None of it made any sense. It had to be pure nonsense. Didn’t it? Not an alpha? Where the hell had he gotten that from? I couldn’t focus, couldn’t grasp a single thought long enough to analyze it, all of it slipping away faster and faster the harder I tried to grab on.
Blake. CEO. All my work for nothing.
Mating Dimitri, for nothing. If I’d never met him, I’d never have been able to lose him. And if my plan had been doomed from the beginning, he had no reason to stay past tonight.
I was about to lose everything.
My head felt like it was on a string, bobbing wildly somewhere over my body, and my limbs hung numb and heavy.
The door shut as the manager who’d escorted us here fled with a minimum of grace, more flustered than I’d thought someone in customer service could get.
My father fixed Dimitri with a hard stare filled with hatred. “You will retract this absurd allegation. You will do precisely as you’re told, or I’ll ruin you and anyone associated with you. And when I announce my upcoming retirement and Blake’s instatement as CEO, you’ll both be his most dedicated supporters.”
“Why now?” I demanded, a lifetime of obedience, of not rocking the boat, finally losing its grip on me as panic and despair took over. Blake? As CEO? I’d always been so certain it was impossible, that my father knew that as well as I did. “Why retire now, and Blake? He doesn’t know the first thing about—”
“You and this unsuitable alpha of yours will bolster his position while he finds his footing!” my father shouted. “That was always the plan, the reason why I’d decided to choose an alpha mate for you.” That hit me like a thunderbolt. He’d never meant to promote me. Never…God. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my fists clenched involuntarily. “Your failure to understand your place in this family has disappointed me, and your mother, your entire life, but you’ll understand it now and do your duty to me and to your brother. Or I’ll cut you off. I’ll break your grandfather’s trust, Brook. I’ll make it impossible for you and—this,” and he gestured at Dimitri, “to amount to more than what you would have without us. Which is to say, nothing.”
“No, you won’t,” Dimitri said grimly. “Enough bluffing.”
“Bluffing? You worthless—”
“Enough!” Dimitri didn’t raise his voice more than a little, but it cut through my father’s bluster like a knife through jelly, and everyone in the room startled, staring. “Enough bullshit,” he said, low and deadly. “Everyone in this room knows you have Hensley’s Syndrome.”
Blake let out a sharp, high crack of laughter. “Hensley’s? Are you out of your mind? Brook has Hensley’s. Dad can’t have it, he’s an alpha! It’s—it’s impossible,” he faltered.
Dimitri bared his teeth at Blake, his alpha magic spiking, a tangible presence in the room. A soft whimper left my lips. Blake went white and fell back a step, gripping onto the side of our mother’s chair.
“Okay, I was wrong,” Dimitri growled. “Almost everyone in this room knew you had Hensley’s, and now they all do. And yes, Blake, alphas can’t have Hensley’s. Your father’s not an alpha. Look at his face if you don’t believe me.”
He waved a hand at Prescott, who’d edged his way behind my father, eyes flicking around the room as if searching for an escape route.
“He’s not an alpha,” Dimitri went on implacably, every word exploding into the tense silence of the room like a bomb. “Or maybe he’s partially alpha, some rare abnormality in his genes, the same one that gave him Hensley’s, maybe. And they’ve been covering it up. With alpha magic, somehow. Fake alpha magic. And it’s been making the Hensley’s symptoms worse, hasn’t it? That’s why you’re retiring now, Boyd. Because you can’t keep it up anymore.”
My father’s breathing echoed too loudly, rough and uneven.
He’d deny it, wouldn’t he? This couldn’t possibly be true. Not after spending my whole life,hiswhole life, basing everything about our family and his expectations for me on his alpha status.
I glanced from Dimitri, eyes blazing and mouth set in a hard, grim line, to my father, his skin a blotchy mess of grayish pallor and purple flush, staring at Dimitri in horror.
He didn’t like to show the alpha glow, because a real alpha kept himself under control.
The changes in his scent—probably as Prescott adjusted the strength of whatever magic he’d been using—that I’d dismissed as Dimitri’s imagination.
The way he’d never been able to exert his dominance over me, not really, not with his voice and not with his presence—only with his anger and his belittling and his ability to cut me out of the company and the family if I didn’t toe the line.
I couldn’t draw a full breath, rage and agonized confusion churning in my belly, crippling in its intensity.
My whole life. A lie. His lie. Because he couldn’t admit that he wasn’t perfect.
“This is absurd,” my mother said faintly. “Absolutely absurd. Insulting. Impossible. Boyd?”
But my father didn’t answer. He sagged, swayed, and staggered to the nearest chair, falling into it like he’d been cut off at the knees.
With a cry, my mother lurched out of her chair and across to him, frantically calling his name, loosening his tie. She spun on Dimitri, eyes shining with tears. “You’re killing him! These—your lies, you’re killing him!”
“He’s killing himself,” Dimitri said heavily, not a trace of sympathy in his voice. No mercy. “And the only way he’ll get better is if he cuts this shit out and retires. Gets some real treatment for the Hensley’s symptoms.”
“I can’t believe this.” A lost, pathetic whisper from across the room. Blake. When I looked at him, I almost didn’t recognize my sneering, overconfident brother. He was staring at our parents, slack-jawed and trembling. For a moment I nearly empathized with him. His life had been shaped by their insanity as much as mine had, and neither of us had asked to be born. That burgeoning fellow-feeling evaporated as he said, “Brook’s the one who’s fucked up, not us. This isn’t happening!”
