His brother’s Luna, his mate

Your own funeral

Beta Ethan, brother to the Alpha of Greyfur, met an untimely end during their recent travels in the dark lands. Sadder still is the knowledge that he failed to accomplish anything of note during his twenty-seven years upon this earth

Obituary in the Alpha Times

*Ethan*

I need scotch badly.

But duty requires that I stand outside the residence at Greyfur House, the ancestral estate in Wolfhire, and express my gratitude to the few Alphas and Lunas who have attended my twin’s funeral this afternoon.

“Awfully glad it wasn’t you, Greyfur.”

“Such a fine dancer, although he did tend to hold the she-wolves scandalously close during the waltz.”

“Shame he had to go before amounting to anything.”

“Drank me under the table more times than I can count, I tell you.”

The acknowledgments continue, painting the portrait of a wastrel and scoundrel. Not that I have ever before minded how the Alpha’s younger brother was viewed, but today it bothers me, perhaps because the epitaphs expressed are so damned accurate.

My childhood friends, the Alpha of Ashebury and Prince Killian, stand nearby garnering their share of condolences, as everyone knows the four of us were as close as brothers, having been raised by Killian’s father.

Although I have had very little opportunity to visit with them before the funeral, I wish they were both climbing into their own conveyances right about now, but along with Melina, Ashe’s wife, they are staying the night. Josie has extended the invitation, thinking I would welcome more time with them. She couldn’t have been more mistaken, but I know she meant well.

Graciously expressing her appreciation to those who have come, she is a vision of loveliness even draped in black. She has handled most of the arrangements, sending out the mourning cards, informing the vicar of how the service was to progress, ensuring that refreshments are on hand for our guests before they begin their trek home.

I have barely had occasion to speak with her throughout the day, not that I would have known what to say if I had. Since my return, we have had far too many moments of awkward silence. I know that needs to change, and quickly.

As the last of the carriages finally roll down the drive, Josie wanders over, slides her arm around mine, and gives a slight squeeze. “Rather glad that’s over with.”

Even swollen with child, she is the most graceful she-wolf I have ever seen. Reaching up, she places her black-gloved hand against my cheek. “You look tired.”

“It’s been a long week.” I returned from my travels ten days ago. Most of my grieving and mourning occurred during the long and arduous journey home. For me, today is simply a formality, something to get through before moving forward.

“I could use a good stiff drink,” Ashe says as he, his Luna, and Killian join us.

“I know just where to find one,” I assure my longtime friend. After leading the group into the foyer, I place a hand on Josie’s lower back. “Will you ladies excuse us for a bit?”

She hesitates, a thousand questions swirling in those lovely blue eyes of hers. I don’t mean to dismiss her, but I am desperate for a drink and hope she mistakes my craving for wanting time alone with my friends. After searching my face for what seems an eternity, she nods. “Yes, of course.” Turning to Melina, she smiles softly. “I will ring for some tea.”

“We won’t be long,” I assure the she-wolves before heading down the hallway, my two friends not even half a step behind.

Once I enter the library, I charge forward to the sideboard, pour scotch into three tumblers, and dispense them before holding mine up. “To my brother. May he rest in peace.” I down the contents of my glass in one long swallow.

Ashe merely takes a small sip, then arches a brow. “That’s hardly likely to happen, is it? What the bloody hell are you up to, Ethan?”

My body freezes while my mind reels with the possibility of denying the accusation, but too much is at stake. I walk to the window and spy the spire of the village church where only a few hours earlier the funeral service had been held in my honor. Visible in the distance, ribboning through the rolling hills, is the road over which the black and glass hearse bearing the French-polished casket with its elaborately carved moldings and gleaming metal handles had journeyed, while mourners followed, to the family mausoleum. “When did you figure out I wasn’t Nathan?”

“Shortly before the funeral began,” Killian says.

“Did you say anything to Josie?” I ask.

“No,” Ashe assures me. “We thought it best to hold our suspicions until we had them confirmed. What the devil is going on here?”

I sigh, “I promised Nathan as he lay dying that I would do all in my power to ensure Josie did not lose the baby she carries.” During their short marriage, she had lost three, never carrying any of them to term. “Pretending to be my brother seemed the best way to go about it. I need to know how you deduced the truth. If Josie suspects…”

“Have you lost your mind?” Ashe bellows.

“Lower your voice,” I ground out. I don’t need the servants to overhear.

He shakes his head, “Do you truly believe that you can fool Josie into believing you are Nathan?”

I have been doing it for a little over a week already. I have convinced everyone: the servants, the vicar, the few mourners, Josie. But not these two, and that’s a problem. I spin around. “Nathan gave me no choice if I am to honor his request.”

“Surely she is far enough along now that she is past the point of a possible miscarriage,” Killian says, standing shoulder-to-shoulder beside Ashe, as though together they would be better able to convince me of my foolhardiness, as though I’m not already perfectly aware of it.

I glower at him. “Can you promise me that? Can you guarantee it? You know how much she loves him, how much he loved her. If she learns that he was the one killed, will she not crumble? Will she not make herself ill with grief?”

In answer, with a heavy sigh, Killian moves off to the sideboard, grabs the decanter, and pours himself more scotch. Although I know I have made my point, I take little satisfaction in it.

“Do you have any idea what this deception will do to Josie, how she will feel when she learns the truth?” Ashe asks.

It’s all I have thought about as I trudged through the jungle with my brother’s body in tow, as I sailed across the blue waters toward home, as I rode in the wagon that transported the wooden box that held the Alpha of Greyfur. “She will think worse of me than she already does. I expect she will attack me with the handiest object that can inflict a mortal wound. And she will be devastated, her heart will be crushed, and her life will go dark.”

“Which is the very reason you must tell her now before you take this deception any further.” Ashe says.

I shake my head, “No.”

“Then I bloody well will,” Ashe says, heading for the door.

Darting in front of him just as he reached for the latch, I cut him off. “Touch that door and I will lay you flat.”

Ashe glares at me. “I refuse to let you do this.”

“You may be of the higher rank and older, but this matter does not concern you.” I tell him.

Shaking his head, Ashe squares his jaw. “It bloody well does concern us. Killian, inform him that he is a fool and cannot do this.”

“Unfortunately, I agree with him.” Killian says with a small shrug.

Clearly stunned, Ashe twists around. The man whom he had mistakenly believed to be his ally sits with one hip perched on the edge of the desk, glass of scotch in hand. “You don’t think this is a bad idea?”

“I’m convinced it’s the worst idea a man has had since one decided to start the great war 300 years ago. But he is correct. It’s not our business, and we don’t have a say in the matter.” Killian says.

“You might not care about Josie, but I do.” Ashe huffs.

Killian sighs, “But if Ethan has the right of it and telling her causes her to lose the babe, the last gift Nathan will ever bestow upon her, how will you feel then?”

Ashe’s shoulders slump slightly, and he steps back. “I loved Nathan like a brother.”

“But like a brother is not the same as being a brother,” Killian says. “Not to mention neither of us was there when Nathan drew his last breath. We didn’t hear his final words nor did we witness the desperation that might have laced them.”

‘Be me,’ he had gasped. ‘Be me.’ I had never realized how much power two small words, four letters, could hold.

“Do you have to always be so bloody logical?” Ashe asks.

Killian raises his glass. “I wouldn’t complain if I were you. My being logical contributed to you gaining your lovely Luna.”

Shaking his head, Ashe turns his attention back to me. “Have you truly thought this through? How far along is she? Somewhere between seven and eight months? You are looking at several weeks of pretending to love Josie when the two of you have never gotten along, when all of Blackrock city knows you can hardly stand to be in the same room with her,” he says, getting to the crux of what he surely believes is the challenge I have set for myself.

If only it was that uncomplicated. After that blasted, ill-conceived kiss in the garden years ago, she has never taken kindly to me, had barely tolerated my presence. Not that I blamed her. During the intervening years, my behavior had been less than exemplary. “I have considered it from every angle.”

Balling his hands into fists, Ashe scowls. “I can see nothing but disaster on the horizon if you follow this course.”

“Disaster on the horizon I can deal with when it arrives. My concern presently is avoiding disaster before the baby arrives. I know it won’t be easy… the past ten days have been horrendous, trying to behave around her as Nathan would, and I know I have not managed completely because she studies me as though I’m a puzzle with a piece that doesn’t quite fit. So far, I believe, Josie has kindly chalked my odd behavior and requests for solitude up to my grief. Yet I know I can’t use that excuse much longer, so I need to know what gave me away. How did you deduce it was me and not Nathan wandering around today?”

“I don’t know that I can help you with this,” Ashe says. “Deceit does not sit well with me.”

"And you think it sits well with me?" I ask, the pain and agony from weeks of deliberation, guilt, and doubt slicing through my voice. "I convinced him to go with me because I selfishly wanted one last trip together. I wanted him to put me before her. And it cost him his life. All I can do now is strive to ensure it doesn’t cost him his child. It’s all that’s left of my brother. I would have given anything to be the one we laid in the vault this afternoon. But that I cannot change. So I am left with only the ability to keep my promise to him. No matter the cost, no matter how mad it seems, I know no other way to ensure Josie does not lose this child. So help me. If you truly loved Nathan as you claim, then help me."

With a deep sigh, Ashe walks to the sideboard and pours himself a generous amount of scotch. "We have known you since you were seven. While your looks are identical, your mannerisms are not. You don’t rub your right ear."

"Ah, damn, yes." I do so now, pulling on it until it hurts. When we were five, Nathan had lost hearing in that ear after I shoved him into a frigid pond. Afterward, it pained him from time to time and he would rub it, especially when he was contemplating a matter… usually trying to determine the best way to bring me to task for some misconduct.

"And you toss back far too much scotch, far too quickly," Killian says. "I don’t suppose you have stopped doing that."

I make a face, "No, but I only do it after she’s gone to bed."

Ashe narrows his eyes. "You don’t go to bed with her?"

"Dear Goddess, why would I? I’m certainly not going to cuckold my brother even if he is dead." I groan.

"I can’t speak for Nathan, but whether or not I make love to my mate, I sleep with her nestled within my arms." Ashe says.

I roll my eyes, "Because you are disgustingly in love."

"So was he." He points out.

I shake my head. "They have separate bedchambers. I’m safe there."

Ashe tilts his head. "So do we."

With a harsh curse, I fill my glass to the brim with more scotch, walk over to the seating area by the fire, and drop into a comfortable chair. Surely, Josie would have said something if I was supposed to be in her bed. Unless she is crediting my absence as a need to grieve alone. How long before my odd behaviors cause her to worry, add strain to the situation, burden her until I cause to happen exactly what I am trying to prevent?

Ashe and Killian join me, taking nearby chairs. Neither appears pleased to be there but at least they are no longer looking at me as though I am as mad as the Prince of Evermoor.

I stare into the writhing flames of the fire, imagining my eternity would be spent thrashing about in the ones ignited in Hell. "I thought about staying in the dark lands, sending her a telegram with an excuse for our delay, but I knew Nathan would haunt me if I left her alone as her time carrying his child neared an end. I’m well versed in the dead haunting the living."

"My mother’s ghost screeching over the moors is nothing but my father’s madness," Killian says.

"Still, I grew up with it." I glance over at the two men who have been like brothers. "Do you know if Nathan had a special endearment for Josie?"

Both men blink, look at each other, seem at a loss for words. Finally, Ashe says, "He is the sort who would have had one, but I never heard him call her anything other than Josie."

"Neither did I," Killian admits. "It was probably saved for intimate moments."

Bloody hell. I had such confidence that I could adequately imitate my brother, but they are unveiling countless things I never considered. For the short term, I have succeeded. For the long term, it is going to require more awareness and effort.

“I haven’t sorted through his things. Merely packed them up.” I had both my trunk and Nathan’s placed in the bedchamber that had been mine when I visited. To be gone through later. “Perhaps I will find a letter he penned that can provide some answers.” A letter possibly unfinished that would tear at my gut. Death leaves much undone.

“Have you contemplated,” Ashe begins slowly, tapping his finger against his half-empty glass, “that you are going to have to abstain completely from any s****l encounters? Considering your past and your appetites, that’s going to create quite the challenge, which I honestly don’t know if you’re up to meeting. But should she hear of you fornicating about, thinking it was Nathan being unfaithful to her, that could very well cause her to lose the baby.”

“I considered that and I plan to be as chaste as a monk.” I release a self-deprecating laugh. “It might not be as hard as you imagine. None of my previous conquests were here today. And some of them were ranked she-wolves.” I had noticed their absence, along with the absence of tears. Not a single one shed for me. Christ, attending your own funeral is an incredibly humbling experience.

“Ethan…”

“Nathan,” I say, cutting off Killian. “If my ruse is to have any chance at all of succeeding, you must both acknowledge me as the Alpha of Greyfur, call me either Nathan or Grey, as you did Nathan when it wasn’t only us about. Except now you must do it even when we are alone. Lest you slip when we’re not.” And I need to stop thinking of myself as Ethan. In manner, thought, and deed, I have to become the Alpha of Greyfur. At least until Josie delivers the heir.

Then I will be obliged to do what I do best: give her another reason to hate me by revealing the truth, breaking her heart, and shattering her world.