Chapter 6
Wolfe
You better be right about this.
Killian’s last words before he was too far out of reach echoed in my head as I walked back to the pack hall. I hoped I was too.
Axel fell into step beside me, his hands in his pockets, his gaze never resting for long as he searched the perimeter repeatedly.
“Say it,” I murmured as we walked.
Played out as we expected, he said with admiration. You were right on who would finally speak up too.
I nodded. He was always the most outspoken when I was here. Time hasn’t changed him, only made him blunter.
Your mate’s not happy, Axel reminded me.
My mate hasn’t been happy since I walked back into the Hollow.
You really think it’s her? Axel asked dubiously.
“You don’t?” I asked him as we slowed our approach to the pack training area, seeing it was already half full.
He shrugged. “We could smell her when she shifted,” he said, and I heard the hint of an apology for noticing. “She isn’t faking her attraction to you.”
I huffed. I don’t doubt my mate would willingly fuck me, I told him bitterly. I doubt that she wouldn’t stab me through the heart while she did it.
“Goddess,” Axel murmured as he heard the brutal truth in my words. “I hope that we’re both mistaken,” he added sincerely. “I like her.”
I looked at him in surprise, not expecting it. None of my men had seemed to warm to her. “She thought you were Cody,” I reminded him.
Axel shrugged. “She was hammered. We all say stupid things when we’re drunk.”
“It pissed you off.” Why was I trying to remind him he didn’t like her? Was it so I could feel validated that I didn’t trust her?
“A few weeks with Killian will help,” Axel said with conviction I didn’t have.
Brand walked over to us, shirtless and in black training pants. His light brown skin glistened in the late afternoon sunshine. He grinned at me.
Perfectly played, he congratulated me.
I nodded. You did well.
“This is going to be fun,” he said with a smile. “Ezra showed me the route Malric used to run.” He whistled in appreciation. “I hadn’t even seen that path on the ridge. I can’t wait to run it.”
Axel chuckled. “We don’t want to kill them, Brand,” he chided.
Brand shrugged. “One way to sort the chaff from the wheat.”
“Okay, you both need to take a step back,” I warned them. “We are still fighting a territory takeover here.”
“Micromanager may be the best description I’ve heard of you yet,” Axel said with a wink Brand’s way.
“Fuck off,” I muttered, walking away from them. “Both of you.” Their laughter followed me, and for the first time in days, I felt a lightness as I looked over my pack.
It had been an elaborate gamble, but it had paid off.
I knew—well, I’d suspected—that the shifters of this Hollow, some of them, would finally speak out about how behind they were.
I hadn’t wanted that anger at themselves to come as a result of the death of a friend.
I hadn’t planned for the attack or the death of a packmate.
What I had planned for, and anticipated, was the fallout within their own ranks.
What once had been a fiercely protected territory was now more reliant on iron and ash markers.
I didn’t blame the druid; the markings and tokens had been in place when the Hollow was a dangerous territory to enter, and they’d just forgotten that along the way.
The younger ones in the pack didn’t know any better. The older ones chose to look away as they focused on the upcoming death of their alpha and an uncertain future.
Well, their future wasn’t uncertain anymore. They had an alpha and they had a fated pair leading their pack; they just needed to adjust.
The attacks on the pack were a reflection of their past weakness, and I was determined to make it their reason for their new strength.
It had been Brand’s idea to send Rowen away. It wasn’t one I’d welcomed, but I could see the validity of it. The coded messages, the knowledge of the pack trails, the patrol changes, the discord that still rumbled between the packs, all pointed to one of Malric’s advisors…or his daughter.
I didn’t want to believe it was my mate, but the evidence was incriminating. Until she stood next to me today and told the hall that we were one pack. I’d sensed her sincerity. Rowen wanted this to succeed; she just didn’t want to lose the Hollow’s identity as we did it.
Ezra’s words and actions hadn’t been scripted by us, but he’d said nothing we hadn’t said to each other. Another validation that we weren’t the only ones to see flaws in the Hollow’s way.
Now all I had to do was convince the druid I wasn’t going to burn the Heartwood to ash, and I’d be a step closer to finding the traitor amongst us.
Because there was a traitor.
I knew it in my bones. In my soul. And when I found them, I would destroy them.
“What’s your plan?” I asked Brand as the three of us watched the shifters training.
“Reduce the patrol sizes,” he said quietly. “Three not five. Every patrol has two Stonefang, one Hollow, until they’re ready, and then we switch it.” He saw my look. “Wolfe…” he sighed. “They’re two pack names until I know every fucker’s name, and there are too many to learn in too short a time.”
“You will need to pick a name, you know,” Axel agreed. “Until they have one pack name, they will never be one pack.”
“Yeah, thanks, genius. I know,” I snapped. “I’m fighting one battle at a time, okay?”
Axel lifted his shoulder in a careless shrug. “So with one of the suspects out of the way, how many are left?”
“Five,” Brand growled, his face grim once more.
“All Hollow?” Axel asked.
“No,” I shook my head, my gaze resting on Cale as he talked through a fighting kick with one of the younger Hollow. “Why the fuck is he on my training field, Beta?”
Brand glanced and sighed. “Your dislike of my cousin is irrational.”
“Your cousin is a motherfucker.”
Axel choked back his laugh, and I didn’t care that Brand’s eyebrows were in his hairline.
“For Goddess’s sake,” Brand hissed in reprimand. “You’ve beaten his ass in the ring more times than anyone else. You purposefully chose not to have him as a beta, even though he would be a good one. He’s never done anything to you, except support you.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t care. I don’t like him.”
Brand shook his head but let it go and went back to the training ring.
Axel snickered through the mindlink. Is Cale on your list?
He’s the very top of it, I admitted. Brand doesn’t know.
Axel smoothed his hands over his head. Well, he won’t hear it from me. I’m going down to help with the training.
“I’m going to the druid,” I reminded him, and I got a raised hand in the air to tell me he had heard me.
I would prefer to be down there, helping them learn, but Ezra had been right.
I was trying to do too much since I got here, and the pack would learn more without me watching them and without them thinking I was judging them.
I’d told them too many times that if they didn’t like the way I led my pack, they could leave. While I still stood by that, I think my delivery could have been better, given that they were vulnerable when I said it.
I didn’t feel too much guilt though, because someone down there was still responsible for the blood that stained the grass in the Hollow. Four deaths since I became alpha here. Five if you added that idiot, Kirk.
Stonefang hadn’t seen any deaths since I took over as pack leader.
As I walked to the druid’s tent, I wondered if Killian was going to beat Rowen in the race he planned to run to Stonefang.
I didn’t doubt that he would; she had always been fast, but she wouldn’t win this.
Killian’s advantage was that he knew the path they needed to take; he knew how to use his speed as a weapon, and that itself would stop her.
The real question was whether Rowen’s pride would be the real loser.
I wondered if it was my pride that would cost me her heart.
I hovered outside the tent, suddenly unsure if I had the right mindset to barter for advice from the druid today, but the canvas parted for me before I could turn back.
I ducked to enter and wasn’t surprised to see the druid sitting with their hood over their head, and three bowls emitting smoke in front of them.
“No time for tea?” I asked as I settled on the cushion, no longer caring about the advantages of who looked down on whom.
“I thought you orchestrated that very well,” they said without acknowledging my jest. “It was clever,” they carried on. “Only on my walk back did I see the seeds that had been sown for that to come to fruition so…naturally.”
When it hadn’t been natural at all, I had schemed and plotted for this afternoon’s showdown in the hall.
“The truth always speaks the loudest.” It was an old saying of Lars, one I had learned the truth of myself over the years.
“You still doubt your mate?” The druid looked up at me.
“I…” I blew out a breath. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
I nodded. “Now tell me as the hand of the Goddess”—I saw their eyes narrow—“not as the druid who has molded her over the years as the daughter of the Hollow.”
The druid lost their scowl, a frown forming on their smooth skin. “You think affection clouds my judgment.”
“How can it not?” I asked them, equally as somber.
“She’s very hard not to love.” Their eyes sharpened at my words, and I waved it off.
“It’s no secret I left here because Rowen broke my heart when she told me she would never stand beside me.
” I peered into the three bowls. “Seriously, is any of them tea?”
The druid huffed in displeasure. Smoothly, they stood, and with some clutter and clinks of china, they sat back down with a teapot and two china cups. A kettle that seemed to always be bubbling over the fire was lifted, and within a few minutes of tense silence, I was poured a cup of tea.
“Thanks.” I looked around and back to the druid. “Is—”
“You ask me for a snack, and I will poison you.”
“So no cookies? Right. Got it.” I grinned as I held their flat look. I took a drink of my tea. “Mmm, I like it.”
“I’ll sleep happy tonight,” they snarked, and I fought back my laughter.
“This is the normalist I’ve seen you,” I told them honestly.
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Why?” I took another sip. “I like you normal.”
The druid put their cup down and fixed me with a heavy stare. “I’ve walked these woods for hundreds of years,” they stated matter-of-factly. “I’ve witnessed alphas come and go, pack wars won and lost, and too many dead to remember. I left normal behind many, many years ago.”
I thought about what they said, and emptied my teacup. “Then I think you need to remember what it’s like.” I gestured to the tent. “You’ve seen so much, survived so much,” I added with respect. “When was the last time you lived?”
They blinked. “I don’t understand…”
“Surviving isn’t living. Serving isn’t all there is to life.” I pointed upwards. “She isn’t a tyrant. You taught me that. Luna will be okay if you want to look around once in a while and not just up.”
The druid sat still for so long I wondered if they were conjuring the poison for me right now. “Remind me not to serve you Assam tea again.”
I laughed and was pleased when I saw the slight smile they allowed.
“I spent last night spreading ash and iron across the territory lines,” they said, and the lightness was gone, and we were back to alpha and druid.
“Thank you.” I didn’t believe it would do much, but they had taken the time, and it was a big territory to cover in one night. “Did you sense them?”
They shook their head. “No.” Their eyes crinkled at the corners in frustration. “Only alphas can hide their scent from me, but…this is not the work of an alpha.”
I stared at the druid. “Fuck!” I was on my feet, pacing as much as this cramped tent would allow. I hadn’t thought of a conquering pack.
“Alpha Wolfe?” Their voice was calm, patient. A complete contrast to the fury pounding in my veins.
“I was so intent, so sure, it was a traitor. That they were rogues.” My hand ran through my hair. “That’s the pattern they weaved. Unpredictable, small, targeted attacks, taking nothing. Reckless. Wild.”
“Like rogues,” the druid agreed. “I know.”
“No.” I shook my head in frustration. “Seven attacks, including here, over one area, one large area, but concentrated nonetheless.” I sat down with a thud. “Rogues would have moved on—”
“They have, to other packs.”
“No. No, they would move on. North. East. Into the Rockies and beyond. This pack,” I spat the word out. “This pack is sticking here, to the Appalachians. They aren’t looking for random packs to attack; this is a concentrated effort. They are targeting this pack.”
The druid was watching me closely, doubtfully, but they were listening. “There were four packs before the Hollow; you told Malric you thought it was six. Why do you think the Hollow is the target?”
I was on my feet again. “Because we’re the only ones they keep returning to.”
I left the tent and headed to the point of the most recent attack.
I combed the area with such intensity I was sure I’d inspected every blade of grass individually.
I tracked the scents, I paced the footprints of the brief resistance, and I crouched down and inspected where Simon had fallen and died.
I looked up, my body in a crouch, my gaze fixed on the peak of the mountains as they stood above me.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
I slowly stood, my call to my betas telling them to meet me.
I walked briskly back the way I’d come earlier this morning. When I stood outside the shifter’s door, the door stood open. I went inside, and the place was empty.
“Wolfe?”
I turned to look at Brand and Axel.
“What’s wrong?” Brand asked me, his eyes searching over Sherry’s home.
“I found our traitor,” I told them bitterly. “She was right here, under my nose the whole fucking time.”
Axel glanced at Brand and stepped further into the house. “Her husband died last night.”
“All packs suffer losses in times of trouble,” I bit out. “That’s what she told me when I came here this morning.”
Axel was shaking his head. “No. She told Rowen as if that’s what you said to her.”
“A liar and a murderer,” I snorted. I turned to Brand. “I want every one of his patrol in my office in the pack hall in ten minutes. No excuses.”
“Alpha.” Brand turned and left.
Axel waited for me to speak. When I didn’t, he stepped forward. “Wolfe?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Rowen was with her all day.”
I looked at my packmate, my heart hardening. “I know.”
And I’d sent her away for her protection. Had she played me for a fool, or had she delayed Sherry’s escape by offering her comfort?
“We bring her back?”
I shook my head, my tongue running over my top teeth. “No, we stick to the plan. We keep her out of the Hollow for as long as possible.”
“She could still be innocent,” he offered weakly.
“Yeah, or she could be very fucking guilty.”