“I did.” He squeezed my hand. “I’m the Alpha here. I’d forgotten what that meant. I felt so guilty about being gone that I shied away from my role. I wanted to weed out whoever was doing this, and save my relationship with the rest of the pack. I’ve never wanted to rule out of fear, but I can. Especially when your life is on the line. I don’t need to waste time sorting out who has the brooch when I can order them to hand it over and make anyone who has a problem with me leave.”

This was a dangerous game to play. He knew it, too. Once you started ruling that way, the trust was broken. A pack never recovered from it. “Are you sure you want to open that can of worms? I’ve seen packs ruled by fear, and they’re cold. It’s not a healthy relationship between Alpha and pack.” Not healthy was the nice way of saying it.

“I’m the Alpha. I can order them to do what I want when there’s need. And ordering the traitor to come forward is a legitimate command.”

“I know, but there’s a reason you haven’t done that already and we both know it. You haven’t been here. Almost the whole pack is against you now, and that’s not entirely their fault. They don’t trust you because you haven’t been here to actually be their Alpha in a very long time. So when you call a mandatory meeting and start throwing around your power, your pack is going to grow more and more resentful until someone else turns traitor, too. It’ll be a dangerous cycle that I don’t think either of us wants to be a part of. If you’re going to start throwing out commands, then you might as well hand over the pack to the traitor.”

“I don’t care anymore.” He didn’t yell the words, but his tone was vicious. Suddenly I wasn’t worried for myself anymore. The pack was going to pay a steep price if they weren’t careful. “You didn’t see what I saw yesterday. You were running for your life and I couldn’t do anything to stop him. You almost died in front of me, and I couldn’t do anything.” He clenched his jaw shut so tightly that I could see the muscle tightening under his skin. His eyes flashed glowing blue as his wolf rose to the surface. “I tried to play nice. I tried to give my pack the benefit of the doubt and, yes, I felt guilty for not being here more. But not anymore. They can all rot.” He was breathing hard as he tried to control his wolf.

“Donovan,” I said, pleading with him to calm down.

“I can’t lose you.” He said it so softly, my heart broke a little.