Darryl’s eyes widened and he swallowed hard. His face was a question mark.

Trey cocked his head. “You didn’t really think I’d reveal to the entire pack just how many wolves were joining me when I knew you had an informant who could tell you, did you?” Darryl’s eyes widened even more, though Trey wouldn’t have thought it was possible until then. “Oh yes I know all about that.” Finally the gate was fully open. “Know this: it doesn’t matter how many wolves you have protecting you, Darryl. I will get to you and I will kill you.”

Red in the face, Darryl howled. Taking that as a signal to attack, his supporters instantly shifted into their wolf forms and began galloping through the gate. Trey’s own allies followed his lead as he ran and leapt, rapidly shifting midway through the leap into his wolf form, and clamped his jaws closed around one of his enemy’s throats.

“It’s started,” Taryn told Greta, Brock, and Hope. Grace and Lydia, who were on either side of her, already knew through their link with their own mates. Echoes of Trey’s anger and rage reached her through their bond, along with his determination and focus. Even though she knew just how strong and powerful he was, she was so damn scared for him and so damn pissed off that she couldn’t be there. Of course she knew it was best that she wasn’t, but the idea that he could at some point be hurt and she wouldn’t be there to heal him was haunting her, mocking her healing gift.

Lydia, who was fidgeting crazily with worry, rubbed a hand over her face. “God, this is nerve wracking.”

Grace’s smile was weak. “They’re going to be fine.” Shakily, she added, “They have to be.”

At Taryn’s wince, everyone looked at her. “Trey’s gone feral.”

“In this instance, it’s a good thing,” said Greta.

Grace grabbed the glass beside Taryn that was filled with another weird concoction of hers. “Here, drink the rest of this.”

Taryn shook her head and placed a hand to her stomach. “I couldn’t eat or drink a single thing right now, I feel too nauseous.”

“So do I,” mumbled Lydia.

“It’s the nerves,” Greta told them. “Where’s Selma?”

“In her room,” replied Hope. “She’s refusing to come out and she won’t let me in. She says I’ve betrayed her because I’ve chosen to give my loyalty to Trey and Taryn. To be honest, I always thought Selma would do that too after a little while. I’ve never seen her so worked up before.”

“Maybe you should go see her,” suggested Brock with an understanding smile. “Selma acts tough, but she must be worried. No one should be alone right now.” Hope nodded and left the room.

“How long do you think it will go on for?” Grace asked Taryn.

It was Brock who answered. “Could be twenty minutes, could be forty-five minutes. It depends whether or not Darryl’s winning. If he’s not, some of his allies might leave. It’s unnerving to think that some of them might have already gotten past our own wolves and are on their way to the caves.”

Lydia made a low whining sound. “Don’t say things like that.”

“We have to be prepared for it happening. There are only forty of us out there. Darryl will have brought at least a hundred, if not more.”

Of course Taryn knew there were more than just forty on their side, and she might have said as much – after all, if the informant was sitting in this very room with her, there wasn’t anything they could tell Darryl that he didn’t already know at this point – but then her vision blurred a little, startling her.

“Taryn, you okay?”

Triple-blinking to clear away the haze, she looked to Grace. “Yeah, fine. Just feel kind of woozy. You don’t think it’s Trey, do you? You don’t think he’s hurt and -”

“Calm down, use your link.”

Taking a deep breath, she felt for Trey and found him immediately. His ass had gone totally feral. Despite a few twinges of pain, he wasn’t seriously hurt. She exhaled a sigh of relief. “He’s fine.”

“The pregnancy will have you feeling a little off-balance at first. Don’t worry.”

Brock gestured to the half empty glass. “Grace is right, you should drink some more of that…whatever it is. You need the nutrients.”

Taryn shook her head, grimacing. “No, I don’t feel good.”

Lydia flinched and moaned. “Some a**hole just chomped on Cam’s hind leg. He’s okay though, thank God. Ryan helped get the other wolf off of him.”

Grace gave her a sympathetic smile. “Rhett’s received some pretty decent scratches and bites, but he’s not tiring or in any real pain. God, I hate this shit.”

“I need to walk around. Not outside,” Lydia quickly assured them, shifting from foot to foot in restless, nervous movements. “Just through the tunnels. Standing still is killing me.”

“I’ll go with you. Coming, Taryn?”

“Thanks, Grace, but I feel too woozy, I need to sit.”

“I can stay with you if you want.”

“She’s fine, she’s got me and Brock,” said Greta, waving Grace and Lydia out of the room. She turned back to Taryn, frowning. “Don’t worry so much about him.” It was chastising rather than comforting. “God knows he’s been through enough battles and he’s always come back, alive and well.”

“That’s not going to stop me from worrying.” Nothing would stop her from worrying short of Trey standing before her.

“Darryl’s nothing but a little fart anyway. That’s why he’s brought so many with him – he knows he’d never win a one-to-one challenge with Trey.”

“Why do you think he wants the packs united so badly?”

Greta huffed. “Darryl’s problem is that although he was born an alpha, he was a weak one – too weak to be a Pack Alpha. His little brother, Rick – Trey’s father – on the other hand, was very strong. He was also a horrible bastard. Darryl spent his life walking in Rick’s shadow, overlooked. But that didn’t stop him from lodging himself so far up Rick’s ass that he ended up being made Beta. Then Trey was born and even as a little boy you could tell he was a powerful alpha. Both Rick and Darryl saw him as a threat and treated him very badly.”

Taryn couldn’t help that her upper lip curled in anger. “Yeah, I heard a little about that.”

“When Trey almost killed his father, Darryl was ordered by Rick to beat him, punish him. But Darryl wouldn’t – he knew he couldn’t. That was why talk of banishing him started. My guess is no one in the pack forgot Darryl’s fear of a fourteen year old boy and so he’s not being respected or obeyed as Alpha.”

“Makes sense. If he had been, half of his pack wouldn’t have turned up here to check on my welfare.”

Greta nodded. “Unless he shows his pack that he can overpower Trey and fix the divide in the pack, he’ll be challenged soon enough and lose his position.”

Greta said more but Taryn couldn’t make any sense of the words as her hearing suddenly went weird, like she was underwater or something. Seconds later it returned to normal, but then her vision went blurry again.

“Taryn, Taryn, you alright?”

She wasn’t sure who asked and she didn’t care as the sudden urge to vomit had her ready to dash for the nearest bathroom. But she didn’t make it. She hadn’t even gotten halfway out of the room when she doubled over with pain and projectile vomited all over the kitchen floor. Then again. And again. And again. Then she flopped onto her side, panting, moaning and sweating. Worse, she was way beyond woozy and close to passing out. She felt Brock pick her up.

“Go get Grace,” he told Greta. “I’ll take her to lie down in her room.”

She retched again, but this time nothing came out. She doubted there was anything left in her stomach, especially since she’d hardly eaten anything that morning. The feeling she now had wasn’t all that different from when she had hit her head. It was a little like she was weightless, like a dream state was creeping up on her. Her vision alternated from being fuzzy around the edges to being totally blurred. Her head seemed so unbelievably heavy and she felt sort of detached from her body. This could not be good for the baby. Fear shot through her as she wondered if this somehow meant she was losing the baby.

Shit, that sun was bright.

Wait, what? It occurred to her then that, hey, she was outside. And she should not be. “Where are we going?” she slurred. Her body jolted crazily and she realized they were descending the steps of the mountain face.

“Sorry, Taryn, but this is just the way it has to be.”

His voice was sharp, clipped, cold. This was not the Brock she knew. “It’s you. You’re the informant.”

He peered down at her, clearly surprised. “So you knew. Doesn’t matter now. All that matters is getting you to Darryl quickly.”

“What did you do to me?” she moaned as a spasm wracked her stomach.

“It’s just a drug to make you sleep. I slipped it in that weird juice. I’ve no idea how you can drink that stuff Grace makes.”

Another retch. Still no vomit.

“I’m not sure why it’s making you sick.” Not that he sounded concerned.

“Why, Brock? Why help Darryl?”

“I couldn’t care less about him. Trey, however…now that’s a different matter.” The degree of anger and loathing in his voice was unsettling.

“If you were unhappy here, you could’ve left.”

“No, I couldn’t have. Not without Kirk, and he’ll never leave. I know you don’t think much of my son, but he’s a good man. He is. A lot of people look down on him because his mom was human and he’s not as strong an alpha as the others – a little like they did with Darryl. But he has good principles, has honor, he’s a loyal wolf. That’s why he wanted to leave with Trey when he was banished.”

“You could have stayed behind.”

He shook his head. “No. And not just because of Kirk, no. I couldn’t have let her go alone.”

“Who? Greta?”

He looked at her like she was insane. “Louisa.”

The name tickled her memory. “Trey’s mom?”

“You must’ve heard how I found my true mate but she was already in love with another man. Oh yes, Trey’s mom. By the time I met her, she and Rick had imprinted on one-another. I hadn’t told anyone because I knew Rick would have exiled me to keep me away from her. I hated seeing them together, hated it, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her life. So I became good friends with her and let that be enough. I know she felt the pull between us. She never even came close to acting on it though. She was a loyal woman. Then Trey was banished and, for once, she stood up to that bastard Rick and she left him. There was my chance. My chance to have her as I should have done. And I would’ve done...but Trey killed her.”

“She turned rogue,” she reminded him.

“If I’d have been there when she slipped into that state I could’ve pulled her back from it. I could’ve.” No he couldn’t have – a wolf gone rogue was beyond all help. “But he executed her. Snapped her neck like she was a twig. I wanted to kill him, but just like Rick and Darryl, I knew I couldn’t take him.”

Her head swam again but she fought the pull of sleep. “Why stay?”

“So one day I could make sure he knew the pain that I went through. The pain of losing a mate.”

Oh f**k. It suddenly hit her just how dangerous her situation was. She’d thought that maybe Darryl wanted to use her as collateral – a kind of ‘give me what I want, Trey, and your mate goes free’ scenario. But this…well hell.

“It made the whole thing even better when I realized you were true mates. You should thank Darryl, really. If it wasn’t for him telling me to hold off, I would have killed you at some point. The car and the raven…that was just for fun, just something to keep me going.”

What a weird, sick bastard. “That day on the stairs?”

“I’d made an arrangement with Darryl. His goons were waiting not far out of pack territory. The plan was for me to hand you over to them so they could give you a beating as a warning. And, well, that plan went to shit. As did the one for you to be attacked while you were in town with Lydia. Unfortunately for you, your luck has run out, little one. It’s really nothing personal, Taryn. I like you. You’re strong, you have a good heart, but this is the way it has to be.”

“You think Louisa would want this? Trey’s her son. Darryl will kill him.”

“Very true. Greta was right – all Darryl wants is for everyone to see him overpower Trey. He knows he can’t do it. Trey’s too strong. But there’s one thing that will weaken him – the death of his mate. At the very moment your bond is severed he’ll lose all strength. It won’t last more than a minute, but it will be long enough for Darryl to have this chance and end this once and for all. So you see, Darryl gets what he wants, and I get what I want.”

Hoping he might have a conscience she could appeal to, she asked, “You’re happy to hand over a pregnant female to be murdered?”

Nothing. Not an ounce of guilt or regret to be seen in his expression. “It’s just the way it has to be,” he said for the third time.

“You could take me back,” she slurred, desperate now. “I promise you won’t be punished. Don’t punish this baby for something Trey did.” Not that she blamed Trey at all, but if it made the psycho release her she’d say whatever he wanted to hear.