Chapter Eleven #5
Because he still didn’t want to. I felt it strongly.
He had started something he wasn’t willing to finish, but he had no choice now.
He had to go that last little bit to fully become wolf.
What he did after that was still subject to his choice.
He could attack me. He could finish issuing the challenge, though he would have to do so through our bond and therefore no one else would hear it.
Or he could surrender and accept whatever consequence I chose to issue.
I didn’t want to kill him. He’d fucked up royally, and he could no longer be trusted to even rule a pack, never mind a region.
He had instigated the secession of multiple packs, and for that alone I could issue a death sentence if I wanted to, but too many people died in our world.
I preferred to leave them alive when I could.
Then again, I couldn’t let Davis join forces with others.
He might turn them against me and spark another set of challenges.
If I let him live, he would be packless, but that would only prohibit him from joining a pack.
It wouldn’t keep him from contact with others, even if I expressly forbade anyone to have contact with him.
There were always those who would disobey such an order unless I used compulsion to enforce it.
I didn’t trust the man. I didn’t want to kill again, but he wasn’t really leaving me much choice. If he attacked, he would die. If he didn’t attack, I would still have to sentence him to death for what he’d done.
He staggered to his feet now, completely in wolf form, and bowed his head. I do not challenge.
That doesn’t really matter. I said it gently.
He knew he was going to die. I had to give him one last chance, even though I knew how foolish it was of me.
Return to human form now and you may leave this gathering alive.
You will return to your home and remain there, unable to leave your property, no longer Arkhon, no longer anything in our world.
But I will let you keep your life and your belongings.
That is worse than death, Anax.
His use of my title showed that he accepted my rule, now that it was too late. He lowered himself to the ground and rolled, exposing his throat and belly.
Since the arkhons standing around us couldn’t hear our conversation, I decided to fill them in.
Davis Gray has been offered the chance to live as a packless wolf in his own home.
He has declined. He asks for death. He hadn’t, not in so many words, but that was what his position meant.
He wouldn’t have shown me his throat if he didn’t want me to tear it out.
“We support your decision, Anax,” Oliver said. “No fight will occur, but if death results, so be it.”
“So be it,” Zane and the rest repeated.
Gods, I didn’t want to do this. The taste of Edward’s blood was still in my mouth.
I wanted no other man’s blood to join it.
But Davis couldn’t be left alive without risking further conflict, further challenges.
Perhaps even further fractures among the werewolves of the country.
I was Anax. It was part of my role to keep our country intact, on the werewolf side at least, and sometimes that meant taking lives I would rather not have taken.
I approached Davis slowly. He watched me, breathing heavily, and didn’t move.
One last time, I said. You may return to your home, alive but packless and alone. Or I can kill you here and now.
Kill me, he said.
So I did, in one fast movement that shed blood around us, because I had no wish to make him suffer. As before, I kept my teeth on him as the life faded from his eyes, as the taste of his blood filled my mouth, as silence fell around us.
No fight had occurred, and therefore there was no need for a monitor, but Oliver took the role anyway. “It is over,” he said softly after a minute or two. “Anax, Davis Gray is dead.”
I stepped back from the corpse, gagging slightly at the mixed taste of the blood of the two men whose lives I’d just ended, and lay down, closing my eyes because right now, I couldn’t stand the sight of what I’d done.
I had killed. Two men. Not in cold blood, at least, but that didn’t make it better. I didn’t kill lightly. I had declared this gathering a safe place where no conflict would occur, and yet I had just killed two men. Two arkhons, who would now need to be replaced.
At least one of them would. Whether I replaced Davis Gray would depend on whether the Pacific Region continued to be a region, and that wasn’t a decision I wanted to make alone. The remaining arkhons would have a say.
I had less awareness as I shifted back this time than before. The pain was excruciating, psychic as well as physical, and I didn’t care about anything else. I needed to be human again so I could issue the orders that needed issuing. So I could get the gathering back under control.
So I could find Kyle and hide with him under the covers of our bed, wrapped in his arms, forgetting everything else for a little while. Forgetting that I was the Anax.