Chapter 33
Rowen
My heart ached for him. For them all.
I watched as the Pack Council realized what he’d done. He’d shown them their truth, and Brand lying on the stretcher, clearly dying, just drove home their treachery.
The alpha Deryn took a step forward, a snarl twisting his lips. “You tricked us into coming here, and now you trick us with your lies.”
Wolfe didn’t respond; it was the Hollow that did. The ground shifted beneath them, causing a few to stumble.
“Wait!” one of the Pack Council shouted. He looked at Deryn, anger and mistrust clear on his face. “Not all of us are trying to do this,” he said. “I didn’t know this was happening. You ignored summons, you threatened the Pack Council, you risked exposing our kind—”
“When?” Diesel growled. “Our alpha got two summons and answered them both.”
The Pack Council member looked between Wolfe, Diesel, and Deryn. “But…”
“But you were told I never attended,” Wolfe said with a nod of his head.
“I don’t recall seeing you there either time I was there.
Maybe when I first went, and the shaman and I spoke.
” He looked around. “I don’t see your shaman here, but I have seen him since.
He is noticeable in his absence, because he also knows this is bullshit lies to lay claim to a land that is not yours. ”
“You’ve spoken to the shaman?” the Council member asked. He looked at his companions, then his gaze fell and rested on Brand. “I have no part in this, Alpha Wolfe. My pack and I, we’ve been misled.”
Wolfe dipped his head. “Your pack will need time to discuss how you could have been so easily fooled, Alpha…?”
“Munroe. Alpha Munroe, of Three Ferns Pack. I have a lot of explaining to do,” he agreed, turning to Deryn. “But my beta and I will listen to this now and hear the truth for the first time.”
I noticed his feet moved a little easier, and I realized the Hollow had let him go. The Hollow was not as kind to the others. Every step they’d taken into the Hollow…the land pushed back from.
Behind me, someone drew a sharp breath. They felt it too. The Hollow was rejecting the Pack Council, and the Pack Council were pushed back.
It didn’t break. Didn’t open. Didn’t lash out. It simply would not hold them.
The soil trembled and rolled beneath their feet, forcing them to stumble back a pace—back toward the ridge, back to safety, back out.
A ripple moved beneath the Council’s delegation, spreading outward like a slow tide.
Wolves scrambled, trying to stay on their feet.
One alpha hit the ground with a sharp cry.
Another bared his teeth at the soil as if he could challenge it.
It didn’t matter. The Hollow wanted them gone.
Wolfe’s voice was quiet, but every wolf heard it. “It’s casting them out.”
Deryn looked furious—humiliated. “This is manipulation. A trick. Your druid—”
“Our druid isn’t doing this,” I said. “And even if they were, the Hollow wouldn’t obey them.”
“It’s choosing,” Killian murmured. “It’s showing every wolf who belongs here…and who doesn’t.”
The wind whipped through the clearing—a sharp, biting gust that pulled Deryn’s coat back from his body and sent dust swirling around him. Not touching us. Not touching our pack.
Only them.
Deryn tried to speak again, but the wind swallowed his voice.
Wolfe stepped forward. “You came here claiming dominion,” he said quietly. “Claiming authority. Claiming this was your territory to judge.” Deryn’s jaw clenched as his footing slipped once more. “It seems the Hollow disagrees.”
A final pulse swept through the ground—powerful enough to make the Council wolves step back three full paces. One more would push them beyond the boundary. One more would banish them completely.
They saw it and understood. For the first time since this started…they looked afraid.
Wolfe didn’t raise his voice. “You are not welcome here.”
Deryn looked at him, breath ragged, as the truth finally sank in. The Hollow was rejecting them. Publicly. Irrefutably. Symbolically.
He faltered again as the ground rolled a second time—sharper now, more insistent. Deryn tried to recover. “This territory’s instability is further evidence—” He took one step forward, and Wolfe was in front of him, his hand around his throat.
“You have betrayed every pack that trusted you. You have manipulated and conspired not just here at Blueridge Hollow Pack, but also at Emberfell Pack, Yellowrock, Four Winds, and Stonefang… How many others? How many packs have you destroyed for your greed and schemes?” Wolfe’s grip tightened. “You have killed, tortured, and—”
“I have killed no one,” Deryn sputtered.
“You may not have delivered the physical blow, but their blood is on your hands.” Wolfe pulled him closer, their noses nearly touching. “Look at him,” he hissed. “Look at him, and see what you’ve done.”
Deryn’s eyes fell on Brand, and he flinched, looking away quickly.
Wolfe looked as if he were carved from rock, he was so still, his grip so firm.
“I would kill you a thousand times over, the same way he will suffer, but I don’t have that level of hate within me.
” Every wolf sensed his pain, sorrow, and loss.
“Your bones will be scattered on the Stone; the Fang is waiting for you, Alpha.”
He snapped his neck.
Silence echoed through the Hollow. Wolfe stepped over the boundary line and threw the body away from the Hollow. He turned toward the rest of the Pack Council, his eyes shining pale silver.
“The rest of you will be tried and held accountable by your peers, as is Pack Law.” He didn’t look behind him.
“Every shifter here today knows what you have done; they all saw what you saw.” He saw their looks of surprise.
“I am alpha of Blueridge Hollow,” Wolfe said simply.
“This land is mine, the blood of the ancients is in my veins, and the daughter of the Hollow is my mate. I am that powerful, and I will see that you are destroyed by the Law of Shifters and under the grace of the Goddess.” He looked them over.
“Now get the fuck off my land and don’t bother running, my allies are already waiting. ”
Jaxson, Dex, and Tyler’s older brother, the alpha of Four Winds Pack, stepped forward. “Take them,” Wolfe murmured.
Every pack watching understood exactly what it meant.
This Pack Council’s rule had ended.
“Wait!” I called out, stepping forward. “Is there a cure?” I asked them. “For Brand. Can we help him?”
One of the older ones shook his head. “The only help for him now is a merciful death,” he said, and I could hear his honesty.
“It was never meant for this,” he said. “That was not…” He shook his head in resignation.
“He went too far.” They turned away, ready to be led out, not pleading for their life like some would.
Killian stood beside me. “I hope none of them get a merciful death,” he muttered. “Or a quick one.”
Wolfe walked over and gathered me into his arms. “Kill,” he said softly, “get ready to travel. We’ll take him home tomorrow.”
“Wolfe, you need to rest…”
“Not yet,” he whispered. “Not yet.” He walked away, already checking with the pack to make sure they were okay, liaising with Jaxson and others, and overseeing everything.
He was everything an alpha should be, and I was so proud to call him my mate, but I also wanted him to listen to me and take a damn breath.
Thalia and Adair approached me, each standing on either side as if they knew I was ready to lean on them and they on me. “Hey, you okay?” Thalia asked, linking her arm through mine.
I did the same to Adair, pulling them both close to me. “No,” I admitted honestly. “I may never be okay again.” I squeezed Adair’s hand. “How are you?”
“I’m angry,” she admitted. “I really wanted to see him suffer.”
“Deryn?” I asked her in surprise.
“Axel,” Thalia corrected. “They’re going to hunt him down and be all…correct about it.” She sniffed. “Noble.”
I shook my head. “I think you’re wrong.” I thought about it. “I worry they’ll go too far,” I admitted.
Thalia lifted a brow. “Too far?”
“With Axel?” Adair scoffed. “After what he’s done? There’s no such thing.”
“There is,” I murmured, even though part of me agreed with her.
That was the problem. The violence towards him could be justified.
I exhaled slowly, gazing out at the chaos around us as the Council was still being led away, fighting among themselves—fracturing in real time, exposed under every set of eyes in the Hollow.
They appeared smaller now. Not powerful.
Not divine. Just men cornered by truth. My pack looked tired and ready to drop, but they were still rallying, and I wondered how long it would take for us all to recover from this and be healed.
We may never be healed from this. But it wasn’t them I feared.
It was what would become of the wolves I loved.
“We’ve all lost something tonight,” I said softly. “None of us are thinking clearly. Not Wolfe. Not Diesel. Not Killian. Not Cody. And Axel is out there—he’s still their betrayal made flesh.”
Adair’s grip tightened around my arm. “You think Wolfe will tear him apart?”
I swallowed. “I think Wolfe will do whatever he believes keeps his pack safe.” I scanned the shifters in front of me, watching them all. “I think they all will.”
Thalia sighed, leaning her head against mine. “That’s the part I wanted,” she admitted. “But hearing you say it… It scares me.”
I didn’t answer because it scared me too. The Hollow was thrumming beneath my feet—steady, present, almost…listening. Like it waited for my reaction. Like it needed it, and the truth slid cold through me.
“I don’t know what’s coming next,” I said. “But whatever it is…it’s not over.”
Thalia squeezed my hand. “Then we stand with you.”
Adair nodded fiercely. “Always.”
Warmth swelled in my chest, sharp enough to steal my breath for a moment. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Both of you.”
A sudden roar in the distance—Wolfe’s voice, unmistakably enraged—resonated across the clearing. We all froze.
Thalia’s fingers clenched around my sleeve. “That wasn’t a fighting roar.”
“No,” I agreed, pulse kicking hard. “That was something worse.” Grief.
Adair’s eyes went wide. “Rowen?”
I squared my shoulders, turning to Thalia. “I’m so sorry, Thalia, Brand is gone.”
Thalia trembled in my arms, a broken sound tearing from her throat. I held her tighter, Adair anchoring us both as we wept for the loss of one of our own.
Brand. Steady, fierce, and almost painfully gentle at times, Brand.
The Hollow rose and fell beneath us, a slow, mournful thrum—its own form of grief, ancient and aching.
“I should have been there,” Thalia choked, fists gripping my shirt.
“No,” I whispered fiercely. “No. This was not on you. Or on any of us.”
But her pain didn’t listen. None of ours did as we made our way to where they gathered. I kept my eyes on Wolfe—not because I didn’t want to see Thalia’s heartbreak, but because Wolfe’s grief hit me like a physical punch.
He wasn’t just kneeling. He was breaking.
Beside him, Diesel’s shoulders shook. Killian’s jaw was clenched so tightly it looked like he might break a bone, tears streaming down his face. Cody held one of Brand’s hands in his own, with his head bowed low.
A circle of warriors mourning a brother.
A circle I should be standing in, yet I couldn’t bring myself to cross—not while Thalia crumbled against me, and not while Wolfe’s agony battered the bond like a storm.
Adair rested her forehead against Thalia’s temple. “He was one of the good ones,” she whispered, voice trembling. “One of the best.”
“He was,” I said. “And he will be honored as such.”
Thalia gasped, clutching my arm. “I can’t—Rowen, I can’t—”
“You can,” I said softly, even as my own throat burned. “Because he would for us.”
Her sob tightened, but she nodded.
The Hollow pulsed again—soft, calming, mournful.
Holding her sorrow. Wolfe’s sorrow. All of ours.
I pulled back slowly, Adair steadying Thalia on the other side.
“We need to go to them,” I said quietly. “Come.”
Thalia wiped her cheeks, nodding. “I’m beside you.” Adair nodded.
We moved through the clearing, each step feeling heavier than the last. Wolfe didn’t look up until I was right beside him, with my hand hovering over his back. When he finally lifted his head, the devastation in his eyes nearly brought me to my knees.
“Rowen,” he rasped.
I touched his shoulder. “I’m here,” I whispered.
His voice broke. “I—”
“I know.”
His hand found mine—desperate, grounding, trembling. Behind him, Brand’s body lay motionless, finally at peace, wrapped in his pack’s embrace. I leaned in closer, my forehead brushing Wolfe’s temple.
“I’m here,” I whispered again.
“This ends tonight,” Wolfe breathed. “For him.” He exhaled, a sound half-agony, half-promise. He rose, my hand in his.
The pack watched.
“Diesel,” Wolfe bit out. “Killian, we leave now.”
“And me, Alpha,” Cody said, getting to his feet, his eyes fierce, Thalia weeping on her knees beside him. “I’m on this hunt.”
My chest tightened so much I couldn’t breathe. This was no longer just the Council’s downfall. It was the moment that would decide what kind of wolves we would become afterward.
And I would not let Wolfe cross a line he couldn’t return from.