Liam, whose name we learned from the chatty board secretary, didn’t look like he would try any funny stuff. Actually, he didn’t look like he understood the concept of funny. Everything from the set of his jaw to the bored expression in his eyes screamed, “Asshole!”

“I told your pup I wasn’t going anywhere,” Liam said with a bored tone. Jase stiffened at the insult, but kept his word and didn’t say or do anything. I was impressed.

Toby stood at the bottom of the splintered front steps, his feet shoulder-width apart and arms crossed over his chest. I could see how much he hated having to stand below the other Shifter, but there was no way both of them would fit on the small landing.

“I am Toby Hagan, Pack Leader of the Hagan Pack, and I say you’re leaving tonight.”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

The whole world stopped and waited for Toby’s response. This was it. Toby had told him to leave our Territory, and he had refused. The next step was a Challenge, a fight to the death. There were other Challenges, the kind that happened within a pack whenever someone wanted to take over the position of Pack Leader, which didn’t require death to pronounce a winner, but this wasn’t that kind of Challenge. A pack is family, and unless there is something really screwed up going on, you usually don’t want to kill someone in your family. Beat them to a pulp so they would never question your ability as a leader again? Sure. Sounded like fun actually. But those rules only applied within a pack. Once you ventured outside your family circle, the rules changed. A Challenge meant a Pack Leader had to fulfill his promise to protect his pack with his life.

Toby had never faced a Challenge of any kind, let alone one in which he might die. I looked at the massive Shifter who still leaned against the front door with casual ease and realized my brother might not be walking away from this. I suddenly felt like regurgitating the entire contents of my stomach.

I stepped forward, getting ready to do something extremely stupid, when the door of the trailer slung open. It should have dislodged Liam, making him stumble backwards, but he pulled himself up just in time.

“Oh, it’s you.” The newcomer shot Jase a sardonic smile. “We didn’t get a proper introduction earlier,” he said, as he walked down the steps. “Alex Cole. Sorry about all that business earlier today. I didn’t really to mean to…” He tapped his nose. Jase’s growl was low and quiet, but Alex heard it. “Seriously, man, if you hadn’t hit Scout first…”

“You hit Scout?” I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out of my mouth. Something kicked in my gut, and I found myself mentally reassessing every one of her movements from earlier in the afternoon. There was no bruising on her face, nothing like Jase’s nose. She hadn’t moved stiffly or slowly, but she had flinched slightly both of the times I hugged her. Since most of her arms were bared, thanks to the tiny t-shirt she was wearing, I decided it was probably a shoulder. Scout wasn’t a girly girl and carried more than her share of bruises and scars over the years, most of them badges of honor in her eyes, but still my blood boiled at the idea of Jase purposefully hurting her and this egotistical Shifter coming to her defense.

Jase must have seen the fury raging inside me because he lifted his hands in surrender. “Complete accident. I was aiming at him.”

“And your fist slipped and pounded into your sister instead?”

“She ninja’d her way in between us!”

“Enough,” Toby hissed, reminding us where we were and why we were here.

I looked up to see Liam back in his original position against the door. “Seems like you have some trouble controlling your pack there, Hagan. I wonder what the Alphas would say if they knew you can’t even control the youngest under your charge?” He took a deep breath, his gaze wandering out to the trees just beyond the edge of the trailer park. “Stefan has been searching for a new Territory to station a few of the aged Potentials. This is a beautiful place. It’s a nice change of scenery for someone who has been serving at the Den for the past ten years.”

“What would you know of the Den?” Toby, who was always cool and in control, sounded like someone was choking him.

Liam tucked a thumb into the waistband of his jeans. “Would you like to see my mark?”

Toby didn’t move for a full minute. He appeared dumbstruck, but I really hoped he was weighing the options in his head and coming up with one that didn’t include him Challenging a member of the Alpha Pack. Finally, Toby spoke.

“I would.”

Oh good God, we were all going to die. Stupid, pompous Toby. He actually wanted to see the mark? Like anyone was dumb enough to lie about something like that.

“You don’t believe me?”

I wondered if my life would be spared if I mentioned my belief in him. Even his brother had moved away from us, as if he was afraid of becoming collateral damage when Liam decided to separate our limbs from our bodies in the name of the Alpha Pack.

“You’re what? Eighteen? Nineteen?” Toby still stood with his arms across his chest. Whatever it was that had caused him to squeak out a response before was gone. His voice was once again infused with condescending derision. “And look at where you’re living. Sorry, but no member of the Alpha Pack would be caught dead in a rat-infested hell hole like this one.” Toby cocked his head to one side and looked Liam up and down. “My guess is that you’ve been banished and the whole Alpha Pack bluff is something you use with coyote Shifters thinking your natural Dominance will keep them from Challenging you.”

Alex, who was standing just outside my peripheral vision, seemed to pale.

“Have it your way,” Liam said before tugging down his jeans.

“This is so not what I meant when I said I wanted to see a strip show,” Jase muttered, staring at the ground. Toby was watching Liam. And me? I was watching Alex. I watched his pulse jump erratically in his throat and his fist squeeze together at his side and knew Toby wouldn’t see anything on the elder Cole’s hip.

“My apologies… Taxiarho Cole?”

I snapped my attention back to my own brother to see him with his head bowed and neck arched in submission.

“Potential Cole,” Liam said, marking himself as someone who would one day ascend to the rank of Taxiarho or Stratego, the Shifter equivalent of the Royal Guard. Some Potentials never reached either of those stations, but if Liam had the mark, which he must for Toby to have submitted so completely and quickly, then he was definitely moving up in the Shifter world, sooner rather than later.