Page 4 of Alpha’s Wife

Cole grins, all teeth, as he nods and then heads off into the workshop area when someone shouts for him. He approves of the plan; I can tell. He gets it in a way that my twin, Ryder, struggles to comprehend. All his books can’t teach him the way this feels—the rage. I know he feels it too, but he buries it, whereas I thrive on it.

I look back at the settlement behind me, rising up out of the cove and reaching into the forest behind. Ryder thinks all this should be enough.

It isn’t.

Because for every cabin here and boat in the dock, there are three brothers living across the water on that island in luxury, on land our father ruled, with packs that bow to them simply because of a name they did nothing to earn except be born to the right woman. Callum, Tristen, and Aiden. The legitimate sons. The ones who got the island, the titles, the inheritance…everything. While our mother got put on a boat in the dark with a one-way ticket to the mainland, penniless and pregnant with twins, a threat hanging over her head that would see her dead if she ever even uttered that bastard of a man’s name.

She raised us alone in a one-room shack on the worst stretch of the coast, went without food to feed us, and kept us safe until we could stand on our own two feet. But at what cost? We were outcasts, and I learned to fight young. Ryder was always softer, and he disappeared into the books I’d steal for him—I guess we each survived it in our own way.

She didn’t, though. She didn’t survive. The grief twists in my chest, and for once, I let it wash over me, because no one’s watching and I don’t owe anyone an explanation.

She held on for just three days in the end. The fever took her suddenly, and we couldn’t afford a healer, though the women from the village called in to see if they could help. They couldn’t. Ryder and I sat by her bed, taking turns to help her drink water until she didn’t even want it. We were seventeen. I thought I was a man, all grown up. I wasn’t.

Before she died, she gripped our hands and told us the secret she’d carried for all those years.

“Your father,” she told us, “was the alpha on the island.”

I thought it was the fever at first, but it wasn’t. She was clear as she told us his name, how he’d wanted her, and that they were fated mates. He told her the goddess wanted them to be together. She was just a poor girl from one of the mountain villages and completely smitten by the handsome young alpha. He made her keep their relationship a secret, and as soon as he found out she was pregnant, he revealed he was already mated, and his real mate was pregnant, too. He forced her off the island. She lost everything.

“Don’t hate,” she whispered. “Hate just poisons the ones who carry it. Be better than him. Build something.”

Then she was gone. Ryder broke down, but I couldn’t cry. I just sat there dry-eyed in the darkness and made her one promise.

I’d build something. And then I’d take everything that was rightfully ours.

I drag in a deep breath of cold sea air and shove the memory back down where I need it to stay for now. I like to think she would like everything I’ve built here and how settled Ryder is. But she should have known I could never give her the other part, and she should have known better than to ask—hate is the only thing that has fueled me. It’s the only thing that gets me out of bed. Hate has built everything.

“You’ve got that look again,” a voice behind me says.

I don’t turn around. I’d know my brother’s voice anywhere. Ryder comes up beside me and leans on the rail overlooking the boats; he’s got a book in his hand. Of course he does. He reads every morning out on the porch.

“What look?” I ask.

“The one you get when you’re standing in the middle of everything you’ve built, still hungry for more.” He adds gently, “You know that more isn’t always the answer, right? How’s your witch?”

“She’s fine,” I tell him.

“Fine?” he grins.

“That’s all I’ve got to say,” I shrug.

He’s quiet for a moment as we watch the crew loading supplies onto one of the boats. Ryder’s smarter than me in many ways. He reads everything, remembers everything, and can tell you the history of every feud and treaty you can imagine. I’m the one who can read people, decide who is useful, who can be bought. I couldn’t have built all this without him, because he sees the big picture. I see the levers, and I pull them.

“Did we need to take her, Ronan?” he finally asks, and not for the first time. “Is that who we are? Look at all this. It’s working; we have a whole life here. We have food, trade, and homes. We even have revenge; we profit from them, we’re building by reducing them. We did that, isn’t it enough?”

“No, it’s not,” I shake my head. “They’ve still got the island, and they never even had to fight for it. They got everything, and I’m not living off scraps.”

Ryder shakes his head. “She told us not to hate.”

“This is about taking back what we’re owed,” I say firmly, “simple as that.”

“It’s just a dead man’s leftovers.” He sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose the exact same way our mother used to. “You don’t need a bond witch to run this place; you only need one to march on the island. Would you really risk everything?”

I grind my teeth. I know the implication: that I’ll risk my pack’s lives for my own revenge. But I won’t. They’re trained, they’re ready. And once I have the bond magic, they will be no match. But I won’t strike until the time is right; I won’t risk them until I’m sure, and I resent the idea that I would.

“I don’t need a lecture, brother,” I say, a slight bite in my words.

He grins, and I see it in his eyes, the glint he reserves just for me, that shows he’s not always as calm as he appears. “It’s not a lecture; it’s a reminder of what you have. And besides, that witch has to be willing, and I’ve never seen you have to work to make a woman like you, so what makes you think she will when you kidnapped her?”