With a sigh, he answered his older brother's call.
"Nolan."
"Oh, you answered this time. I feel honored."
Nash bit back a sharp retort. There was no point engaging him. Besides, there was a reason Nash didn't answer his brother's calls, and they both knew it. "What do you need, Nolan?"
"You know exactly what I need, Nash."
He rolled his eyes, thankful his brother couldn't see him. Nash was a strong alpha male, but Nolan was too. The difference between them was that Nash had the sense to know it wasn't worth it. Beyond some roughhousing when they were younger, the North brothers had never engaged in a real fight. And Nash had no plans to change that, because when two alpha males clashed, it never ended well. One of them would end up seriously injured. Or worse. Which was why Nash had left the pack.
Leaving everything and everyone he knew and loved was preferable to the alternative.
"I need to know if you're done screwing around, Nash. The pack needs you."
"The pack doesn't need me." He finished tidying up the workbench and flicked out the light behind him. "You only think they do."
"Bullshit. You know as well as I do why the pack needs you. Come home."
Nash shook his head. "You know I can't, big brother. Not unless you're cool with my choices."
"Your choices?" Nolan all but growled into the phone. "Or your lack of choices?"
It always came back to the same argument for Nolan. He wanted Nash to choose a mate. That was why he had to leave. Nolan didn't understand that he wasn't about to pick a mate from a lineup, as if he were ordering up a new living room set. It was ridiculous. Just because Nolan thought that was an acceptable way to find a mate didn't mean Nash did. Not even a little bit. Especially considering he saw firsthand how miserable his big brother was since mating with Julia. She was beautiful. And she was a pure wolf from a solid pack, which no doubt was all Nolan had needed to know before choosing her. But there was emptiness in her eyes and it was easy to see she was every bit as unhappy as Nolan was.
Pure bloodlines weren't everything. There was no way Nash was going to put himself through that. He was not about to sign up for a lifetime of misery for the sole purpose of procreating.
There was more to life.
There was Kira.
Not that he was about to explain that to Nolan.
"I've made my choice, brother." Nash stepped out of the shack, into the late afternoon sunshine. The days were warming quickly and before long, the heat of the summer would be upon them. "I'm not taking a mate of your choice just because someone thinks I should."
"You know exactly how important it is to our kind to increase the population, Nash." He could almost see the vein in his brother's forehead bulging. "It wasn't all that long ago that we were completely wiped out of Yellowstone. Our ancestors were lucky to escape. You know that."
"Yeah, I know that." Did he ever know that. It was all anyone in his pack talked about. The ancestors and how they'd been slaughtered and driven out of the park. The ones who stayed had to hide their wolves, shutting off that part of themselves, some taking human mates and basically breeding the wolf out of them. Some, like Nash and Nolan's parents, successfully hid their wolf side and worked tirelessly for the reintroduction. From what Nash heard, there were still a few of the originals in the park. Not that it mattered now that the reintroduction had happened.
"Our people worked and sacrificed for years to get back to our land, Nash. The least we can do is help build numbers, reestablish a presence in Yellowstone the way it's supposed to be. It's our duty."
There it was. That word.
Nash sighed. The irony was, he would have had no problem staying with the pack if Nolan hadn't gotten it into his head that their mates had to be pure and from specific packs. If he could have been left alone to fall in love and choose his own mate, everything would have been fine. But, as he was reminded more than once, that wasn't the way it worked.
"It's not my duty, Nolan. If you choose to be unhappy for the rest of your life because your mate feels more like a piece of property than a partner, that's your choice, but I'm not-"
"You'll do what I tell you," his brother roared into the phone. He'd pissed off Nolan before, but he'd never heard him quite so angry. "If you ever want to set foot within a hundred yards of our land again, you will choose a suitable mate, brother."
That sounded an awful lot like an ultimatum. And it rocked him.
They'd had their disagreements, and yes, Nash left. But he never thought he wouldn't be able to return. Home was home. Nolan had never told him he wouldn't be welcome back.