Chapter Nine #3
Despite the rage I felt toward Bertram, my heart warmed a bit at Enzo’s words. This was the kind of Alpha I wished all packs in the country could have. “Is there a reason you can’t eject him?”
“Where would he go?” He scoffed. “He’s Beta of our pack.
Any other pack takes him in, he becomes lowest-ranked.
He won’t stand for that for long, and then he’ll rise through the ranks and become a leader again.
I have already arranged for the other two involved in Ren’s assault to join other packs, however.
One is moving to Hudson after hunt night.
The other has already left my pack for Aroostook. ”
“Jason Yeaton took in one of your wolves?” That surprised me.
Jason was a very stolid man and, from what I knew of him, a strict Alpha.
He struck me more as the kind who would follow the beliefs of his time when it came to things like transgender people or homosexuality.
In other words, the kind who wouldn’t see an issue with beating up someone who transformed from a wolf body with a penis into a human body with breasts and a vagina.
Then again, Jason also didn’t strike me as the kind who would accept fighting for fighting’s sake, so who knew? I clearly didn’t know my alphas as well as I could. And I should have known Jason better than some, since he and I had been alphas in the same region for decades.
“When I put out word that I needed to rehome a couple of my pack members and why, Jason was the first to respond,” Enzo said.
“He doesn’t accept that sort of behavior from his wolves, and he said he would, quote, ‘bring him in line,’ end quote.
I sent Dylan to him. Dylan had been saying he wanted to live in a quieter part of the country anyway.
Can’t get much quieter than northern Maine, at least within the Northeast Region. ”
“I imagine that’s true.” I’d never been to northern Maine. Maybe it was time to visit Aroostook Pack’s territory. “I’ll talk to Jason later and see how it’s going with your former pack member. Thank you for addressing this so quickly, Alpha.”
“You’re welcome, Anax.” He lowered his voice. “Ren would have been a welcome member of the pack had this not occurred. I won’t invite him back with Bertram still in place as Beta, but once that situation is resolved, there’s a place for Ren in Connecticut Pack.”
“Let me know if you want assistance with Bertram.” I didn’t know yet how I could remove the Beta without setting him packless, and loosing a transphobic werewolf on the world with no pack to rein him in didn’t seem like the brightest move.
At the same time, as Enzo had noted, if Bertram changed packs, he would automatically be lowest in his new pack until he fought his way through the ranks.
Which would put him right back in the position of being able to cause harm to wolves like Ren.
If there were other wolves like Ren. Something I should probably find out.
After the gathering. After the wedding.
After my mind wasn’t going in five hundred different directions at the same time.
“I will, Anax,” Enzo said. “Thank you.”
“I appreciate your time, Alpha. You’re dismissed.” I hated how, well, dismissive that sounded, but I felt drained, angry, all kinds of not good things, and I wanted to find Kyle and hold him as tight as possible for a few minutes before I had to go back to being the guy in charge.
I located Kyle upstairs in our room, sitting in one of the stuffed chairs with the door open.
As soon as I closed the door behind me, he stood and held out his arms. “You’re doing great.
You feel like shit, and you probably aren’t sure whether to kill Davis Gray or kick him into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but you’re doing great. ”
“I wish I believed that.” I sighed and relaxed against him as he wrapped his arms around me.
“One good thing, at least. Enzo Pereira is dealing with the wolves in his pack who assaulted Ren. One of them is the pack Beta, so we’re going to have to figure out how to handle him.
The other two have been booted to other packs. ”
“Good.” He kissed my cheek. “Tell me business stuff when we go down for lunch, okay? Right now I’d like to just hold you.”
“Yeah. That’s a plan.”
We stood there in the middle of the room for a little while.
Neither of us spoke. The first full day of the gathering, and things were already going to shit, so there was nothing to say.
I would pull myself together and do what I could to keep things on track.
Kyle would do what he could to keep me on track.
That was the one good thing right now. My mate was beside me, and this time, unlike times in the past when things had gone to shit, I wouldn’t kick him out or shut myself away from him. I needed him.
He made me stronger. All the assholes who claimed love was weakness didn’t know a damn thing, at least when it came to Kyle and me.
We’d figured out not long after we got together that something about him strengthened my power as well as giving me strength in general.
And yet nearly every time something awful happened, my first instinct was to push him away.
To be fair, he’d done his share of pushing me away, too.
We had always come back to each other. No matter which of us had walked away or which of us had pushed, the mate bond and the love we had for each other always brought us back together.
This time, I would hold onto that love and the strength Kyle gave me so I could get through the rest of the gathering, no matter what other bombs were thrown my way.
There would be more. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Davis was the only one who wanted to see me out of the rank, and whoever else might want that was still here.
“Don’t leave me,” Kyle murmured, startling me out of my thoughts.
“Not if I can help it.” That was the only promise I was willing to make. “Don’t you leave me.”
“Same answer.” He pulled back to look me in the eyes. “I love you, Tobias. I hear your thoughts rattling around. I asked you not to talk about business, but you’re definitely thinking about it, and I won’t ask you not to do that.”
“I’m sorry you were hearing my thoughts.
” Not that I owed him an apology. The mate bond worked both ways, and especially since I became Anax, our ability to tune into each other’s minds had grown exponentially.
But he could have ignored what I was thinking, or even shut down the bond for the few minutes we’d been in the room.
Then again, I could have tried harder to stay present instead of letting my mind wander to the bullshit.
“No need to be sorry,” he said. “Look, I’m with you. If you face a challenge, I’m with you. If more jackwagons decide to defect, I’m with you. That’s why I was waiting up here. I had a feeling you’d need a little time to be just Tobias before you went on with the day.”
“Absolutely.” I kissed him. “But now it’s time to be among my guests as the Anax. Are you with me for that?”
“Absolutely.” He grinned. “It’s lunchtime. Let’s go.”