“Perhaps you can explain why you’re speaking for my brother’s mate,” Ben said with a growl.

“Perhaps you can all stop talking about me like I’m a chair!”

Nick was still holding her back and Cade and Lex had come over. Blondie smirked.

“Control your mate, Nick,” Sarah said and Tracy’s eyebrows shot up.

“What? What did she just say?” Cade growled and Nina was there, trying to calm him down.

And in the midst of the chaos, a blur of movement came from the left. Tracy, wedged between Gabe and Nick, couldn’t move and it knocked her down, but she was up and on top of Blondie in milliseconds, teeth bared.

“Stand down!” Ben yelled.

“Why should she?” Gabe demanded.

“If she’d just kept calm none of this would have happened!” Ben yelled back.

“This is not her fault!” Nick growled.

“I should kill you for that,” Tracy growled at blondie, who finally had the good sense to see just how outmatched she was and trembled beneath Tracy’s grip.

“I said, stand down.” It was then that the full impact of how ill-suited Ben was to lead the Pack hit Tracy. She had zero compunction to obey his command like she would have with Cade. If Cade had yelled an order like that she would have had no other choice but to obey. Pacific was a Pack rotting from the inside because it had an Alpha who wasn’t capable of leading. A sinking feeling took hold in Tracy’s

gut.

Still, she had to deal with the situation at hand. So she continued to ignore Ben and kept focused on the women beneath her. “What do you say, Blondie? Should I rip your empty little head off for jumping me blind like a coward?” Tracy’s face was up close to the other woman’s, just barely holding back her wolf.

But she did let it show in her eyes so Blondie would know just how close she was to real trouble.

Dimly she heard Ben move in her direction and Nick’s answering move to stop him. Gabe stayed in her peripheral vision, at the ready if he was needed. “He’s not going to save you, you know. Have you decided what you’re going to do yet?” Tracy’s voice was the barest of sounds but it registered.

“I…I apologize. Please, mercy. I was wrong to have attacked you blind. I yield.”

Tracy let go and stood up, turning her back on Blondie to let her know just how little she feared her.

“You bet you do.” She turned her gaze on Ben. “I do not stand down when I’ve been challenged.” And it wasn’t Ben’s place to stop her in that situation either, she’d been attacked and it was well within her rights to answer the challenge, even to the death. But she didn’t say that, not wanting to hurt Nick or cause any more trouble.

“You’ll do what I say you will.” Ben raised his chin.

Tracy moved forward and there was a general shuffling of wolves as people moved to intervene. She stopped when she’d reached Ben and Sarah. “You’d have to have the authority to do that.” Her voice was low but deadly. She wouldn’t escalate but she wouldn’t cow to an unreasonable threat to her either.

“Clear out!” Sarah ordered and most of the wolves complied but for Nick, Cade, Lex and Nina and their assorted parents. Gabe stayed as well.

“You have been insubordinate, Tracy. You’ve brought trouble into this Pack.”

“Bullshit. You can’t control your Pack and you’re looking to blame me for it. I didn’t do anything wrong.

Your wolf—an unranked wolf—jumped me blind. That’s an unacceptable breach of discipline. No Pack would frown on me defending myself, which is what I did. By rights I could have killed her for it, I didn’t even blood her.”

Ben pushed her and, shocked, she froze for a moment until she shoved him back. It occurred to her then that she could take him in a challenge. Her wolf was incensed and she did her best to rein it in.

“What is wrong with you?” Nick demanded of his brother in a growl. He pushed against Ben, his eyes had begun to get that otherworldly blue that she knew signaled his wolf trying to surface to defend her. His hands were around Ben’s throat, squeezing, Ben was desperately clawing at him to get him to let go. “You just shoved my mate!”

“Nick and Ben! Stop it this instant!” Chuck Lawrence, the former Alpha and their father, stepped in, pulling Nick back. “Ben, this is insane! This is your brother’s mate, a Second in your Pack. You just put your hands on her!”

“Don’t do it again,” Gabe said in a growl.

“And what the f**k is that all about anyway?” Sarah demanded. “Why is he speaking for your mate, Nick? Have you asked yourself that question? Just what is between them?”

“Oh you’d love that, wouldn’t you? Jesus, what kind of Alpha throws blood in the water? What’syour agenda, Sarah?” Tracy was outraged. And upset. The whole evening was a clusterfuck.

“Tri-mate bond.”

Everyone got quiet and looked at Lia, Tracy’s grandmother.

“What? What did you just say?” Nick looked at her, eyes wide.

“It’s the tri-mate bond. Surely I’m not the only one who can see it?”

“The tri-mate bond is a fairy tale.” Gabe’s voice was flat as he said it but his heart raced at the thought.

“So are werewolves.” Ben and Nick’s mother said this kindly but firmly. “And it does happen. Not often, but once every generation or so. I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now.”