A Pack of Vows and Tears

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “Don’t look at me like that, Cole. My werewolf education was cut short when my dad died, and although I’ve learned a couple things recently, I know there are still a lot of gaps in my shifter knowledge.”

  “Alphas can’t duel without Seconds. It’s a human tradition that the packs adopted and have used since the first recorded Alpha duel in the Appalachians.” It was August who answered. “Like in human duels, Seconds are in charge of making sure there’s no foul play. They’ll also watch the duel up close—like referees of sorts. If any rules are broken, they can separate the parties. The duel is then either postponed if both parties desire a rematch or canceled altogether. If that happens, then each pack has an obligation to return to their territories and the Alphas are no longer allowed to challenge each other during the rest of their lifetime. However, if one of the packs sees a new Alpha rise, then that new Alpha may challenge the reigning Alpha of the enemy pack.”

  “What if the Seconds can’t stop the duel in time and one of the challengers dies as a result of a broken rule?”

  “Then the Second of the fallen Alpha can challenge the victor instantly, without waiting a full moon cycle.” August was focused on Lori who was circling Julian’s now entirely naked form, stopping to grab his hand and look beneath his fingernails. She then tilted his head up and stuck her finger inside his mouth.

  “She’s checking for concealed weapons and illegal substances implanted in the enamel,” Cole explained, angling his big body back toward the lawn.

  If anything, I was more confused now. “I don’t understand how fighting right away benefits the Seconds,” I said, returning to the rules of dueling.

  “The victor expends a lot of energy during a fight. Especially in an Alpha battle. Considering the Second isn’t an Alpha, their odds of winning against one are usually nil.” August’s eyes were on me now. “Let’s say Julian beats Cassandra, but somehow Lori notices that he used foul play to do so—a trap on the ground, or a staged commotion in his ranks, or he somehow turned a stick into a weapon—Lori has the right to challenge him on the spot. She’ll have the advantage of being fresh and her body won’t go through an inspection, so technically she could have a concealed weapon. You can bet both Lori and Nora are prepped to counteract. Of course, it doesn’t mean they can beat an Alpha. They won’t have the body mass or training of an Alpha. Most of the times, Seconds forfeit to save their hides.”

  “I’ve never heard of a Second challenging a victorious Alpha,” Cole said.

  The Creek Pack shaped a compact arc behind Cassandra. I guessed from the sheer swell of unfamiliar faces that all the Creeks had arrived for the event. The mass of bodies made the hundred Pines standing behind Julian seem measly. The Seconds met in the center of the field. After they exchanged quiet words, they both nodded and traipsed back toward their respective families, ridding their bodies of clothes before shifting into fur.

  You stayed. Liam’s voice inside my mind was so jarring that my heart leaped.

  I placed a palm against my chest before looking for him in the row of Boulders lining the railing. I’d imagined he was standing somewhere below, holding Cassandra’s son in some death vice, but Liam was right there amongst his men and me, no Alex in sight.

  I’m truly sorry, Ness. And not that you found out. I’m sorry for having wanted your father dead. I’m sorry that I kept it from you, that I hurt you . . . that I disappointed you . . . again. I hope in time you’ll be able to forgive me.

  I bit my lip, whisking my lashes down to counter the surging slickness. I darted my gaze back to the field, Julian’s and Cassandra’s naked forms coming in and out of focus. Next to me, I felt August’s fingers graze my hip. I moved away from him, bumping into Cole.

  From the corner of my eye, I caught Cole exchanging a look with August. Sadly, I knew what that look was about. Cole oozed wariness. It wafted off him like the stench of his cigarettes. He was wrong to be wary. Not wanting August to touch me had nothing to do with harboring secret romantic feelings for Liam. I simply didn’t want attention from the pack—be it from Liam or from any other Boulder.

  August gripped the railing as though ready to splinter the wood he and our fathers had sanded down years ago, tendons pinching in his hands, making the dried blood that still stained his skin crackle.

  A low howl pierced the bright-blue sky, and then a second howl answered.

  “And so it begins,” Cole whispered under his breath.

  49

  My hands joined the many other sets gripping the deck railing. The fight had started about ten minutes ago, and although the light-brown fur on Cassandra’s back was tinged red from where Julian had sank his teeth into her, she was still on all fours. She moved slowly, as though the pain in her rear was taking a toll on her body. Considering he’d bit her at the start of the fight, she should’ve begun to heal.

  Julian waited for Cassandra to creep closer before jumping on her. She flattened against the grass, then rolled over onto her back. I expected she’d keep rolling, but no . . . she stopped moving, as though waiting for Julian to land on her. The second his body came within limb-length of hers, she slashed his belly with her claws, then whirled around beneath him and bucked him off her injured back.

  Julian landed with a heavy thump a couple feet away from her. For a moment, he didn’t move.

  I held my breath.

  Everyone held their breath.

  Cole said, “He’s going to end her.”

  Julian pressed back onto his paws like a mountain rising from tectonic plates and lunged toward Cassandra again, dark muzzle wet with her blood, fangs bared. He gripped her thigh in his mouth and shook his head as though trying to dismember her. Her leg stayed attached, but she toppled over. He dragged her a couple feet, but then she bucked, and Julian sputtered, emitting a great choking sound as though he’d gotten a mouthful of fur. The moment he let her go, she crawled away from him, belly to the ground.

  But he was still wheezing, batting one of his legs across his muzzle as though trying to brush off Cassandra’s blood. He retched.

  Voices began to rise, shouts, jeers, cheers. Like spectators at a sports match, the crowd was becoming boisterous. Although they kept a safe distance from the wolves, Nora and Lori orbited around their Alphas.

  At the sound of Julian vomiting, Cassandra flipped around, positioned herself in a crouch, and, with a keening moan, heaved herself up. Her momentum was so sluggish it looked as though she were moving in slow-motion and yet she managed to tip Julian over. Both wolves crashed down in a mix of bloodied brown fur, bodies writhing and jerking.

  A snarl echoed against the tawny trunks of the swaying pine trees and ricocheted like the blaring sunlight on the tall glass façade of the inn.

  A whimper ensued.

  And then the wet snap of an overextended vein.

  My skin broke out in goose bumps as one Alpha stole the life of another.

  50

  Julian had fallen.

  The upset created a ripple of cries and outbursts down below but also on the deck. Every Boulder body tightened and straightened, every set of eyes strained, and every mouth pursed. No one spoke beside me, not even Liam through the mind link. We all just stood shoulder to shoulder, solemn in our shock and grief.

  Yes, grief . . .

  Even though I hadn’t much liked the Pine Alpha, I liked Cassandra even less.

  A sharp cry tore through the field as Nora rushed to Julian’s mangled, inert form. Robbie sprang away from his pack and caught his mother before she could throw herself atop her brother. She whimpered and whined and snarled at her son, while he spoke quietly into her ear. After a long moment, she stopped snarling and slid back into skin. Shaking with sobs that were so shrill they could probably be heard in the middle of town, she burrowed her head against Robbie’s chest.

  My gaze skated over the strange scene below. People had begun pouring onto the field to felicitate their Alpha, who was still in fur. On the other side of the field, Sarah had crump
led to her knees. I started to go toward her when August caught my wrist and shook his head.

  “No,” he said, his tone brooking no argument.

  “But Sarah—”

  “Sarah will be taken care of.” His grip was all at once loose but firm, as though he was fighting his urge to hold me tighter. “Stay up here.”

  Margaux and a redheaded girl had kneeled next to Sarah, but still I itched to go to her. What decided me to stay away was the pulse of terror throbbing through the link. My already clenching stomach roiled and contracted with August’s fear.

  I returned to the railing, and he let go of my wrist. Although he didn’t put his hands on me again, he held on to me through the tether as though he didn’t trust me not to sprint down those stairs.

  “I won’t go,” I reassured him, but it did little to loosen his invisible grip.

  I turned my attention back to the ground below. For the final time, the fur receded into Julian’s pores, his muzzle retracted, and his limbs twisted back into his human ones.

  “Do you wish to contest the fairness of the fight and challenge the Alpha today?” Lori hollered, back in skin and clothes, her voice thundering over all the others.

  Along with every shifter present, I watched Nora. Watched as she turned in her son’s arm. Watched as her lips trembled. Watched as her head shook, first with a shudder, then with an answer.

  No.

  “Do you wish to challenge the Alpha in one moon cycle from now?” Lori asked, voice loud and clear.

  Again, Julian’s sister shook her head. Robbie plucked the blonde hair sticking to his mother’s pale forehead and cheeks. Margaux tossed a sort of cape over her mother-in-law’s shoulders, and then Robbie wrapped an arm around her and helped her off the field. A cry ripped from her throat, and then another, her grief echoing against the Flatirons and the farthest and tallest mountain peaks.

  “Alpha of the Creeks!” Lori turned to her mother who was still in fur. “The fallen’s heart is yours for the taking, and with it, the fallen’s pack.”

  The fallen’s heart?

  I wasn’t sure if I asked this out loud or if August read the confusion etched on my face, but he said, “The victor eats the heart of the loser, thus acquiring a link to the dead Alpha’s pack.”

  A lump of bile shot up my throat.

  August stepped in front of me and tucked me into his chest. “I told you it was brutal.”

  I didn’t look, but I heard the watery tear of flesh, the placid crunch of bones, and the bloody squelch of what had once fueled life into a man and would now fuel magic into a woman.

  Even though I was probably imagining it, I felt as though I heard the blood drip off Cassandra’s muzzle and mix into the tear-and-vomit-soaked soil.

  At long last, triumphant howls ripped through the summer sky, announcing that an Alpha had fallen and another had taken its place.

  I thought back to the last trial I’d had to endure against Liam—the test of strength. Was what I’d just witnessed what the elders had in mind? Had they hoped Liam would tear open my breastbone and eat my heart?

  I shuddered, which made August squeeze me tighter, and I let him. I didn’t care who spotted me in his arms. I still had a heart beating inside my chest. I wouldn’t force it to be quiet to avoid criticism or stares, just like I wouldn’t force August to keep his distance. I needed him. I wanted him.

  If today had taught me anything, it was that life was too short to worry about what others thought. I wrapped my arms around August’s waist and burrowed closer, hoping that his scent and warmth would help dull the terrible images and sounds that kept replaying in my skull.

  51

  Voices grew louder around us. Ambient conversations began to penetrate my buzzing mind.

  “What do you think he swallowed that made him throw up?” Matt was asking his brother.

  “Fur, or maybe a chunk of flesh. That’ll make anyone gag.”

  At the mention of gagging, bile rose anew in my throat. “You were right. I shouldn’t have come,” I murmured against August’s chest.

  He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “At least now you know.” His mouth brushed the top of my head while his fingers brushed down my spine. If anyone had lingering suspicions as to whether he and I had crossed the line between friendship and more, I imagined our present proximity obliterated them.

  “You should take her away from here, son,” I heard Nelson say.

  I peeled myself off August so fast I must’ve left a couple eyelashes behind.

  Nelson’s mouth was pressed into a grim line. “That was awful, wasn’t it?”

  “Y-yes,” I stammered.

  I forced myself to meet Nelson’s deep-brown eyes, dreading the disgust I expected, but there was no disgust. Just wariness. I tried not to wonder if his wariness stemmed from what had unfolded down below or from what had unfolded up on the deck between August and me.

  I pushed the bra strap that had slipped down my arm back under my tank top. “What’s going to happen now?”

  Several Boulders were speaking in hushed tones behind Nelson. I heard the words: Cassandra, duel, Liam. I feared that those words might belong in the same sentence.

  “Now”—August’s father inhaled a grave breath—“the Creeks will probably extend their trip in Boulder. The time it takes to acclimate the newest members of their pack.”

  James, the blond with impeccably coiffed hair, came up behind August. “It’ll be good for business.”

  “You can cut and style their hair all you want, but we won’t be doing business with the Creeks,” August said.

  “We lived alongside the Pines for almost a century and we did business with them. Why wouldn’t we take Creek money?”

  August’s jaw hardened, as though he were holding back a biting retort.

  Nelson touched his son’s forearm. “Let’s see what happens. There’s no point forecasting what we will and will not do until we understand what it is they want.”

  “What they want is to take our land,” Rodrigo said, coming to stand by James’s side, “and our men.”

  I didn’t even bother sticking my hand up to remind him that I wasn’t a man. It was really beside the point.

  “How do you know that, Rodrigo? Did you have yourself a little chat with Cassandra before the duel?” Nelson asked. I’d never heard him be so short with anyone. I didn’t even know he was capable of such curtness.

  “No, Nelson, I didn’t,” Rodrigo bit out. “But why else would they have all come? Why else did they have Aidan observe us for so many years? Liam said there was a missing packet of Sillin. I bet they got some pills in Julian—”

  “He wouldn’t have been able to shift. Besides, he didn’t drink or eat anything last night,” James said.

  “How do you know? Were you with him all night, Jamie?” Under his breath, he added, “Again.”

  James backed away, shaking his head. “You can be a real ass sometimes.” He turned and headed toward another group of Boulders.

  “Liam told Robbie they should have Julian’s blood analyzed for Sillin.” The dark-haired, dark-tempered firefighter tipped his head toward the lawn where Liam was talking with Robbie. “But Julian’s body belongs to the Creeks now that Nora refused to fight. If they so much as allow him a burial, I’d be surprised.”

  “Will Robbie challenge Cassandra now?”

  “Possibly,” Rodrigo said, “but his odds of winning against an Alpha would be shit.” He slanted his dark eyes on me. “You have to have a screw loose to challenge an Alpha.”

  I recoiled, because that last part felt personal.

  Nelson’s fingers tightened around August’s arm. “That was out of line, Rodrigo.”

  “My father could’ve won,” I murmured.

  “Odds are—”

  “Enough!” Nelson said, still gripping August’s arm. “That’s enough.”

  Rodrigo pinched his thick pink lips closed.

  “It takes courage to fight for what you want,”
Nelson said. “What takes no courage is denigrating others.”

  Rodrigo lowered his eyes, chastised by Nelson, but too proud to apologize for having insulted my family.

  “August, we need your help with something.” Cole cocked his head toward Matt and Dexter.

  When Nelson released his son’s arm, August turned toward me as though worried to leave me alone.

  I flexed my lips into a smile I wasn’t feeling. “Go.”

  Reluctantly, he left with the three other Boulders.

  I stepped a little farther from Nelson, who was still giving Rodrigo a tongue-lashing. I tried to glimpse Sarah down below. If Liam was down there, it was probably safe—

  “You and August a thing now?” Lucas asked.

  He stood next to me, forearms propped on the railing, gaze sunk on the field below, or rather on the crumpled girl with the lustrous blonde hair. Margaux placed a kiss on the top of Sarah’s head, then, cradling her abdomen, she stood and walked over to an older man—her father perhaps.

  “Yes,” I finally said.

  Lucas pivoted toward me, leaning against the balustrade. “Is it serious?”

  Margaux made her way over to Robbie next. Although he was still deep in conversation with Liam, Robbie tugged his pregnant mate against him.

  I sighed. “I stayed.”

  “You were really going to skip town?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where would you have gone?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe back to LA. I couldn’t feel the pack’s pull out there.” The idea of returning to Los Angeles made my stomach churn. LA reminded me too much of Mom. “Or maybe I would’ve tried my luck on the East Coast.”

  “You know he feels like shit about everything, don’t you? The recording. Tammy.”

  I returned my gaze to Sarah, who was alone now. “I’m sure he does, but it’s not really my problem anymore, is it?”

  “He’s our Alpha, Ness.”

  “What are you saying?”