Chapter 24 - Gage #2
One by one, Frost Fang wolves stepped forward. Fern was first, bowing her head in acknowledgment, not submission. Other betas followed. Then subordinates. Frost Fang wolves who had followed Fern, and then even those who had followed us.
The transformation rippling through Frost Fang was palpable. These wolves — broken and fearful for so long — were choosing hope.
Varden, the alpha I’d once defeated in combat, stepped forward. His voice was gruff but sincere.
“You have my loyalty, Artemis. You’ve earned it.”
Movement at the edge of the crowd caught my attention. Gabriel moved through the assembled wolves with Jasmine at his side. Garreth and Grayson flanked them, the three littermate brothers presenting a united front.
Gabriel’s voice carried clearly.
“We left the Snow Moon pack when they began to change. Our pack leaders became corrupted, and they made impossible demands of us. When they demanded Jasmine choose only one mate and declared that only male wolves should bite their female mates rather than celebrating equal mate bonds, we knew things would only get worse from there. When we heard about what was happening here — packs coming together in peace to defend against conquerors — we knew we wanted to be part of it.”
Jasmine spoke next, her eyes bright.
“We’ve faced judgment for our unconventional mate bonds. Most packs might not allow a female wolf to choose multiple mates. But here, with you, we see acceptance. We see possibility.” She looked at Freya with gratitude, then at Artemis. “We want to be part of this bright future.”
Garreth and Grayson nodded in agreement. Garreth added, “We want to contribute.”
Grayson added, “And we refuse to be separated.”
Artemis smiled, the first genuine warmth I’d seen from her today.
“We’d be honored to have you. Your bond is a testament to the kind of pack we’re building — one that celebrates love and loyalty instead of hierarchy and control.”
From the side, an old voice spoke up.
“If I may?”
Artemis’s grandfather Hank stepped forward, his mangled limb not slowing him. Age hadn’t dulled the sharpness in his eyes.
“I’ve seen the worst of what alphas can do,” he said. “Denraider took my pack, my limb, most of my family. I’ve watched wolves break under tyrants and still crawl after them.”
His gaze softened as he looked at Artemis and then over the Frost Fang wolves.
“But I’ve also watched these young ones hold each other together when they had nothing.”
He nodded once, firm.
“The spirit of Dawn Chaser survived in us. Now it has a chance to grow with Frost Fang at its side. You have my blessing. May this new pack rise from what we lost and stand against every conqueror who thinks we’re easy prey.”
The old alpha’s words settled over the crowd like a benediction. Artemis raised her voice so all could hear.
“Today, I invite anyone who wants to join us to create this entirely new pack. The Bloody Dawn and Frost Fang will not only merge. We will become something entirely new.”
Her words hung in the cold late December air.
“Our new name will honor the Dawn Chaser pack we came from — the pack Denraider tried to destroy. It will acknowledge the darkness Frost Fang has endured and overcome. It will invite outcast wolves to join us and build something brighter. And it symbolizes our new beginning.” Her eyes blazed with determination.
“Together, we will become the New Dawn pack.”
Cheers erupted from Artemis’s packmates and future packmates alike. The sound was cathartic, releasing years of pain and fear. My throat tightened with emotion.
Frost Fang would be no more. Free from its dark legacy, the pack could move forward without carrying the weight of my father’s cruelty, Garth’s tyranny, Nira’s betrayal, or my ineptitude.
Artemis turned to me, her expression serious.
“Pack Alpha Gage, I formally ask for your blessing. I don’t know the tradition when one pack alpha peacefully passes leadership to another, so I humbly ask for your guidance.”
I nodded, but I heard a chuckle and a snort from behind me. Gazes shifted to my packmates.
“The Howling Echo doesn’t stand on tradition,” Zak said. “What you create here will be entirely of your own making.”
“True,” Rowan said. “There are few examples of this kind of transfer of power.”
“We managed it well enough,” Thatcher called from the crowd. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Gage.”
I met Artemis’s gaze. “I believe I need to bring you into Frost Fang before I can name you as my heir.”
Artemis nodded, then began to strip down. I did the same, and we both stuffed our clothing into our sling bags the moment before shifting. A few in the crowd did the same, while others waited on two legs.
My wolf surged forward, bones cracking and reforming. My massive dark gray and white alpha form towered over the assembled wolves. Inside me, two distinct pack bonds pulsed — the tight, familiar cord of the Howling Echo, and the broader, heavier web of Frost Fang.
I pushed the Howling Echo bond to the background and focused on Frost Fang alone. This wasn’t about my pack of seven. This was about my birth pack, and the ones who’d chosen to follow us here.
Artemis shifted beside me, her coat the color of rust and autumn leaves. The Frost Fang bond hummed with anticipation. I’d carried its weight since defeating Nira, a responsibility I’d never wanted but accepted because Frost Fang needed me.
Now I was passing it to someone who actually wanted it. Who had a vision for it.
Relief mingled with sorrow. This was my family’s legacy, for better and worse. But it was time to let it go.
I projected my alpha voice. “Artemis, do you promise to serve this pack, putting your packmates first?”
“I do,” Artemis answered in kind. “I promise to serve the pack and put my packmates first.”
“And the pack will serve you,” I replied, sealing the ritual words.
She extended her right foreleg. It was fitting. After all, I wasn’t bringing her into the Howling Echo, but into Frost Fang.
I closed my jaws gently around her foreleg, letting my wolf channel only the Frost Fang alpha bond.
No flicker of the Howling Echo stirred. As my fangs broke skin, her presence slid into the Frost Fang pack bond — and with her, the Bloody Dawn wolves who already followed her.
Their old pack structure loosened and reattached under Frost Fang’s umbrella, similar to how Ironwood had briefly done when Rowan became its pack alpha while I remained his pack alpha.
For just this moment, Artemis stood as a subordinate alpha within Frost Fang, tied to me through that single bond. But we both knew this arrangement wouldn’t last long.
For her alone, I spoke along the pack bond, “This is normally where I make a private promise to subordinate wolves by saying, ‘Just as you have sworn loyalty to me, I swear I will not abuse this power over you.’ But I trust you will find your own way of doing things.”
“Thank you, Gage,” Artemis said, also privately. “For entrusting the pack to me.”
“Shall we?” I asked.
We both stepped back and shifted into our human forms. After I donned my clothing, Hank gave me a nod of approval. For the moment, he recognized me as his pack alpha. But not for long.
“Today, I name Artemis as my successor and heir,” I said, remembering the way Rowan had transferred power to Thatcher. “Does anyone deny her right to succeed me as the next pack alpha?”
“No, alpha!” Voices rose up, not only from Frost Fang, but from the Bloody Dawn, and Gabriel and then his mate and littermates as well.
“Does anyone here challenge her right to rule this pack?” I asked, casting my eyes across the entire assembly.
“No, alpha!” came an even louder answer, from all assembled wolves, including the Midnight Path, Moonblessed, Ironwood, and others, like Brielle.
“Good,” I growled. “Then I ask the pack — do you accept Artemis as your new pack alpha and swear loyalty to her?”
Cries of “Yes, alpha!” and “We do!” rose from her future pack.
Freya’s Odinswolf vision blazed to life as she pushed it through the Bonded link so we could all see what was about to happen. My connection to Artemis had strengthened, glowing brightly as if in anticipation of what was to come.
With Freya’s help, it was easy to focus on the right pack bond. Through our bonds, she lent me her Odinswolf sight, and two distinct webs came into sharp relief — a dense, bright knot that was the Howling Echo, and a wider, frayed net reaching back toward the Frost Fang packlands.
I ignored the tight knot that anchored me to my mates and studied the Frost Fang threads instead. One by one, I loosened my grip on each strand and redirected it toward Artemis. It wasn’t painful, but it was profound — like releasing something I’d held clenched in my fist for years.
Brooke’s strand loosened and found Artemis, choosing her rather than going back to Ironwood. West, Bea, Ivar… One after another, wolves I knew and wolves whose names I’d never learned slipped through my mental fingers.
Dean. Varden. Fern.
One stubbornly solid thread remained — Bretton. My wolf hesitated, the old habit of leaning on his steady presence flaring before I could stop it. Then I let him go, too, and he joined Artemis and the rest of his packmates.
Memories flashed through my mind as each thread released.
Running through the packlands as a pup with several of these shifters, before we could shift.
Playing, training, learning to fight. And then the darker memories.
The omega competitions I’d been forced to watch.
The fear that permeated everything. My father’s death.
Garth’s rise to power. Nira’s betrayal. Garth exiling me from the pack.
All of it, flowing away.
The overall pattern shifted until Artemis stood at the center of the New Dawn, with only a tiny thread still connected to me.