Chapter One Dash
Head bowed, I stood before the Alpha, Beta, and my packmates.
I shouldn’t have been here. I should have been safe in the room where I slept, in Annabeth’s house.
The room she let me use while we pretended to the rest of the pack that we were together.
Sometimes, we actually were together. The rest of the time, I slept in a tiny room that had once been a walk-in closet.
“Dashiell Wozniak.” The Alpha’s voice boomed through the room, a former dining room in what had once been a restaurant until the Alpha realized how many humans were coming through our area and stopping to eat here.
The previous Alpha hadn’t cared; the restaurant provided work for pack members, myself included, and money for the pack’s resources.
That was one of the reasons the current Alpha, along with the Arkhon, our regional ruler, had decided the old Alpha had to go.
The old Alpha also hadn’t cared whether I was gay, straight, bi, or something else entirely.
Not that he’d been particularly kind to me after I was found in bed with a guy one full moon night a decade ago, but he at least hadn’t kicked me out of the back.
He had gotten rid of the other guy, though.
Not only because we were in bed together.
Jamie Pasquale had caused plenty of rifts and conflicts in the pack, and getting caught naked, down, and dirty with me had been the nail in his coffin as far as the pack was concerned.
The wolf to my right, Edgar, whacked the side of my head, and I yelped. “Shut up,” he hissed. “Your Alpha is speaking. Pay attention.”
“Apologies, Alpha,” I mumbled, bowing my head further. “I am listening.”
“You had best be.” The Alpha folded his arms. “Dashiell, how long have you been a member of Cascade Pack?”
I cringed when he said my full name for the second time.
I hated that name. By the time I came along, the third boy, my parents had run out of names, so they’d stuck me with the name of some author my mother’s stepfather had liked.
Some oldie-timey dude who wrote about “hard-boiled” detectives in the 1920s or something.
My mother hated those books, and her stepfather, so I had no clue why she’d decided to plant that name on me.
At least she hadn’t taken out her hatred on me. She’d mostly just ignored me.
I couldn’t tell the Alpha not to use that name, though, even though he knew damn well everyone just called me Dash. He was in charge of the pack. He could call me “Dickless Shiteater” if he felt like it, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could say about it.
“Alpha, I have been a member of Cascade Pack for slightly over ten years,” I said, my tone hollow. He’d been the Beta when I was changed into a werewolf. He probably knew how long I’d been here down to the exact frigging second.
“And in that time, how far have you risen in the pack?” he asked. His disgusted tone making it clear that he knew the answer to that, too, and he wasn’t at all happy about it.
“Alpha, I am currently seventh-ranked in Cascade Pack.”
My voice shook a little when I said the number.
I’d won the rank only a couple of weeks earlier, by defeating Annabeth in a challenge fight.
When two wolves fought for rank, the challenge was supposed to be issued by the lower-ranked of the two.
Annabeth had broken all protocols and possibly a law or two, because she’d known I wouldn’t challenge her, so she’d issued the challenge and covered it up to pretend I had.
I’d hurt her more than I’d meant to. I still hadn’t forgiven myself for that, even though she had said she didn’t care, that it was just how challenges worked.
“In that time, have you found your mate?” the Alpha demanded.
I was getting sorely fed up with him asking questions he already knew the answers to.
I wanted him to get to the true reason he’d summoned me to this fucked-up meeting.
He was going to kick me out of the pack, I was sure.
I wasn’t something that fit his image of the new and improved Cascade Pack.
If he would just get it the fuck over with so we could all go on with our days, that would have been dandy.
“No, Alpha.” Despite getting pissed off, I spoke with the same mumbly deference that I’d been using.
In case I was wrong about his plans for me, I wanted to at least not put myself on his bad side.
Though I was beginning to suspect he didn’t have a good side.
“I have never found my mate. If she exists, she must be a member of another pack.”
“Not all werewolves find their mates,” the Beta said.
He gave me a sympathetic look. Until the whole reshuffling of the highest ranks in our pack, Zachary Lewis had been one of the tiny handful of pack members I counted as a friend.
He wouldn’t stand up against the Alpha on my behalf.
That would put him at risk of losing his rank.
But he was speaking up now, and I quirked my lips at him to show I appreciated it.
“That is so.” The Alpha glared at Zachary.
“However, when combined with Ashford’s choice to refrain from rising in pack rank, and his unwillingness to join the trackers when told, not to mention the circumstances which occurred on his first hunt night after joining us, I have little option when it comes to his future.”
“Alpha, I—” I caught myself before I completely exploded.
Of course this bullshit, at the base, was because ten fucking years ago, I’d been caught in a “compromising position” with Jamie Pasquale.
The previous Alpha hadn’t been happy, but he at least hadn’t been a homophobic jackwad.
This guy, though, hadn’t made his contempt for me much of a secret over the years.
Now that he was in charge, he apparently had license to do something about it.
“You are not someone whose presence benefits Cascade Pack.”
The Alpha’s voice echoed through the room.
He wasn’t only spewing hate now. He was making a declaration.
“For a decade, you have lived off the pack, giving nothing in return. You have taken advantage of your packmate Annabeth Smith. You have refused requests to take responsibilities in the pack, and you have drained our resources rather than contributing to them. For all of these reasons,
Dashiell Wozniak, you are no longer a member of Cascade Pack.”
As the final words dropped like bricks into the room, something snapped. A sharp pain, as if the Alpha had taken a sword and sliced through my connections to the pack.
I was no longer a Cascade Pack wolf. The Alpha had stated it; whatever powers and magic existed in our world had confirmed.
Which put me in one hell of a shitty position. “Alpha, with respect, I have nowhere to go.”
“That isn’t my problem. I am not your Alpha.”
He turned his back to me. “Beta, Malcolm, the two of you will accompany Dashiell to Annabeth’s home to remove his belongings, and then you will escort him to the neutral zone between our territory and that of Snake River Pack. He is not to remain in our territory beyond sunset tonight.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Zachary and Malcolm said together. Malcolm looked practically fucking gleeful about getting to kick me out. Zachary gave me another sympathetic look, but there was nothing he could do.
There was nothing I could do either. The two of them, pack Beta and head tracker, flanked me, making sure I couldn’t take any action against the Alpha or his pronouncement.
Not that I would have. I knew better than to make waves in the pack.
Something which should have kept me safe. So much for that idea.
“Werewolves of Cascade Pack.” The Alpha’s voice boomed even louder.
“Aside from Zachary Frank and Malcolm Dewan, none of you will have any further communication or congress with Dashiell Wozniak. He is not your packmate. He is not your friend. You will not speak with him before he leaves our territory, nor will you attempt to locate him once he is gone.
As far as the members of this pack are concerned, there is no Dashiell Wozniak.”
He paused. “Zachary and Malcolm, this applies to you as soon as you have removed Dashiell from our territory.”
A strong push of power accompanied the entire statement.
He wasn’t only giving an order; he was compelling the entire pack to follow his command.
Compulsion was a power possessed by most, if not all, alphas and betas, along with the Anax, who ruled the werewolves of the entire country, and the arkhons, who ruled the regions of the U.S. Some other werewolves had it too, or so I’d heard.
When a werewolf used compulsion to give an order, no one could disobey, regardless of how much they wanted to.
None of my packmates would speak to me again unless the Alpha lifted the order.
I couldn’t even say goodbye to Annabeth.
Though the look of pure hatred she shot me as Zachary and Malcolm escorted me out of the room made me wonder if it mattered.
I’d considered her my friend, at the very least, but now I wasn’t so certain of that.
“I’m sorry about this,” Zachary said softly as he and Malcolm led me outside. “I knew it was going to happen. He compelled me not to tell you.”
“Not your fault.” I didn’t blame anyone except myself for this.
Though honestly, what the hell had I done to deserve losing my entire pack?
I’d turned down the request to join the trackers because I wouldn’t have been any good at enforcing pack and shifter law.
I hadn’t found my mate, but that was hardly a requirement of werewolfdom; as Zachary had pointed out, a lot of werewolves never found their mate.
For that matter, neither Zachary nor the Alpha had a mate, as far as I knew.
And me fucking Jamie Pasquale hadn’t hurt anyone in the pack. Being attracted to guys wasn’t a crime by any laws in the country, even werewolf laws. Plus ten frigging years had gone by, and Jamie had left the pack after we were caught together.
After he threw me under the bus, claiming I’d seduced him and he’d acted without thinking. Ten years wasn’t long enough for me to have forgiven him for that.
Mostly, what I’d done to destroy my place in the pack was just existing.
A werewolf the pack took in because one of their members changed me.
At my request, even though humans weren’t supposed to know there was any such thing as werewolves.
To be fair, Jamie hadn’t actually told me that was what he was when I was still a human.