Chapter 10 #2
Was I surprised it came from one in my most trusted inner circle? No. I knew why he asked, because he was the only one brave enough to ask it for the rest of them. That saddened me.
“I have been absent,” I acknowledged. “The Hollow was being attacked, and shifters who rely on me as you do needed me.” I shrugged. “I’m trying to understand what it all means, just like you. It’s been…hectic.”
“Chaos, you mean,” Cody murmured.
I nodded. “It has. Attacks, dissension. Lies. And betrayals that hurt more than they should.” I looked at the three shelters.
“We gave them shelter from the chaos, and they tried to take the most precious of shifters from us.” A rumble of agreement from the pack followed.
“That’s on me,” I told them. “I trusted the wrong voices. Solana’s husband was a bastard; I believed his wife was innocent.
That’s my error for thinking she had suffered enough and not pushing for more. ”
“And you’ll make her suffer now?” Darla asked me. She didn’t look away from me, usually so mild-mannered and quiet; her eyes shone with anger. “We let them into our homes, let them sit at our hearths, let their children play with ours.”
I listened. “I will use my Will on them all,” I spoke quietly. “Including the children.”
A ripple of surprise ran through them.
“And where do we stand with the upset from the Pack Council?” an older shifter to the back asked.
“You stand with your alpha, and he stands with the Hollow,” I said simply.
Another murmur rippled through half the pack. The other half stiffened, uncertain. Reminding me of something Lars told me a long time ago.
Loyalty wasn’t a switch you flipped. It was a line you held.
Cody moved to my side. “Now, Wolfe.”
I resented him for pushing. But I knew he was right. I nodded. “Bring out the Blueridge Hollow shifters.”
When they were in front of me, I looked them over—older wolves, middle-aged, children. My heart hurt that I had to do this. Not just to them. To them all.
Unlike the others who had been at the border, I never gave them a warning. My Will slid outward—slow, methodical, a coiled presence pressing against the shifters around me. Not to break. Not to dominate. Just to feel.
To know.
Some of them knelt instantly. Some hesitated, unsure as to what they were feeling. One or two, their pride resisted before dropping with a snarl. That was expected.
What wasn’t expected was the whisper of something old brushing against the edge of my senses, like a fingertip dragging through smoke. I stiffened, snapping my head toward the path leading to the shelters from the border, expecting something.
Nothing came. Nothing moved. Not a leaf. Not a shadow. Not a wolf.
But I felt it.
A presence. Watching me. Measuring me.
The Grumps said the Hollow remembered. But this wasn’t the Hollow. This felt older than my pack. Older than the Pack Council. Older than the land beneath my feet.
Something druidic…but not the druid I knew.
A shiver rippled down my spine.
Cody growled beside me. “What is that?”
“You feel it?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
“Don’t react,” I warned him. “Focus on it. If it moves away, follow.”
I turned to my pack on their knees. I couldn’t rush this. I couldn’t shirk this duty; that’s what led to traitors moving amongst my pack.
I bent my pack to my Will, and I hated every moment of it. When I was done, the weight of exhaustion felt heavy. Two of the Blueridge Hollow still stood. Solana and a male I didn’t know.
“What now?” she asked me, hate in her eyes.
“Darla,” I called. “Take her children inside.”
She never hesitated. Solana started to cry. Her children didn’t look back as Darla ushered them into a shelter.
“I hope they make you suf—”
Their bodies fell. Gasps from the pack echoed in my ears. I didn’t falter. “It’s done. Justice for the crime against our pack has been delivered.”
“You didn’t ask us…” Cale said in surprise, looking between the dead and me. “You didn’t…”
“Because I am your alpha, and this is not a democracy,” I told them wearily.
“No one else in my pack will die because I wasn’t strong enough to protect you from ourselves.
When the Pack Council comes, and they are coming, trust me, they won’t hesitate.
If you don’t want to spill blood, leave.
” I met every stare. “I am your alpha. Stonefang, the Hollow, they’re my land to protect.
You are my pack to protect. I show no mercy to those who mean you harm. ”
Cody tilted his head back and howled. Some of the pack shifted and joined his howl, while others stayed in their human form, but their voices joined the pack.
Their howling felt right, and my own wolf settled.
I nodded in satisfaction. It wasn’t just the Hollow that held onto their wildness and heritage. The roots of Stonefang were as deep as the mountain rose high.
I turned to look at the path.
Still nothing. But the air tasted different. Old. Metallic. Humming with memory that I didn’t recognize.
I swallowed hard because the truth was simple and terrifying—something or someone was here that wasn’t supposed to be. Someone who had no business crossing into Stonefang.
Movement at the window in the Grumps’ shelter made me look. Grandmother looked back at me. She raised her brow in question, and I nodded back in response.
There was someone here, someone who the land didn’t reject.
It was time to hunt.