Wolf’s Dominion (The Blueridge Hollow #3)

Chapter 1

Rowen

The day my pack died on paper, the Hollow held its breath.

I felt it the second I woke up.

Not in some dramatic thunderclap or a crack of earth, just…quiet, but the wrong kind. The kind that settled in the bones of the trees and pressed under my skin until my wolf bristled.

Wolfe’s side of the bed was empty, but the sheets were still warm, the scent of him threaded with mine—familiar and safe and something darker, something that felt like home now. My mark throbbed faintly at my neck, low and satisfied, and for a heartbeat, I let myself sink into that feeling.

Mate.

Bonded.

Chosen.

My sigh of contentment was low, and my lips curled upward in a slow, satisfied smile. Was this what happiness felt like? It felt wrong to feel so…content when everything around us was still far from settled.

A shiver ran through me, startling me out of my soft reverie. What the heck was that?

I sat up, shoved back the blankets, and stood, bare feet hitting the worn wood. The house pulled at my senses—old beams with old stories—but there was a thin foreign thread in the air. It felt wrong. Sharp. It was almost as if it were intruding.

By the time I’d pulled on pants, boots, and a clean shirt, my heart was already racing. The bond hummed under my ribs, tugging sharply to the left.

Wolfe.

Was it him? Was that what I felt? I followed the pull to my mate, down the hallway, through the living room, and out the door, into the morning, where the early light spilled orange over the mountain ridge.

The air was cold enough to sting my lungs.

I breathed it in anyway, trying to settle the unease clawing at my chest.

I felt the shiver again. Not a shiver…a pulse. As I turned in a slow circle, eyes scanning for any sign of trouble, all I could see was the forest of the Hollow, never empty but not threatening.

Yet…what was that feeling? I hurried up the path, eager to get to the pack hall to learn anything. Another soft pulse within me, causing me to almost stumble.

“What is it?” I asked through the bond.

“The Hollow.”

Wolfe appeared through the trees, walking towards me, his broad shoulders tense with his hands fisted at his sides.

Diesel, Killian, and Brand flanked him like they thought he could come under attack at any time.

Beyond them, wolves were gathering, drifting from houses and paths, drawn by the pull of their alpha.

“Shh, princess, not yet.”

A warning. Why was I being warned?

“What is it?” I asked, falling into step beside him.

His fingers brushed the back of my hand in greeting.

He didn’t answer, but I was content not to push when I saw the sharp focus in his glare as he strode to whatever had pissed him off.

At the edge of the clearing, a lone figure waited, standing straight and still, their cloak pinned with the insignia I grew up in awe of.

The crescent-and-claw of the Pack Council.

My stomach dropped at the sight of them.

“He just arrived,” Killian said quietly to me, coming up to stand beside me. His eyes flicked to my mark, then back to my face. He didn’t comment, but I felt the warm pulse of pack through the bond to my mate. “Hasn’t spoken yet. Scout saw him, came and got Wolfe.”

“Can’t cross either,” Diesel said smugly. “Bet that’s got him shitting his pants.”

Wolfe turned to grin at Diesel over his shoulder, his eyes meeting mine as he turned back. The bond jumped between us, heat and steel, and the steady, comforting weight of him sliding into place inside my chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked, low enough only I could catch it.

No. Yes. None of those words felt big enough.

“I’m here,” I say instead.

He exhaled once, slow, like that’s all he needed. “Stay by me.”

“Always.” I stood at his side, our arms touching, our wolves pressing against the bond. The Hollow felt alive under us, awareness coiling through the soil, through the roots, through the old stone beneath the hall. Was I the only one feeling it? Is this what Wolfe felt as alpha?

The Council messenger stepped forward with careful precision. He was an older man, graying at the temples, shoulders straight in the way of men who believe in rules more than in people.

“Alpha Wolfe of the Stonefang Pack,” he called out, voice carrying easily across the yard. “Rowen of the Blueridge Hollow Pack.”

Not alpha’s mate. Just my name. A deliberate reminder that the Pack Council didn’t believe it.

“This is Blueridge Hollow,” Wolfe answered. His voice was calm. Dangerous. “You stand on its soil. I am the alpha, and this is my mate. Mind your tongue.”

The shifter’s gaze flicked to me, then to the wolves arrayed behind us.

There were more than there used to be—Stonefang and Hollow mixed together now, shoulder to shoulder.

The messenger didn’t look impressed at the number of shifters in front of him.

Was this what the Pack Council didn’t want to happen?

“I come on behalf of the Pack Council,” the messenger said. “In accordance with our laws and with the authority vested in us by the united packs.”

The Hollow throbbed in response, and my wolf bared its teeth.

Wolfe tilted his head. “Then speak. My pack has things to do besides listen to pretentiousness.”

A murmur ran through the crowd. I heard Diesel snort behind us. Killian wasn’t even bothering to hide his smirk.

A tic appeared in the messenger’s jaw, but he said nothing as he reached into his cloak and pulled out a scroll sealed with dark red wax. My throat felt like it was closing. I’d seen summons before. Warnings. Edicts.

This felt worse.

“The Pack Council has convened and rendered judgment regarding the territory known as Blueridge Hollow,” he intoned.

Rendered. Past tense. I was certain I felt the land flinch.

“The Council finds that Alpha Wolfe of the Stonefang Pack has assumed control over two territories in a manner that destabilizes the established order and threatens the balance of power among the packs.”

Wolfe didn’t move. He could be carved from stone.

“Furthermore,” the man continued, “the Council questions the legitimacy of the claimed mate bond between Alpha Wolfe and Rowen of Blueridge Hollow.”

The ripple of outrage through the shifters around us felt like a shockwave.

There were more than a few growls, more than a few snarls.

My wolf lunged within me at the insult, hackles up, and it took everything in me not to show my reaction.

The bond between Wolfe and me pulsed hard in my chest, hot and furious.

“Careful,” Wolfe said softly.

I didn’t know if he was talking to me or the messenger. I listened to him nonetheless; the messenger did not heed the same warning.

He cracked the wax and unrolled the parchment. Sunlight seemed to catch the gloss on the Council’s sigil stamped at the top, and somewhere under my feet, the Hollow rippled like wind through dead leaves.

“In light of these concerns,” the messenger read, “and in accordance with our right to intervene where stability is at risk, the Pack Council decrees the following.” He looked at us over his glasses. “The pack of Blueridge Hollow is to be dissolved.”

Everything inside me stopped.

For a second, the world narrowed to the sound of my own heartbeat, thudding hard and wrong against my ribs.

Dissolved.

Like we were…nothing. As if generations of wolves and blood and sacrifice could be erased with ink and an arrogant hand. My father’s pack, my pack, was to be erased.

My fingers dug into my palms. I tasted copper on my tongue and wondered whether I’d bitten my lip or cheek to keep the scream of rage from escaping.

“The land will be placed under temporary Council stewardship,” the messenger carried on, as if he hadn’t just announced the death of my home.

“All shifters currently sworn to Blueridge Hollow are to be redistributed to neighboring territories as deemed appropriate. Alpha Wolfe’s dominion over this land is revoked, pending formal hearing. ”

A howl rose from the back of the crowd, raw and disbelieving. Another shifter snarled, “Over my dead body.”

Diesel’s wolf brushed against me as he moved to the front of us all, leaking cold fury. I saw the fear in the messenger’s eyes as he looked upon the form of Diesel’s wolf.

I didn’t blame him; I’d had pretty much the same reaction the first time I’d seen Diesel’s wolf form.

The Hollow surged. Not in magic. In weight—and I had the bone-deep sensation that the land itself was listening.

Wolfe moved then. Only a fraction—just enough to step forward, putting his body infinitesimally in front of mine. The gesture was subtle. It still felt like a wall.

“Is that all?” he asked. He sounded bored, and I envied him his self-control.

The messenger faltered, thrown by the lack of reaction from the alpha, his betas or his mate.

He cleared his throat. “The Council also summons you, Alpha Wolfe, and you, Rowen of Blueridge Hollow, to a formal hearing, three weeks hence, to answer for your actions. Until that time, you are to cease all exercising of authority over Blueridge Hollow—”

“No,” Wolfe said, not loudly. Not in anger. Just a simple rebuke, and yet the word cut through the yard like a blade.

The messenger blinked, clearly confused. “You don’t have the right to refuse, Alpha.”

I took a step to the side and saw Wolfe smile then. It was not kind.

“This land doesn’t answer to your parchment,” he said.

“It never has. It answers to the ones who bleed for it. The ones who scatter the ash of their dead on its soil. The ones who know every inch of its ridges because they’ve patrolled them in the middle of winter.

” His gaze sharpened. “It answers to my mate.”