Chapter 16
Wolfe
I smelled the blood before I saw it.
Not rogue blood.
Ours.
I hit the edge of the ridge trail fast—Brand and Axel already crouched over the body.
The young male on the ground was barely more than a boy—Perry, I realized.
Twenty, twenty-one maybe. Good instincts.
Better heart. His leg was torn open down to the bone, and claw marks scored his ribs deep enough to stain the earth beneath him.
His eyes fluttered. Breath rattled. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
“Report,” I snapped.
“Ambush,” Brand growled. “Western line. Patrols hadn’t even cleared the bend before the rogues hit. Fast. Organized. Someone told them where we’d be.”
I knelt beside Perry, hand already on his chest, pressing gently. “You’re losing blood too fast. I’ll help you.” He grabbed my wrist weakly.
Shift.
His body shuddered, the pain overriding his need.
Shift, I commanded again. I heard his whimper. I brought my Will forth. SHIFT.
The shift happened almost in slow motion. I felt every bone of his body crack. Axel winced beside me. My Will held over Perry’s shift, my body poised, ready to kill anyone who came near us.
The wolf howled, driven by fear and pain, trying to rise.
Stay down, I commanded. Shift.
Perry looked up at me, eyes clearer, the blood still flowing. “Alpha.”
I gave him an encouraging smile. “One more time for me,” I said softly. Shift.
The shift was easier, the wolf rose, shook its body, a snarl in its throat as it looked at its back leg.
Shift.
Perry rose to his feet, blood on his body, sweat on his brow. “That fucking hurt.”
Brand chuckled, pulling the younger man nearer, checking his injury. “One more shift,” he told him. “Wound’s still open.”
Perry shifted without my help, quick, smoothly, like it was supposed to be. When he shifted back, Brand handed him a pair of shorts from his pack.
“Did you see them?” I asked. “Did you see anything?”
He nodded, his eyes suddenly wary as he looked between the three of us.
“Perry?” I held his stare. “Tell me.”
His voice came through the mindlink. It was barely a whisper as he spoke one word.
A name. It hit me like a fist to the gut.
I froze.
“What did he say?” Brand asked behind me.
I didn’t answer. I kept my gaze on Perry. He drew in a shaky breath, his eyes wide.
“Do you need to shift again?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Where are your patrol?”
“I don’t know. I got here to meet them and then…” He looked down at the blood on the grass. “That happened.”
I looked down at my hand, which was still wet with blood. “Why didn’t you meet them in the pack hall?”
“We changed that practice,” Axel told me, but he was looking at Perry. “We didn’t change that you don’t walk among this Hollow alone.”
It was a hard fact to accept, but it was necessary right now. No wonder the packs wouldn’t—couldn’t—blend. No one wanted to be alone with someone from another pack.
Two weeks and I was no closer to healing the divide.
“We’ll follow you back,” I told Perry. “You need to eat, and eat a lot.” I hesitated. “You need to say nothing of this to anyone.”
Perry swallowed. “Of course, Alpha.” He went to move away and looked over his shoulder. “You’ll be behind me?”
Axel grunted as he stepped up beside him. “C’mon, I’m right beside you, brother.”
Brand and I exchanged a look as we followed them.
I could feel Brand looking across at me. “Alpha?”
“He named someone,” I said quietly.
I saw Brand bite back his retort that this is what he was asking. “Who?”
I looked at him. My gaze flicked to Axel walking in front of me. Two of my most trusted wolves. I swallowed hard.
He named Lewis. I told them both. The blow didn’t impact them the same way as it did me.
They didn’t know him like I did. They didn’t know that he was one of the ones who made sure I was fed when I first got here.
They didn’t know he was the one who sat by his alpha’s bedside and wept when he was gone.
The silence as we walked to the pack hall was heavier than death.
Lewis—beta to Malric. Advisor to the pack. To Rowen. A voice she trusted as much as her father’s.
Brand’s jaw was clenched. “You’re sure, Perry?”
Perry nodded, realizing I had told them.
“I can show you,” he said, looking over his shoulder.
“It was fast, but…” He stopped walking, closed his eyes, and opened his mind to me.
No hesitation. Not from him. I, however, took a moment longer.
I’d never done this, but I knew how to. Lars had been thorough in his teachings.
I closed my eyes as I stepped into Perry’s memory of his attack. It was fast. Brutal. The attack came from nowhere. The blow, deadly. I winced as I felt the claws tear open skin, and then Lewis shifted, horror in his eyes as he stood over the broken body.
“I’m sorry.” Lewis shifted into his wolf and ran.
“He thinks I’m dead?” Perry realized as I broke the connection.
“Yes, and I think we can say he thought you were someone else,” I muttered. “Who though?”
Axel swore low. “Me?” He exchanged a look with Brand. “I’ve been doing perimeter checks every evening.” He looked disgusted with himself. “Same route, every night. Fuck. It’s a fucking pattern.” He snorted with contempt. “I’ve become predictable.”
Perry stood, silently but watchful. His skin was clammy and pale. He needed to eat.
“Everywhere I turn, more rot is uncovered in this fucking place,” I muttered. “They’re moving into the daylight.”
“What do we do?” Brand asked quietly. “Confront him?” I heard him clear his throat as I turned to look toward the Hollow—toward the heart of it all. “I know you are against it, Wolfe, but…I think it’s time.”
I huffed. “On them all?” I asked quietly.
“Yes.” That was Axel.
“Ours too?” I asked, voice dangerously low.
“They’re all ours,” Perry added firmly. “Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to make us see?”
My gaze was on the grass at my feet. Green. Full. Lush. It would grow no matter how much blood was spilled. It would continue no matter if I invaded each one of my packs’ minds and forced them to tell me their truths. Grass would never know. Grass would never care.
I would know.
I would care.
I would never forget.
“Have you ever had an alpha in your mind against your will?” I asked them, my voice low and rough.
“Have you ever been immobilized as someone raked through your memories, your being, forcing you to remember everything?” Silence greeted me.
“I have.” I recalled the feeling of terror. “It’s a monstrous act.”
The silence continued and then I heard the slight movement as someone leaned close.
“Have you ever felt the skin being ripped from your body, the claws grating against your bone?”
I looked up as Perry spoke.
“Have you felt the blood rush from your body, and looked into the eyes of the one who struck you, watched them run, knowing you were going to die?” He didn’t blink as he held my stare.
“I have,” he told me with quiet conviction.
“Alpha, you’re not a monster for using your Will on a pack to find the ones who would betray us.
How many are you going to be able to get to in time to force the shift? ”
I closed my eyes against the truth.
“Okay.” I felt Axel and Brand straighten as I spoke. I opened my eyes and met Brand’s look, his eyes shining with approval. “But if I commit this violation, I do it once, and once only.”
“Alpha?” Brand asked cautiously.
“Tell Killian to bring everyone. I do this once, and I do it as one pack.”
“I’ll tell him now,” Brand said as he reached into his backpack for his phone. It would be a miracle if he got a signal out here, but I said nothing as we resumed walking.
My heart was heavy as we followed Perry to the pack hall, watching everyone to see if anyone was surprised to see him walking with us. If anyone was expecting to see us with a corpse.
In the pack hall, Perry ate three full meals; no one questioned his appetite. He was young, maturing into his full adult self. If anything, they’d be more curious if he didn’t eat three meals.
I sat back in my chair, my mindlink searching for a familiar scent. Lewis…where are you? I searched, but I couldn’t find him, and I knew he was gone.
“Wolfe?” Brand murmured, sliding the phone across the table.
Killian: We’ll be there before noon.
I swallowed as I stood. “Perry—”
“Will stay with Axel and me tonight,” Brand said smoothly.
I clasped his shoulder, my gaze on the half-empty hall. “I’ll be on patrol.”
Axel stood. “I’ll come—”
“I need the run,” I said clearly, my voice level. “You know how to reach me.”
I left the hall, slipped behind the trail Rowen preferred, shifted mid-run, and tried to run the rage out of my system, but I knew that even though the Hollow was vast, it wasn’t big enough to burn out my anger.
I stood at the edge of the ridge, the wind cutting down from the peaks above me. It carried the scent of the ancient mountains, whipping it around my bare body—pine, smoke, decay—filling my nostrils as my feet cut on the rough stone beneath me.
Familiar.
Dangerous.
Home.
I looked down the ravine, the sheer drop, the darkness below. A bird called out a warning over the night, but I didn’t need a cautionary call. I was in no danger.
Not here. Not on Luna’s soil.
My head tipped back as I looked at the clear sky above me, the stars out of reach, the heavens even further.
“You there, Goddess?” I murmured as I stared into the ink black sky. “Is this what you wanted?”
My heart was heavy. The Will of an alpha was a gift.
A gift.
It wasn’t a tool to be abused. It wasn’t how you governed a pack. It wasn’t how you led. I sighed, and it felt like it came from my soul.
Lars used his Will so rarely that I couldn’t think of more than two occasions when he had used it. Both times, to save a shifter from bleeding out. Never to coerce. Or manipulate. Or abuse.