Donovan Murry was devastated.

“You have to come back. It’s enough playin’ around in America for you.”

Playing around? Was that what his pack thought we’d been doing? Because playing implied fun, and nothing about dealing with Luciana had been fun. Not even a little bit.

And who the hell was calling that could talk to their Alpha like that?

Donovan stifled a growl. “You need to watch your place, Vivian.”

Power rolled off him in waves. Fur rippled along my arms, and I struggled to let his energy flow through me without forcing me to change forms. I must’ve whimpered because Donovan squeezed my hand and toned himself down a few dozen notches.

Vivian. She was third in the pack, so it was her duty to inform the Alpha, but it was a little eerie how we’d just been talking about her. Now his second was dead, and she was on the phone?

“I’m aware of my place, Don, but your second is dead. The power struggles will flare up if you’re not here within the day.”

A second had to be seriously powerful and, in an established pack like Donovan’s, they’d be pretty damned hard to kill. Which left me with one question.

Donovan let go of my hand and rubbed his hand down his face. “How’d he die?” he said, echoing my thoughts.

“Might’ve been a fey. He’s in fecking pieces, but it was done in our stronghold. In his own damned room.”

Being killed by a fey was one thing. Being killed by a fey inside the stronghold…

I’d never heard of something like that happening. It really shouldn’t have been possible. But the fey could do the whole teleportation thing, and I’d only just learned about that. Who knew what other powers they’d been hiding?

Still, it seemed impossible that no one had seen or heard anything. There were too many Weres in the Irish pack for a fey to sneak in, murder someone, and then escape before anyone noticed.

“Everyone is going crazy, and—”

“Aye. I can feel it for myself.”

“You could’ve fooled me.” She had some major attitude, but she didn’t sound like a mad wolf. Annoyed. Pissed off. But not crazy.

“Enough, Vivian.”

The rumble in his voice should’ve stopped any wolf from talking back to him, but Vivian didn’t seem bothered. That was one point in the crazy column. “Don’t snap at me. It’s not my fault you’ve been neglecting us.”

From the amount of power he was radiating, he had to be pushing his commands all the way from here to Ireland through the pack bonds. I’d felt Alphas do that over short distances before, but never something like this.

Either Vivian wasn’t feeling his power or her madness was allowing her to ignore even someone as strong as Donovan. Another point in the crazy column. Mad wolves sometimes lost touch with reality, and couldn’t sense the power or commands that normal Weres could.

Now it made sense that she was his third. Even if she didn’t have the power to hold the position in the pack, she could fake it with her ability to ignore commands. Power plays with a mad wolf were impossible to win. I’d bet that’s how she rose up the ranks.