“That’s right.” She nodded. “I went to them. I knew they’d know where you were. I had to find Cyrus. And since you’d apparently attacked,” she stared back at Cyrus. “And I couldn’t remember any of it, which is a real problem, I had no other choice.”
“They told you we were here?” Beaux yelled roared his response, and Cyrus held up his hand. He agreed with the other man on sentiment, but he wouldn’t have Betsy spoken to in any kind of disrespectful way.
“Obviously, they did. Actually, I think it’s brilliant. Go to the true believers since they know where we are, even if we don’t know they know.”
“How can that be?” Beaux paced from the window to the center of the room several times. “We have taken precautions.”
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “We’ve all been doing that for generations. They always find out. Why do you think Lucian wanted things run the way he did? There would be accountability for being a traitor.”
“Lucian himself was a traitor, and it’s what got him killed,” Beaux snarled.
“How dare you?” Cyrus stepped away from Betsy. He wouldn’t have her harmed in the crossfire of the explosion Beaux had triggered. “Lucian was a great man. He didn’t think you were worthy, but that doesn’t make him a traitor.”
Beaux moved until they stood face to face. “He was a traitor to what it is to be a werewolf. In trying to make us more like them, he killed the best part of us. Why try to fit into their society? Why have to figure out how to co-exist in their midst without detection? We aren’t like humans. We don’t belong with them. It’s no wonder he got himself killed. It was inevitable the second he meddled in pack politics, sticking himself at the pinnacle, in a role that should never have existed.”
His words slammed into Cyrus with the force of a freight train. How had Lucian done what he did? How had he become Alpha Prime? These were questions Cyrus had never had the answers to, and Cyrus had been too busy trying to hold together Manhattan to worry about the logistics of it.
“He dropped me,” Beaux continued, “because he knew I’d never cow-tow to bullshit. He had all of you too wrapped around his fingers to notice. Maybe you would have always been Alpha of New York. Or maybe you wouldn’t have been. But that would have been your choice, your fate to decide.”
Cyrus shook his head. “In that, you’re wrong. It was my choice. No one stood over me and made me challenge Shepherd.”
“The weight of expectations watched over you while you did that. Twenty years old kids don’t overthrow their Alphas, not unless someone puts that idea in their heads. You might have taken over New York. Eventually. Now perhaps. When you’re fully in your power and you know what it is to be a man, a leader.” Beaux shrugged. “You really had no choice in that matter. None of Lucian’s prized Alphas did. And, for that, I pity you.”
He would have spoken. He would have told the man he could take his opinions and shove them where the sun didn’t shine. Cyrus never got the chance. Betsy lunged forward, throwing her small weight against Beaux’s body. She wouldn’t normally be strong enough to do any kind of damage to a werewolf Beaux’s size, but the other man hadn’t anticipated her attack.
Beaux stumbled backward. His eyes widened as he stared at Cyrus’ mate.
“I don’t know who you are,” Betsy snarled, “but you aren’t going to speak to him like that. You don’t know the first thing about him or what he is capable of. Maybe you weren’t able to take over a pack in your twenties because you’re mentally deficient, but Cyrus can do anything he sets his mind to. Anything.”
Cyrus stepped forward. If Beaux said or did anything to Betsy in response that was anything less than respectful, he’d show him the meaning of pain.
“My Alpha,” said one of Beaux’s pack members, a small man for werewolf standards, with brown hair graying on the side. “There are humans coming in cars.”
“Is this a problem?” Cyrus walked to the one window in the room that had been covered by a dark sheet. He pushed it away to look outside. What was the problem with humans? They had humans around them all the time in New York.
“This isn’t Manhattan, and this is private property. If humans are coming, then it’s because your mate stirred them up.”
“I…” Betsy started to speak, and Cyrus placed his hand on her arm to stop her. There wasn’t time for her response. Not if this really was an attack. The humans were coming on pretty strong. They must think this was going to be a walk in the park. Or they’d come on a suicide mission.