“I’ll help in whatever way I can. Just let me know.”
“Thanks, Tee,” he says with a wide smile.
“Nah! Nah! This ain’t how it’s going to go down,” Dad yells.
“Calm down, Wilt,” Evelyn says, standing and trying to grab his arm.
But Dad jerks away from her, his hand still on his gun. “Nah! You think I’m going to let her destroy everything I built? Everything we worked for? Over my dead body—”#p#分页标题#e#
I hear the sound of a gun cocking beside me. “Over your dead body? That can be arranged.”
Uncle Ford is now standing, too. With his gun pointed straight at Dad. It’s a relatively small glock in comparison to Dad’s dramatic sawed off, but it does the job of making Uncle Ford’s words ring true.
“Uncle Ford!” I say, completely shocked. “What the…?”
But my dad stands tall, his eyes blazing. “You wouldn’t. I’m your brother!”
“And I’m her father. I left her with you because I thought that was the way it had to be.” Uncle Ford shakes his head with an ugly frown. “But that girl there has taught me more about choice and freedom in the last few minutes than you or Dad ever did in all my life. I didn’t think I had a choice when Dad made me go to Alaska, but I know I have a choice now.”
He nods sideways toward Clyde. “Thanks to my daughter, this boy of yours don’t have to hide who he is no more. And I don’t have to live the rest of my life with her calling me uncle, like I’m a goddamn distant relative. She’s my daughter, and if she lets me, I can finally step up and be the father she deserves.”
I lower my tablet, not even beginning to understand. “Uncle Ford—?”
“Don’t call me that!” he bites out. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
“But…I’m not your daughter. I mean, I can’t be…”
But even as I say it, the words feel false in my mouth, like I’ve just told a lie without realizing it. I look at him. Really look at him.
His deep-set eyes, so much like mine. His awkwardness and his inability to meet other people’s gazes. And most of all, his determination to help me. In Alaska, and here. And suddenly I know exactly why he came to Detroit. He came for me. Because I’m his daughter.
“You were right,” he tells me over the gun he still has pointed at the man I thought was my father. “My brother didn’t love the she-wolf he was engaged, too. But I did. And then she went into heat while I was home, visiting for Christmas.” His eyes go dark with the memory, and eventually he says, “Anyway, you wasn’t the first she-wolf in this family to be mated by two brothers. But our dad wouldn’t let it be. He made me go back to Alaska, convinced me the best thing I could do for the pack was leave and let everyone believe both babies she was carrying were Wilton’s.”
The Alaska beta’s face sours with memory. “He was always suspicious about how close me and Wilton was growing up. That’s part of the reason he didn’t let me stay here and be his beta.”
How close they were…
“The Brother Bond,” I whisper, putting more and more of it together. “Can you and Dad—I mean—can you and your brother hear each other’s thoughts?”
Despite the stand off, the two brothers exchange a look, the kind I’ve come to recognize after my time spent with FJ and Olafr.
“Used to,” Ford—my father—answers. “But not after your mother died. After that, I went a little…crazy. But our dad still wouldn’t let me come home, even though Tikaani’s five-year challenge term was over. He said if too many people smelled you and me in the same place, they’d put two and two together. That’s why I never came to visit here with Wilma and her daughters. Pop pretty much banished my ass to Alaska. After your mama died, he told me to stay there and mate with another she-wolf. So eventually I did. I listened to him like a damn fool, instead of coming back here for you.”
Wow. Lupine Council law, which I was scary familiar with now, stated that a state king could only be challenged during the first and last five years of his reign. Clyde and I were born five years after Aunt Wilma and Uncle Tikaani got married, which means if my father—my real father—wanted to resign from his beta job and come back to raise me as his own, that would have been the time to do it.#p#分页标题#e#
And that was exactly what he’d tried to do after mating with my mother, I realize with a start. But those were different times then. Wolves were even less understanding of those who were different than they are now. And I know for a fact my granddad ruled over his sons with absolute authority back then.