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“My brother, your father, does not find it easy to show his affection. Especially with you.”

“Funny, I hadn’t noticed.” Kade grinned with humor he didn’t feel.

“Our family has a dark secret,” Max said, and Kade felt his body go a little numb. “Kir and I had a younger brother. You never knew that, I’m sure. Not many do. His name was Grigori. Kir loved him very much. We all did. Grigori was a clever, charming boy. But he was also a bit wild. Even at his young age, he rebelled against authority and walked the razor’s edge of every situation without any fear.”

Kade found himself smiling, thinking that he might have liked Grigori, too.

“Despite his faults, Kir doted on the boy. But some years later, when it was learned that Grigori had gone Rogue, that in his Bloodlust he had killed, Kir wrote him off completely. Just like that,” Max said, giving a sharp snap of his fingers. “We never saw Grigori again. Kir never so much as spoke of him after we heard the news about Grigori turning Rogue, nor has he since. From that time forward, Kir was a changed man.”

Kade listened, reluctant to admit the pang of sympathy he had for his father and the loss he suffered.

“Perhaps your father worries that he could not shoulder that kind of pain again,” Max suggested. “Perhaps it’s just that he sees a bit too much of Grigori in you sometimes.”

And he’d apparently decided to write Kade off early, while pinning all of his fatherly hopes on Seth.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kade murmured, and he half meant it, too. He was too busy dealing with real life-and-death shit to worry about how low his father’s expectations might be for him. “I appreciate the information, Max. And the insight. I also appreciate that you came by.”

Max, perceptive as ever, took the gentle hint and stood up. “You have things to do. I should not delay you.”

When he stuck out his hand, Kade grabbed him into a brief embrace instead. “You’re a good man, Max. A good friend. Thank you.”

“Anything you need, Kade, you need only ask.”

They walked to the door together, and Kade opened it just as a pair of women, bundled in winter coats and each carrying a folded down-filled blanket, were walking past the cabin. One of them looked over and did a quick double-take.

“Oh … Kade?” she asked, then her pretty face lit up with a bright smile. “Kade! I heard you’d returned to Alaska, but I didn’t realize you were here.”

“Hello, Patrice,” he said, giving a polite smile to the Breedmate his twin brother had kept waiting in the wings for the past couple of years.

Beside him, Max had gone very still. Kade could feel heat radiating from the other male as Patrice continued to chat animatedly, sweet and gorgeous with her bright red hair and dark green eyes illuminated by the firelight pouring out from the door.

“Ruby and I were just on our way to watch the aurora borealis from one of the ledges. Would either of you like to join us?”

Kade and Max both said no together, but it was Max’s refusal that dimmed Patrice’s smile the most, although she tried to hide it with the edge of the blanket she held. As the Breedmates walked away, Kade noticed that the elder male couldn’t keep his eyes off them.

Or, rather, one of them.

“Patrice?” Kade asked, stunned by the carefully restrained longing he’d just seen in both of them.

Maksim snapped out of his stare and looked at him. “She has promised herself to another. I would never interfere with that, regardless of how long it takes Seth to finally accept the precious gift he’s been given. The ignorant, arrogant little bastard.”

Kade watched his uncle walk off the porch and continue on across the snowy grounds to his own quarters.

He didn’t know whether to chuckle over the virulence of Max’s declaration, or curse Seth for potentially ruining two more lives.

CHAPTER

Twelve

Alex poured a kettle of boiling water into the battered old drip coffeemaker on the stove. As the kitchen filled with the aroma of fresh-brewed beans for a second time that morning, she turned back to the little table where she and Jenna were having