She wanted to ask what had happened, but she didn’t want to poke at a wound that had barely scabbed over. So instead, she gave a little of her own past, leaving the decision of whether to share his in return up to him. “I don’t remember a lot about my parents. My mom . . . she was always smiling, always on the move. My dad was a very active person, a very dominant wolf. I remember the Alpha wanted him to be Beta, but he refused because my mom didn’t want to be Beta female or to share so much of him with a job.”

Derren knew it wasn’t uncommon for females to resent their mate being Beta, since the position took up a great deal of their time and energy. “My parents were both submissive.”

Ally gaped. “Really?”

He nodded, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. “Extremely submissive. Having a son as dominant as me was a shock. My mom spent a lot of time in her greenhouse—she loved growing things. My dad was a total nerd with a Star Wars fetish.”

“Seriously?”

Nodding, Derren began threading his fingers through her hair. “As you can imagine, I didn’t have much in common with either of my parents. But they were good people.”

Not good enough. “What about your sister?”

“She’s submissive, though not as submissive as they were. Roxanne is what you might call a ‘follower’—she goes with the crowd, doesn’t always think for herself.” It wasn’t because she was submissive. Whether dominant or submissive, a shifter could be strong-willed, feisty, and decisive.

In a nutshell, there were only two differences between dominant and submissive wolves: dominants were always physically stronger, and dominants could release heavy vibes that would force the submission of any wolf less powerful than them, which therefore made all submissive wolves vulnerable to dominants.

“That’s why I’m shocked she contacted me,” he continued. “The rest of the pack wouldn’t want me at the funeral. I would have thought she’d do what they expect and not tell me.”

“It was way over a decade ago that you lost your family. A lot can change in that time. Maybe she’s not so easily led anymore. Maybe she even doubts your guilt.”

Derren snorted inwardly. “None of them doubted my guilt, Ally.” His tone turned grave. “Trust me on that.”

Ally doodled circles on his shoulder with the tip of her finger. “I take it the Seer was a damn good liar then. Maybe he was related to Rachelle.”

“What makes you so positive I’m not guilty? You don’t even know what I was accused of, yet you believe I was innocent of it.”

“Then tell me about it.” Hastily, she added, “Only if you want to. No pressure. I won’t be offended if you’d rather not talk about it.”

He’d definitely prefer not to talk about it, but he wanted to see Ally’s reaction, wanted to know if she’d doubt him. “I was accused of raping a human girl.”

Totally stunned, Ally just gawked.

“One of my friends from the pack, Wayne, was dating her friend, and that was how I met Julia. I only saw her a couple of times. Nothing at all happened between us. She had a human boyfriend—who hadn’t liked me one bit, paranoid that I wanted his girl. A couple of weeks after I last saw Julia, she was raped.”

“She told the police it was you?”

“She told the police she was followed home by a wolf. That as she was walking down an alley, someone then jumped her from behind, forced her onto her hands and knees, and raped her. It was her boyfriend who first mentioned me; he told the police I was jealous of him, that I wanted her. Unfortunately, those cops had a hate-on for shifters, so they immediately considered me the prime suspect, even though there wasn’t an ounce of evidence. Apparently Julia had washed it all away.”

“And your pack’s Seer told them you were guilty?” Ally asked. At his nod, she added, “Why?”

“His son, Wayne, was the one who raped her. Wayne broke down and confessed to me and his father. The next day, cops turned up at our territory. The Seer, Neil, had called them; told them he’d had a vision that it was me who’d raped her. He said that I’d forced him to keep it quiet by threatening to accuse his son, but that Neil didn’t feel he could hold his silence any longer.” Derren smiled bitterly. “He was a convincing liar, I’ll give him that.”

“And, what, the police were happy to accept that?”

“They hated shifters, and they wanted justice for Julia. They wanted someone to blame more than they wanted the truth.”

That made Ally think of how Greg and Clint had interrogated her; having already made up their minds on the matter of her guilt, they’d simply wanted a confession—not the truth.

“I was banished from the pack, so I didn’t have shifter legal representation. I had a human attorney who also happened to hate shifters. Neil stood up in court and testified against me. When your own pack stands against you, that’s enough to send you to prison.”

Because packs stuck together, protected each other from outsiders. Turning their back on Derren was as good as announcing he was guilty. “Did you tell your pack you were innocent?”

“Of course. But Neil had already told everyone that the only reason he’d kept his silence was that I’d threatened to accuse his son of the crime if he told anyone. So when I spoke up against Wayne, no one was surprised. If anything, it gave further weight to Neil’s account.”