Stolen and Forgiven (Branded Packs #1)(45)

“They have a diplomat, but they’re told the same lies that we keep getting shoved down our throats,” Holden said, his voice thick with disgust. “That the humans are still traumatized by the virus. Once they accept our presence, we’ll be free to live wherever we want. Yadda, yadda, yadda.”

Soren folded his arms over his chest. As the Beta, his wolf was deeply connected to his Alpha. He could sense the older male’s emotions, and while he couldn’t actually read his mind, he always knew what he was thinking. Which meant he knew when Holden was holding something back.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he demanded.

Holden’s gaze moved toward the narrow band of trees that was now all that separated the two Packs.

“I didn’t get a straight answer, but I sense the cats have a spy on the inside.”

Soren cocked a brow. “Inside of what?”

Holden paused before returning his attention to Soren. “I’m not entirely sure, you know the cats love to be secretive, annoying bastards. But Jonah Wilder had information that could only come from a source with ties to the human government.”

Soren wasn’t surprised. Every Alpha would be anxious to create allies among the enemy camp. And if they could find a sympathetic individual willing to act as a spy, then so much the better.

“We have a few of our own sources,” he said, referring to the congressmen who were willing to hear Holden’s grievances and pass along information.

“True, but it would help to know who the cats have as their spy.”

Soren shrugged. “Then ask.”

“I prefer to be a little more...”

“Sneaky?” Soren offered as Holden hesitated.

“Something like that.”

Soren abruptly frowned, planting his hands on his hip. Okay. He recognized that expression on his companion’s face.

It meant that he was about to bully Soren into something he didn’t want to do.

“What do you want from me, Holden?” he bluntly asked.

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Figuratively speaking,” Holden informed him. “Your princess is close to her father-”

“No,” he snapped, his beast lunging beneath his skin in fury.

“No?”

It was the first time Soren had ever directly denied a request from his Alpha.

“I’m not playing games with Cora,” Soren warned, knowing his eyes had shifted to wolf. “Not again.”

Holden narrowed he gaze. “Don’t tell me you don’t intend to seduce the female. You’ve been prowling around their compound since they arrived.”

Soren stepped forward, his expression hard with an unspoken threat.

There would be no compromise. No negotiations.

“What happens between us is private.”

Holden allowed his power to thunder through the air between them.

“Even if it could help your Pack?”

Soren refused to back down. Not this time.

“I allowed my duty to hurt Cora before,” he said, regret scouring through him like acid. “I won’t sacrifice her again.”

Holden folded his arms over his chest, studying Soren with blatant curiosity.

“If you feel so strongly about the female, why didn’t you go after her before now?”

Soren felt a chill inch down his spine, even as the morning sunlight brushed over the bare skin of his back and the heat of his wolf warmed him from the inside.

It was always the same.

Any time he was forced to recall his first mating and the female he’d been unable to love.

Her name came out as a croak. “Leah.”

Holden’s brows snapped together. “You can’t mourn forever, Soren. Leah passed two years ago.”

He grimaced. “Leah may have passed, but not my guilt.”

“I don’t understand.”

Of course, the Alpha didn’t understand. No one did. Hell, Soren wasn’t sure he fully grasped the toxic mixture of regret and guilt and sadness that consumed him.

“I...cared for Leah,” he forced himself to try and explain. “And I did my best to make her happy.”

“It wasn’t your fault she couldn’t get pregnant,” Holden assured him.

It was well known that Leah had been desperate to have a child. She’d tried every method available to become pregnant, from human technology to mystical ceremonies that promised fertility.

And, as the final tragedy, she’d been traveling in secret to yet another clinic when the small, private airplane had gone down during a storm.

“No, but it was my fault that she became so obsessed with trying to give me a son,” he said in a strained voice.

“Why?”

“She knew I had someone else in my heart.” Soren pressed a hand to his chest that always felt too tight when he thought of his dead mate. “She thought a child would bind us together.”

Sensing the pain that Soren had kept bottled up for the past two years, Holden reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is,” Holden insisted, genuine regret twisting his features. “If I had mated sooner, you wouldn’t have been expected to bond with Leah.”