Chapter 2 - Arthur #2
Layla looked up, as if sensing Arthur’s gaze. Their eyes met across the room. She offered him a small, wry smile and raised her mug in greeting.
Arthur’s chest squeezed in a way he’d never admit.
He’d fought beside Dominic at Voskresen. He’d watched the young Alpha nearly die. Had watched her fight for him. Layla had not just survived all of that; she’d come out the other side standing tall beside Dominic, weathering the pack’s suspicion, its resentment, its fear.
He respected her for that, even if a small, stubborn part of him kept a careful distance from whatever strange power seemed to hum under her skin.
He didn’t have the luxury of thinking about it much longer.
Dominic was at the bar, speaking quietly with Julian. The spymaster slipped away the second he saw Arthur approach, melting into the shadows near the stairs like mist.
Arthur had never liked Julian, but he could say one thing for the slippery male. He knew when he wasn’t welcome.
“Arthur,” Dominic said, straightening, “thank you for coming.”
“Aye, you sent for me,” Arthur replied.
Dominic gestured towards the stairs. “Come on, let’s go somewhere quieter.”
Arthur followed him through the press of bodies, catching Layla’s scent again as they passed the hearth, ink and herbs and something that reminded him, faintly, of charged air before a storm. He didn’t look back as they climbed the stairs.
The door shut behind them with a dull thud. The noise of the bar muffled to a low roar.
Dominic poured them each a drink from a bottle on the sideboard. His movements were deliberate, his expression composed, but Arthur could see the strain riding his shoulders. Years of leadership, of war, of worry had carved darkness into his face.
Arthur took the glass but didn’t drink. “All right. What’s this about?”
Dominic didn’t waste time.
“You’ve no doubt heard the reports from Severney,” he said. “Hybrids are on the move. They’re not just scavenging anymore; they’re hunting with direction. Coordination. Julian’s sources confirm the same across the range.”
Arthur nodded once. “Chase briefed me.”
“Then you understand why this can’t be handled the way we handled Voskresen.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened. “We handled Voskresen just fine.”
“We survived Voskresen,” Dominic corrected, “barely. And the nest we destroyed was an outpost. A limb, not the heart.”
Arthur said nothing. They both knew it was true.
Dominic set his glass down. “We don’t know how many there are. We don’t know who’s leading them. We don’t know what they want. We are fighting blind, Arthur. I won’t send my wolves into another slaughter without more information.”
“So?” Arthur asked. “What’s your plan?”
Dominic met his eyes. “I’ve called a summit.”
Arthur went very still. “A what?”
“A gathering,” Dominic said, “of packs, of covens, of vampire clans. Anyone with a stake in this. Anyone with knowledge we don’t have. They’ll come to Skymist. We’ll share what we know. We’ll coordinate.”
Arthur could feel his heartbeat in his throat.
“You what?” he said softly.
“Invitations have already gone out,” Dominic continued, “the Juneau Coven, the Salem Coven. The Severney. The vampires from down south—”
“You invited witches,” Arthur cut in, “to Skymist.”
Dominic’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”
Silence pressed against Arthur’s ears. For a second, he heard nothing but the rush of his own blood.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he said finally.
Dominic’s jaw flexed. “Arthur—”
“Into our town,” Arthur snapped, stepping forward, the drink forgotten in his hand. “Into my mountains. You invited witches to walk on Nordan soil.”
“They’ll be in town,” Dominic replied. “We’ll keep them to Volkhov territory as much as possible—”
“As much as possible?” Arthur’s voice rose. “You know what they did. What they are. You know how many of ours died the last time a coven of witches set foot this side of the mountain range.”
“That was a century ago,” Dominic said sharply, “and not every witch that ever lived took part in the war.”
“Tell that to the mothers who buried children,” Arthur snarled, “to the wolves who watched their own kin bleed out and burn.”
Dominic’s eyes flashed. “I’m not ignorant of our history.
But I refuse to let it prevent us from fighting for our future.
Hybrids are using magic. Old magic. Something tied up with their creation and with whatever is controlling them.
We need coven knowledge, Arthur. We need witchcraft that isn’t twisted by hatred and war. ”
Arthur laughed, short and bitter. “And where exactly do you think they learned that magic in the first place?”
“Layla’s found texts,” Dominic said, his voice dropping. “Grimoires on hybrid binding, on blood rituals older than the packs. She can’t decode them alone. We need a coven to interpret them. To find a way to sever whatever is driving these creatures before they tear through every pack in the north.”
Arthur stilled.
There it was. The thing he’d been refusing to look at directly.
“You’re basing this on her work,” he said slowly.
Dominic’s gaze sharpened. “Watch your tone.”
Arthur’s wolf snarled, pushing against his skin. “You know what they call her, don’t you? Some of your wolves. Some of mine. Witch. You hear it, and you silence it, but you don’t deny it.”
Dominic’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “She is my mate. She saved my life. She has risked everything to understand what we’re facing. If you think I’ll stand here and let you reduce her to—”
“I like her,” Arthur cut in, chest heaving, “you know I do. I’ve stood at that bar and laughed with her and watched her stand tall and thought Lunarion had done you a kindness, giving you someone strong enough to match you.
But if she is what they say, Dominic, then you are asking me to welcome a witch as your luna. You are asking me to endanger my pack.”
“No,” Dominic said quietly. “I’m asking you to stand beside me while we keep all of our people alive.”
Arthur stared at him.
For a heartbeat, he remembered the boy Dominic had once been.
The one he’d seen kill his father, fight his own cousin for control of the pack, eyes hard as flint.
The alpha he’d watched claw his way back from the edge, rebuild, hold the Volkhov together with nothing but will and teeth.
He’d backed him. Advised him. Fought beside him.
Now that same alpha was asking him to let witches into the valley.
“You’re doing this because of her,” Arthur said, the words tasting sour. “Because she’s in your bed and in your head and you can’t tell where her magic ends and the bond begins.”
Dominic’s eyes went cold. “Careful.”
“Are you even sure she hasn’t already—”
“Enough.” The word cracked like a whip.
Arthur shut his mouth. Dominic took a breath, then another, leashing his temper with visible effort.
“You’re not the only one with a pack to protect,” Dominic said, low and fierce.
“If there was another way, I’d take it. But every scrap of information we’ve found points to one thing: this is bigger than wolves.
Bigger than old grudges. Witches, vampires, packs from across the range, we either stand together, or we die. ”
Arthur’s hands shook. He didn’t know if it was from anger or from the way the truth in those words scraped across the inside of his ribs.
“Then hold your summit,” he said, voice flat. “Parade your covens and your leeches through town. Invite whatever gods they pray to and see if they bother to answer. But don’t ask the Nordan to open our gates to witches. Not again. Not while I live.”
Dominic’s mouth tightened. “I wasn’t asking.”
Arthur’s wolf lunged. It took everything he had not to step forward, not to bare his teeth in his oldest friend’s face.
“Then we’re done here,” he said.
He turned and walked out before he did something he couldn’t take back.
***
The corridor outside felt too narrow. Too warm. Laughter from the main room spilled under the door, jarring and wrong.
Arthur pushed out into the cold night and sucked in a breath of air sharp enough to sting. Snow had started in earnest now, fat flakes drifting down from a low, heavy sky. The lights of The Anchor blurred at the edges.
For a long second, he just stood there, heart pounding, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
Then he pulled his phone from his pocket and hit the speed dial.
Chase answered on the second ring. “Arthur?”
“Send word to the Volnoye,” Arthur said, each word bitten off. “Tonight.”
A stunned beat of silence. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“Arthur, inviting Leonid anywhere near this town is—”
“Tell them Dominic is calling a summit,” Arthur cut in. “That he’s inviting witches and vampires and every other creature with a grudge against us. Tell them they’re welcome to come and join in.”
“You can’t,” Chase said hoarsely. “Dominic and Leonid’s feud runs too deep. You’d be inciting a war.”
“Good.”
“Arthur—”
“Do it,” Arthur growled. “And Chase?”
“What?”
“Double patrols along our border. Three shifts, no gaps. No one crosses into Nordan land without my say-so. Especially not witches.”
Chase was silent for a long moment.
“He’s still our ally,” he said finally, voice quiet.
“Allies don’t invite witches into your home without asking,” Arthur replied.
He ended the call before Chase could answer.
The snow was falling thicker now, soft and relentless, muffling the world. Arthur lifted his face to it, letting the cold sting his skin. The hum of life surrounded him, the Nordan wolves that lived in town and the ones beyond, choosing to stay in the compound. All of them his responsibility.
He’d do whatever it took to keep them safe.
Even if it meant standing against Dominic. Even if it meant opening the door to old enemies just to prove a point.
“No witches,” he muttered to the empty street, breath fogging. “Not here. Not again.”
He’d once welcomed the idea of Dominic taking Layla as his mate. A true mate, blessed by Lunarion himself.
It seemed his god had a sense of humor.
A memory surfaced, unbidden. A girl with red hair and laughing eyes, standing at the edge of the tree line, looking back at him like he’d hung the moon.
He shoved it down, buried it under snow and steel and duty.
Dani Taylor was ten years gone.
And he was here. With his pack. His people. He needed to protect them. Layla, mate or no, was a problem Dominic needed to handle. Witches were a plague best kept far away from his mountains.
And if fate had other ideas…
Well.
Fate would have to go through him first.