“Congratulations,” Sawyer said.
He looked at his brother’s steady gaze, and he honestly didn’t know how to respond. He knew Sawyer hadn’t been thrilled when he discovered that the woman he had slept with was pregnant, but Sawyer had done what Sawyer did. He had decided a path forward; he had decided to be involved, and so he was. He had decided that it would all be okay, and it had been. That was just the way his brother saw the world. It was sort of glorious and black-and-white, and Wolf had never really envied him that before, but he did now.
Because Wolf couldn’t see the bright side. Wolf couldn’t see it working out. He couldn’t see it at all. He just couldn’t even picture it. He couldn’t muster up a feeling of warmth or excitement. Not anything but the fierce, terrible need inside him to make sure that Violet was with him. Where he could see her. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. It was... It was sharp, and it was angry. Like his namesake had woken up inside him and decided that he was in control of a pack that he needed to protect. But if there were supposed to be warm, paternal feelings, or a sense of anticipation, a magical influx of wisdom, and softness, that had skipped him.
“You look...angry,” Evelyn said.
He hadn’t known his sister-in-law for that long, but she had the benefit of being an outsider. Which really bothered him. She didn’t ignore a lot of the things that they ignored about each other. Because they were used to the way each other behaved, and saw no point in calling it out. Evelyn called them all out regularly. She called Hunter on his smart-ass mouth; she called Sawyer stubborn—rightly—and she made sure that Elsie knew it was feral to put her boots on the table. She circled Wolf, though. She didn’t often get right up in his face. But he had felt her keen blue gaze on him more than once, and he didn’t really appreciate being the focus of Evelyn’s laser-like assessment.
“I’m not happy.”
“Why?”
He blinked. “Because I am in the middle of the situation I did not want or plan.”
“Okay. I guess that’s fair. But... I mean, why are you doing it?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Says who? Is it the right thing to angrily parent a child? June’s biological mother decided she didn’t want to do it, because she knew herself. I can admire her for that. For knowing it was the right thing for her.”
“Are you advocating for me doing the same thing?”
“I’m not advocating anything. I’m just asking you why you’re doing something you clearly are enraged by?”
All he could see was red. Anger. And the hot, sharp need to possess.
“Because I can’t let her go.”
“I see.”
He hated that. Hated it as an answer because it seemed to imply that she understood something he didn’t. And the thing that made it worse was he was almost certain that was true. That she did understand something about himself that he didn’t.
Violet was a little bit like that. The way she looked at him last night... The way she’d talked about his eyes.
He didn’t like that.
“So what are you going to do?” Sawyer asked.
“I’m going to marry her,” Wolf said as if his brother was the biggest idiot on the planet.
“Has she agreed to marryyou?” Sawyer asked.
“No,” Wolf said. “She wants to wait until she’s sure everything’s going to...you know. Until she’s sure nothing is going to happen with the pregnancy.”
“So you dragged her up to your cabin—which to be clear looks like it couldn’t comfortably house a family of raccoons—and now you’re sitting at my breakfast table scowling,” Sawyer said. “The woman hasn’t agreed to marry you necessarily, and you’re demanding it like it’s your right. I have a little bit of advice for you. Try being nice.”
Anger licked at Wolf’s veins, because what right did Sawyer have to tell him to do any damn thing?
“I’m nice,” Wolf said.
They laughed. They all laughed. Every single asshole sitting at that table.
“I am,” Wolf said. “At least I don’t go out of my way to be a dick like Hunter. I don’t have the energy for that.”
Elsie snickered. “Fair.” She cleared her throat. “You are not nice, Wolf.”
“I can behave myself.”