“What the hell was that about?” Yuri asked as he quickly followed me.

“It seems Father is not the person I thought he was when I was younger…” It angered me but at the same time, it made me feel sad. I guess Bran was the one who kept things running so smoothly… “Do you know where Trystan is by any chance?”

“I heard he was taking Sina to the Ice Festival,” he said.

“Well, aren't you just a helpful bundle of information.” I smiled and ruffled his hair.

Yuri went a bit red with embarrassment, but he puffed out his chest proudly. “It’s my job.” As a beta? I thought but didn’t say anything. We made our way to the Ice Festival.

“Are you sure you want to crash your brother’s and your ex’s date?” he asked with a grin as we stood at the entrance to the festival.

“I’m pissed at Father right now, so yes.” And I really needed to hear the Prince’s opinion on this. Father’s attitude couldn’t have been okay, could it? “You take the right side, I'll go left. Call if you see him.”

Yuri nodded and we went our separate ways, scanning the crowd. It was probably really stupid to feel so desperate to hear his opinion. Shit, me and Trystan didn’t talk these days, hell we didn’t even look at each other. We didn’t exactly have a close relationship. He hated me, I hated me. Two weeks ago he was more than ready to kill me. Still, his opinion on this felt like the most important thing in the universe right now. Was Father growing senile or did Trystan see it the same way?

There were a lot of people at the festival, yet it was impossible to miss Trystan. He stood by the lake, emanating authority and arrogance even though he was leaning against a tree drinking hot chocolate. Sina stood next to him with the same drink, talking to him with a wicked smile on her lips. I made my way to them. When I was almost there I suddenly froze when Trystan did something I never thought he was capable of. He smiled lovingly at Sina and kissed her. Huh… Weird. Here I thought he wasn’t capable of positive emotions.

Well, the second he looked up and saw me his smile faded and he openly glared at me. “What do you want?” he asked with hostility. Damn. Sina turned too, looking quite confused to see me coming towards them.

“I need to talk to you. It’ll be just a moment,” I said with an apologetic look.

“Can’t it wait? We’re on a date.” You idiot. He didn’t say the last part but it was obvious from his voice.

“No, actually it can’t. It concerns the safety of the pack.” To be honest I didn’t even know why he hated me so much anymore. Yeah, the pack thing with Yuri and Scott, pissed him off, but he hated me even before that. I guess I was just the stupid little brother.

“Which pack?” he asked without missing a beat. Sina looked quite shocked by his bluntness. But he was right. One of these days me and Father would have to talk about this. Pretending the problem didn’t exist wouldn’t solve it.

Before I could answer though, his phone started ringing. What the hell was with these phones? He looked who called, frowned, then without a word stepped away to pick it up, leaving me alone with Sina. Asshole.

Well if I wasn’t feeling so annoyed it might’ve felt awkward since Sina was doing her best to look at anything but me. I should say something… “Sorry for crashing your date, but this is really important,” I said quietly.

“It’s alright I guess…” She sighed. We stayed quiet after that, watching Trystan talking to someone on the phone. She drank down her hot chocolate and then looked at me watching me closely, almost as if looking for something. I fidgeted uncomfortably. Her look felt almost… judgmental, criticizing. “You know, there is something I wanted to ask you for a long time…” Uh-oh. That sounded dangerous. “Why did you date me all those years ago?”

Well fuck. What was I supposed to say? “Want me to be completely honest?” I asked, biting my lower lip nervously. She nodded. “You’re pretty and you were obviously into me.” I shrugged. “All the guys were talking about how they wanna fuck a girl and so I just did what they did. It took me some time to admit it wasn’t what I wanted…”

“Of course.” She shook her head. “And when you finally admitted it to yourself you went and fucked my brother.”

My eyes went wide and this weird shocked sound escaped me. “You know?”

“I’m his sister and your ex, of course I know, idiot,” she said, frowning at something in the distance.

I just stared at her, my cheeks heating up with embarrassment. “To my defense, I did break up with you the day before I made my move on him.” I wasn’t a cheater.

“Yeah, you did.” She sighed then smiled at Trystan who was pacing with the phone to his ear and an exasperated look on his face. “To be completely honest too I only dated you to make your brother jealous.” What? I just blinked at her, dumbfounded. She smiled wickedly. “What? He is terrible at showing his emotions so I thought he didn’t care about me. I wanted him to be jealous and fight for me. He didn’t. But he did comfort me when we broke up. Now I’m happy.”

“You used me.” I faked a hurt face.

“Well, you weren’t with me out of love either.” She grinned and I did too, easy energy settling between us now.

“I’m glad you’re happy now. You’ll make a good queen to Trystan.” I smiled actually believing that. I was pretty sure she could pull Trystan by his tail in the future. Poor Trystan. I laughed in my head.

Said-Prince finally put down the phone and made his way back to us. “This ‘threat to the pack’ does it have anything to do with the Silver Heart pack?” he asked.

“Yes, kind of.” I nodded.

“A huge meeting is happening in the Silver heart pack house. Do you think he’s planning to attack us?” He actually looked worried.

“It’s probably an initiation ritual. I saw some loners on their way there wanting to join the pack,” I explained. “Elliot has been recruiting for some time now, don’t you know that?”

“I do, but he upped the scale. I know he wants to be bigger than the Ghealach pack, but at this rate, he will get in way over his head. There’s a limit to how many wolves can get along in a pack.” So Trystan did keep an eye on Elliot’s pack. Good. Fucking halleluja. But why was Father acting like this? Did he already decide to leave everything to Trystan? Alistair Ghealach retiring... Now there was something no one probably thought would ever happen. I personally thought he would outlive me... Father had been a constant in the world of werewolves for hundreds of years. I guess it was about time he got tired. Still... It felt weird to even think about it.

“What will we do about it?” I asked, worrying my lower lip.

“We need more information first and foremost,” he said.

“I could talk to the loners, technically I belong to neither pack so it’s perfect,” I offered.

He watched me for a second measuring me with his cold gaze. I gave the look right back, refusing to flinch away. Surprisingly my wolf who used to be kind of scared of Trystan was ready to challenge him. Damn. Dominance wasn’t a given thing. It could easily change with time. Was I becoming more dominant?

“Alright. Get them on your side. The loners probably won’t know much, but maybe you could go bother Elliot himself. He wanted you to join the pack right?” How the hell did he know that? I haven’t told him. Only Scott and Yuri knew. It made me both happy he knew what was going on and worried about Father who seemed to be out of it.

“Right. One more thing. What do you know of Baltazar?” I asked with high hopes he would tell me what was going on.

“He’s still not picking up the phone,” Trystan said, already texting someone.

“I know, I mean his movements before all this mess started,” I specified.

He looked up at me and frowned. “Is there something to know? The vampires have been quiet for some time…” Maybe too quiet…? Before I could say that though he continued. “Most of the vampire stuff was handled by Bran. I’m not actually sure why,” he said.

Bran… Fuck hearing his name still hurt. He really was the backbone of the pack. Oh… Oh, I was such an idiot. That was why Father was so pissed. Bran was his beta, Bran kept an eye on the vampires, Bran was gone... Well, now I felt like an ass. But he could’ve just told me it was handled by Bran instead of calling me a child! How could my Father be an alpha when he was so bad at communicating?

“Supposedly Baltazar has been in a catatonic state,” I said.

“What?” Trystan looked genuinely surprised by that. Then he stopped and thought about it for a moment. “I guess they have been quiet before this mess started.”

“Okay well, I’m working on getting a meeting with him so we’ll see then. Right now I’m worried about the Silver Heart pack,” I said and smiled at Yuri when I felt his hand land on my shoulder. But he wasn’t looking at me. A weird almost cautious look passed between him and Trystan. Oh. Fuck and here I thought Trystan and me didn’t get along. The air between those two was so thick it was unbreathable.

“I have my informants on the pack. You try to play nice with both them and the vampires. I don’t like it but you are the most qualified for this. As a loner.” He stressed the last word, throwing it in Yuri’s face almost hatefully. Fuck the wolf inside me bristled with fury and the need to defend our pack.

Yuri squeezed my shoulder, making me calm down a bit. “Alright. Let’s go then,” Yuri said before I could growl something out.