Chapter 19 #3
"I had heard rumours," Karik continued, that conversational tone back in place, the one that made everything sound reasonable and nothing sound safe.
"That Hanging Rock kept a bear. I assumed it was exaggeration.
A story told to frighten lesser packs." He paused, letting his gaze travel the full breadth of Daska's shoulders, down to his hands, back up to his face.
"Until I encountered him in the foothills, and now here he stands. Guarding my human female."
Daska didn't react. Not a twitch, not a flicker. He held his position with the absolute stillness of a man who had decided exactly what he would do if Karik took one more step, and was simply waiting to see if it became necessary.
Karik's smile sharpened. "The wolf female may be mated to the weak male. I will grant that claim, thin as it is. But the human?" He shook his head slowly, almost pitying. “There is no claim. She belongs to me.”
"Pack law is clear," Karik said. "An unclaimed female—"
"Pack law also recognises guest-right, territorial sovereignty, and the authority of an alpha to protect those within his borders." I held his gaze, despite knowing my arguments were thin. Karik was right, by law, Ellie should belong to him. It was an ancient law that applied to males and females, and had been meant for their protection, requiring a pack to take in vulnerable travellers and provide a home. It was why I’d brought them home to Hanging Rock, or at least, what I’d told the elders.
Right now though, I was hoping confidence would get me further than accuracy.
I glared hard at Karik. "You want to argue law?
We can argue law. At the summer gathering, before the council of alphas, where your recent activities at Birch Lake can also be discussed in detail. "
The first crack appeared. It was subtle, a tightening around his eyes, a fractional shift in his posture, but I caught it.
Karik snapped. “I expect you to return my property to me, Rivik. Or there will be consequences.”
My mind raced through the calculations even as I kept my expression locked in place. I needed more time. "A moon cycle," I said. "You give us a full moon cycle to settle our affairs and prepare the... transfer. Even you must recognise that simply dragging a human from a pack camp requires—"
Karik laughed. The sound was sharp and short, cracking through the cold air like a branch snapping. Several of his wolves shifted their weight, ears pricking forward, and I saw teeth flash in more than one muzzle.
"A full moon cycle," Karik repeated, still laughing, shaking his head with the theatrical disbelief of a man who wanted his audience to share the joke. "You think me a fool, Rivik? A moon cycle, and by the time I return, the strangers will be gone.”
"Then they will not leave."
The words left my mouth before I'd fully thought them through, but the moment they hit the air, I knew they were right. The only card I had left to play.
Karik's laughter died. His eyes narrowed, and for the first time since he'd walked into my territory with his wall of wolves and his predator's smile, I saw genuine surprise flicker across his face.
"What did you say?"
"I said they will not leave." I held his gaze, letting the weight of the words settle between us.
"I will give you my word, as Alpha of Hanging Rock, that the strangers will remain within this valley until the matter is resolved.
They will not flee. They will not be spirited away in the night. They will be here when you return."
Karik studied me. The amusement had drained from his expression, replaced by the sharp, predatory focus of a man reassessing his opponent.
Behind him, his wolves had gone still, reading their alpha's mood the way all pack wolves did—instinctively, instantly, adjusting their own posture to mirror his shift from theatrical confidence to genuine calculation.
"Your word," he said slowly.
"My word. Before my pack. Before yours. Before the Great Mother herself.
" The formal phrasing was deliberate. An Alpha's sworn word, given publicly, was binding.
Breaking it would cost me my leadership, my honour, everything my father and his father had built.
Karik knew that. I held his gaze without blinking, even as something inside me screamed at what I was committing to.
I was caging them. Caging her. But the alternative—Karik dragging her out of here today, right now, in front of my pack, in front of Daska—
That could not happen.
"A moon cycle," I repeated.
"Half." Karik's smile returned, but it was different now. The smile of a man who smelled blood in the water. "The dark moon. Half a moon cycle, Rivik.”
Half a moon cycle. Not even a full turn of the Mother's face across the sky. Fourteen days, maybe fifteen, before Karik came back with his wolves and his hunger and his absolute certainty that Ellie belonged to him like a tool or a hide or a cut of meat.
It wasn't enough time. It wasn't close to enough time.
But it was more than nothing, and nothing was what I'd have if I refused him outright with twenty of his wolves standing in formation and my pack's children huddled in the caves behind me.
The trap was elegant. I had to give him that, even as the full weight of it settled onto my shoulders like a physical thing.
Karik hadn't come here expecting to leave with Ellie today.
He'd come to create a framework—a public demand, a deadline, a set of terms that would make any refusal look like aggression.
If I handed her over, he won. If I refused, he had justification to escalate.
And if I fought him now, here, with twenty of his wolves against my twenty-three and the rest of my pack exposed behind us. ..
I could feel my wolves watching me. Every single one of them, reading my body language the way wolves always did, looking for the cues that would tell them whether to stand down or bare their teeth. Daska hadn't moved.
I held Karik’s gaze. Let the silence stretch between us, thick and suffocating, while every fibre of my being screamed at me to reject him.
To snarl the word no into his face and let the consequences come.
I could refuse outright. The word was right there, sitting on my tongue, hot and ready.
No. She stays. Come and take her if you dare.
My wolf spirit howled for it, demanded it, threw itself against my ribs with such force that I tasted blood where I'd bitten the inside of my cheek.
If I refused outright, Karik had his justification.
He'd brought enough wolves to make a challenge viable, and even if we drove them back—which we could, probably, with casualties—he'd have his story for the summer gathering.
Hanging Rock refused a lawful claim. Hanging Rock chose violence.
The other packs would hear his version first, and by the time I stood before the council, the narrative would already be set.
For the first time since I became alpha, I had to admit to myself, I didn’t know what to do for the best. All I could do was to play for more time.
I bowed my head in agreement.
“You have my word.”