Chapter 109

• “The pack is divided. Half are here with me, the other at the mountain. There was a fight when I challenged my father for leadership, and it got real messy. With more attacks in the West, the people were turning, and he was becoming a dictator, forcing the people under his command and treating them like they were all his prisoners. I had to do something, and he didn’t like it. He lost! I’m the rightful Alpha of the Santo pack now, but instead of stepping down gracefully as the laws dictate, he ordered those loyal to him to take out me and mine.” It’s an exasperated tone, explaining something he doesn’t want to, and it revs up that aura of closed-off hostility around him. I gawp at him in wide-eyed shock, heart thundering crazily, trying to pull those words together. It hits me that while I was having my existential crisis, so was he.
• “I don’t know what to say.” I stammer, side-swept with that revelation of events that I honestly never saw coming at all. That explains that cloak of darkness around Colton. Since I left, his entire world turned upside down, and his father already gave him reason to hate him, making my enlightening news less unbelievable. My memories only added fuel to his fire.
• “There’s nothing to say. My father tried to kill me. You were the catalyst. I guess it was you leaving me and realizing I was an idiot and lost the only thing that should have mattered. I failed you, and then a shit storm blew up around me with another vamp attack, and life imploded. My father’s men are at war with his people and still under threat of new vamp attacks. We’re scattered across the north, and I have a sizeable chunk at my mom’s estate, hiding out and scared shitless.” There’s a calm sort of acceptance in his tone, as though he’s not okay, but this is his reality, and he’s dealing with it the only way he knows how.