Chapter Two
Eldrick
“We no longer accept Aramis Drengr as the Earl of the Vadon Mountains. The decree outlines everything. I’m afraid the decision is unanimous.”
In the wake of Alpha Bjorn Johannes’s words, silence rang in the grand hall of Lār. The blinding afternoon sun bled from the main window. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky for miles. Not even the whistle of a breeze against the glass.
The stillness contradicted the war raging in Eldrick Drengr’s blood.
It’d been three weeks since the council meeting when they’d discussed the prophecy, the curse, and the Blood Goddess.
Eldrick hadn’t considered the other alphas’ lingering presence in the village—winter berated the Vadon Mountains with all its might these last weeks, making travel unwise, a reason enough to stay until the snow cleared.
Despite being guest in the Drengr Village and recipients of their hospitality, the alphas had plotted right under his father’s nose, in his territory.
“On what grounds was this decision made?” Eldrick didn’t fight the shake in his voice. Let Bjorn hear his ire.
He’d believed the council meeting had made a difference.
When Bjorn requested an audience with Eldrick and his father, they’d expected a discussion on strategy, planning how to proceed with the conflict to come, not a decree stripping Aramis of his title, a werewolf who, despite being poisoned by Claus, his own brother, had never yielded or stumbled these past ten years.
Bjorn’s scar running from brow to cheek pulsed as he gritted his jaw. Two others flanked the alpha. His son Sam—one of the werewolves they’d set free in Drystan during their mission to save Evelyn—stood on his left, and a female warrior to his right.
If Eldrick recalled, she was the alpha’s youngest daughter.
Pinched brow, narrowed gaze, unruly dark head of curls like her father and brother, and nose stuck high in the air.
Her hand rested on the hilt of the axe strapped to her hip, and Eldrick’s inner wolf growled at the audacity she’d even enter the hall with it.
The air bristled with their beastly energy, yet their attire suggested they were readying to travel, not warriors gearing up for a fight.
The hilt of Bjorn’s sword strapped to his back glinted in the sun, bright against the signature Johannes green of their tunic and trouser.
Northern packs customarily made their furs from bear and beaver, braiding chestnut brown tufts.
“We no longer trust your judgment, Aramis,” Bjorn said.
A growl vibrated behind Eldrick, and he turned.
His father seethed in his seat. He rose to his full height.
Silver peppered the alpha’s brown hair. His cheeks had filled out, his shoulders tauter.
Thanks to Linx’s healing remedies, his mate, Nadia, returned, and after almost a full month without wolfsbane, Eldrick’s father grew stronger with each day.
Aramis prowled down the steps, joining Eldrick’s side, and snatched the decree from Bjorn’s hand. “If you’re bold enough to set this in motion, you’re bold enough to spit out the truth.”
Alpha Johannes’s daughter wrinkled her nose. “Your mate is a bloodsucker.”
“Dalinda, hush.” Bjorn sent her a glare. “Excuse my daughter’s directness, but she is right. Nadia Drengr is a no longer one of us.”
Sam flinched. The young werewolf appeared uncomfortable, standing with his father and sister, eyes focused on the stone floor.
But Eldrick recalled Bjorn’s anger the last time Sam had intervened, standing up for Tovi during the council meeting when the Johannes Alpha had first declared his mistrust of the vampyr queen.
Eldrick’s brows pinched as he considered the Johanneses.
He and his father agreed on most matters, and he found the divide between Sam and Bjorn foreign.
He couldn’t imagine disagreeing with his father about something so important.
He grabbed the decree from his father, unfurling the rolled parchment.
The opening words shot scorching anger through Eldrick’s muscles, but he leaned into the surrounding silence, stilled his racing heart for a moment, and focused on reading the rest. It detailed Bjorn’s message and was, indeed, signed by the alphas of the Vadon Mountains.
Except for there were six names, six packs—Skau, Johannes, Thorn, Drabek, Aland, and Lindstrom—not seven.
The Drengr’s pack name was missing amongst the others that declared the end to a centuries-old practice, one that honored the Son of the God’s pack as the ruling one.
“Nadia risked her life to reveal who Claus was!” Aramis’s voice rose, his alpha baritone booming against the stone walls.
“Ah, yes, the Lone Wolf. That brings me to my next point.” Bjorn surveyed Eldrick, expression hardening. “You killed Claus.”
His gaze flicked between Eldrick and the very spot he’d shoved the wolfsbane down his uncle’s throat. No blood stained the stone, nor guilt on Eldrick’s conscience. Not a moment had gone by where he’d regretted his decision.
“My uncle deserved his end,” he said.
“Perhaps, but there are laws amongst werewolves.” Bjorn shook his head. “Despite your uncle’s crimes, he had a right to a trial, and the alphas of the packs, not a next-in-line alpha, deserved to deliberate and decide his fate. Yet you acted out of impulse.”
Eldrick bristled. By technicality, Bjorn was right.
In the chaos of learning his uncle was the Lone Wolf and threatening Tovi’s life, he hadn’t thought consequences.
With the sight of her in danger, Eldrick had lost all sense.
It was no wonder he’d forgotten the customs of his people.
Nothing else mattered but protecting her, a wild instinct coursing through his blood.
“Claus was threatening Tovi Verena, our neighbor’s queen,” he said. “I was simply defending her from an enemy in my home.”
Dalinda’s nose twitched, and her permanent scowl made her appear like she was always smelling something foul. “Drystan isn’t our neighbor, they’re our enemy.”
“Riven is our enemy.” Aramis released an exasperated sigh. “Unless you’ve all forgotten the council meeting, the true threat is the Blood Goddess and her curse.”
“But the vampyr queen suffers from the same affliction, no?” Bjorn said.
“Yet she remains an ally. It’s a disgrace to our kind, to those that lost their lives to her people’s darkness,” Dalinda added.
A sour taste coated Eldrick’s tongue. It wasn’t long ago when he’d shared Dalinda’s similar disgust towards vampyrs.
Now, Tovi was an official ally of the werewolves—another decision he’d made without the other alphas.
This may have been his home and pack, but the decisions of the Drengrs’ reflected all the packs.
He and his father shared a quick glance, and Aramis’s shoulders fell, like the realization dawned on him, too.
Eldrick had acted brashly.
All for what? Tovi hadn’t agreed to his request.
Stay, he’d asked.
Yet, the vampyr queen had left shortly after the meeting to return home and spy on her brother. She’d promised to write if she’d learned anything worth sharing, and yet Eldrick hadn’t received a single letter.
Like a fool, he’d envisioned taking her east to the frozen waterfalls, sampling the street fair of the village or tasting her rose-pink lips again, and places he’d yet to explore, kissing every inch of her, earlobe to toes. This wanting had Eldrick strung tight, ready to burst at the seams.
Yet, she wasn’t here. A hundred miles away, and she still consumed his thoughts.
“Tovi is a powerful ally against our enemies,” Eldrick finally said.
She wasn’t just an ally, though, was she? If that were the case, he wouldn’t feel her rejection like a punch to the gut, too keenly aware of her absence in the village.
“She’s nothing but a whore who’s bewitched you,” Dalinda hissed.
Eldrick bared his own teeth, a thread of control separating him and his wolf from shifting. “Watch your tongue, or I’ll cut it from your head.”
Eldrick’s promise bounced off the walls like booming thunder.
A strong, grounding hand squeezed his shoulder, and Aramis pulled him back, green eyes darkening like the forest during a summer storm.
His jaw pulsed as he addressed Bjorn. “Vampyr or not, we can’t forget what Tovi has done. She led the journey to rescue Evelyn Carson from her brother’s clutches and helped free captured werewolves, your son included.”
Pride flushed through Eldrick, and he admired how steadfast his father was. This decree robbed Aramis of his title, but he still defended Tovi and Eldrick’s agreed alliance.
“You have always been full of hope, Aramis, and I believe that served werewolves for a time, but we’ve entered a new era.
Our own captured and chained, brothers betraying brothers, the Void spreading, and more demons entering our lands.
We must elect a new alpha who understands vampyrs are the enemy. ”
Dalinda smirked at her father’s words, malice etched into the creases of her eyes. Sam paled.
Aramis growled, shaking his head. “Stars above, Bjorn, see reason. Now isn’t the time to divide the packs and leave them without a leader.”
“There will be a vote for a new alpha in a month’s time,” Dalinda said.
Eldrick balked. “But Riven could strike at any moment.”
Bjorn readied to leave, drawing his cloak tighter. “Which is why I’m acting alpha during the interim. You’ll find that clause detailed in the decree.”
With his parting words, Bjorn swiveled on his boots and strode down the center of the grand hall. Dalinda followed soon after, her nose so high it ran vertically to the ceiling.
Sam paused for a moment, bowed his head and said, “Alpha and Magu.” And then he, too, left the hall, leaving Eldrick and his father buzzing with the news of the decree.
Once their retreating boots were out of earshot, Aramis turned to him. “We need to find your mother immediately.”
Eldrick stilled, every fiber of his being turning rigid. “You think he’ll hurt her?”
“Bjorn won’t, not if he wants to secure the Earl vote, but nothing’s stopping those who share his beliefs about vampyrs.
” Aramis took the decree from Eldrick, rereading it again as if the words might change.
He didn’t balk, nor reflect any feelings at all, but his reserved silence was telling enough.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Eldrick said.
Aramis scoffed. “Don’t be. I accepted Tovi, as well as you. Though I was na?ve to think werewolves would accept your mother so quickly, the alpha they knew had died long ago.”
A sadness seeped into his tone, and Eldrick swallowed.
An unsaid tension had brimmed between his parents, and Eldrick wondered if his father resented his mother’s decision to stay away for so long or how their mating bond fared after so much time apart.
He didn’t have the courage to ask, not when his mind wandered to his own matters of the heart.
His feelings for Tovi were costing him. It’s not that he didn’t trust them, but he feared it led him in the wrong direction—a place that put the future of his people, the werewolves, at risk. Perhaps it was for the best she wasn’t in the village.
“I’ll find Mother,” he said. “What of Bjorn and the other alphas?”
His father scratched his beard. “We do nothing. Allow them to remain as long as they wish before they travel back to their own villages. If we push them out, they’ll see us as bitter and feel better about their decision.
Besides, I’ll meet with the other alphas, see if I can undo the mess of this decree and call off a vote entirely. ”
Eldrick nodded. He left his father and headed out of Lār, the crisp air a cooling reprieve after such frustrating news.
If werewolves had any chance of beating Riven, they needed an alliance with the rightful Queen of Drystan—that was certain—and ensuring his father won back his title was imperative to keeping that alliance intact.
It was only a matter of making the other packs understand they needed Tovi in the fight to come.
Purpose put a spring in Eldrick’s step, but as he weaved through streets of his home, he couldn’t shake the sense they were in this mess because of him.