Chapter 6
Rowen
He’d been gone all night.
I didn’t know how many times I tested the bond to ensure that, when I pulled, it pulsed back at me. He was still alive, but I was sure that I might kill him when I saw him.
If Diesel didn’t kill him first.
Because if I was mad, Diesel was furious.
We’d all seen it—those who slept and those still awake.
We’d all seen the vision of our alpha leaping across the chasm and hovering in mid-air as if he were in slow motion until he landed gracefully on the other side.
I had tugged at the bond repeatedly for the next twenty minutes until my heart stopped trying to escape from my chest.
He jumped across the freaking mountain.
And lived.
He was an idiot.
It was obvious that I was married to and mated to a complete lunatic. I’d blame Luna, but she seemed to be the one that insisted he was crazy.
The pack was split into three as he asked, and scattered across three separate locations throughout the Hollow.
Not everyone was happy. Axel had relayed his alpha’s orders yesterday afternoon; we’d assembled, and then our alpha decided to go on a moonlit refuge.
Now it was morning, the air heavy and damp, and my alpha was nowhere to be seen.
Diesel stood still beside me. Only he wasn’t still. He was agitated, and while he hadn’t moved for a long time, the energy he was throwing off was enough to make me jumpy.
“Can you please stop it?” I snapped at him.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Can you please go not do something somewhere else?”
Diesel went to answer, but his gaze snapped from mine to the ridge. His teeth bared in a snarl. “You ready for this?” he demanded just as my mate walked into view.
He was in the same clothes as yesterday, but it didn’t matter. He could have been naked, and I wouldn’t have looked anywhere but at his face. His eyes were shining white.
His alpha power seemed to crackle in the air around him as he walked. Energy, hot and full of reverberation, radiated off of him, and I saw some of the pack drop to their knees as he approached.
“Luna…” the druid breathed. I turned to them and saw the wonder in their eyes. “He’s been touched by the hand of the Goddess.”
The druid’s awe was interrupted by a loud snort from Diesel. “He’s about to be touched by my fist.”
“Don’t be so primitive,” the druid scolded, their attention never leaving Wolfe.
Wolfe approached us, and I wasn’t sure how to react until he reached out, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me into his embrace. The kiss was deep, thorough, and unhurried.
“And how is the ridge this time of year?” Diesel asked, breaking the spell.
Wolfe lifted his head from mine and faced his beta. “Invigorating.”
Diesel swung, and Wolfe caught his fist effortlessly. “Careful, wild one,” he murmured, so low that I had to strain to hear him. “She’s still not happy with you.” Wolfe dropped Diesel’s fist and turned to the gathered pack.
“Kneel.”
I balked at his command, but one look at his profile, and I did as commanded by my alpha.
“I do not ask you to kneel from pride. I do not ask you to kneel because I can. I do not ask you to kneel to remind you of the power I hold.” His voice turned soft. Almost gentle. “I ask you to kneel so you do not fall.”
I watched him from where I knelt. His hair was pushed back, stubble lined his jaw, his T-shirt stretched across broad shoulders, sleeves tight around his biceps.
His eyes still shone silver with the power of an alpha.
The power gifted by the Goddess. I turned my head fractionally and looked towards the ridge.
I’d been up there many a time. I never met the Goddess. But then I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could jump across the yawning mouth of a mountain.
“Our enemies have been at our gates. They have been on our land, spilling our blood. They have used deception at every turn. Now they use our children.”
The pack murmured.
“No more.” Wolfe’s voice was as hard as granite. “I have been summoned to the Pack Council to answer for my crime of being an alpha to two packs. But I am alpha to one pack.”
Again, the murmur, a slight hint of fear that he was leaving us. I know they thought that, because for a moment, so did I.
“I hold two territories,” Wolfe continued. “Both strong with the land. Both strong with the hold of the Goddess.” Wolfe seemed to get bigger, fill out. “I am your alpha. By the claim of the named heir, by the claim of the land, and by the claim of the Hollow’s daughter.”
I swallowed nervously, not liking the fact that I could feel many eyes rest on me and not their alpha.
“I bow to no one.” He stood taller. “Not even the Goddess.” Gasps rang out, but he ignored them. “Luna does not ask me to bow. She does not ask me to yield. She commands me to lead.”
I felt it then. The pressure at the base of my skull, slight at first but growing stronger. I winced as the pressure grew but had nowhere to go.
“I did this once before, because I felt I had no choice. With the lies of this pack still being revealed, again you give me no choice. By my Will and the grace of the Goddess, show me your heart.”
The pressure increased so much that I cried out, my body fell forward, hands digging into the dirt as I fought to remain upright.
I felt him in my head, in my heart, in my veins.
His alpha power consumed me until I was crying.
My body writhed trying to escape the pain, but there was nowhere to go.
Nowhere to hide that he would not find me.
I was at his mercy.
And I hated it.
Wolfe was right. We shouldn’t have made him do this. This was too much. Too severe. I cried out again as the pain intensified. I was his mate; if the pain was this bad for me, what must others be feeling?
Something inside me ripped apart. I screamed as power filled me. Nothing I had ever felt before, it rushed into my body like water spilling into the ground, filling up everywhere, saturating my body, my blood, my very essence.
I had to stand. I struggled to push myself upwards, but I did. On shaky feet, I stood, my face wet with tears, and slowly I raised my head and looked into the eyes of my husband.
My mate.
My…enemy?
The thought made me stumble backwards. My hands at my mouth. No. No. I fought as the power raced to completely fill me.
No!
I pushed it down. Away. No more.
“Reject it.”
The whisper in my ear was loud, filling my silence with a shout. Panting, I closed my eyes.
“Reject it.”
This was the power of an alpha. In me. I was not male.
This was an alpha’s power. I grabbed for it.
“Daughter.” The voice was sterner. “Reject it.”
I shook my head. Who was that? “Dad?” I turned. Seeing nothing. Ignoring the pack that knelt at the feet of their alpha. “Daddy?”
“Reject it, daughter. Fight it.”
A woman’s voice. Not my father’s. My mother’s.
“Mom?”
“It’s not for you, Rowen. This power is not yours, fight it.”
I pushed with all my might. Get out!
Drained, I blacked out.
When I came to, I was on the grass, my pack still around me, still kneeling. Some were more prone than others. A few were on their feet, hatred in their eyes, but immobile.
“Well done, Daughter.”
Goddess no, not again. I braced myself for more pain. It didn’t come. Instead, I felt softness brush my cheek, like new grass on a spring morning. Strength filled my body, as strong as the Heartwood. Coolness washed over me, like morning mist.
The magic of the Hollow filled and soothed me like a lover’s caress. No longer a thud in my chest alongside my heartbeat. Now it was my heartbeat.
I opened my eyes expecting to see my mother, and instead met the gaze of my mate. Wolfe smiled, and I returned it.
“Thank you for choosing me,” he said simply.
He said it as if I had made a conscious choice to be his mate. But the Goddess chose the alpha’s mate. The power of the Hollow tittered within me. I almost lost my balance.
“Wolfe?”
He reached for me, and I went, falling into his arms, taking comfort in his strong embrace, letting him hold me.
“What happened?”
“You had a fight on your hands,” he told me. “You won.”
“Who was I fighting?” I asked cautiously.
“Me? Your father? Your legacy?” He sighed. “The power of an alpha was in you, and it just felt…wrong.”
I looked up at him, and he shook his head.
“I don’t know, my love. I only know you chose me.” He kissed me softly. “Later,” he spoke out loud, but quietly, intimately.
I nodded and then looked around at my pack. Six were standing, the rest were still on their knees, or curled into a ball and asleep, but all those on the ground looked peaceful.
“What’s wrong with them?” I asked, looking at the ones that stood.
“They reject me as their alpha,” Wolfe told me. “Six here, three with Diesel, and four with Killian. Thirteen.”
“Enemies,” I whispered, looking into the faces of the six pack members who I would have said were loyal and true. “What do you want to—”
They fell as one, and I knew they were dead.
“Wolfe.” Just his name, not an accusation.
His eyes shone with tears, but he never faltered. His gaze cast over his pack as they began to wake.
“I will never use this power on you again, not like this. Forgive me.”
He released them from his Will. Cody was there to catch him if he stumbled. He didn’t.
With a weary sigh, Wolfe turned to the druid. “It is done. The pack is cleansed. The Hollow has embraced their daughter. She needs to be trained. The Goddess has spoken.”
He dropped his arm from me and stepped back. “I need to sleep. Cody?”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Wolfe looked at the fallen shifters. “Burn them. No rites. No prayers. Blueridge Hollow does not accept traitors into its hearth.”
He walked away. Head down, shoulders slumped. So different from when he came down from the ridge this morning. A small body ran through the trees, coming to a stop in front of him. I stepped forward on instinct, but Wolfe was still.
Lake looked up at his alpha, tears streaming down his face. Wolfe shook his head, rejecting him, and I watched the young boy step back with a sob.