Chapter Four Xavier #2
That took quite a bit of time, as the Anax interrogated the Connecticut Alpha.
Enzo admitted his Beta had been behind the attack on Ren and had been consequenced, and two other members of his pack had been ejected.
I looked forward to telling Ren how those who had harmed him had been punished.
Enzo hadn’t done enough as far as I was concerned.
The Anax should have added to the punishments, but that wasn’t my call.
Before I could bring it up to the Anax after he dismissed Enzo, he left too.
I followed him upstairs and stayed close until he found Kyle. Seth was nearby and nodded to me. Trusting that the Anax was safe, I went to find Ren.
He was in his room, lying on his bed with the door ajar. Seeing him through the opening, I knocked to let him know I was there. “Is it okay if I come in?”
“Yeah, of course.” He sat up. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I saw you leave with Mandeep.” I stepped in and closed the door. “The Anax asked him to bring you up here?”
He nodded. “I kind of lost it when I saw the Alpha. The Anax must have noticed.”
“I did too.” I went closer to the bed. “Can I sit down?”
He hesitated, then nodded. I sat at the foot of the bed, giving him plenty of space.
It didn’t escape my notice that we were alone in a room with a bed, but this was about as far as possible from the right time to pick up where we’d left off in the guest house.
“Do you want to know what the Alpha said?”
“Are you supposed to tell me?” he countered.
I probably wasn’t. After all, I’d only heard the conversation because I happened to be in the room. But in the absence of any orders not to tell Ren, I didn’t see a reason I couldn’t. “It’s fine. If you want to hear.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
It seemed best to just plunge in, so I did. “His Beta was part of it. What happened to you. The Alpha consequenced him. Made him fight the lowest-ranked member of the pack. The Beta won, unfortunately, so the Alpha gave the Peacekeeper permission to challenge for rank after the gathering.”
“What does that mean?” Ren glared. “Hi, new to werewolf shit, remember? I got ‘challenge fight’ out of that.”
“Sorry.” Things I’d taken for granted for the past couple of decades were brand new to him.
I needed to keep that in mind. “When the Alpha found out his Beta was involved, he made his Beta fight the lowest-ranked member in the pack as punishment. He said that the deal was if the other pack member won, the Beta would have become the lowest-ranked.”
I stopped to give him a chance for questions. He paused, then nodded again. “With you so far.”
“The Beta won the fight, so he still has his rank.”
I wasn’t sure how Ren would feel about that.
I was furious, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
I had to trust that the Alpha would finish handling the issue.
“The Peacekeeper is the third in the pack, so he’s the one in line to challenge to take the rank of Beta. The Alpha gave his Peacekeeper permission to challenge the Beta after the gathering ends.”
“Keeping his rank isn’t much of a fucking punishment.” Ren leaned back against the headboard. “He should have just kicked the asshole out.”
“I agree.” I didn’t bother trying to justify the Alpha’s decision, though he’d explained it to the Anax.
Something about not believing the Beta would leave, because if he joined any other pack, he would automatically become the lowest-ranked there.
He wouldn’t have wanted to stay that low, of course, so he would have just fought his way back to a high rank and probably would have started the same shit.
“The fight between the Beta and Peacekeeper can end in death. It isn’t necessarily supposed to, but it can.”
I sincerely hoped it would end in the Beta’s death.
“And the Alpha did kick out two of the other pack members who were involved.”
“That’s something.” With a sigh, Ren wrinkled his forehead. “I guess… I don’t know. He couldn’t, like, kill them or anything. I don’t know how punishments work. For werewolves, I mean.”
“Getting kicked out of a pack is like being forced out of your family,” I said.
“They have to find somewhere else to live. They might be forbidden to even talk to anyone in Connecticut Pack. They can’t stay in the pack’s territory, and if they’re allowed to join another pack, they’ll be ranked lowest until they challenge someone else. It might not sound like much,
being told to just go somewhere else, but they’ve lost a lot. For a lot of us, being ejected is worse than being locked up.”
“Okay.” He didn’t sound impressed. “I feel like there should have been more, but it sounds like the Alpha did what he was supposed to. They won’t be around me, right? They can’t get to me anymore.”
He hesitated. “The Alpha did something about it, at least. He told the Anax he would, and he actually did.”
“He was angry about what they did to you. You didn’t deserve it.” I reached out but let my hand drop to the bed between us. I didn’t know much about Ren yet, but I knew better than to touch him uninvited. “It’s lunchtime. Are you hungry?”
“No, but I should probably eat something.” He sat up again and slowly moved his hand closer to mine. “Will you walk downstairs with me?”
“Of course.” I needed to get back to my duties, but I could spare a few minutes to get Ren to the dining room. I hoped. I stood and held out my hand to help him up. After a hesitation, he took it.
His trust, displayed in that simple contact, settled over me. And the touch, in an odd way more intimate than our kiss, stole my breath.
He gasped as I pulled him to his feet. Hell, I could have pulled him right up into my arms if I’d thought he would allow it. I wanted to. Wanted to hold his body against mine as I had the night before. Not for sex, necessarily. We didn’t have time for that. Just to feel him. My mate.
“What the…Another mate thing?” He cleared his throat and steadied himself on his feet. “I think we’d better get downstairs.”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t let go of my hand. My heart soared.
Of course, part of my mind wouldn’t let me have nice things.
That part insisted Ren only kept hold of my hand because we were walking into the midst of a crowd.
He was afraid among so many werewolves, one of whom led the pack that had harmed him so severely.
I was protection. Surely there was nothing beyond that fear and the bond fate had imposed on us.
I tried to ignore that bullshit voice. I’d heard it so many times over the years, out loud when I was a child living with my parents and older brother and in my own head as an adult, because my brain had recorded every awful thing they’d said to me.
It could say whatever it wanted. I wouldn’t let it ruin whatever was building between Ren and me.
In the dining room, I led Ren to the food and pointed out Suzannah Daigle, the healer of Boston North Pack and mate of that pack’s Alpha.
She was standing at the side of the room speaking with a couple of other Boston wolves.
The Anax had introduced Ren to Suzannah when the latter arrived, so she was at least a more familiar face than the other hundred or more in the room.
“You can stick with Suzannah and the others until it’s time to go back to the auditorium. I have to get back to work, but I won’t be far.”
He nodded. “Thanks. Um, I’ll see you later?”
“I’ll be off duty after supper. We can…”
I looked around. Hanging out in any of the common rooms would probably not happen with so many others around.
And because so many guests had arrived, I was sharing a bedroom with Yovanny until the gathering ended.
He would be on duty while I was off, but I couldn’t rule out him needing to get something from the room while I was in there.
I wanted privacy with Ren, even if all we did was sit and be silent together.
“We can hang out in your room if you want once I’m off duty.”
“Find me after supper and we’ll decide?” He looked up at me, and a shadow passed through his gaze. Haunted by memories? By fear of the others here? Probably both. “Get back to work before they come looking for you. I’ll be okay.”
“I’ll be around if you need anything.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I gently squeezed his hand before walking away.
Lunch lasted a couple of hours to ensure that everyone had time to get food and eat, as well as socialize with their friends, packmates, and others who they’d met here or at previous gatherings.
While there were, of course, some werewolves who preferred solitude, and I knew of one who could only be described as asocial, most of us were social creatures.
There would be spats and disagreements, but there would also be community and collaboration.
After lunch, the Anax summoned only the arkhons and alphas back to the auditorium.
The remaining guests, Ren included, would be free to wander the house and grounds.
I hoped to be assigned to stay upstairs to monitor the guests, but Seth gave Davion that assignment instead and ordered me to the auditorium with him.
I couldn’t find Ren to let him know where I’d be.
That bothered me more than I wanted to let on.
If he needed me and couldn’t find me, he might correctly assume that I’d gone with the Anax, or he might believe I’d abandoned him.
We had a bond, as mates, that would in theory allow me to speak directly into his mind and allow him to answer, but I didn’t want to use it.
Not when he was still getting used to the rest of this life.
I would just have to explain later why I’d vanished.
The meeting became heated quickly. Although all of the arkhons and alphas had pledged loyalty to the Anax, some were clearly on the side of the Pacific Region Arkhon and those who had followed him out of the gathering.
One Alpha had the audacity to tell the Anax to his face that he was a failure.
That led to more arguments and discussions of arkhons and alphas who had been ejected from their ranks or killed in the year since the Anax had taken over.
Somehow, the Anax faced all of it with a fa?ade of calm, but standing near his podium, I felt his anger roiling beneath the surface.
Only a few months earlier, such a display of disrespect would have had him fighting, threatening, destroying.