Riker and Ana had come downstairs and were still yawning, looking around at the others to figure out what was going on.

  Ryland slammed the binder down on the kitchen counter and flipped through it. “Here. This guy. Who is he?” He recognized Lea’s brother instantly. How had he not noticed before? No, that was easy. It was because there were so many fighters and they were always in a crowd. The Brawl was a perfect place to hide in plain sight.

  Francis came to look over his shoulder and flipped a few pages over to look at the brackets. “Lance Atherton. Looks like he’s up against you for the final match-up.”

  “What the hell happened yesterday?” Ryland asked. “After I was gone.”

  Rock scratched his head. “Well, we had some people drop out. I mean, I think they appreciated your fair fight against a cheater, but they also sensed that there’s something wrong with your bear. And then the other semifinal matches were held, and all that’s left is finals today.”

  Somehow the Brawl had gone faster than ever with Lea at his side. His heart stabbed at him, and he rubbed his chest.

  “We’ve all been lied to.” He didn’t know how much to tell his brothers, but he was tired of hiding everything. Tired of being the only one with the truth. “Lea has been working with Lance.”

  Rock sat up a little straighter at that. “Working at what? To win the Brawl?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” Ryland said, slamming the binder shut with a snarl. “There’s something weird with both of them. That bear I fought yesterday, the one who was cheating with alpha blood, I think he had Lance’s alpha power. Just insanely high speed.”

  “I see,” Riker said, walking forward, arms folded, wearing a large, faded robe. “So what does that mean for us?”

  “It means… we’ve been betrayed,” Ryland said blankly, staring in front of him but seeing nothing. “She mated me. Holy shit, I mated her. I mated a traitor.”

  “Stop,” Rock said, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him to face him. “Calm down. We’ll figure this out. Lea wouldn’t do something like that. Fucking up a mating is a serious thing.”

  Ryland didn’t know anymore. It had felt special when they’d been together. Real. But now…

  His phone beeped, and he jerked it out of his pocket, flipping it open.

  On it was a picture of Lea, bound and gagged, looking up at him with helpless, angry eyes.

  Rage shuddered through him. “What the fuck?” Rock reached for his phone, but Ryland jerked it away as another text came in.

  You want your mate back? You’re going to lose your fight.

  Cold fear moved through Ryland. Would he have to explain to his brothers what he’d risked by entering the fight?

  All his life, he’d done this on his own. Made his plans, executed them. It was his way of maintaining control. Now he was losing it. Because if he won the fight, he would lose Lea. And if he lost the fight, he would lose his life.

  He clutched the phone, then walked away from the others and texted into it. Why would you do that? She’s your sister. You won’t hurt her.

  He bit his lip, waiting for Lance’s reply. When the phone beeped, it took all his effort not to crush his phone in his hands.

  I’ll do what I want. She’s not my sister anymore. But yeah, I mean, she’ll probably be fine. If no other shifters find her.

  Ryland flipped back to the picture, realizing that wherever she was, she was helpless. He knew shifter binding chains when he saw them.

  And no matter what she’d done or who she was, he’d protect her. She was his mate. He loved her. Whether she truly loved him back was immaterial.

  He’d give anything to prevent something from happening to her. Something her dumbass brother should have done rather than being bent on his crazy revenge.

  What had he said in the woods? Something about John Brolin killing their father?

  Why are you doing this? he texted back.

  But the text that came back said only, See you at the fight.

  He threw the phone down, and it cracked. Panicked, Ryland picked it back up, hoping it still worked. When he saw it did, he let out a sigh of relief. Then he walked, in a zombie-like state, over to the couch and slumped on it.

  “What’s wrong?” Rock asked as Riker and Francis all formed a semicircle in front of Ryland. “What the fuck is going on? Just tell us what you want to do, Ryland, and we’ll help you.”

  There wasn’t any fucking hope. Lance wouldn’t rest until he found out what happened to John Brolin. And he wouldn’t feel avenged until a Brolin was dead. And only Ryland knew how to find John Brolin.

  And if his family, Lea, found out the truth of what had happened, his life would be over anyway.

  He put his head in his hands and fought back tears of panic.

  Why had he thought if he just worked hard enough, tried hard enough, he could make up for his sins without ever having to tell anyone about them?

  Why hadn’t he been able to just outrun his fucking past? And why would his fucking father always come back to ruin him? To take the last parts of Ryland’s soul that he had control over.

  He felt someone sit beside him. It was Rock. And then he felt Riker on his other side.

  Arms around him.

  What the fuck was happening? He looked up, shocked, and heard Rock laugh.

  “Dude, don’t be so surprised that we can support you. We know what you’ve done for us. We aren’t stupid.”

  Riker nodded. “I mean, it took us some time and some hints from Francis and Joe, but we know that you’re basically the reason we were able to hook up with our mates.”

  Ryland’s eyes opened in shock as he looked between them.

  “I mean, especially here sharing stories, it was pretty clear. And we’ve been looking into why you would enter the Brawl. You want to end it, don’t you?”

  Ryland nodded.

  “Not everything is your responsibility,” Rock said gently. “Look, kid. You’ve helped us with our happily ever afters. Yours seems to be a little more complicated. Tell us what’s going on, and we’ll all figure it out.”

  “There’s no way to figure it out,” he said. “I’m totally screwed, and it’s all my fault. I wanted her so badly I refused to see it.”

  “See what?”

  “That she wasn’t what I thought all along. I knew she was too interested in my family. I knew she was pushing me away. But I wouldn’t give up. I wanted her. My bear said she was mine.”

  “Calm down,” Ana said, putting a hand over his. “Just tell us what happened. Start at the beginning.”

  “There’s no time.” He sighed. “Ugh.” He ran a hand through his hair and tried to gather his thoughts.

  “Try,” Rosalyn urged. “Try for us, Ryland.”

  He let out a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. He didn’t know if the thought of something happening to his mate, the thought of dying, or the thought of telling everyone what had happened to his father was messing him up most.

  All of it combined was a heart attack waiting to happen.

  But he was Ryland Brolin, he reminded himself. He’d gotten where he was through planning, thinking, reacting. He could get through this, too.

  Especially since he had help.

  “Okay,” Ryland said, looking up at them. “This is what we’re going to do.”

  15

  Lea struggled against her chains, not caring that her skin was chaffed and bleeding.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been here, up in the mountains, hidden in the bushes, chained to a tree, but she knew she needed to get down to the Brawl, right freaking now.

  She rubbed and rubbed but couldn’t budge them, and she didn’t want to risk shifting and really injuring herself.

  But where was Ryland? Was he at the fight, intentionally losing, just so he could find her?

  Would Lance really let them kill Ryland? Frustrated tears bit at her eyes. How was that really supposed to solve anything?

  She realized now how pointless revenge was in this world.

  She wished she could tell Ryland she’d never wanted to betray him. Wished she could tell him she really had wanted to mate him, not to cause him trouble, but to try and protect him.

  She hoped she had the chance to explain it all.

  She heard footsteps approaching and winced. She really hoped no apex predators in the area had sensed her.

  She saw hands pushing apart the bushes in front of her and let out a breath of relief as she looked up to see Rock Brolin.

  “Thank heavens,” he said, turning back over his shoulder. “She’s up here.” He crouched and examined her chains. “Shit. I hope our shears can cut this.”

  Francis, the gentle giant, appeared out of the bushes next, and his deep-blue eyes lit with anger as he studied her bonds. He knelt and reached for the tape. “Can I?”

  She nodded. She was too numb with worry to feel the pain. He ripped it off quickly, and she let out a sigh of relief. “We have to get down and help Ryland.”

  “I know,” Rock said somewhat coldly. “Thanks to you, he’s basically killing himself.”

  “I know,” she said, feeling tortured, as Riker came forward and began to cut her bonds. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I don’t know what you know, but—”

  “We know you betrayed our brother and you’ve been spying on us. And that your brother is obsessed with our father.”

  She nodded.

  Rock was silent for a moment as Riker struggled with the chains. “I understand you had your own reasons for coming here. But why did you mate him?” His gray eyes, so like Ryland’s, were accusing. She was touched by their protectiveness for their brother.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said. “When I couldn’t stop Lance, I thought mating Ryland would protect him. From the moment I came here, I knew my revenge was misguided. But Lance insisted that we adhere to wolf ways, which means an eye for an eye. So if we couldn’t find John Brolin, that meant one of his sons.” She looked down. “But after meeting all of you, I could tell that none of you deserved it. That you’d all paid in your own way for John Brolin’s sins.”

  “Ryland most of all,” Riker said, sitting back with a huff as she felt her hands fall free.

  She rubbed them in front of her, watching in anticipation as he went to work on her ankles.

  “How so?”

  “Well, he carries a little more guilt than us,” Riker said, pushing down hard on the shears with a grimace. “And he doesn’t think we know. Hell, I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been stopping by the house to check on him. You probably know that Rock moved out of Bear Canyon and I moved out of the house but stayed around to keep an eye on things.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, I wasn’t that worried that Ryland would get hurt, because after Dad figured out Ryland was a—what did you call it? A dire bear?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, anyway, he didn’t want to pick a fight with that. He only wanted to pick on people smaller than him.”

  “Sounds right,” she muttered.

  Riker raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, you’ll have to tell us what he did to fuck you and your brother over after this. Sounds like a doozy.”

  “It doesn’t even matter anymore,” she said. “All that matters is getting to Ryland.”

  “Right,” Riker said. “Almost done.”

  “So what happened to John?”

  “Ryland killed him,” Riker said simply, drawing silence from Rock and Francis.

  “He what?” she asked, jaw dropping.

  “Well, yeah.” Riker scratched the back of his head. “I mean, I never brought it up with Ryland because I assumed he was fine with it. I mean, he plays things so close to the chest, he’s more successful than all of us, and he has never intimated that there was anything he was struggling with.”

  Rock nodded. “Riker only told me earlier this year. Other than that, I hadn’t really cared what had happened to John Brolin. I’d just accepted he disappeared. After all, he caused nothing but pain. But I knew, deep down, even though I didn’t know how it had happened.”

  “That’s a lot to carry on your own,” she said, thinking of all the times Ryland had tried to avoid the question of what had happened to his father. And she suddenly realized just why he didn’t trust his bear.

  “What happened?” she asked as Riker worked on the last part of her chains on her ankles that bound her to the tree trunk.

  “See, Ryland heard Dad outside with a woman. Melly, the town drunk. She’d been having a tryst with Dad, and things got violent. I guess Dad had to take out his anger somewhere.”

  Lea felt the blood drain out of her face. Growing up with that man had surely been some kind of nightmare.

  “Ryland tried to stop the fight, without shifting, to give the woman time to get away. But Dad, taking advantage of the situation where Ryland was reluctant to shift, caught Ryland across the neck with a knife, nearly mortally wounding him. That’s when he blacked out and shifted.”

  “Why didn’t you interfere?” she asked.

  “Because I knew Ryland would never forgive me if I put myself in the way of his bear. The rest happened as I was still walking up to the scene, and there was no time to intervene.”

  “So what happened?”

  “When Ryland shifted, Dad went after the woman instead. He was full bear at that point, and I think he intended to kill her. I was trying to reach her, but before I could, Ryland was there. He caught Dad by the throat, and the two fought.”

  “Wow,” she said. She couldn’t even imagine how traumatizing that had been.

  “You have to understand, when Ryland is his bear, he isn’t even aware of himself.” Riker sighed. “I grabbed the woman and told her to run so she wouldn’t have to see whatever happened. I helped her get to the bottom of the hill, and by the time I got back, it was already done.”

  “What was?”

  “Father was dead. Ryland’s bear was standing over him, covered in blood. It was violent, but I have never doubted for a moment that his bear made the right decision. Sometimes Ryland’s bear scares the crap out of me, but I’ve never seen it hurt something truly innocent. And I’ve seen it protect people. It’s complicated.”

  “So what happened then?” she asked, rubbing her ankles as her chains fell to the ground. She tried to get up but stumbled due to lack of blood in her legs. Francis caught her in his arms, carrying her up against his chest.

  “His bear dragged Dad off into the woods, presumably buried him. At least, I’m assuming. I saw fresh earth when I walked back there.”

  “Was it in a little clearing back behind the house, if you go through really thick forest?”

  Riker nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I know where it is.”

  “Anyway, I waited and watched. I didn’t know if I should tell Ryland what I knew. And when he came stumbling in, covered in blood, I was there to greet him. I told him it was okay and washed him off. He was still so young. And he seemed fine. He told me somewhat blankly that they’d had a fight and Dad left. And I guess, if he didn’t want me to know what happened, then I didn’t want to tell him I did.”

  He ran a hand through his hair as he pushed through the bushes, leading the way back to the fighting area. “I guess I made a mistake, though. I shouldn’t have let him think he was alone. I guess I thought if we never talked about it, it would just go away.”

  She bit her lip. It was easy to feel that way about secrets. About bad things. That if you could just sweep them under the carpet, they would disappear forever.

  “We have to get back there as fast as possible.”

  “That’s the idea,” Francis said, jogging through the brush on the steep mountainside as quickly as was safe. “But I mean, I don’t really understand your brother’s plan. It’s not like Ryland losing will kill him.”

  She blinked and stared up at him. “Actually, it will.”

  All three men froze. “What?” Rock asked.

  “Lance was telling me about it. It’s an old rule that Ryland has since removed from the rule book. Lance, being the obsessed person he was, copied the Brawl rules years ago when investigating our dad’s death.”

  “Oh, and…?” Riker asked, his voice tight.

  “A Brolin can only enter if he’s willing to risk death if he loses.”

  Rock groaned. “What is this, the Middle Ages? And what the fuck was he thinking? We don’t need him to end the Brawl. For fuck’s sake, Ryland. Not everything has to fall on you.”

  “And what a little shit for not telling us,” Riker said, though Lea could tell they were just worried for him.

  “Well, okay, we’ll just have to get you down there, and you’ll have to tell him to fucking win,” Francis said. “Make him want to. Because when he sent us up here to look for you, I’m pretty sure he was resigned to die if he had to. I mean, he thinks you betrayed him. And even so, I’m not sure he can let his bear out to beat your brother.”

  She nodded, coming up with a plan in her mind. She knew what she had to do. “Just hurry.”

  Ryland was losing his will to fight as he watched Lance circling above him. Lance’s eyes were red with bloodlust, and he hadn’t shifted yet, but probably was about to.

  He hadn’t needed to shift because Ryland hadn’t been able to put up a fight, knowing Lea was out there somewhere, helpless.

  He had to take whatever Lance dealt him, at least until his brothers found her safe.

  With Francis’s tracking ability, hopefully that would be soon. Because he wasn’t sure how long he could hang on.

  The spectators had backed away from the cage. They didn’t love the Brolins, but no one wanted to watch someone beat down like this.

  Ryland smiled up at Lance. “Is it as satisfying as you wanted?”

  “No,” Lance said. “But it will be when you die. When your brothers have to kill you for losing their own fight.” Lance’s grin spread. “Beautiful.”

  “Ugly,” Ryland said. “Ugly, ugly, ugly. Death always is. But what would you know about it?” Ryland pushed to his knees. “You’ve never gotten your hands dirty.” He narrowed his eyes, noting the blood dripping from his mouth, a cut by his eye, and scrapes on his ribs. He held his ribs with one hand as he spoke. “You’ve been dreaming of your petty-ass revenge your whole life, but you know what’s funny? While you were fucking useless, I’ve already completed your work for you.”