It wasn’t a tool to be abused. It wasn’t how you governed a pack. It wasn’t how youled. I sighed, and it felt like it came from my soul.
Lars used his Will so rarely that I couldn’t think of more than two occasions when he had used it. Both times, to save a shifter from bleeding out. Never to coerce. Or manipulate. Or abuse.
I’d been traveling up north with Killian. Lars sent us on a fact-finding mission. I think he knew before I did that Killian would be my beta. An alpha who ruled his pack with fear had grabbed us both and had known I was an alpha. The fucker put me through a night of hell until my wolf roared out of me, my Will finally overcoming his, breaking us free.
As he’d lain at my feet, broken, bloody, he’d laughed and told me he knew I had it in me.
The violence.
The viciousness.
Therage.
That night, I’d looked into the eyes of a power-hungry alpha and seen my future self if I wasn’t careful.
My Will was a gift. Not a weapon.
And now…now I was going to use it on my whole pack.
My heart was heavy with the knowledge, so I looked to the stars, to the Goddess, and I waited for an answer that was never coming.
“Dunno if you’re pissing into the wind or thinking about jumping,” Diesel muttered as he approached. “Idoknow you gave me a fucking heart attack when I looked up and saw you standing there, perched like a fucking idiot on the face of a cliff.”
I grinned, not turning. “I asked the Goddess for a sign, and I got you.” I turned my head as my beta came to stand nearby. “Do you think you’re my answer or a heavenlyfuck you?”
Diesel grinned in the night, his teeth white in the moonlight. “I’m both.” He was wearing black jeans and nothing else. “Where’s your clothes?”
I gestured behind me, down the trail. “Meh.”
“Meh. Right.” He swore under his breath. “So…this soul searching, do I assume you’ve committed genocide, or you’re thinking about it?”
I hid my smile at his tone. “Meh.”
“Sullen and broody really doesn’t suit you,” he grumbled. I felt cloth hit my bare legs. “C’mon down, Alpha, let’s talk this out like men and not touchy teenagers.”
I turned from the ridge. “You think I’d jump?”
“You?” Diesel produced a cigarette from fuck knows where. “Nah. You’re too stubborn to jump.” He looked across the void to the mountain beyond. “I think you’d try to fly, though.”
I grinned, the two of us looking across and back at each other. “I could?—”
“Get me killed when your mate finds out I dared you to try?” Diesel took a drag. “Not for me. So…who’s talking first?”
“What’d you find?” I asked him as I pulled on the shorts he’d given me.
“What didyoufind?” he asked instead.
“Betrayal.”
He sniffed. “Yup, me too.”
My head turned, my wolf alert. I peered far down into the valley below. I listened to the ripple of power through my body.
Diesel whistled low. “I’m going to guess you just felt that too.”
We shared a look. “Diesel…what did you do?” I asked him carefully.
“Not me.” His eyes widened in protest. “Notme.”
