Chapter 4 #2
“Enough!” The roar of my Will echoed around the Hollow. “Submit.” My alpha power raced through my veins, my body vibrating with the hum of its power. “I said submit.”
His wolf cowered. But the eyes, Goddess, it was all in the eyes. He lunged again, and my fist connected with the wolf’s muzzle. A whimper at the impact, and he was out.
I looked around the living room. “My wife is going to kick your ass,” I muttered, using my Will to force his change back into his human form.
I tossed a rug over his naked body. Rowen didn’t need to see that.
I didn’t need to see it either. I quickly pulled off my clothes, shifted to heal the wounds he’d inflicted on me, and then dressed again just as quickly.
That was my plan until I held up my shirt and saw it was more or less scrap material.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I stepped over him and went into the bedroom to get fresh clothes. When I came back out, Killian, Brand, and Rowen were surveying the damage.
“Why did we go outside?” Rowen demanded. “We could have saved the house if you’d gone instead.”
“Giving him more space just makes the fucker wilder,” Killian told her, picking up a cushion from the couch. Seeing it in one piece, he plopped it back onto the couch, which was sitting ruined.
“Solana—”
“We know,” Brand said quickly. “I called Cale, too.” He didn’t look at Rowen, but the accusation was clear in his eyes. “I fell for it completely. How many others have sworn to you, Alpha, and lied?”
“You better not mean me,” Rowen growled at him as she tried to fix an overturned plant pot. “You need to do it again,” she told me. “You need to use it harder and just like you did with him.”
“Use what? My Will?” I was already shaking my head. “No.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Diesel said as he sat up, shaking his head and looking around. “Who did I hurt?”
“Only yourself,” I told him. “Keep the rug on.”
Diesel looked over at Rowen. “She’s seen it before.”
“For your sake, that better be a lie.” I glanced at my wife, who was very carefully not looking at me. “I’m not a fool,” I told Diesel. “Forcing you to submit when your darker side comes out to play is one thing, forcing my Will on the pack? I did that.”
“You tickled them.”
Killian shrugged when he saw my look. “You used barely any of your alpha power, and it cost us. It will continue to cost us until you accept your birthright and own this fucking pack.”
“I am their alpha.”
“Are you?” Brand asked. He was looking at the damage in the room.
“Or are you playing house?” He studied Rowen, then me.
“A woman you believed was loyal to you got into our pack, into our homes, and then once she was settled, she went into our most precious of homes and tried to slash Grandfather’s throat open. ”
“He’s okay,” Rowen told me, feeling my reaction through the bond. “Your grandmother. The grandmother?” She hurried on. “She stabbed her with her knitting needle.”
“You said submit,” Brand said, looking outward. “How many still stood when the command came out?”
I hated that they were right.
“Gather them all.” My tone left no room for argument. “Split them into three groups. Killian, Brand with one. Diesel, Rowen, with another. Axel, Cody, and I will do the third. I’ll issue the command tonight. We’ll see who falls.”
“Tonight?” Diesel asked, standing, dropping the rug, not caring, smirking at the speed at which my wife turned away. “No, now.”
“No. Tonight.” I looked around the room. “I have a young boy to find first.”
“I’ll come with you,” Rowen said, reaching for my hand.
She turned to look at Diesel over her shoulder.
“You owe me a couch.” When he said nothing, she turned to look at them all.
“My pack is not one of traitors. I know it’s hard to believe that right now.
But this is not who we are. Please, keep an open mind. ”
Brand was the first to speak. “It’s hard when they’re trying to kill us.”
“Agreed,” Rowen said sadly. “We’re worth fighting for,” she told them. “And even if my pack isn’t”—she rubbed her hand over her chest—“the land is. It won’t betray you.”
“Will you?” My glare met Diesel’s indifferent one. “I’m asking what everyone else is thinking,” he said with a shrug.
“We’ve done this before,” I snapped at them all. “Rowen is my mate. If you believe in nothing else, believe in that. In our Goddess.”
I left the cottage, Rowen at my side. We walked to the pack hall, my stride angry and purposeful. I didn’t slow for her, and she didn’t ask me to.
“They’re right, you know,” she said as we rounded the corner before the clearing opened up. “You used your Will, but it wasn’t enough. The traitors are still among us. Solana?” She shook her head in disgust. “She fooled us all.”
“We find the boy,” I told her. “Then we fix this.”
“How?” She saw my glance. “How do we fix any of it? You and Diesel wrestling on my living room floor?”
“They will not lie to me again,” I vowed. “They submit, or they die.”
Her breath caught. “Careful, husband,” she breathed. “You don’t sound like the alpha I know.”
A grunt of displeasure left me as we approached the front entrance to the pack hall.
“This is what you asked for.” I didn’t look at her as I walked into the pack hall. “I’m done being soft.”