Claimed by the Alpha Who Rejected Her

CHAPTER 3

Kane's POV

The ledger nearly went through the window.

Kane caught himself with his hand already c****d back, page crumpled in his fist, before some last shred of self-control talked him down from putting his father's handwriting through the glass. Three weeks as alpha, and he was starting to understand exactly why his father had never let him near the books.

It wasn't disorganization. Disorganization he could have forgiven. This was something closer to sabotage numbers that refused to balance, half the entries scratched out in some private shorthand only his father had ever understood, debts nobody had bothered mentioning existed. Every rival pack within a hundred miles had probably known Sparkle Hollow was rotting from the inside for years. Everyone, apparently, except the son who was supposed to inherit it.

Then his eye caught a line near the bottom of the page, and every other frustration in the room went quiet.

The Ashfords matter settled, as discussed.

No amount, no explanation, nothing but that single clipped sentence buried between two unrelated columns, dated years before his father's death. Kane read it three times, a cold, unfamiliar dread pooling low in his stomach. He didn't recognize the entry. He didn't like that he didn't recognize it. And he liked even less the name sitting right there in black ink, tangled up in whatever his father hadn't wanted anyone to find.

He was still staring at it when the knock came.

"Come in." His voice came out rougher than he meant it to.

Ethan let himself in without waiting for a second invitation, the way he always did, dropping his considerable frame into the chair across from the desk like he owned it. "Still drowning in that mess?"

Kane shoved the ledger to the far side of the desk, page and all, and decided the mystery of Ashford's line could wait. Barely. "I've officially surrendered."

"Good. There's something more pressing anyway." Ethan perched forward, elbows on his knees, and Kane recognized that particular look on his friend's face immediately, the one that always preceded news he wasn't going to enjoy. "The pack's talking, Kane."

"Oh, wonderful." Kane leaned back, lacing his fingers over his chest. "Do tell."

Ethan hesitated just long enough to confirm Kane's instincts were right. "Some of them are wondering whether you've got the strength to actually hold this pack together."

"They might have raised that concern before they let their last alpha die," Kane said flatly.

Ethan didn't argue the point, just let the silence sit there for a beat too long before pushing forward. "There's one thing that would go a long way toward shutting them up."

Kane already felt his jaw tightening. "Just say it."

"They think you need a luna." Ethan's face had gone faintly red beneath his beard, clearly hating every second of playing messenger. "And more than that, some of them think you should look outside the pack. Someone who'd bring an alliance with her."

The growl that ripped up Kane's throat came before he'd consciously decided to let it. "Tell me you are not suggesting what I think you're suggesting."

Ethan didn't deny it. He just held Kane's gaze, steady and apologetic.

Kane's palm hit the desk hard enough to make his second flinch. "You want me to bed a Blackwood? The very pack that put my father in the ground?"

The rivalry between Sparkle Hollow and Blackwood wasn't some old grudge kept alive out of habit, it had teeth now, generations of bad blood sharpened into something with a body count. Kane would burn the treaty table down before he'd invite one of Voss's wolves anywhere near his bed, let alone his bloodline.

"I'm not suggesting it," Ethan said carefully, hands raised. "I'm telling you what's being said. There's a difference."

"Do they honestly believe slapping a ring on some stranger's finger fixes any of this?" Kane snapped. "My father tried that exact strategy. Look where it got him."

"Maybe it's foolish," Ethan admitted with a shrug, "but it's the only fix the pack knows how to ask for."

Kane dropped his head into his hands, breathing out slowly through his teeth. "When did everything get this complicated, Ethan? We used to have it so easy."

And just like that, without meaning to, he was somewhere else entirely back in the meadows outside the hollow, sun-warmed grass under bare feet, watching a girl on the ridge above them scribbling in a notebook she never let anyone read. He'd teased her mercilessly back then, the way his father had drilled into him to treat every wolf beneath his rank. But somehow, whenever he actually let himself remember her, the memories always came back gentler than they had any right to. Softer than any memory he had of anyone else in the pack.

He'd never admit that out loud. Weakness wasn't something he could afford, not with everything Ethan had just laid at his feet.

"We grew up," Ethan said simply, shrugging again.

"Easy for you to say. You don't have the whole pack's future sitting on your shoulders."

"No, just your constant complaining," Ethan shot back, a grin cracking through.

"It really was simpler back then," Kane murmured, half to himself. And before his brain caught up with his mouth, the question was already out. "How's your sister doing, anyway?"

Ethan's eyebrow shot up, suspicion flickering across his face fast enough that Kane felt it land in his gut. He couldn't remember the last time either of them had said her name out loud without her being physically present to hear it. Where the question had even come from, Kane genuinely didn't know though judging by Ethan's expression, his second was wondering the exact same thing.

"Haven't heard from her in a while," Ethan said finally. "Last I did, she was doing alright."

Kane wasn't sure if that answer settled his stomach or unsettled it further. The memory of her there one week, simply gone the next, no warning, no goodbye still twisted something painful behind his ribs whenever he let it surface. He'd never fully understood what happened between them. He'd made a point of never trying to. She-wolves were complicated enough without factoring in one who'd never so much as glimpsed her own wolf.

"Stop looking at me like that," Kane snapped, uncomfortable under his friend's stare.

"Like what?"

"Like this is somehow strange. I ask after your family plenty."

"Sure," Ethan said slowly, "but not usually her."

Kane didn't need him to finish that thought. "I don't have time for this," he growled, standing and gathering himself back into alpha posture. "Unless you've got actual advice buried in there somewhere, get out."

Ethan rose, clearly fighting a smirk. "Yes, alpha." He dipped his head with mock formality. "Howl if you need me."

"I will," Kane muttered through clenched teeth.

He watched his friend cross toward the door, and just as Ethan's hand found the handle, he paused. "You'll actually think about what I said?"

"I will," Kane repeated, though the words felt hollow even to him.

The door clicked shut, and Kane was alone again with a ledger he didn't trust, a pack that didn't trust him, and a memory he'd spent ten years failing to bury. The last time he'd seen Lila clearly, she'd stood on his porch offering him everything, and he'd handed her nothing but cruelty in return, watched her walk away without lifting a single finger to stop her. And here he was, doing the exact same thing to her brother pushing away the one person who actually gave a damn whether he survived this alpha seat or not.

Why does it keep happening this way?

He already knew the answer. His father had spent nineteen years teaching him that closeness was a liability, that a proper alpha kept everyone at arm's length or risked looking soft in front of wolves who'd smell weakness and use it. Kane had learned that lesson well. Too well, maybe.

His father is gone now. So why did the habit refuse to die with him?

He stared at the closed door for a long moment, some buried instinct urging him to call Ethan back, to actually finish the conversation instead of running from it. He didn't move. He never did.

Will I ever let anyone close enough to matter?

The thought sat there in the empty office, ugly and unanswered, while the ledger's cryptic little line about the Ashfords sat untouched on the corner of his desk, quietly waiting for him to be brave enough to look at it again.