"Why are you getting up so early?" Bria asked, turning away from the window and pulling me down into the bed with her. "Come, sleep with me a bit more. We have all morning. Class doesn't start for..." She opened one eye and glanced at the digital clock. "... like two hours."

"I have a meeting this morning," I said. "Go to school with Levi and Jasmine."

"Please, stay," she whined, digging her claws into my forearm. "Pleeeease."

After kissing her head, I peeled her off me and walked to my closet to grab a shirt and tie. "If I start missing meetings and classes because you want me to stay with you, people are going to get suspicious. Not everyone in the school is a wolf, Bria. They don't understand this."

And by this, I meant this growing, intensifying connection between us.

Sure, if I taught in a werewolf-only school, things would be different. But there weren't many of them anymore. Mainly because the Council didn't want anyone to learn altogether and get ideas that they couldn't suppress. It was ridiculous.

I balled my hands into fists and continued to dress for the day.

When Adan and I could get more packs to agree to go to war with the Council, then I would gladly destroy them piece by piece. But until then, I had to prepare my pack and wait. Bria was right. If The Council came at us now, I wouldn't be able to destroy them.

No wolf, no alpha, no pack was strong enough to destroy them by themselves.

"Fine," Bria mumbled. "But you're going to get it later."

"Mmhmm, and how am I going to get it?" I asked, leaning against the doorframe and smiling at my mate's sleeping face.

She groggily opened her eyes and squinted at me, her eyes glowing enough for me to see the wolf inside of her, already ready to come out and see the world as her own being. "You'll see."

After giving her a laugh, I walked down the corridor to the back door, ran a hand through my hair, and sighed.

What was worse about this whole thing was that if The Council found out that she was a wolf now, they would have even more of a reason to try to take her from me and destroy her piece by piece.

Hell, nobody knew what they wanted with a human girl now.

"You'll never figure out why they want her," Adan said, slipping out of one of the spare rooms that I let his pack sleep in for the past couple days. Part of me loathed the thought of him in the same house as his ex-girlfriend and my mate, but he was here to protect her.

At least, that's what I fucking hoped.

"It doesn't make sense," I said between clenched teeth, walking out of the packhouse.

"It never has," Adan said, following me through the woods and down the path toward the university. "I've been trying to figure it out for months. I even killed her brother to get information out of him about why his parents would trade his sister. But none of them ever gave me anything."

"The Council hates humans mating with wolves. Why would a group of wolves want a human?" I asked myself, shaking my head and trying to wrap my mind around it. Yet the more I thought about it, the less and less it made any sense.

"I know you don't want to hear it, because you're her mate, but..." Adan paused and blew out a deep breath. "Their leader, Thiago Medina, has always had a thing for her. He had been the one to convince The Council to bring her in and pay her parents an absurd amount of money for her."

Shit.

Not that fucker.

When Thiago was younger, he had been the strongest advocate to ban the One Alpha and numerous other books that suppressed the werewolf species into thriving. He wanted complete control of the wolves and didn't want any of us to revolt against him.

I had met him once during a meeting with all the alphas in North America, and I hated him then. Now, I loathed that man more than anything. But one thing was fucking certain: I would not let him lay a hand on my Bria.

"If we find out what he wants with her, we'll know how to stop him," Adan said.

"How do you suppose we do that?" I snapped, spotting the school in the distance.

"I'll come up with something," he said.

I stopped in my tracks, turning toward him. "Why are you doing this?" I asked him. "Why are you still trying to protect Bria now that you have found your mate, and she has found hers? You're no longer together anymore, and I don't like how comfortable you are with her."

Adan paused and growled. "Because Bria helped me out of a lot of shit that you don't need to know about. I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. I don't try to lead like the One alpha, like you do. I hurt people, and I've wanted to hurt The Council for far too long."

"And Jasmine?" I asked. "You better not hurt her in the process. She's my wolf before she is your mate. It's my job to protect her too."

"Jasmine..." Adan trailed off, staring back through the woods at the path we had walked. "She's my mate. And, like with Bria, I would do anything to protect her too, which is why I'm not stopping until The Council is defeated. They're not just after Bria now that I killed her brother; they're going to be after me and Jasmine too."

For the first time, I almost felt bad for the alpha.

I recognized that look on his face. I understood that fear of not being able to protect the one woman that he loved the most. It was close to helplessness, pain, sorrow, and agony. The unknown was never too far behind.

"If you screw me over, I will kill you," I warned. "I won't hold back like I had last week."

"I don't expect you to," Adan said. "We're going to defeat these bastards and go our separate ways. Deal?"

He held out a hand for me to shake. I grabbed it and squeezed. "Deal."