Chapter 46

Logan

I remembered the first time I saw Jesse. It was not a moment I would easily forget.

We were in a bustling market. My mother used to take me out like that when I was little so that I could explore the streets and people I would one day reign over.

It was one of those summer days when the scent of roasted nuts and spiced meat filled the air, making my mouth water with their fragrance. The sun was golden, and every color felt brighter and louder than usual.

I was maybe six years old. Trailing behind my mother, I was thinking more about sneaking a candied apple than anything noble.

Then I saw him.

A boy around my age, maybe a little smaller. He had wild brown curls and scraped knees. He was wearing a shirt one size too big, filled with holes and dusted with dirt.

The boy stood just outside a fruit stall, staring hard at a basket of ripe peaches like he might be able to will one into his hands without anyone noticing. Even then, I knew that he was hungry. Maybe even starving. It was in his bony frame, in the longing in his eyes.

Something about him tugged at me instantly. It was not pity necessarily, though I did feel bad watching him yearn for that peach. But it was a sense of familiarity that pulled me to him.

It was like I knew him.

We made eye contact. Neither of us said a word. But I remember feeling a strange sense of gravity, like the world had tilted slightly to push us together.

He smiled, missing teeth in his grin. I returned the expression and felt an immediate kinship.

I took a step toward him. He took one toward me.

And then—

“Logan!” My mother’s voice snapped like a whip.

At the same time, a skinny woman—his mother, I realized years later—appeared behind him and grabbed his arm, yanking him back.

“Get back here, Jesse,” she scolded.

“Mom…” I began to protest, but my mother pulled me further away.

“You will not speak to him,” she hissed. I couldn’t understand her sudden fury.

Jesse’s mother pulled him back, too, with a fear I didn’t understand at the time.

Just as quickly as we had noticed each other, we were torn apart.

I remember looking up at my mother later, when Jesse and the peaches were out of view, and asking, “Who was that?”

She didn’t look at me when she answered. She just kept walking, chin up and still looking haughty and proud despite it all. “That was your father’s mistake.”

Her voice was full of venom, but I didn’t understand the poison yet.

“He’s your half-brother,” she added, as if it were a burden I’d have to carry. My father’s mistake was at a price I was expected to pay. “And you’ll do well to forget you ever saw him.”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Because all I’d seen was a kid like me. Someone who looked lonely. Someone who shared my blood and might share part of the burden that weighed on me even then, at age six.

Someone I might’ve wanted as a friend.

I saw him again years later and recognized him immediately.

We were thirteen, maybe fourteen. I was out in the surrounding city streets with a few friends. They were all boisterous boys born to noble families. At that age, we liked to kick up trouble away from home, testing our limits.

We were laughing too loudly, pockets full of coins, too young to feel anything but invincible.

And there he was.

Behind a stall selling dyed fabrics, unloading heavy crates with a cut across his cheek and a limp in one leg. Over seven years had passed, and yet I felt that strange pull to him again that pulled me back to that moment in the marketplace when I was six.

He didn’t look up. Just continued working. He was fast, efficient, and visibly exhausted. It was like the weight of the world had been pressing down on him since birth. Perhaps that was true. How was I to know?

“Who is that?” one of my friends asked, following my stunned expression to look at Jesse. “Looks like a half-starved mutt.”

I ignored the comment and walked over, heart pounding for reasons I couldn’t name.

He saw me coming and went still. His eyes narrowed instantly. He recognized me, too.

“Jesse,” I said, and for a moment, that name hung there like a truce. I reached out. “Let me—”

“I don’t need your pity,” he snapped, before I could continue.

I blinked, stunned by this harsh edge to his words. I had expected us to reconnect easily, to reignite the bond the way we had in our easy youth.

“I wasn’t—” I started. “I just wanted to say hi, but… I could help. I could get you out of here. Whatever you need—”

“I don’t want what you have.” His voice cut like a blade. “And I sure as hell don’t want you to give it to me. Now get out of here. Go back to your pretty palace.”

I stood there, stunned. He went back to work like I hadn’t even spoken.

Not even my friends’ jovial ignorance could cheer me up the rest of the evening. I left that day feeling heavier than I’d ever felt in my life.

Years passed. We grew into men with time, our lives shaping us like water shapes a rock, wearing on us with time.

I didn’t see him again until the day he stormed into our council room, flanked by guards who didn’t know whether to throw him out or bow. The king’s bastard had made a name for himself as he grew into young adulthood. He was a recognizable face around town by then.

That day, he walked straight to our father.

“You killed her,” Jesse said, eyes blazing. “You found out she was an omega, and you left her to rot. Your neglect killed her. She died because we couldn’t get the medicine to heal her. Medicine you should have given us money for! And yet you wouldn’t because of who she was. But I see who you are, too.”

The room froze.

Our father’s face never changed. “She was weak,” he said coldly. “She threatened our pack’s standing. She was a mistake.”

“She was my mother,” Jesse growled. “And you—” He stepped forward, fists clenched. “You were supposed to protect us.”

He challenged my father to a duel. Demanded trial by combat.

It was over as quickly as it had started. My father was at the height of his strength then. It might have been laughable how quickly it was over if it hadn’t also been so brutal to witness.

I watched them fight—watched our father overpower him, bloody him, humiliate him.

It was hard to watch. The moment he had requested it, I knew that Jesse never stood a chance at overthrowing our father.

When he collapsed to the floor, my father gave the order to remove Jesse to his guards like he was dismissing trash.

“Exile him. Let the rogues have him. I never want to see this face in my domain again.”

I watched Jesse get limply hoisted up by guards and dragged from the hall unceremoniously, bloodied and injured.

But not broken.

The Alpha’s bastard was reduced to an exile by his father’s hands, but it was clear to me that this feud was not over.

Jesse didn’t look at me as he was pulled away. He never did again.

But I couldn’t stop looking at him.

And now?

Now, according to the letter still clenched in my fist, he was the rogue leader. The one poisoning my scouts. The one sending me threats.

He’s built an army out of resentment. Out of his fury and everything he was denied, he had risen again, undefeated.

And I knew in that moment that soon I’d have to face him again.

Not as boys drawn together by instinct and bloodlines.

But as brothers ripped apart by violence and war.