Alpha’s Strength(63)

“Will we retire to Florida at that point?” She squeezed his fingers. “Become snow-wolves?”

If he noted that she covered up her distress in humor, he didn’t remark. Instead, his mouth came down on hers, and she forgot to think. Cyrus had a way of doing that to her.





Chapter Fifteen





With Betsy conked out on his lap, Cyrus stared at his sister across the aisle of his plane. This trip to Montana was going to make his accountant nuts. They would bill it to the company. The fact that his accountant was a thirty-year-old member of his pack helped things. He shook his head. This was technically pack business, thus also company business. Even if it was sometimes complicated to make the federal government see it that way.

His sister wasn’t really sleeping, but she was certainly pretending she was. Her scent, always citrusy, told him she remained wide-awake. But she’d closed her eyes during takeoff and hadn’t opened them since. He sighed and ran his hands through Betsy’s hair. His mate, by contrast, slept solidly. Cyrus would do anything to scoop her up and take her somewhere they could have privacy. Their romp in his office earlier after their fight hadn’t satisfied him. Maybe nothing ever would.

Cyrus drummed his fingers on the armrest and studied the plane. He’d take eighteen werewolves with him. Twenty, total, including he and Betsy. Almost everyone slept, although a few lights shone, indicating a few others were as awake as he.

Something had to be done about Lake. She’d been off before Kyra’s death, she’d not shown up at the moon ceremony, and now she pretended to sleep instead of talking to him.

He kicked her seat, and she jumped, her eyes widening as she looked him. “Yes, my Alpha?”

He heard the proper amount of respect in the term. If she’d said it sarcastically, as she sometimes did, he might have woken the whole plane with the way he would have hollered at her. Instead, he regarded her silently for a second before answering.

Lake had been a very happy child, even remaining that way after the death of their parents. When had she lost her joie de vivre? Had he not been paying attention? Empire building had taken up his time for a long while.

“Tell me what’s going on with you.”

She shifted in her seat. “I’m not having a very good day. I lost a pack member, and it’s entirely my fault. What did you think was going on with me?”

“Well…” He took a deep breath and sought the kind of patience Betsy had shown when dealing with him earlier. “For one, I think you’re lying to me, or, at the very least, you’re avoiding the question. That’s okay, little sister. I tried something like that earlier today. My mate wouldn’t let me get away with it, and I’m going to do you the same courtesy. I’ll try again. What is happening with you?”

His sister dug her fingers into her palm. He watched the brief act before she spoke again. “Listen, we have more important things to be doing now.”

“I don’t. I have hours ahead of me before I can act. So talk to me. We’ll never have a better opportunity than this.”

She looked all around, her dark hair flinging over her shoulder. Once, when she’d been twelve, she’d chopped it all off and spent the whole summer acting like she loved the boy cut she’d given herself. He’d known she hated it. He had smelled her desperation whenever she glanced in the mirror. Cyrus couldn’t scent an emotion coming off her now. His baby sister had figured out how to mask her scent from discovery, a trick his mate didn’t know even existed. Cyrus was both proud and horrified of Lake’s success. How much effort had she put in minute-by-minute to smell like nothing was out of the ordinary?

It must have been exhausting. But if she lied to him again, he wasn’t going to continue being pleasant. Family or not, Lake was his Healer. She constituted a very important member of his pack, and if she was having a nervous breakdown or had a major problem with something, he needed to know what it was before someone else died.

“Look, none of this is new. Why do we have to talk about it at all?”

He’d expected fabrication, but her hostility grated at his nerves. Flippancy from any member of his pack, save Betsy, was not going to be tolerated.

“Why do we have to talk about it?” He forced himself to stay seated, to remain calm. They hurled through the air at thirty thousand feet, trapped in only a steel rod with wings to protect them. His mate slept peacefully in his embrace. Both facts meant he had to stay calm—even if he wanted to throw something across the room.

“Well,” he continued, “we have to talk about it because your behavior, as of late, is unacceptable. You’re rude, difficult, and sarcastic. You’re drinking too much. You don’t show up to pack-mandated events, and, yesterday, a member of the pack died from an injury you should easily have been able to handle. That’s why we have to talk about it.”