Chapter 17 - Ronan
I’m surprised how calm I feel driving back to the house. Jacob's little speech really helped me put into perspective how I feel and what I want. My mate, this pack, and to show everyone that Ava isn’t her parents, so that we can live as a proper alpha couple.
It’s so damn simple, my wolf is kicking me for not just owning the situation from the start.
As I drive, the clearest thoughts in my head aren’t about the impending challenge, not about Maddox or the council or the risk to my own life.
Instead, it’s about how I’m going to walk into that house, look Ava in the eye, and tell her the truth.
Not the truth about the pack or my position or any of the bullshit I used to think mattered, but the simple, almost embarrassing truth that I want her.
I always did. I want to knot her, claim her, see her rounded with my pups, and never let her out of my sight again.
I want her to really come home and be a part of this pack, rather than just be a breeding omega with no voice.
The closer I get to the house, the more I realize how impossible I let it become.
My father’s leadership was about never letting the pack down.
He banished Ava’s parents for good reason, but he also believed in second chances—he would have let Ava come back if she proved herself.
He wouldn’t have kept her hidden away like I have; that’s on me.
But he got sick so fast. He was old, as old as even Elder Wilde, and the pack’s certainty turned fractious, full of anxiety over the future.
I had to step up as he faded, but with every decision I made, I could feel people measuring me against him.
It got even more pronounced when he passed, and they were comparing me to his memory.
I don’t think I’ve ever stopped feeling like I’m just a placeholder, a not-quite-right copy of the real thing.
That’s why I’ve been so careful, so desperate not to make mistakes, not to fuck anything up.
The pack needs me to be a sure thing, to never let doubt or weakness show.
Choosing Ava that day was instinctual; my wolf knew what he wanted, and there was no other option for me.
But my actions ever since? The notion that she is just for breeding and otherwise unimportant?
That was me being a coward. More afraid of how things would look rather than having to deal with it head-on.
Ava is the girl who made me feel like myself all those years ago, the one who made me laugh, the one who made me feel like a man long before I was one.
The only woman who challenged me. Whatever she’s hiding, whatever her reluctance stems from.
I’m going to remind her of who we were together before her parents' betrayal, without the weight of pack expectations. We’ll build something new, something we always should have had the chance to have.
If I’m going to be the alpha, then it will be my own version of an alpha. I need to be able to show the pack I walk the right version of my own path, and that includes not being ashamed of my mate.
I’m a few minutes out when my wolf sits bolt upright in my chest. The scent is wrong.
Not just the oppressive haze of Ava’s heat peaking, it’s more than that, layered with something sharp and metallic, a tang that I shouldn’t be scenting here.
I slow the truck, rolling to a silent stop below the crest of the drive, out of sight from the house.
My head floods with a thousand alarms at once, the hackles on my neck prickling in warning.
I kill the engine. Everything is quiet in a way that’s instantly, chillingly suspicious.
No guard at the gate. No overwhelming scent of strong coffee—the one vice my beta never could quit and usually consumes all day long in his truck.
I scan the tree line, every sense flaring.
It’s a second before I spot the truck, half-concealed, off the side of the drive under a shadow of pines.
I slip out, leaving the door open, and stalk down the gravel, careful not to make a sound.
Garrison is inside, slumped over the wheel.
The angle of his body is all wrong; his neck is bent in a break that makes my stomach turn.
Blood is drying in a thin, dark line from his ear.
I know, with a sick certainty, that he’s dead.
I force myself to look for a moment, letting the rage settle into my bones.
His loss is going to be felt hard by the whole pack.
Another scent hits me, so sure and deep, I inhale. Maddox.
I don’t waste a second. I text Jacob, “Maddox. House.” I don’t even bother waiting for a reply; my wolf has already barreled past logic, past the need to analyze, plan, or grieve. The wolf needs vengeance, and I’m going to let him have it.
The house is too quiet, too dark despite the sunshine outside. Ava’s scent is everywhere, an intoxicating, feverish cloud of slick and need, but there’s a new edge to it now. The unmistakable tang of terror, sour and raw. Another scent is strong here, too, and I know he’s inside the house.
I tear through the house on instinct as I feel the shift rising, fur prickling, jaw stretching, claws erupting from my hands. I slam my shoulder into the banister and bound up the hardwood stairs three at a time, following the scent trail.
The door to her room is gone, just splintered wood jutting out from the destroyed frame.
I take in the scene in front of me: Maddox, one knee between her legs, holding both her wrists above her head with one hand, the other hand twisting what’s left of her dress up around her hips.
She’s almost completely naked, legs kicking, face twisted with pure animal panic.
Her thigh is slick with blood where his claws have raked red streaks across her pale skin.
He doesn’t even see me coming, so intent is he on forcing himself between her thighs.
He looks up just as I cross the threshold, and in that moment, my wolf takes over completely.
I leap, crossing the room in one, and I hit him so hard he cracks into the wall, taking a chunk of plaster down with him.
There’s a satisfying crunch of bone as I clamp down on his shoulder, and the taste of blood fills my mouth.
Maddox shifts before he even hits the floor, a convulsion of muscle and fur.
He swings around, his jaw snapping for my throat, but I twist and drive him back against the wall, my teeth scoring deep into his leg.
He wrenches away, and we collide with the dresser, the heavy oak splintering under us.
Ava is in the corner, knees drawn to her chest, eyes wild and unblinking.
Blood spatters across her cheek, but she doesn’t even seem to notice.
Maddox is fast; he always has been, but he’s reckless.
He goes for my throat again, and I let him.
I let him get close enough that I can rake my claws through the soft fur of his belly, forcing him back with a howl.
He’s bleeding now, the smell of it sharp and sweet.
My wolf wants to savor it, wants to make him suffer for what he did to my beta and every second he laid hands on Ava.
He comes at me again, low, feinting for my leg, but I catch him by the scruff and fling him through the window in a hail of broken glass. I hear the thud as he hits the low roof and then a second thud when he rolls off and hits the ground. I don’t hesitate before I follow, needing to finish this.
I land hard, letting the pain fuel my rage. Maddox is already up, shaking glass from his pelt, his teeth bared. I can hear the pops and cracks as he tries to bulk up, pushing his shift past what his body wants, desperate to match me in mass.
He’s not alpha. Never was. But his wolf is hungry enough to believe it, and that kind of madness is dangerous.
Then, in the distance, the rumble of engines.
Not just one but three, maybe four trucks, approaching fast. Maddox’s eyes flicker toward the drive, and we both know he’s out of time.
With witnesses, this becomes an official challenge.
A fight to the death—it was always a fight to the death the moment he killed a good wolf and touched Ava.
I bare my teeth in a snarl, sidestep his lunging attack, and rake my claws down his flank, opening him up from ribs to thigh. He howls, staggers, but keeps coming. He always does.
The trucks pull up in a spray of gravel, and suddenly the yard is full.
Jacob, followed by a half-dozen betas and a swarm of the younger recruits I trained only just this morning.
They spill out of the beds and cabs, some shifting on the run, some staying human, but all with eyes fixed on the two of us, locked in a death match.
The crowd’s arrival only hardens my resolve.
Every wolf watching is a reminder that this is what I was born to do—not the violence, but the rule of the pack.
Maddox circles, teeth bared, blood oozing from the gash on his shoulder.
He glances at the crowd, gauging his support, as if even now he might win them over with a display of brute force.
I wait, almost pause, and look him dead in the eye. Offering something. Were he to ask for his life now, would I grant it? Banished, but alive, yes. For my father, for his. I can see in his eyes that he knows the offer, but as quickly as the moment begins, it ends as he lowers his head in a snarl.
He tries to slip past my guard. I catch him low, driving my shoulder into his ribs, and hear the air leave his lungs.
His claws rake my side, scoring hot lines along my flank, but the pain is nothing.
My wolf is so close to the surface, it’s all just fuel to my fire now.
I twist and bite down on his throat, just below the jaw where the fur is thin, and taste the hot source of his life.
He thrashes, kicking, but my jaw is locked.
He tries to shift back to free himself, but I clamp down harder. I can feel the crowd’s eyes on us, the tension in the air thick enough to choke on. No one moves to intervene; this is pack law at its most ancient, and everyone knows it.
The world around me fades away in the heat of my bite, the stench of blood, the pulse of bone and muscle in my mouth.
Maddox bucks and thrashes, but I hold on, my teeth grinding through skin and cartilage, until the wild fight in him becomes something smaller, a fluttering panic, resignation, defeat, and then nothing at all.
The blood floods my tongue, and the taste is so deep it feels like a final, terrible communion.
I let go only when he’s limp in my jaws.
For a moment, I want to mourn him, our father’s dreams, and all the promise of his youth.
But then I remember my dead beta in his truck and Ava’s terror.
I spit him out, sprawl over his ruined body, and stare at the crowd of wolves now arrayed in a wide ring around the yard.
For a heartbeat, there’s nothing but the sound of my own ragged breathing.
Then, as if on cue, the air explodes with the wild, echoing calls of the pack.
They’re howling for me. Not in celebration, but recognition, in a language deeper than words. I am their alpha. I always was.
I shift back as Jacob reaches my side, hand bracing on my shoulder. “Notify the council and take care of Garrison’s body, tell his mate quickly,” I say, without waiting for him to reply. I continue, “Ava has been attacked. Make sure no one enters the house.”
Jacob nods, his face filled with respect and sadness. I know he’ll do the right thing by Garrison, and then I’ll go to his mate as well—he was one of the best men in this pack. But right now, I need to find out how badly Maddox hurt Ava.