Chapter 5
Rowen
I’d been drunk.
I had never been drunk since I took the mantle of responsibility for this pack. Blueridge Hollow was mine to look after and eventually lead. They didn’t need to see me drunk in my cups, reckless and irresponsible. They needed a role model, and I had made myself that role model for them.
My dad had often indulged during pack celebrations, but I had restricted myself to two glasses at most.
Why I had thought today was the best time to test my alcohol tolerance by drinking half a bottle of bourbon, and not just any bourbon, shifter bourbon. Meaning it was stronger than the version the humans bought because our metabolism burned through alcohol a lot quicker.
When I woke on the bed, wondering—for a fleeting moment—if I had sex with my mate, I hadn’t been prepared for the overwhelming wave of nausea that soon followed.
I’d shifted there and then, to stop myself from throwing up on our bed.
My wolf had not been amused at the sudden shift, and I had shifted two more times to rid my system of the alcohol altogether.
Fatigue had plagued me soon after, but by that time, I had sensed something happening in the pack, and with Wolfe.
I hadn’t paid attention to what I had grabbed to wear; I just knew I had to get to where he was before he did something stupid, like try to absolve me of the blame for Simon’s death last night.
I’d been too far from the house before I knew I was wearing his shirt, but I didn’t turn back, because when I shifted in my clothes, they shredded, and in my haste to leave, I hadn’t taken a bra.
Wolfe’s shirt was big enough to cover the fact that I was braless.
I thought. Until I saw the flare of appreciation in his eyes when he looked at me.
I had the sneaking suspicion that my mate knew very well I was wearing no underwear.
I had stood by him, and he had appreciated it, and I hadn’t expected it to mean as much as it did.
“How is Sherry?” Ezra asked me as the pack hall filled with murmured conversation.
“She didn’t really say much,” I admitted, lowering my voice. “I don’t think I was who she wanted to see.”
Ezra grunted. “Well, of course not,” he said without sugarcoating it. “You’re not her husband. The only person she wants to walk through that door is Simon.”
I felt another pang of guilt. “It’s my fault—”
“Pack patrols are trained,” Ezra cut me off bluntly.
“Even the youngest of us, who didn’t know what a fucking patrol looked like until a few weeks ago, weren’t on patrol unless they should be.
” He gestured towards where Brand stood, glaring at a Stonefang Pack shifter, looking like he was about to shift and lunge at any moment.
“That shifter, he’s a hard bastard.” I looked back at Ezra in surprise.
“Even when your father was in his prime, he gave us breaks. Him”—he jerked his thumb to Brand—“I bet he doesn’t allow you to so much as take a piss unless it’s on your time.
That patrol last night should have known something was wrong as soon as their relief never turned up—”
“I think that’s har—”
“No, Rowen, it isn’t,” Ezra said firmly.
“We train, we patrol, we are ready for anything, no matter what it is, no matter what’s supposed to happen, because a territory at war is a territory at war.
” Ezra had caught enough attention from others around us that they had quietened to hear him, and I became self-conscious as he continued, unaware of how many were listening to him.
“We have shifters in this pack, in this whole pack, who can patrol our territory lines single-handedly, and we are running about in packs of five like uneducated pups. We are better than this.”
“How would you fix it?” Wolfe asked quietly from across the hall.
Ezra turned to look at him, realizing he had the audience of everyone, and he didn’t quake. “You really want to know?”
Wolfe nodded, his gaze steady. “I do.”
Ezra cast a quick glance at Brand and back to Wolfe. “I can speak freely?”
Wolfe grinned. “I’ve never known you to do anything else; please don’t change for me.”
Ezra let out a grunt and then sighed as he stood up. He glanced over at Brand, then at Killian, and with a hesitant step that grew more confident, he made his way to the center of the pack hall, where Wolfe and I had stood only minutes before.
“The Hollow has some excellent fighters in it,” he began.
“It also has some shifters in it who think they are too good for things like patrols. And…well, it’s been allowed to happen.
” He didn’t look at me, but I did see Lewis sitting straighter.
“We are an old pack that holds onto traditions, and our traditions are important, and we need them—they are our way of life—but…” Ezra turned and looked to the doorway, where the druid lingered, as if he could feel him there.
“Our traditions are what are going to get us killed.”
The shifters around me growled and mumbled, but Ezra didn’t care.
“Alpha Malric ran a tight ship in his day,” he said as he looked towards me.
“You didn’t become such a good fighter because your father was lazy.
But…” He inhaled. “But as he got older, as some of the rest of us got older, myself included, we relied too heavily on magic and tricks to secure our borders.” Ezra scanned the whole room.
“Our pack patrols are out of shape, lack discipline, and look too much to the heavens for answers instead of their own paws.”
Louder grumblings, and I found myself biting my tongue to voice the same protests as the others. Wolfe had let Ezra speak, and I was curious to see what the alpha would say to Ezra’s statements.
Ezra ignored the rising grumblings and rolled his neck on his shoulders like he was loosening up for the next round.
“And then you add in these new shifters,” he said as he turned to face Brand and Killian once again.
“Look at them,” he said to no one in particular.
“Look at the fucking tanks that they are. Wolfe, Brand, Killian, Axel and the other one, Cody, look at the alpha and betas that are among us, and show me their equivalent in the Hollow pack.”
Silence met him as shifters looked at themselves or each other.
“And look, look at this guy.” Ezra strode forward and put his hand on a Stonefang Pack’s shoulder. “He’s almost as big, and beside him…” Ezra pulled the shifter to his feet, who stood willingly. “I feel inadequate.”
The simple truth sat in the still room.
“I used to be you,” he said to Brand. “Big, brawny, clever,” he added with respect. “You know what this pack needs, and you are not delivering.”
Brand was all those things, and with a slight smile, he peeled himself off the wall where he’d been watching and moved closer to the center, and I realized that he never sought attention; he seemed content to stay on the sidelines and watch.
“I’m not delivering?” Brand asked Ezra. He wasn’t challenging him; he looked more intrigued than anything. “How?”
Ezra was in the throes of his point now and was no longer caring who he offended, not that he usually minded anyway. He pointed straight at Wolfe. “He’s holding you back.”
Wolfe looked at Ezra with raised eyebrows. “I am?”
Ezra nodded. “You really are. You are asking your betas, your second, your team to take it easy on us. And while you do that, your pack, your first pack, sees us as weak.” Ezra glanced at me.
“These shifters who came from Stonefang don’t think we’re weak because of our traditions and our ways and our druid; they think we’re weak because we are fucking weak. Physically. Mentally.”
Wolfe didn’t blink. “So I asked you, Ezra, how would you fix it?”
Ezra didn’t hesitate. “Give us over to him,” he said, pointing to Brand, “and him,” he added with a look at Killian.
“They are your killers, can tell by the way they walk and talk. These shifters are no strangers to hard times and tough choices.” Ezra ran his eyes over Wolfe.
“Sure, you have made a few hard choices in life too, but you are our alpha, and you need to delegate.”
Wolfe’s eyes narrowed. “You think I can’t train you?”
“I know you can, but you have more than soldiers to train.” Ezra scratched his jaw. “You’re being too much like Rowen.”
Wolfe’s jaw dropped. “I…” He looked at me in surprise. “What?”
“Rowen is the heart of this pack, everyone adores her—”
“I’m right here,” I muttered, my cheeks burning.
“But she’s a micromanager. Always has been. Oversees every little thing, gets lost in the forest without seeing the trees.”
“Just tell the whole hall what you think,” I sniped at him, but he ignored me.
“You need to let your betas do their job, you need to let us do our job, and you need to step back. Tell Brand to break us. Tell Killian to make us hate him because he made us run routes up the ridge until we thought we would rather jump off it than even think about running up it one more time. Mold us.” Ezra had fire in his eyes as he looked at everyone.
“You’ve never known you were alive until your guts were being puked up over the edge of the mountain and you thought you might never stand again.
” He looked at Lewis, who had stood. “We did it,” he seemed to remind him.
“Malric was a tough bastard, and we came out the better for it.” Ezra seemed to lose his steam, but he looked back at his alpha.
“We’ve seen the shifters in your first pack, and we are not them.
Let us have the chance to be that way, again. ”
Wolfe didn’t speak for a long moment; he stood there, and I was sure he was listening to more than one voice through the mindlink. Finally, his gaze rested on me.