A knock on their motel room door woke Will up in the middle of the night. He got up to answer it, rubbing at his eyes blearily. Behind him, Logan groaned and sat up.

“What is it?” his alpha asked.

A man in a suit, another wolf, stared Will down from the other side of the door.

“Come outside,” the man demanded, and Will shook his head.

“What? No, I…” He tried to shut the door, but the man in the suit pressed a gun to his rounded pregnant belly and Will froze. Slowly he walked outside and down the stairs to the motel parking lot, his hands behind his head. “Please,” he begged softly.

Logan rushed out after them as soon as he realized what was happening, which was probably the intent. Will was led over to a black town car and pushed onto his knees, the gun now pressed to his temple. He watched as Logan approached, snarling.

“Let him go,” his mate demanded, and Will took a deep breath. Logan could handle this. Neither of them would die tonight, he just had to convince himself of that and stay calm. Not do anything stupid.

Out of the vehicle stepped the alpha, Robert. He was older now, with slicked back grey hair and a tightly fitted black suit, just like his goons. He sneered at Will, but walked over to face Logan.

“Leave,” Mr. Graves said, and Will struggled to see what was going on, but he could only see the back of the man’s head.

Logan’s voice was angry, but surprisingly steady, considering.

“You killed my family, Graves. You killed my father in his sleep like a coward, and then you killed my mother and my brothers, even though they did nothing to you, ever.”

Mr. Graves cackled, and Will shivered at the sound of it.

“Little Logan. I wondered if you would come back. I guess it was a mistake, leaving you alive. Look what you’ve done. Grown into an alpha of your very own. Found a mate. You could have stayed away, but no. You’re back. Here. This is my town now, Harris. You won’t take it from me.”

Logan lifted his head.

“You owe me a fight. I remember that night. Do you? You told me that if I needed revenge, I could come and take it when I was old enough. I’m here, and I’m going to kill you.”

The older alpha laughed again, and Will growled softly, hating the sound of it, hating how he mocked his fiancé.

“You’re going to die in front of your omega,” Graves spat. “Is that what you want?”

Logan didn’t falter. “I want to fight. For this territory. One on one, and your goons better let my omega free before we start.”

Mr. Graves snarled, but he knew that it was the way. An alpha fight was between alphas. No omega or anyone else should be involved, and even a man like Robert Graves couldn’t go against a tradition that old.

“Let the omega go,” he told them, and they released Will, who ran over to hug Logan tightly.

“Don’t lose,” he begged Logan, and then went and stood back.

The moon was high and almost full. Both alphas would be almost at full strength. It would be brutal. But it was destiny, as much as Logan saving Will had been, for Logan to come back and avenge his family. He was born to reclaim this territory.

Both alphas shifted mid-attack as they launched at each other. Will realized he’d never even seen Logan in wolf form. He was huge, nearly black, and it became clear that Graves, with his skinny grey form, was nowhere near in his prime anymore.

Logan tore into the other alpha with decades of pent-up anger, and with the strongest instinct in the world—he was protecting his mate, and his child.

When bright, crimson blood flowed over his alpha’s coat, Will averted his gaze, hating to watch. Vicious snarls and a sickening whimper from one of them awoke the dead night. A few lights flickered on in the windows of the motel. Will thought about a life without Logan and held his round belly tight, nausea rolling through his stomach like a deadly wave. Please don’t die, Will begged silently. Please.

It was over faster than Will thought it might be. When the grey wolf finally stopped moving beneath Logan, and the terrifying noises ceased, Will ran over to him and hugged the huge black wolf, his alpha, the alpha of this town.

“You’re bleeding,” he whispered, but Logan didn’t seem concerned. Graves was a lot worse off.

Will clung to his fiancé tightly, and watched in horror as the men in suits put their alpha’s body in the trunk and drove off.

“They won’t be back…will they?” he asked, looking down into Logan’s pained hazel eyes. He had a deep, bloody scratch along the left side of his face, and his fur was matted thick with blood. Logan would never be the same, would he?

Logan shook his head, exhausted and hurt, but confidently victorious. Will believed him. Graves’ era was over.

“Come on, Alpha, we need to get you inside.”

It was still the middle of the night, and Logan definitely needed rest after that. Will slid his arm around Logan as he shifted back into his human form, and supported him a little bit as they walked back up the stairs to their motel room. Logan was weary, limping a little. Will could tell he was trying to be brave, but he heard him hiss softly in pain as they made their way up each step. The wounds would heal quickly for his strong alpha, but Will worried more about what might be going on in Logan’s mind.

It was the strangest feeling. Will knew he was safe now, but he felt…unsettled. That had been the most violent thing he’d ever witnessed, and he felt ashamed for having had any part in it. Still, he had to admit he’d gotten the result he wanted. Logan had won. Robert Graves was dead.

Dead. They’d killed someone, his mate had murdered that man. For revenge? For safety? Were those good enough reasons?

He put Logan into the bed. He winced, but said nothing. Logan was very quiet, much like him, and Will understood. He crawled into bed and pulled the covers over them both once more, trembling a little. How could he sleep after that? In one night, less than twenty minutes of his entire life, everything had changed once more. Why did it always happen so fast like that? They hadn’t even had a chance to try to talk Robert into leaving.

Not that he would have. Ever. It just wasn’t an alpha’s way. This was the way it was done, and always would be done, and Will had to come to accept that.

In that case, they were still in danger. Wouldn’t they always be? Wouldn’t there always be other alphas to come in and try to take over the land, to fight his mate to the death?

He began to understand where Logan’s fear had come from, why he had tried so hard to avoid having a family. As long as Logan was an alpha, their family would be a target. Maybe the other alphas wouldn’t slaughter their entire family like Graves had, but did it matter? Will wasn’t ready to lose Logan, not ever. And yet, how many alphas died a natural death? Will wasn’t sure, but after what he’d just seen, he was willing to guess it was a lot lower than the rest of the general population.

He wrapped his slender arms around Logan, trying to breathe slowly, not to panic. There was always a way, always a solution to the problem. They would find it, together, after some sleep.

If he could sleep.

* * *

Logan lay in the darkness with his lover, trying to come to terms with what he’d done, what he had to do. Finally, after all those years, he had killed the man who had murdered his family. Justice, that was what it was, right?

At least he didn’t have to worry about Robert Graves slaughtering his new family. A murderer was dead. At the same time, a new one had been born. Logan rationalized to himself that he had killed a bad man, not an innocent family, not a good man and his wife and children, but a monster, a man who killed for the joy of it, and probably had lost no sleep at all after that fateful night.

Once he thought about that, he felt better. He had done his duty as an alpha, and he would just have to work as hard as he could to bring this town back to it’s former glory, to help the people rebuild.

Logan wrapped his arms around Will and held him tight. He never could have done it without his omega there. Will had given him so much strength and bravery, and their threat toward him had only sealed their fate. Logan never wanted to see his mate with a gun to his head again, though. Never. His pregnant omega seemed so vulnerable there in his arms. He knew how strong and brave Will really was, but Logan still had the urge, the instinct, to protect him, to keep him safe in his strong arms for as long as possible.

Logan kissed Will’s forehead, and Will surprised him by opening his deep brown eyes and gazing up at him.

Neither of them spoke. It would seem blasphemous to do so, Logan felt, in the heavy silence of the night. Instead, they kissed, their lips meeting desperately, caressing each other sweetly as their hot tongues tangled. Logan lost himself in that kiss, letting it soothe every part of him. No matter what, he was in love with this man. He felt tossed around by life, more lost at sea than he had ever been on the Bering Sea. Will was his new anchor, and he held him steady, reminded him with every breath and every heartbeat what his priorities were.

They would need a house, and a nursery, for their baby. Logan thought maybe he could build the house himself, hire some help. Will could help paint, and work on his book. Logan could never be content with sitting-work. He needed to be active, he needed to use his hands and his strong body and be physically useful. Eventually, he’d need to find another job, but he had enough savings to live off of for a while, especially if he sold Seawolf.

That would be difficult. He really didn’t want to sell her. She had been his home for so long. Now, Will was his home. A good life for their child, that was his primary concern, and after that came Will’s health and happiness, and lastly his own. An empty boat docked in Alaska had very little to do with any of that, but it was sentimental. He wasn’t ready just yet.

Finally, exhaustion really hit him. Somehow, he stopped thinking about murder, he stopped tasting blood in his mouth. His eyelids became heavy and he slept, this time uninterrupted.