I choked on the absurdity of his understatement and probably would have been irritated by his delivery, coming from anyone but Vic. “Does the term ‘Alpha’ mean nothing to you?”

“You know I’m right.”

“Doesn’t matter now. He left.” And just saying the words made the bloody hole in my heart gape wider.

“Do you blame him?”

“No.” I turned on Vic, and the back of my throat burned with words I needed to say, but probably shouldn’t. “I blame myself. It’s all my fault—I’ve never denied that. But he just got up and walked out, in the middle of the night! Without even taking his stuff.”

“Maybe it hurts too bad for him to see you and know he can’t truly have you. It’s the same reason he never took a shift watching you at school, only it’s worse now, because this isn’t just physical betrayal—you let someone else into your heart, and until now, that’s been Marc’s exclusive territory. But he doesn’t have that anymore.”

“But I can’t help that!” I scrubbed my face with both frozen hands. “I can’t help loving Jace.”

“Maybe not,” Vic conceded. “But you didn’t even try. You didn’t love Marc enough to even try living without Jace.”

I frowned, my head spinning, my stomach churning, my heart aching and empty. “This is the worse pep talk ever.”

“This isn’t a pep talk. This is the truth.”

I had no answer for that. Vic was right—again. “But this is about more than our relationship. He broke a promise. He didn’t just leave me. He left you guys, too, when we need him most. People are going to die—some of whom he’s known half his life—and he’s not going to be there to see it. To prevent it. How could he do that to…the Pride?” Because no matter how badly Jace and I had hurt him, the rest of them hadn’t done a damn thing, and they didn’t deserve to be deserted.

Vic frowned, but held my gaze, and my stomach pitched harder. “What?” I demanded, when he didn’t say whatever he was thinking.

“He’s not breaking his promise, Faythe. He’ll be there for the fight.”

“You talked to him?” My heart thumped hard enough to bruise my chest. I’d tried calling him twice, and didn’t even get his voice mail. “When did you talk to him?”

“This morning, before your flight landed.”

“And he’s coming back?”

Vic nodded and met my gaze, and the truth shining in his burned. “He promised your dad he’d help you, even if you two didn’t wind up together. And that’s what’s happened, Faythe. He’s coming back for your father and for the Pride. Not to be with you.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked, watching Jace stare at his phone. Moonlight shone bright on his face, and his eyes seemed to glow. He was beautiful, without a doubt.

“Hell, no.” He gave me a nervous grin and leaned next to me against the trunk of a massive oak tree in Marc’s backyard. “But we do what we have to do, right?”

“Whatever it takes.” That had become my mantra. I’d do whatever it took to get the Pride back, and I’d sort out the carnage later. And Jace was in it with me, one hundred percent.

“Can I get a kiss for luck?”

I went up on my toes. “You can get a kiss for whatever you want.” Because Marc had washed his hands of me, so there was no reason not to kiss Jace now. So why did I still feel half-empty inside? Why was I sure my chill would last long after I went in from the cold?

“Well, at least there’s a perk.” Jace kissed me, and though my heart ached, my body responded. Remembered. But it wasn’t the right time. There hadn’t been a right time, because there was no privacy in such a small house.

But privacy wasn’t the real problem. The problem was that being with Jace could only make me feel better for a few minutes at a time. Marc was always there in the background, just out of reach, while my hands ached to touch him. I couldn’t tell Jace that, and eventually I would learn to deal with my loss, but getting over Marc wasn’t as easy as jumping into Jace’s bed. It would take time, and denying that would be doing us both a disservice.

A car door closed in the front yard, pulling me from my private agony. In the house, they were waiting for us, all packed and ready to go. We just needed official word from Patricia Malone that her husband and his men were on the ranch. Once we had that, we could leave. We’d eat dinner on the road and arrive in time to attack before dawn, when our invaders were hopefully still asleep.

Uncle Rick, Aaron Taylor, and Bert Di Carlo were all standing by with their men, within a few hours’ drive of the ranch. Waiting for word. The thunderbirds had assembled a couple of hours’ flight from the property, ready and eager to swoop in on command.

“I guess it’s time,” Jace whispered against my ear, and I tightened my arms around his neck.

“Yeah. Let’s just get it over with.” I understood his dread and respected his willingness to work through it.

He stepped back and autodialed.

“Jace?” His mother answered on the first ring. “Is that really you?”

“Yeah. It’s me.” He turned away from me, and I stared at the back of his head, brown waves shining in the moonlight.

“You shouldn’t be calling here. Cal says you… Do you know what they think you did?” Over the line a door opened, and her light footsteps rushed quickly over a hard-surface floor.