Page 77 of Bad Blood Wolf

But his mother loved him. She’d almost blasted her brain apart protecting him, with the same power that had harmed him all those years ago.

Maybe he’d inherited the white wolf instability. Maybe not. But his mother couldn’t help who she was, and in the end she’d done right by him.

He straightened up. “You know why,” Brody said quietly. “She’s a white wolf.”

Timber’s eyebrows went up, but the surprise didn’t ring true. He’d known—or he’d at least suspected.

“That would make you a half-breed,” Timber said.

“What’s your point?” Jasmin snarled.

Timber ignored her, keeping his gaze on Brody. “My point,” he said, “is that you did not disclose your ancestry when you applied to join this pack. The white wolf strain comes with dangerous instability, which was why Creston was working with those who study it and try to mitigate its effects on the general wolf population.”

Mitigate meaning incarcerate, dissect, and treat like a lab rat.

The entire Bad Blood Crew started growling simultaneously.

Even Timber Jenkins looked a little intimidated at that.

He added defensively, “I can’t have that instability in my pack. I can’t have someone in my pack who can’t be trusted—”

At that, the Bad Bloods stopped growling and busted out laughing, except for Jasmin and Flynn.

“Did you hear that?” Xander said. “He thinks he can trust his pack.”

Sloan went straight for the badly camouflaged cough-insult. “Backstabbers,” he coughed out.

Xander chimed in with a coughed, “Poisoners.”

Tank coughed, “Cheating fucks.”

Brody bit his lip to keep his face straight. “I’m pretty sure the only trustworthy members of this pack are in Idaho,” he said.

Timber gave a sigh, and he suddenly looked tired and weary. “You think I don’t know my father was a bastard and this pack is a train wreck? I’m doing everything I can to keep it from completely falling apart.” He turned to the lion shifter. “What do you want, Flynn?”

Flynn said, “I want you to release Brody from your pack. I want him for the Bad Bloods.”

Brody spun around, shocked. “You do?”

Flynn hadn’t given up much about his intentions on the way here, being preoccupied with questioning Bastian. Brody had figured he just wanted to stain Timber’s floor with Bastian’s blood and intimidate him into shutting down any of Creston’s other followers who were still left.

Flynn cut his briefly eyes to Brody. “Not really. I have enough unstable idiots on my hands.”

“Hey,” Lissa protested, punching Flynn’s rock-hard triceps from behind. “We’re standing right here.”

Brody felt sudden warmth spreading through him. They wanted him. They hadn’t just come for Jasmin, tonight. They’d come for him.

Flynn went on as if Lissa hadn’t spoken. “But Jaz likes him, and she gets cranky if she doesn’t get enough sex. And he chops a mean onion.”

Brody didn’t even know what to say. Emotions rushed through him. Relief. Happiness. Hope. The Bad Bloods were crazy, but they had each other’s backs. He’d never been in a pack that was that tight—that would fight and die for each other, not because they were told to, but because they cared about each other.

But Timber wasn’t done with him yet. “That’s an interesting proposition. However, despite his unfortunate heritage, Brody fills an important role in our business structure. If I let him go, what would Nashville get in return?”

Flynn stood for a moment, legs apart in an aggressive stance, grenade launcher held loosely in his hands, head cocked as if he were thinking.

“If you let him go—with a nice severance package from your HR department, by the way—in return, Nashville gets to claim to the Council that this piece of shit,” he nudged Bastian with his foot, “was acting without your knowledge or instructions, and has been dealt with by you. Severely. Which will be true, or I’ll come back and fucking deal with him myself.”

His voice grew low and threatening, and his alpha presence filled the room. “And trust me when I tell you, you don’t want that.”