He was home. There was a light on in the living room, yellow in the darkness as she pulled into the driveway. His SUV was parked there, too. She stared through the cold rain coming down at that yellow light.

He was home. In the living room, maybe. She couldn’t see in from here, because the big windows in the living room faced the back of the house. But she could guess.

She got out of her car and walked up the drive, ducking out of the rain. She was wearing a coat, but her legs were bare beneath the shirtdress she’d thrown on to have dinner with her parents, and her canvas sneakers were wet by the time she got to the covered front porch. She shook herself off and banged on the door. “Brody, it’s me.” Stupid, because he probably knew. Knew she was here, knew who she was.

He opened the door. He was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt, bare feet. His hair was mussed. Even from where she stood in the darkness, she could see shadows under his eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said over the increasing sound of the rain.

His gaze burned into her. “Tell you what?”

“You told me you killed him,” she said, worry and anger and fear balled together in her throat. “Like it was a decision. Like you just decided to commit murder because of your mother, because that’s who you are. You let me think that for two days. And you didn’t tell me why.” She stepped forward, closer to him. “Who was he going to kill, Brody? Because that’s why you did it, isn’t it? That’s why you chose that night. So why didn’t you tell me?”

His dark eyes blazed, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her into the house. “Come here,” he said roughly, closing the door behind her. He moved her back and pinned her to the closed door, his cheekbones sharp in the shadows. “How the hell do you know?” he said in a voice close to a wolf’s growl, looming over her, his hand still on her upper arm. “How can you fucking know? Everyone who knew is dead. Tell me who told you, Alison. Tell me now.”

“No one told me!” she cried. Even like this, even alone in the dark with him, with this angry mood of his, she wasn’t afraid of him. She lifted her chin and stared back into his eyes. “I’m not an idiot, that’s all. It took me two days, but I figured it out myself.”

“Do not mess with me, Alison,” he said.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” she said. She thumped her palm on his chest, but he didn’t budge. She may as well have tried to move granite. “Brody, I’m pack. Where do you think I’ve been living for the past twenty-four years? I lived under Charlie’s rule just like you did. I watched my father come home with a haunted look in his eyes and a scar on his hand. I worked in the Four Spot every day and heard about what went on. The rumors about your mother, and all the other rumors, too. I know, Brody.”

He was silent, his dark gaze consuming her.

“People have started to breathe again since Charlie died,” she continued. “I see that, too, in the diner. People talk more freely, laugh more often, come in with their kids. No one is shedding a tear over their old alpha, believe me. Your brothers aren’t going to banish you or put you to death, either, because they hated him as much as you did. So tell, me, Brody. Who was Charlie going to kill?”

She watched a muscle tick in his jaw, and then the words ground out. “All of us,” he said. “My brothers and me. We were slated for execution. There was a plan.”

Alison stared at him. “He was going to have his sons killed?”

“No,” Brody said. “He wasn’t going to have us killed. He was going to do it himself. He was going to put us down one by one. Me last, of course. Because he wanted me to watch the first three die. Just like he did with my mother.” He paused. “Charlie snapped her neck, did you know that? With his own hands. As an example to me. She begged him to let her live. She begged him for mercy.”

Alison put a hand to her mouth. She was barely able to listen to the words—but Brody had had to watch it. And then he’d had to deal with it, alone.

“That isn’t all,” Brody said. “He had plans for after we were dead. He was going to expand pack territory. Specifically, into Grant County.”

Grant County was the neighboring county, populated entirely by humans. “What are you talking about?” Alison said.

“He was planning an attack on the humans,” Brody said. “To get them out of the county once and for all and take over the land as Donovan territory. He had it worked out, step by step, exactly how he was going to do it.”

“He can’t do that. That’s… insane.”

“That was Charlie,” Brody said.

“The humans would never let him win. There are far more of them than us. There would be cops, state troopers, the army—”

“I know. It was a suicide mission. Humans would have died, shifters would have died, and we would have lost in the end. My brothers and I would never have stood for it. Do you see? That’s why we had to die first. Because we would have stood in his way.”

She stared at him in shock as all the pieces fell into place. “So it wasn’t random,” she said. “It wasn’t even rage that made you do it. You killed Charlie to save your brothers’ lives, your own life. You killed him to prevent war.”

Brody touched her cheek briefly, then dropped his hand again. “Don’t ever think I didn’t hate him,” he said. “I did. I wanted to kill him for years. I fantasized about it. But when I learned what his plans were, I had to act. One death, or dozens of deaths—maybe hundreds. Months of violence, people living in fear. So I chose, and I acted. That’s what an alpha does. That’s what I was showing you up on the ridge.”

“Does—does anyone else know?” she asked.

“Carson Dunne knew,” Brody said. Carson had been the pack’s medical man, high up in Charlie’s pack. He’d done the coroner’s report on Charlie’s death, and then he’d left town. “He falsified the coroner’s report for me, but it wasn’t because he was trying to prevent war. It was because Charlie was dead and he knew the game was up, and I paid him a lot of money to write down what I wanted and get the hell out of town.”

Alison’s head was spinning. The secrets went deeper and deeper, it seemed.

“John Marcus knew, too,” Brody said, naming another of Charlie’s top henchmen. “He was all for the expansion of territory, because he thought it would give him the opportunity for more power. But when Charlie died before it could happen, he tried to take over the pack instead.” His gaze pinned Alison in place. “Now he’s dead, too.”

Alison nodded. John Marcus had been part of the attempted coup that the Donovan brothers had put down—ending in Ian executing Ronnie Marcus after Ronnie had killed his own father, John.

So much violence, so much death, running through Shifter Falls like a river buried deep below the ground.

“So no one knows, then,” Alison said. “Not now. Except you and me.”

Brody leaned in close, his arms boxing her in against the door, and she could smell his heady wolf smell, feel his breath against her neck. “I’m broken, Alison,” he said. “I’ve murdered. I’ve lied. I’m not fit to lead anyone. I’m not whole. My brain doesn’t work right, and my wolf and I are at each other’s throats. Is that the man you think you want?”

She raised a hand and touched his face, stroking her thumb along his cheekbone, feeling the warmth of his skin as he caught the scent of her. “Yes,” she told him. “It is.”

He went very still. She kept her hand where it was, cupping his jaw.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“You can’t,” she reminded him, stroking his cheekbone again. “I’m your mate. That makes me the one person in the world you’re incapable of harming, remember? I told you, I’m not scared of you. You won’t hurt me. So here I am. Let me be your mate. Let me help you. Let me help put things right.”

He closed his eyes. In the shadows, she could see his dark lashes against his cheek. He was wrestling with himself. But instead of the usual argument in his head, this went deeper. He was wrestling with his soul.

Then he opened his eyes again.

“You win,” he said. And he kissed her.