Constantine coughed as he struggled to breathe. Kill him. The urgent voice inside Varyk’s head was hard to ignore. It was what he should do. It was definitely what he owed him.

But curiosity won out. At least for a few minutes.

Varyk released him.

Constantine fell to the floor where he gasped on his hands and knees. Tall and well built, he had coal-black hair and sharp features. It was easy to see the jackal in him. Just as it was easy to see the wolf in Varyk. No one would ever peg them as siblings, which was fine by him.

“Why are you here?” Varyk growled out.

Constantine looked up at him. “I’m being hunted.”

“And I should give a damn, why?”

Curling his lip, Constantine pushed himself to his feet. “Since they’ve already mistaken your scent for mine, I thought the least I could do was warn you.”

Varyk scowled at his words. “What are you talking about?”

“How do you think I found you here? A group of jackals came to Sanctuary looking for me. Since I wasn’t there, I knew there was only one other person who could smell enough like me to draw my enemies to them… you.”

He gave Constantine a droll stare. “Wow, you figured that out all on your own too. I’m impressed. You didn’t even need to put a quarter in the Zoltan machine. Truly amazing.”

“Knock the sarcasm.”

Varyk closed the distance between them. “I’d rather knock you.”

Constantine tensed, but to his credit, he didn’t attack. He merely stood there, taunting him with his presence. “Believe me, I know. Do you think it’s easy for me to come here after what happened?”

Varyk grabbed him by his lapels and jerked him hard. “Do you really think I care?”

“Don’t you even want to know why I’m being hunted?”

“I truly don’t give a shit. In fact, I hope they catch you.”

Constantine knocked his hands away from him and stepped back. “Fine, brother. I’ll leave you to your solitude.”

“You mean exile.”

Constantine winced, then paused. He looked back at Varyk over his shoulder. “Mom died last spring. I just thought you should know.”

Varyk wanted to be cold and callous. Unfeeling. He wanted that news not to hurt him. Goddamn it, how could it hurt so much after all they’d done to him?

Yet it did. He hated that he’d never had a chance to see his mother one last time.

She’d have only slapped you in the face had you tried.

And right then, he hated himself more for that weakness inside him than he hated them.

“Before I go though,” Constantine said, “I have to ask one question.”

“That is?”

“How did a wolf-jackal hybrid infused with the powers of an Egyptian goddess end up as the lapdog of a man like Eli Blakemore?”

Varyk gave his “brother” a snide smirk. “Well, I guess they don’t call us jack-offs without a reason.”

CHAPTER NINE

Aimee looked up from her book as she heard a sharp knock on her door. Closing her eyes, she saw her brother Alain in the hallway with a tray of tea and biscuits. Unlike the majority of her brothers, he had short blond hair and a face that reminded her of a cherub. His blue eyes were always bright and warm, and he kept a small, well-trimmed goatee.

She was warmed at his thoughtfulness. “Come in.”

He opened the door slowly-he was always wary of entering a female bear’s territory without proper invitation. His mate, Tanya, had taught him well. “It’s me. You want some tea?”

“Absolutely.” She set her book on the bed and went to hold the door while he came in and put his tray down on her dresser.

Closing the door behind him, she moved back to her bed.

Alain poured them both a cup of vanilla Rooibos tea and brought her the porcelain snack plate that was piled high with sugary biscuits.

She couldn’t help smiling. “You haven’t done this for me in years.”

He drizzled honey into his cup… a lot of honey-they were bears after all. He held the plastic bear container toward her.

Aimee took it from him and duplicated the gesture as he licked the sweetness from his fingers. “I feel like a cub, waiting for Maman or Papa to come in and yell at us for breaking curfew-you were always so good at getting me into trouble with late-night tea fests.”

Alain laughed. “Maman was never the one who scared me as a cub… only as an adult do I fear her.”

Aimee hesitated at the odd note in his voice. “Why would you say that?”

“For the same reason you would. I love Maman, you know that. But there are times when I sense something about her that makes me nervous.”

Aimee agreed as she set the honey aside. “She doesn’t like the others staying here with us. I think she’s afraid of them discovering our secret… or worse, of them turning on us like Josef did.” He was the one who’d led the party that had ultimately killed her brothers.

Like Wren, Josef had been taken into their den as a wounded pubescent cub instead of being left out to die as Maman had wanted. As soon as Josef had healed, he’d turned on them for no reason at all. It was almost as if he’d hated and resented them for having a family when he didn’t. And for that alone, he’d tried to destroy them.

His betrayal had scarred all of them-one moment of compassion that had turned into a lifetime of regret-but Maman was haunted more than the others. She blamed herself for not being more suspicious of him. Blamed herself for the deaths of Bastien and Gilbert.

That was why Maman was so hard on everyone now. She kept expecting others to turn on her for no reason too.

Alain stirred his tea with a small demi-spoon. “There are many secrets in this house, chere. Sometimes I think too many.”

Aimee arched a brow at that. “What are you hiding?”

He paused to look down at his palm where the intricate scroll-work lay that declared him mated. It was a mark that was identical to the one on Tanya’s palm. “You know my secret.”

Her heart clenched at the reminder. Though he was mated to a good bear, his heart belonged to another. It always had.

“I’m sorry, Alain.”

He shrugged. “I have nothing to complain about. Tanya’s loyal to me. She’s kind and we have two beautiful sons. How could I be upset by that?”

“Do you still think about Rachel?”

Ignoring her question, he looked down at his cup as he continued to stir the honey through the dark liquid. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure.”

He tapped the spoon twice before placing it on his plate. “Have you noticed anything with Kyle?” Kyle was their youngest brother. A little odd at times, he was basically good-natured and sweet even if he did keep to himself more than the others did.

“Such as?”

He hesitated before he spoke. “That he’s an Aristos.”

Aimee froze in disbelief at those words. “What?”

“He’s an Aristos,” Alain repeated, his gaze burning into hers. “I’m sure of it.”

Aristi were the most powerful sorcerers in their world. Stronger than Sentinels, they were the one thing every Arcadian prayed to be and the one being that made the blood of all Katagaria run cold. “How do you know?”

“We were playing around yesterday, practicing holds, and he took me down with an ease of strength no one at his age should possess. And when he pinned me, I saw it in his eyes.”

Aimee felt sick at the news. Aristi were the ones who’d murdered her brothers and they were the one thing their mother couldn’t stand. It was also another secret Aimee kept from everyone. She was one too. “Maman will kill him if it is so.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Have you discussed this with Kyle?”

Alain shook his head, his eyes horrified by the mere suggestion. “Absolutely not. You’re the only one I trust to keep this between us. I would never do anything to cause him harm and I know you feel the same.”

Aimee heard the underlying current. There was more to this than what he was telling her. “But?”