Chapter 24
Wolfe
I led Jaxson and one of his betas to the pack hall.
The pack hall wasn’t grand, it wasn’t ostentatious, but it was sturdy—thick beams, stone foundation, long tables with benches worn smooth by years of elbows and arguments. The kind of room meant for a pack community and for making decisions, not standing on ceremony.
It was pretty perfect in my opinion.
Jaxson sat across from me, hands clasped loosely, shoulders straight. A man who’d lost too much too fast, trying very hard not to show it. Another male, I’d already forgotten his name, a beta for sure, sat beside him, tense and watchful.
Rowen was at my right, Killian beside her. Diesel stood somewhere behind us, listening to everything but watchful. Always watchful and pissed off. Which was good. I wanted him irritated. Diesel was sharper when he was annoyed.
“So,” I said, resting my forearms on the table. “Let’s start with the truth. All of it. No polished versions. No diplomatic phrasing. You left your packlands and came here—what’s the real reason?”
His throat worked once, then he exhaled. “The first attacks happened three months ago,” he began. “At first, we thought they were isolated. Rogues drawn by winter hunger. But they kept coming. Organized. Methodical.”
Killian’s jaw tightened. “Sounds familiar.”
“We thought…” Jaxson paused. “I thought my father was being…excitable.” He flushed guiltily. “My father was stepping down, we all knew it, no need for a challenge from me. He wanted this, my pack wanted this, and I thought—”
“He was holding on for holding on’s sake,” Rowen said quietly. She saw my look and smiled softly. “It was something my father spoke of when I was younger. That fear that you let your pride in leading blind you to the needs of those you lead.”
I didn’t say anything about what I suspected was the reason her father was so desperate to hold on until he had no choice; that fight could come later.
Jaxson seemed pleased that Rowen had understood. “I was blind to what was happening,” he admitted. “And these rogues weren’t interested in territory. They aimed for our elders first.”
Rowen inhaled sharply beside me. “For ease?” she asked. “Because they wouldn’t be able to fight back or for what they knew? Their histories.”
Jaxson nodded. “The latter, I believe. Looking back now, it was their strategy to erase our history first, so by the time I saw the pattern, the ones I could ask questions of were already gone.”
“Clever,” Killian murmured.
“Cold,” I said. “Calculated.” I turned to look for Diesel, and he came closer. “Thoughts?”
Diesel sniffed. “They wanted them quiet.” He sucked his teeth. “They came for the young next?”
Jaxson met his stare and didn’t look away. Brave idiot. “Yes.”
“Did they succeed?” I asked, voice lower.
Jaxson hesitated. When he spoke, he didn’t meet any of our gazes. “They took two.”
It was as if the room grew colder as the atmosphere tightened. Rowen’s wolf snarled through the bond. Mine did too.
“Alive?” she asked, her breath catching on the question.
“One escaped,” Jaxson said, his voice rough, his hands clenched tightly together. “The other…we found him.”
Silence. Not the peaceful kind—the kind that made your skin crawl. I watched the alpha across from me, and I could see the pain.
“They took the young to cause panic, confuse them, distract them,” Diesel murmured.
Killian leaned forward. “Why didn’t you go to the Pack Council?”
Jaxson’s beta laughed darkly. “We did.” His eyes burned with hot anger. “We sent an official request for aid. Investigation. Something!”
Jaxson placed his hand on the male’s arm. “Tariq.” His voice was calming. The male took a shaky breath and then nodded. Jaxson looked back at me. “We asked. I begged them to help us.”
“And they ignored you?” I asked.
Tariq leaned in, anger boiling over with fury. “They told us rogue attacks are a ‘natural correction.’ That weak territories fall and strong ones survive.”
Diesel’s growl was low and lethal. “They said that?”
“Yes,” Tariq replied. “And they threatened Emberfell with sanctions if we pressed the issue.”
I felt my vision narrow. “The Pack Council punished you for asking for help?”
Jaxson nodded. “My father stepped down. I stepped up.” He licked his lips.
“Which is why I’m here. If they want our territory cleared the way they cleared the others, then my pack is already dead if we go back.
” His jaw set. “I’d rather keep my pack whole and together than worry about standing ground as we are. ”
Rowen’s voice was soft but steel-edged. “Why Blueridge Hollow? Why us?”
Jaxson didn’t hesitate. “Because Dex saw what they tried to do to you in that Pack Council chamber. Because he watched the Pack Council flinch when the land responded to you two.” He looked between us, eyes as fierce as his beta.
“Because whatever is happening isn’t about strength.
It’s about control. And you two,” Jaxson said quietly, “are the first crack in their authority in decades.”
My teeth ground together. “I don’t seek to overthrow anyone,” I told him coldly.
“I know that,” Jaxson agreed. “But you disrupt the control they want to maintain, and Dex watched them when you were there, and he told me the only thing that’s given me hope since they took my son from me.
” He ignored Rowen’s gasp. “You,” he said, voice like ice as he held my gaze.
“You terrify them, and I will stand beside the alpha who strikes fear into their black souls, and I will help you cut every last one of them down, Alpha, if you let me. Name what you need done, my pack will do it.”
Rowen’s hand slid onto my thigh under the table, grounding me. Grounding herself. We knew what the alpha had just offered me—more than loyalty. Surrender.
Killian cleared his throat. “How many have you lost?”
“Twenty-eight.” Tariq’s voice was as gruff as his attitude, but I found his harsh honesty refreshing.
Diesel took a step forward, standing to the side of me, so I could see him. “And you ran?”
The air sucked out of the room.
“No,” Jaxson snapped. “We did not run. We survived. There’s a difference between cowardice and strategy.”
Diesel’s grin was sharp. “Good answer.”
“I offer my condolences for your loss,” I said carefully. “For the loss of your son.” My hand gripped Rowen’s knee. “Just to be perfectly clear, are you telling me the Pack Council is intentionally allowing small packs to fail?”
“No,” Jaxson corrected, leaning back. “They’re directing the fall.” His look was sharp. “And you already know it.”
A cold shiver ran down my spine. I leaned back, fingers steepled. “You want refuge. Fine. You’ll have it. But if you know something—anything—that can help me understand why they want this territory emptied, now is the time.”
Jaxson exchanged a look with his beta. Then he said the one thing I did not want to hear. “It’s not just territory they’re after.”
Rowen’s spine straightened beside me. “What, then?”
Jaxson held my gaze. “You’re not stupid, Wolfe. They know exactly what the Hollow contains. They’re after the land itself.” His next words scraped across the air like cold steel dragged over a whetstone. “And they’ll burn every pack between here and the mountains to get it. Including you with it.”
The silence that followed resonated with the impact of his statement. Even the air seemed to shift—it felt thinner and heavier—bowing under the weight of what he’d said.
Rowen leaned forward, elbows on her knees, fingers pressing into her temples. “Why did none of us see this?” she asked, her voice small and furious at once. A question for all of us, for the ancestors, for the Goddess herself.
Tariq exhaled hard. “Because we weren’t meant to.”
Diesel scoffed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” Tariq said, looking between us, “they wanted everyone blind. Distracted. Worried about rogue attacks, or territory boundaries, or political nonsense. Everyone looking the wrong way instead of at anything that would keep us from noticing the real pattern.”
Killian’s jaw clenched. “A pattern only visible from above.” He pointed to the map pinned on the far wall. “From territory lines. Attack locations. Evacuations. It’s not random…it’s a funnel.”
“A funnel toward the Hollow,” Rowen whispered.
Jaxson nodded. “We believe so.”
My wolf seemed to settle. Listening to them, I felt not fear but recognition. They were telling the truth. “They’re trying to herd the chaos,” I said slowly. “Pushing everything into a single point.”
“Into you,” Jaxson corrected. “Into Blueridge Hollow. Into whatever it is they think you have here or are guarding.”
Rowen’s head snapped up. “There isn’t anything to hide.”
The druid’s words from days ago echoed in my mind. Born at the base of the Heartwood. The Hollow remembers.
“Rowen…” I murmured, but she shook her head sharply.
“No. This is wrong. They’re wrong. The Hollow is alive, yes. A land with memory, yes. But it’s not a weapon.”
“Maybe not,” Diesel said flatly. “But they want to use it like one.”
Jaxson raised a hand. “We think they’re trying to strip the Hollow of its autonomy. To make it something they control. Territory that only answers to them.”
My wolf snarled in protest at the thought.
Rowen’s voice trembled with visible anger. “They want control over the dead and the living.”
Killian muttered a curse. “The larger the territory they hold, the more they can control. No alpha would stand a chance.”
Tariq’s gaze sharpened. “Which is exactly why they want you discredited. Or dead. Preferably both.”
I leaned forward, hands clasped, voice low enough to shake the table. “They’re not getting either, and they’re not getting these packlands.”
Jaxson nodded slowly. “I was really hoping you’d say that. But, Wolfe, you also need to understand just how far they’re willing to go.”
I met his eyes. “Tell me.”
Jaxson swallowed once. “I sent my brother to the Pack Council because he was here.” His eyes flicked to Rowen.
“I made him play the jilted, jealous lover card.” When Rowen murmured her protest, Jaxson had the decency to look abashed.
“I needed them sloppy. Sloppy arrogance has a tendency to have a loose tongue.” He swallowed, licking his lips nervously.
“Dex thinks they’re planning to sever every pack bond tied to this region. Not just yours. All of them.”
Rowen inhaled sharply, one hand dropping protectively to her stomach—reflexive, instinctive. Killian cursed quietly, and Diesel’s snarl rattled the beams overhead.
“They plan to kill every alpha,” I mused. I sat back, the decision weighing heavy and unmovable in my chest. “Then we don’t wait,” I said. “We don’t hide. We don’t submit. If they want war—”
“You’ll give it to them,” Jaxson finished.
“No,” I said, eyes sliding to Rowen. “We will.” I looked back at him. “That includes you, Alpha.”
Rowen looked up, fury, certainty, and heartbreak all visible in her gaze.
“They won’t take our land,” she said softly.
“Or our people. Or our future.” She rubbed her stomach again.
“They’re not taking your son’s sacrifice from him either,” she said fiercely.
“Emberfell is your home. Your packlands. We’ll get it back. ”
Jaxson nodded, hope shining in his eyes. “You mean it,” he breathed, sharing a glance with Tariq. “Every one of my fighters is ready to fight, if you’ll have us.”
“We will,” I told him clearly.
His eyes shone with determination. “Then you’d better get ready. Because whatever they’re planning…it’s bigger than rogue attacks. Bigger than councils. Bigger than any alpha alive. I know it, I just don’t know what it is.”
Diesel grinned ferally. “Then we’ll find out. Sitting doing nothing, I was getting bored.”
Killian moved before anyone else could speak. He pushed away from the table, stalked over to the map pinned on the wall, and tore it down so forcefully that the nails squealed against the wood. Then, he slammed it flat across the table between us, his palms braced on either side.
“Look,” he snapped. No one breathed. Killian jabbed a finger at the southern territories.
“Rogue attacks start here. Conveniently small packs. Quiet. No one with allies worth a damn.” He dragged his finger higher.
“Then here. Bigger packs, but still isolated. Close enough to lose help before it arrives.” His finger moved again, tracing a jagged, unmistakable path—each point a wound carved into the land.
“And now here.” He tapped the Hollow’s border with a harsh finality.
“Not random. Not scattered. A fucking map of intent.” He looked up at me. “And we didn’t fucking see it!”
And for the first time since I’d known him, Killian looked…betrayed.
“How long?” he asked the room, voice hard and trembling. “How long were they planning this? How many packs have they sacrificed just to tighten the noose around the throats of shifters? People they are meant to protect?”
Jaxson swallowed. “Years.”
Killian slammed his fist onto the map. “And no one stopped them?”
“I think they made it so no one could,” Tariq said quietly. “They silenced anyone who questioned the patterns.”
“Silenced,” Killian echoed, eyes narrowing.
“You mean eliminated.” Killian cursed, pushed off the table, paced once, twice, then ran both hands over his hair, his frustration evident.
“They’re not just erasing packs,” he growled.
“They’re erasing the entire structure of shifter law.
Territory. Hierarchy. Magic. Everything.
All of it is being pulled into this…this collapse.
” His chest rose sharply. “And now we’re at the very fucking center. ”
I met his gaze. “We know.”
“You should be angrier,” Killian snapped. “All of you.”
Rowen stood, calm and controlled, but fire burned behind her eyes. “We are angry,” she said softly. “But anger doesn’t win wars.”
Killian huffed. “No. But it sure as hell fuels them.” He returned to the table, palms flat on the surface, head lowered as he stared at the map again.
“This is so much fucking bigger than they didn’t want the Hollow to have an alpha at its head.
It’s bigger than expansion. This is extinction-level shit. ”
Silence once again filled the hall—thick, alert, vibrant.
Killian’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “And we stepped right into it when we came here.” His eyes lifted to mine. “You made this personal for them, for becoming alpha, for being Rowen’s true mate. For defying them. They’re coming for you first, Wolfe.”
I felt it then—deep in my bones, in my wolf, and in the land itself, humming at the edge of awareness.
He was right.
They were coming. Not to negotiate, not to intimidate.
To erase.
And I’d be waiting.