Chapter Eleven #2
I’d never had anything mine until Elske came along, and nothing else would ever matter. She will always be my home. My beginning and end. But the pack’s call thrummed under my skin, and it would not be ignored. Could not.
I shifted, stumbled on my legs to regain balance. My hands trembled. My body hurt. And looked for her. “Elske!” I shouted.
She appeared from the shadows, her green eyes in mine. Her hair was wild, tangled by the wind, and the firelight caught something shining on her face that smelled like tears.
Mine.
Dirt, smeared with blood and ash, scattered beneath my feet as I ran to her.
I needed to drink her scent in, to feel her, real and alive under my palms. My world, my being, narrowed down until there was only her heartbeat, calling me home.
I nearly slammed into her, grabbed her face in my palms, and in her eyes shone every reason why I fought for, every peace I’d never believed in. And for her, I dropped to my knees.
My female. My mate. My Omega.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and held tight, pressed my face into the curve of her stomach like a beast to the altar of a goddess.
Her scent, that rain and forest and us, filled me until I thought I would burst. Her fingers threaded through my hair and pulled my head back until I had to look at her.
The moon was a red halo behind her. The pack watched and waited.
It didn’t matter.
She smiled. And when she spoke, there was nothing of victory, nothing of politics in her words. Only the truth I’ve been killing and dying for without even knowing it. “I love you.”
My mind went still. Empty of the world, of the noise, of the anger, or the hopelessness, and filled with her only.
Rewriting me, what I was, what I could be.
For her. With her. Ash drifted between us, catching on her hair like silver threads.
Then the silence began to crack. A shuffle, a murmur, the soft clang of metal.
The intrusion was thin, soft, even, but enough to break the spell.
The weight of all those eyes—expecting, worrying eyes—settled on my back.
The pack was waiting.
And so, I rose, ran the back of my bloodied fingers on her cheek, and nearly dropped down again when she leaned into me. But I turned.
Saw them all.
Villagers. Guards. Males from the army.
The nobles, whose loyalty to Vargan had been transactional, based on riches and power.
Their opulent tunics, silk and gold, dragged in the dust as they slipped toward the side gates, their faces pale in the torchlight.
They followed coin over crown. Always had.
And with all we’ve been doing for the villages, with Elske, Adelmar, Matthis, and Gerhard on my side, it was clear that things were going to change.
Their reign was over as much as Vargan’s.
Elske must have seen where my attention was, because her hand came to rest on my arm. “You could stop them,” she said quietly. “Pack law gives you that right. If they reject the new Alpha, then you have a right to decide their fate.”
I watched the nobles vanish into the shadows, the scent of fear carrying in the breeze. A month ago, I would have hunted them without a second thought, pack law or not, and ripped through their flesh until blood stained their precious clothes. “They will be trouble,” I guessed now instead.
She only nodded. “They don’t care about who’s Alpha. They only care about their power. They won’t give that away easily.”
I should have gone after them. Given them what they deserved. It would have been so easy. They were soft, their wolves nothing but lapdogs. It’d be over in minutes.
But that hunger was gone, I realized, baffled.
Or... changed.
I wanted... different things. I wasn’t sure what those were, but blood was not only it anymore. The rest, I was going to find out. I looked at her. “No more blood.”
Her eyes softened, and I felt pride sweeping in her. Even her wolf came closer to mine—who’d been quiet and satisfied since we killed Vargan.
We both turned to Adelmar when he approached slowly, his boots whispering over sand. He looked at the fallen Alpha’s body, at my blood, and at Elske. Then he lowered his head in respect. Rested his fist on his chest. “Flame and fury,” he said.
I looked at him, his head still down. Then at Elske. I leaned closer to her. “Do I have to tell him something?” I searched her face, looking for answers. “What do I do now?”
The old male chuckled, and my Princess’ lips quirked up, humor sparkling in her eyes. “The Moon Vigil,” she said. As if that should mean something to me.
“Do I have to do it?” I looked at Adelmar, who was finally looking at me. “What is that?”
“The dead must be answered before the living can follow,” he said. “Vargan’s body needs tending. And she, as both his daughter and the new Omega, needs to see to it. She’ll prepare the pyre and remove Vargan’s personal items.Prepare what’s left of the keep for the new Alpha.”
“And where do I go while she does all that?” I didn’t like being away from her, not now, when it was all so surreal.
This time, Elske answered me. “You go get cleaned up. Then you’ll swear the Fire Oath to the Mother.” She hesitated, looked at the crowd. “And we’ll call for the Trial Reign.”
That stopped me cold. “You’d go through with it?”
“I gave you my word.” She put a hand on my chest, where my heart was beating.
“You’ll never lose me. I’ll forever be your mate and love you.
But being Alpha, a good Alpha, is not something that can be bargained.
I know you don’t want this. I’ve known it from the start.
You did what was needed. You finished what we started. The rest is your choice.”
All my life, I’d wanted a choice. Now I had it, but her words got stuck in my head on a loop. I know you don’t want this.
I never had. The idea of wearing the crown was an abomination.
Wasn’t it?
In answer, that energy, that hum that was my link to the pack, pulsed. Could I really walk away from it? It was such an odd feeling. At the thought, even my wolf paced, uneasy.
No. I might not want it, but it was where I belonged, anyway. I frowned as I heard myself growling, “No Trial Reign.”
Her eyes grew big, filled. But she kept her voice and her composure tight under control. She cleared her throat. “Are you sure?”
“I am.”
She nodded.
Rose on her toes to brush a kiss on my lips.
And Adelmar, once again, stepped in as the murmur of the crowd intensified, as the link to them pulled, and I had to turn toward them. To my pack. Looking at me.
My princess pushed me lightly toward them. “They wait for your word, Alpha.”
I took her hand. Reached for that pulse. And said out loud, “We’ve bled enough. And it ends now. We rise together—or we fall together.”
The arena erupted like a thunder made of hundreds of voices.
Screams and howls rolled through the night, wild, bright, spilling from the stands like a storm released.
Flames and sparkles flared, a drum pounded.
Someone tossed cloaks in the air. For the first time in a long while, there was no fear in the shouts.
And it was for us.
Vargan might have had the nobles with their power bought in blood. He might have had part of the Army. Had the council, with its rotten core.
Elske and I had the people.
The farmer with calloused hands and an eye for the rain. The mother with soot under her nails. The hidden. The wounded. The nobody who’d stopped hoping for something else. Something better. Something worth howling for.
Tonight, they got it. We’d make sure of it.
Adelmar leaned close, his voice a soft rumble under the roar. “Come, pup. The Mother waits for no one, not even for a true Alpha.”
I caught Elske’s gaze, and she nodded. “Let’s do what must be done. I’ll see to him,” she said, glancing at her father. “You get ready. Adelmar will help you through.”
She pressed a kiss on my lips once more, then turned toward the guards already advancing to help her with the fallen Alpha’s body. Adelmar steered me the opposite way toward the exit that led to the Alpha’s quarters.
The crowd’s roar had started to fade behind me, leaving only the gaping hollow of what came next.
Everything ahead was uncertain and heavy, full of promises I wasn’t sure I could keep.
How could I be an Alpha of peace if I'd only known blood and survival? And what if that was the point? Peace isn’t given; it is kept, and without fangs it dies.
Maybe peace was really just another kind of battle, another fight.
Fighting, I could do. And my Princess would give me direction, would teach me how—
Fear hit me like a blaze.
Not mine.
Elske’s.
I turned as the voice boomed. “Stray.”
Skarr.
Her brother. The one who was going to take the pack after Vargan.
He held my Princess, one hand clamped around her wrists, a string of wolfsbane loosely wrapped around her hands.
Not tight, but enough to make her magic shudder, strangled at the source.
His other hand pressed on her mouth, closing her head in a vise.
She twisted, trying to pull free, but he was too strong.
When she managed to call her wolf out enough to clamp her teeth on his hand and bite, he screamed in rage.
But he pushed her off, holding on to her wrists, and punched her face. A savage, direct blow.
Her head snapped to the side; her body went limp and folded against his; the bond went quiet.
Silence filled the arena as my wolf tore against the bond, frantic. Every muscle locked, every breath tasted of blood and fire. The sight of his hand on her was enough to strip thought away. There was no strategy. No reason. Only the need to end him and make it slow and painful.
Skarr’s face was a mask of fury, veins pulsing against his skin, eyes burning with something wild and broken. He looked straight at me—through me—and sneered. “I can’t beat you,” he said. “But I can watch your face while she bleeds out.”