Chapter 26

• "Why the hell didn’t my brother tell me that he was gay? We told each other everything," I said, my voice thick with frustration, confusion, and a deep ache that I couldn’t quite place. The idea that Ryker had kept something so big from me felt like a betrayal, not because he was gay—that didn’t matter to me—but because he hadn’t trusted me enough to share it.
• Dallas looked at me, his eyes soft with sympathy, but his face was troubled. “I don’t know,” he replied quietly. “But your father found out. He said that he wasn’t going to have a queer running his pack. And that was the last day I saw Ryker. He took him away, and I thought he was in the dungeon, but you freed everyone from down there.”
• “Yeah. I did.” I nodded slowly, trying to remember every single face I’d seen down there, every scent, every voice. “He wasn’t down there. Where the hell could he be?” I asked, almost to myself, though the question hung heavy in the air between us.