It took everything in me to back up and put distance between us. “But right now, Jakub is getting away, and there’s something I need to tell you too. In the spirit of not having any more secrets, there’s one thing I’ve never told you, and I think it’s important.” I proceeded to tell him about the Bone Eaters, and what my mother had warned me of. It was the only thing I’d always kept from him. The one secret I’d kept as mine. But not anymore.

When I finished, he cocked his head. “The Bone Eaters?”

“Have you ever heard of them?”

“No.”

“Me either, but I can’t help but think that they’re somehow connected to what’s happening. Maybe Jakub’s one of them. I don’t know, but we need to find out.”

He let out an agitated sigh, then raked a hand through his hair. “Right. Jakub.”

He strode to his closet and whipped it open, as if wanting to catch Jakub as quickly as possible so we could get onto more interesting things. The familiar array of weapons and potions lay before him. He pulled out one of his chest harnesses and began layering himself with so many weapons and lethal potions that he became literal death on feet.

“Take what you want,” he called to me. “Don’t touch the ax.”

I joined him and grabbed another chest harness. It swallowed me since it was so huge, but he cinched the straps down until it fit snugly, his fingers lingering on my skin.

My nostrils flared, detecting the thick aromas lifting from him. Anticipation had joined his arousal, and I had a feeling his demon was looking forward to coming out to play.

“Has she been behaving?” he asked.

As if knowing that he was talking about her, my wolf thumped her tail inside me.

“For the most part. Without you around, she ignored me a lot. She wasn’t happy that I left.”

“That makes two of us.” He finished with the straps, then began securing the weapons I’d chosen to the various cinches. “Did she try to shift last night?”

“No. It went okay.”

“And now?”

I frowned, tentatively feeling inward for her, but she was so damned happy to be in the hunter’s presence again that she seemed to be minding her manners. “She’s happy and not trying to take over again.”

“Good. Maybe it was for the best that you left. It helped you establish dominance. She learned that if she pushes too far, you’ll take away the one thing she wants most.”

“Her mate?”

A smile curved his lips. “Yes.”

I cocked my head at him. “Does it bother you at all that we have no choice in this?”

“What makes you think we have no choice?”

“Because of these feelings. This pull. This need to be with you. It all comes from them, not us.”

He gazed down at me. “That’s what being a werewolf entails. When you find your mate, that’s it. They’re the only one you’ll ever want.”

“You’re saying that I’m the only one you’ll want now?” My heart skipped, but then Carlos’s warning came back to me—the warning he’d told me weeks ago. Can’t be a normal mate instinct. But I had a feeling that Carlos was wrong about the hunter. I was beginning to think that Kaillen did feel a normal werewolf mating instinct.

Kaillen’s brow furrowed as he gazed down at me, as though perplexed that I could even question him. “Of course it will only be you.”

My heart tripped again, and any past worry I’d had about him being unable to be monogamous faded away. And that urge to weld myself to him, to wrap my legs around him, to claim him as mine . . . it was growing again.

“How do you wolves live like this?” I had the strongest urge to rub my thighs together. Fuck, I wanted him.

“It’ll get easier.” He took a step closer to me. “If you let me claim you, our wolves will calm down.”

Claim you.

An image of the hunter and me in his bed formed in my mind. Naked. Writhing. Climaxing together as he bit into my neck and sealed our magic.

I peered up at him. “Could I claim you too? Since I can shift?” Because the bond was sealed by elongating one’s canines, it was always the male who did the claiming bite, as female werewolves couldn’t shift. But since I was the first that could . . .

An intrigued smile lifted his lips, and the musky aroma in his scent increased. “I don’t know. I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

My nostrils flared, and I quickly grabbed a handful of potions. The urge to rip his clothes off was growing by the second. “What did you get up to while I was with Tess?” I said in a hurry, anything to distract myself from how much I wanted to ride the hunter’s cock.

“I went to take care of Cameron.”

My frantic movements stopped. “Take care of him? What does that mean?”

A deadly gleam entered his eyes. “While you were gone, I went back to Ontario. The entire pack knows that Cameron betrayed your location and handed you over to Jakub. Even for an upcoming alpha, a betrayal like that is heinous. The entire pack was up in arms about it, and I intended to make matters right.”

I swallowed audibly. An image of the hunter’s black-flamed eyes on the night he’d learned of his brother’s betrayal rose in my mind. He’d said that he’d kill his brother for giving me to Jakub. But that had been in the heat of the moment. Still . . .

I twisted my hands and asked hesitantly, “Does that mean you . . . killed him?”

“No, only because he wasn’t there. He fled as soon as he got wind that I’d come back.”

“But you would have killed him if he’d been there?”

“Of course. I’m coming for him, and he knows it.”

Gaping, I stared at him. Because he’d just admitted that he still planned to murder his brother so casually. He didn’t even pause. And his expression hadn’t faltered other than a lick of fire forming in his irises.

I drifted backward, away from the closet, more from shock than horror until the backs of my knees hit his bed, and I sank onto the mattress. “You’re seriously going to kill your own brother? Even now, after you’ve had a chance to cool off about what he did?”

He prowled toward me, his expression giving away nothing, yet a new scent rose from him—metallic iron—anger. “He handed you over to them. There’s no fucking way I’m letting him get away with that.”

“But to kill him?”

“It’s the werewolf way. You’re my mate. Don’t you know what losing you would do to me?”

“I know . . . I mean—” I shook my head, because I didn’t actually know. I hadn’t grown up in a pack. I didn’t fully understand its traditions. And I never would know what losing a mate would be like unless I lost Kaillen, and oh gods, just the thought made me want to howl in agony.

Yet Kaillen was right. Cameron hadn’t cared if I’d died. He’d ripped me away from his brother, and the absolute hatred I’d seen in Cameron’s eyes had been disturbing, but to just kill him?

“I’m not going to apologize for what I plan to do.” Kaillen’s nostrils flared. “Cameron handed you over to Jakub, knowing Jakub would inevitably murder you, or if he didn’t kill you, it would be something far, far worse. Cameron purposefully took you from me.” A deadly gleam formed in Kaillen’s eyes, that black fire making an appearance again, and I knew that his demon would relish the killing.

I licked my dry lips. “Wouldn’t somebody try to stop you?”

“No. It’s the werewolf way.” Those black flames in his eyes grew.

“Not even Ocean or Paxton?”

“No. I’m owed my revenge, so not even my father or sister will try to stop me. Pack law and supernatural law warrant the killing.” His lip curled up. It was as if just the thought of his brother made rage fill his soul.

An image of Cameron’s body alight in the hunter’s black flames filled my mind. And then came the knowledge that Paxton would have to stand by and let it happen, as gut-wrenching as that would probably be for him. I couldn’t imagine a father standing by while one of his sons killed the other, but as Kaillen had said, such was the werewolf way. Because to knowingly kill another’s mate—or attempt to—was punishable by death, and all males knew that, yet Cameron had still risked it. He’d hated me and Kaillen that much.