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The words hung between them. He watched her face, watched the mask try to reassemble itself over the raw edges. She was good at this. Years of practice. But the mask had cracks now, and through those cracks he could see the effort it cost her.

“Who is he to you?” Chris asked. “You said he was banished. An exile. How does he remember you so well?”

Sloane’s throat moved.

“He talks about you like he owns you,” Chris said. “Who is he?”

“My father.”

The room went still and he took an inadvertent step back.

“He was banished when I was six. Territorial violations, conduct unbecoming.” She uncrossed her arms, looked at her hands. “I always wondered… if they knew. He hit me. Before the banishment. He choked me, burned me with a cigarette when I wouldn’t stop crying. He told me every day that I belonged to him. And made sure… made sure I understood it. When they dragged him off pack land, the last thing he said was that he’d come back.” She lifted her eyes. “He made it clear over the years that he intended to keep that promise.”

Chris’s hands were shaking. He looked down at them, watched the tremor. His wolf was snarling, a sound inside his skull so loud it drowned out rational thought.

“Kahn needs to know,” he insisted, his voice cracking.

Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest again, as though it could protect her. “No.”

“Viktor needs to know. This is a security breach. An exile on pack territory, inside the inner compound, inside the wards. This isn’t just about you anymore.”

“It was always about me.” Her voice rose. “That’s the point. It’s about me. He’s not here for the pack; he’s not running an operation; there isn’t a scheme about taking over the pack or hurting Kahn. He’s here for his daughter. Because I’m his property and I had the audacity to grow up without him.”

“Why?”

She closed her eyes, then sighed. “I was a child. He… sometimes I thought he hated me from the start. He always was awful.”

Chris leaned forward. “I understand that. Not the why behind it, but I understand that sometimes people are just awful. What I do not understand is why he still keeps taunting you in this matter.”

She closed her eyes. “It is my fault.”

It was barely a whisper that left her lips and everything in him wanted to reach for her.

“Sloane, being abused is never…”

“No.” She swallowed visibly. “It is my fault that he was exiled.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Back them… I was a child. I didn’t understand what he was doing. Now, of course, I know that he has always been in contact with other exiles. I know that he wanted to overthrow the alpha, that he believed he was fit to lead the pack more than Kahn or his father. I saw him one night. At the borders, speaking to another wolf. I saw him working to let the other wolf in.”

“What happened?”

She sighed. “I spoke about it. In public, I asked my aunt why he was breaking the borders, what he was doing. The Alpha overheard. He asked me about it, and he was kind… and gentle, more than I had ever seen. I told him everything. My father was exiled.”

“So he blames you?”

She nodded.

A frown settled between his brows at the tone. As though she had given up completely on believing that she deserved protection or loyalty. “Then let me help you.”

“I’ve been handling my father since before you knew my name.” She took a step toward him, her eyes burning. “I survived him when I was four, when I was five, when I was six years old with no one watching, no one asking where the bruises came from. I handled it then. I can handle it now.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

She stopped. The flush drained from her face, leaving it pale, the freckles she usually hid under a tan standing out against her skin. She stared at him.

“You shouldn’t have had to handle it then, either,” he said. “A six-year-old shouldn’t have to handle being burned with a cigarette. And you shouldn’t have to handle it now. That’s what I’m telling you.”