Alex and I stood there for a long time staring one another down. It felt like something out of one of the old westerns my dad liked so much. I regretted not having a pistol hanging on my hip. Finally, Alex took a deep breath and licked his lips.

“Fine. I won’t approach her, but I won’t stop her from coming to me.”

I curled up one side of my mouth. “Not a problem. Scout wouldn’t come near you if you paid her to.”

Alex mirrored my half-smile. “Don’t be so sure of that. No one can avoid their destiny.”

***

We were out of the trailer park before I broke the silence. “‘No one can avoid their destiny.’ What is that crap? Do you think he read it on a fortune cookie?”

Jase, who had slid into the shotgun position once we broke up the fun party at the Cole’s, turned around to face me. “What the hell, man? What. The. Hell.”

“I’m just saying--”

“Scout belongs to you? She’s yours?” The muscles in Jase’s jaw looked like they may burst through the skin.

“I love her.”

The car was completely silent for about five seconds before Jase started rattling off a list of cuss words that would make HBO blush. “Are you listening to this shit?” Jase asked Toby. “Do you think he has a brain injury?”

“I don’t really understand how you’re surprised by this revelation,” Toby said, not taking his eyes off the road. “He’s loved Scout just as long as you’ve loved Talley.”

All the blood left Jase’s face. “I don’t love Talley. I mean, I do, but like a sister. What you’re suggesting--” He shook his head rapidly, as if he was trying to sling off water. “That’s just wrong.”

“Whatever,” Toby said, sounding completely bored with the conversation.

The sunlight streaming through the trees as Toby barreled down the curvy country road at eighty miles per hour made me a little queasy. Or maybe the nausea was coming from the realization that one of us could have died back there. Either way, I wanted nothing more than to lie back, close my eyes, and figure out what I was going to do to keep this jerk away from Scout. I didn’t want him anywhere near her. I meant every word I said back there. She was mine. Maybe I hadn’t realized it until a few minutes ago, but that didn’t make it any less true. No one in the world made me feel as comfortable and happy as she did. When the whole world went to hell, it was her voice I wanted to hear. Her smile, a rare thing she reserved for a very few, was what I wanted to see when I felt I might never have the desire to smile a smile of my own again. The thought of her sharing those smiles with someone else - with him - made me want to do acts of violence. If that wasn’t love, then what was?

“She’s my sister,” Jase said, not allowing me to relax.

“I have noticed that over the past seventeen years, but thanks for pointing it out to me all the same.”

“You can’t date my sister.”

“Who said anything about dating?” Dating was dinner and a movie followed by attempts to get to second base while parked in her parents’ driveway. That isn’t what I wanted from Scout. I wanted to be near her. Protect her. Wake up next to her.

I wasn’t going to mention that last part to Jase.

“She loves me, too,” I said instead.

“It’s a crush.”

“We’ll be happy together.”

“You sound like a girl.”

I wanted to lean up between the seats and punch Jase in his already broken nose, but that would end with me having to clean all the blood out of Toby’s car, so instead I tilted my head back and tried to rein in my temper.

“Would you rather see her with Wolf Boy back there? He seems like the nice, upstanding type. I’m sure he would wait until at least the second date before trying to get her out of her clothes.”

Okay, so maybe there would be blood spilled after all.

“No one is getting Scout out of her clothes. No one.” Jase shook all over as if his Change was imminent. “I swear to God, if you even think about touching her--”

“If she wants me to touch her, I’ll be damned if you--”

“Stop it.” My eardrums nearly burst from the volume of Toby’s words. “We’ve got two unknown Dominants encroaching on our Territory, one of them bearing the mark of the Alphas on his hip, and you two are seriously going to try and rip out each other’s throats over Charlie finally manning up and admitting he’s obsessed with Scout? What the hell is wrong with you two?”

“Hey, wait a minute. I’m not obsessed--”

“What’s wrong with me?” Jase asked, completely drowning me out. “What’s wrong with me? She’s my sister!”

We turned left onto the highway, the wrong direction if we were heading back to town or Jase’s house. There was only one place we could be going on this side of the county, and it wouldn’t exactly make my night any better. Mrs. Matthews always made me feel like a misbehaving eight year old.

“So what if she’s your sister? Is she supposed to stay a virgin her whole life? Be the world’s first Baptist nun?” If I had said it, Jase would have exploded again, but since it was Toby, he just seethed. “Anyway, I’m not giving you a choice on this. Charlie will pursue Scout, and you’ll help him.”

I might have thought it was funny the way we both asked, “What?” in the exact same tone at the exact same time if I wasn’t so appalled that he would turn my love life into an order from the Pack Leader.

“Talley had a vision,” was all he said in reply.

There was no sound other than tires speeding over blacktop for a few long seconds, and then Jase said, “Talley doesn’t have visions.”

“She had one.”

It didn’t make sense. Talley hadn’t shown any Seer abilities until a few months ago, and when they finally showed up, they were of the Touch-and-See variety. Visions of the future weren’t included in that package deal. I should have been dismissing the whole idea on principle, but instead my gut twisted. “What did she See?” I asked, but somehow I already knew. Maybe it was in the set of Toby’s jaw, or maybe it was the coyote’s natural intuition coming out, but I knew.

“If we allow the Coles to get near Scout, they’ll hurt her.”