Chapter 23
Wolfe
Everything was quiet.
Not the dangerous kind. Not the kind that came before a rogue strike or a betrayal. No, this quiet felt as if it was almost…obedient.
Did it mean that the pack was listening? Or were they simply waiting?
Either option made me uneasy. Listening to what? Waiting for who? Me? Was I the answer to both questions? I wish I knew.
I stood outside the dip in the land that would lead me into the heart of the Hollow, watching a thread of mist coil around the roots of the old ironwood trees.
My wolf liked it here—liked the weight of the old magic in the earth, the way the air settled differently in this part of the mountains. But me?
I was restless.
Still coiled too tight from everything I’d let loose. Knowing it was only a fraction of what I still held inside. I’d never known of any alpha to lose it like that. Honestly, it was a bit embarrassing. Diesel blamed the Goddess’s interference; in truth, he blamed the Goddess for most things.
The druid, who watched me constantly anyway, was now practically perched everywhere I looked. Those mismatched eyes following me constantly, waiting for my next mistake.
Because I was making mistakes, no question.
My nose caught the scent of orchid and vanilla, and I knew she was close.
Rowen, perhaps the only thing I hadn’t fucked up yet.
Yet. Was that because I’d already fucked up with her and we were now past it or because she was genuinely the only good thing to come of all of this?
I looked across the grassy knolls, to the path that led deeper into the Hollow. Did my answers lie at the foot of the Heartwood? Would the Goddess answer me this time if I asked my questions?
I knew now why I was drawn back to Blueridge Hollow.
I mean, I’d always known, because of Rowen, but coming here to ensure my first heartbreak was safe was a helluva lot different than returning here to find a true mate and become alpha of a pack when I already had a pack, a happy pack, west of here.
My head dipped as I looked down at the mist curling over my feet as I stood here. The grass was greener here; everything seemed fueled with magic. Magic I didn’t understand and, frankly, didn’t want to know.
But…what happened the other day with my Will…
it shook me. It literally shook the Hollow.
I avoided using my Will because a good leader, a strong alpha, shouldn’t need to use it.
But I’d never heard of it building like that.
It had unnerved me, and I hadn’t been unnerved since the afternoon I decided to kiss Rowen for the first time when we were younger.
My body felt fine—better than it should, considering how fatigued I’d felt after it. But my mind hadn’t caught up.
Or perhaps my issue was that my mind hadn’t stopped.
Thinking over and over, again and again, of what was happening under the surface of this Hollow.
Corrin was in the cells, half-broken. Galvin was still in his chair in his home, smug behind the protection of age and the fact that I couldn’t find anything to actually pin on him.
Which he knew. Bastard. One of my own guys—Cody, Axel, Brand, hell, even Thalia—they took turns watching his place, but so far we’d seen nothing.
This pack was splintered by more than a merger of two packs. Loyalty lines were fractured, and those cuts ran a lot deeper than a new alpha in the Hollow. We hadn’t even begun to uncover how deep it ran, and as I stood here taking in the sacred Hollow, I wondered if we ever would.
If it was a coup, which everything pointed that it was, then who was in the shadows, waiting to take my place?
Malric had no sons, so it wasn’t an overlooked heir.
His heir stood by my side, supporting me.
I frowned. I still needed to talk to Rowen about suspecting her.
Goddess, there was so much I still had to do.
I wanted to return to Stonefang, run the stone of the land that was my home.
But I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave this pack right now.
Luna only knew what the hell I’d return to.
A bush rustled, and I held back the heavy sigh. “Do you grow tired of watching me?”
“I thought I would,” the druid said calmly as they stepped out of the shrubbery. “But I haven’t yet. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“No.” I turned to look at them. “It’s fucking creepy.” I looked them over, ash robes torn and tattered at the hems. “Please tell me you weren’t actually in the bushes watching me?”
A smile played around their lips, but they held up their hand, showing me a black bundle which, on closer inspection, revealed the half-mauled carcass of a crow. I drew back with a scowl.
“Need new feathers?”
This time their smile was wide. “I was seeking a dove, but I came across this and thought, why waste what is already provided?”
“And you were looking for the bird of peace for…”
The druid looked at me and raised a brow. “Peace. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I muttered. “Nothing says peace more than an animal sacrifice.”
The druid walked towards the patch that led to the Heartwood. “Exactly.” They didn’t look back. “Come, you can join me.”
It wasn’t so much an invitation as a command, and with no better reason not to, I followed.
The Heartwood stood tall and solid, its trunk rising far into the low mists that seemed to cling to it no matter the weather.
Dark green leaves glistened in the low light, and I wondered if anyone had ever seen it in direct sunlight.
The Hollow was thick with tree canopy vegetation and Appalachian mists; it was a wonder the tree grew at all.
“She climbed it when she was five,” the druid told me conversationally as they knelt before the tree and started plucking the feathers from the crow.
“What?”
“Rowen,” they explained. “She was alone, there was nowhere to grip, too young to shift, so no claws, but she scaled the trunk and climbed to the utmost branches.”
I huffed out a laugh. “It doesn’t surprise me.”
“Couldn’t get down, of course,” the druid continued, a fond smile on their face.
“Took three of her father’s men to reach her, and her mother sent her to bed that night without supper.
” They set aside some of the feathers. I noticed they were the least damaged and knew without asking that they would soon be pinned to their robes.
“I asked her the next day why she would be so disrespectful as to climb the Heartwood like it was any other tree. Do you know what she said to me?”
“It’s just a tree.”
“Exactly.” They nodded. “She said, ‘It’s just a tree, Druid. The Goddess isn’t inside it, she’s all around it.’”
“You believe that?”
They looked up at me. “Some days, when I am at another funeral pyre, bidding farewell to a friend gone too soon, I believe it is true,” they said, leaning forward and placing their hand on the trunk.
“On other days, when my alpha’s power shakes the foundations on which we stand, I look here for guidance. ”
“Do you believe what you told them in the house?” I asked softly. Rowen had told me their theories, and I hadn’t disputed any of them.
“No.” The druid stood swiftly, their eyes focused on something beyond the vegetation in front of us. “I believe you are young yet, and I believe you have too many influences of magic beside you. Your beta, he is no ordinary beta.”
Diesel. I shrugged it off. “My betas are their own men.”
“The ancient ones still sit on Stonefang soil,” the druid continued.
“Three strong influences of magic in your reign, young alpha. And then you come here, and you are a true mate to the daughter of the Hollow herself. And you think luck would have you become its alpha. This land is rich in the power of the Goddess.” They looked directly at me.
“I don’t believe in coincidences. There is more than luck at play here. ”
“The Goddess?”
They nodded. “Luna has marked you for so much, but what I do not know. That is why I watch.”
I looked up at the canopy of the Heartwood. “Well, I hope for both our sakes that she tells us soon,” I grumbled.
“You have a visitor,” the druid told me. “They cannot cross, but they wait. You should go.”
I didn’t ask how they knew. I didn’t know if I wanted to know how they knew. There was too much talk of magic in our conversation already. Still, I lingered.
“Ask,” they said as they cut off the crow’s feet.
“Whose side are you on? And don’t say the Hollow’s.” They turned their head to look at me. The pale eye shone with power, as the golden eye burned. “Am I your alpha, Druid? Or am I an intruder on your sacred ground?”
“The Hollow claimed you a long time ago, Wolfe.” They turned back to dissecting the crow, and I knew that was the only answer I was going to get.
I headed north to the boundary line, feeling the push against the barrier as someone tried unsuccessfully to enter the territory.
A young male stood frowning at the trees when I approached. They straightened when they saw me. “What the heck is it?” they asked. “I can’t get across.”
“Party trick,” I answered glibly.
“Alpha?” they said in a voice that was too young for the nerves behind it.
I looked the boy over. Gangly. Tall. Obedient, I didn’t doubt. He had a sealed scroll in his hands. Sealed with the Council’s mark.
My stomach dropped. Not out of fear. Out of fury.
“And what have you there?” I asked, not taking it yet.
He swallowed. “I’m a runner for the Pack Council, sir.” He looked down at the scroll. “They said it’s urgent.”
Of course it was. Everything they did was urgent when they were not the ones bleeding for it.
“Drop it here,” I commanded him. When it fell harmlessly on the grass at my feet, I stooped and picked up the scroll, breaking the seal with a flick of my thumb. The wax crumbled. The parchment was stiff—too new, too formal. The kind of paper made for declarations, not dialogue.
I read it once. Then again. Then I laughed, soft and low. Cold.
“Go,” I told the runner. He turned and fled.