This was how pack transfers—the official kind—worked. The first alpha retracted his claim, cut off all mental ties, leaving the second alpha free to instate his—or in my case, her—own.
As I watched, unable to tear my eyes away, Othello wrenched his mind out of Lucas’s with all of the delicacy of a dentist using pliers to pull teeth.
“You are nothing to me,” he said, the words coming out more like a growl than any I’d ever heard spoken out loud. “I am nothing to you. If you step foot on Snake Bend territory again, I will kill you.”
With that, Othello dropped Lucas back onto the ground, and the younger Were’s back arched so hard and fast that I thought his body would snap in two.
“Lucas.” Maddy was by his side in an instant, and as the panic cleared from Lucas’s eyes and he met hers, I s
