down in the same college town he met you in. He always claimed he was out looking for his mate, but that was bullshit because he knew who his mate was the second she turned 18. I gave him the benefit of the doubt; he and his mate have been arch enemies since they were kids so maybe he was looking for someone to be a chosen mate. But then I found out where he was, and he went dark. From there, it was easy to figure out he left the pack for revenge. If he hadn’t decided to bring you back here, I was about ready to send people out to bring him back. He didn’t hide his scheme very well, and he was pretty dumb to think what didn’t work the first time would work the second. He must have made better headway than he thought, though, because one did show up.”

I shoved the file over to Lya and watched as her eyes widened reading her dead fiance’s family name. She looked up at me in shock.

“We owe you quite the debt for taking out a key player for us,” I said. A bit of pride bubbled up in me.

Lya’s eyes glossed over with tears. “He was always going to kill me, wasn’t he?”

“Eventually, probably,” I mused. “I think they were going to try and utilize you to take us down from the inside, first.”

“I loved him…”

I couldn’t do anything to stop the growl that rumbled in my chest. “Can you actually love someone you have to hide who you are from?” Lya looked away as a tear slipped out of her eye. I winced, knowing that statement must have hurt. I took a step toward her, but she pressed herself deeper into the couch. I settled for sitting down on the other side of it - it seemed to be as close as I could get.

“And Trevor…” Lya shuddered. “He was never my friend, was he?”

“No,” I said adamantly. “He is your friend. Don’t forget he’s the one who got you out when he saw you needed help.”

“How did he know about me?”

I scrubbed my hand across my face. “You suppressing your wolf for so long has made you lose a bit of your wolf smell, so I don’t think he even knew for certain you were a shifter for a while. But when you came into his brewery with a hunter, he started keeping an eye on you.”

“Ted didn’t move here until we got engaged,” she said quietly. “Do you think he knew about me all along?”

“Absolutely,” I said solemnly.

We sat in silence for a few painfully long moments. I would have given anything to know what was going through her mind.

“Lya,” I said quietly. “You’re safe here.”

Lya looked at me finally. “No we aren’t,” she insisted. “Not if Ted’s plan was for me to lead them to you all along.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”