Checkmate

by Elyce de Reefe

  The Law had been invoked. It might be an ancient Law—one that wasn’t really used anymore—but it still had to be obeyed.

  Aster started to push her way through the crowd. She needed to be there. Someone grabbed her arm from behind and she whirled around. It was Dean. The flood of relief that washed over her was almost overwhelming. She hadn’t even realized he was back. Knowing this pack of low-life loners had waited until both her brothers were away to issue their challenge had shaken something inside of her. She didn’t like how it made her feel. Alone and vulnerable. Two things she tried never to be.

  Her back stiffened and she stepped out of Dean’s reach. Just knowing he was here was enough to give her strength. But he didn’t need to know that.

  She turned and started elbowing her way through the crowd. There must be something she could do. She just had to think of it.

  “Aster, slow down,” Dean’s deep voice was gruff with annoyance. It vibrated down her spine, his breath tickling her ear. He slipped an arm around her waist and halted her progress.

  “Let go, Dean.” She elbowed him hard in the ribs, and he released her.

  She slipped forward and made it almost to the front of the crowd before he stopped her again. This time he grabbed both her arms just above the elbows, holding her in front of him and effectively blocking her from either retaliating, or moving forward.

  “Stay here,” he hissed. “You do not want to draw the attention of that crowd.”

  “Dean Rolland, if you know what’s good for you, you will release me,” she hissed back.

  “I will not,” he growled back. It was so out of character, it momentarily silenced her.

  And then the fighting started. The outsider had morphed into a huge brindled grey wolf. Her father’s familiar tawny figure looked small by comparison. He crouched low, snarling at the larger wolf, daring him to attack. Taunting him.

  In a blur of savage motion, the grey leapt forward. her father dodged aside and spun, biting the larger wolf’s flank as he charged past. The grey yelped at the unexpected pain and fell, rolling once before he gained his feet. her father maintained his position in the center of the ring, waiting.

  This time when the larger wolf attacked, her father charged forward, timing it so that he was low as the other leaped up. He scored a bite to the sensitive flesh just behind the grey’s foreleg. Again her father turned and waited in the center of the circle.

  Aster began to relax. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. The large grey was panting already, his tongue hanging out, and blood dripped onto the grass from two places. He let out a murderous howl and charged a third time, this time feinting right before surging back to smash into her father bodily, knocking him off his feet. Aster’s heart leapt to her throat as the grey surged over him, pinning him to the ground and biting down savagely. Her father rolled away, but not without a wicked gash along his shoulder. He turned to face the interloper, who stood panting in the center of the ring. The crowd was absolutely silent.

  Her father crouched for a moment, eyes narrowed before springing to the left, circling toward his opponent’s injured flank. The grey turned to protect the injury and her father whipped around, springing full force at his shoulder. The larger wolf went down with a yowl, the injured muscle behind his opposite foreleg unable to withstand the force of the blow. And just like that, the fight was over. The grey lay on his back, her father’s jaw clamped around his neck. He froze there for a moment, and then very carefully, the larger wolf lifted his chin, exposing his throat in surrender. Her father growled and clamped down harder, and for one horrified moment, Aster thought he was going to rip it out.

  With one last snarl, her father released his opponent and stepped back. Her mother stepped forward, holding her father’s official mantle of office, and wrapped it around him as soon as he shifted back to human form. Someone must have run back to the house to get it, because he certainly wasn’t wearing it earlier. In fact, he never did, unless there was some formal occasion like a mating, or a first moon-shift.

  The grey wolf rolled to his belly and slunk off, tail tucked tightly between his legs. The pack shuffled uneasily and started to murmur. Nothing like this had ever happened, and no one knew quite what to expect. The group of strangers shifted to let the grey slink in among them. One of them darted out and retrieved his clothes from the edge of the clearing.

  Her father turned to face them. “Challenge accepted— and overcome. I am not so weak as you thought, pup. You will remove yourself and your followers from my territory immediately. I withdraw my offer of sanctuary. You will not be offered safe passage again.”

  “Not so fast, Pops. The Law states three may issue Challenge, and we intend to do just that.”

  The murmuring grew louder at these words. There was an audible hiss from the crowd surrounding the green as the group of strangers shifted and another man stepped out. He was not as large as the first, but just as broad, and maybe even a little stockier. He had a mop of unruly reddish hair and heavy brows. And he was young, Aster would guess early twenties. He held his arms out from his sides and his fists clenched like he was expecting a fistfight. Aster could easily believe they’d kicked this one out early. He looked like a brawler.

  “Did you come here thinking I would kill your troublesome followers? You want me to do your dirty work? Don’t you trust them?”

  “I know my rights! Three Challenges may be issued each cycle. We issue them now.”

  “You may know your rights, but you don’t have a very clear handle on wrong. That is a solar cycle the Law speaks of, not a lunar cycle— a full year.”

  Her father grimaced in disgust. The uneasy shuffling in the crowd intensified. “Those three challenges were never meant to be issued back to back.” He shook his head. “What will you do if you win? Are you really so foolish not to see the folly in this? How will you lead a pack that doesn’t support you?”

  He looked over the pack of strangers with grim resignation. “And what will they do when you lose? You should have taken my offer of sanctuary. At least that way your little band of followers would be safe.”

  “Don’t think you are going to scare us off with words, old man. Don’t think you can twist around the truth. We know where safety lies. And we are going to seize it.” His lips spread in another unpleasant smile. “Neeley, here, is a very handy fighter. Aren’t you, Neeley?”

  The redhead gulped and nodded.

  Her father faced the newcomer and waited. There was a tense silence. Finally her father addressed him.

  “Don’t you have something to say to me?”

  The young man gulped again. “Oh. Ah. Yeah. I… Neeley Woodlawn, formally, ah… issue Challenge to Gavin Ardennes,” he stammered. “Alpha of the Mont-Tremblant Pack.” Neeley ducked his head toward her father. His face was beet red.

  Her father sighed and shrugged off his cloak. “So be it.”

  The moment the newcomer shifted, her father attacked. These two were more evenly matched in size, although the reddish wolf carried more muscle. But this young wolf proved to be a more canny fighter than the grey, springing back away from the attack, only to dart back in snapping, nearly making contact with her father’s right paw. Her father sprang back and then leapt forward, snapping very close to the red wolf’s ear—but he yanked his head back at the last second. If they hadn’t been in such deadly earnest, it almost looked like two pups playing, romping and lunging at each other and then springing back.

  This went on for several minutes before Aster realized they were playing— sort of. Her father’s tail waved ever so slightly, and the red wolf wagged back, a big happy grin spreading across his face. He danced in, snapping and snarling, but never quite closing his jaws around her father’s flesh. But she could see her father tiring, and the gash in his shoulder leaked a steady stream of blood.

  Aster felt her anxiety grow. How much longer could her father keep this up? And he still had one more challenge to get through. And then, anticipating the other’s
movements, her father sprang back as the other jumped in, then launched himself at the red wolf, bowling him over. The younger wolf yipped in surprise, then promptly rolled on his back to expose his belly, tail still brushing the ground like a hopeful puppy. Her father closed his jaw around his throat, and the younger wolf stretched his neck in submission, whining and wriggling like he couldn’t quite contain himself.

  Her father released him and stepped back. Her mother once again enveloped him in the mantle as he shifted.

  The red wolf remained on his back, front paws tucked to his chest and white belly exposed. Her father looked down at him for a long moment. Nobody spoke.

  “This one I accept.” Her father’s voice rang through the clearing with the power of Alpha. “Neeley Woodlawn, welcome to the Mont-Tremblant Pack.”

  The soft glow of the bond magic surrounded the younger wolf briefly. Then he rolled to his feet and shifted to man. Aster averted her eyes politely, but watched from her peripheral vision as he bowed to her father and thanked him, backing into the crowd of Pack that clustered around the green. They parted briefly to envelop him.

  She sighed. Leave it to her father to turn even a Challenge into an exercise in leadership. She wondered how old Neeley had been when they forced him from his pack. She bet she was right and he’d been one of the younger ones.

  Her father turned his gaze to the dark-haired challenger. “Who else do you send me, pup? Perhaps there is another among you that I can use.”

  The stranger’s scowl deepened. “Don’t think you can mock me, old man. Neeley is strong, a good fighter, but his resolve is weak. I should have realized he was not up for a challenge. But that’s not really an issue, because now you face me, and once I take Alpha, I will deal with Neeley’s betrayal.”

  Her father nodded grimly. “It is not lost on me that your strategy was to wear me down and if by some chance one of the others happened to win, take the position of Alpha for yourself. Either violently, or by coercion. I hardly think you can blame Neeley for fulfilling your own expectations.” He shook his head. “You will have a hard time leading with that attitude. Remember, pup, respect is earned. You have done little to earn it this day.”

  The man’s face was like a thunderclap, his expression so savage that if Aster had been standing nearer, she would have taken a step back. Only Dean’s hands, warm on her arms, held her steady.

  The stranger began tearing at his clothes. “I, Marten Shaleback, issue Challenge. To the death. I will take this pack from you, Gavin Ardennes. I will take the Mont-Tremblant Pack for my own.”

  In a burst of power like nothing Aster had ever felt, he changed. A huge black wolf stood in his place, growling and snapping like a thing possessed. Her father’s mantle fluttered to the ground as he shifted and sprang at the younger wolf. The two of them went down in a snarling tangle of savagery that bore no resemblance to the fights that had gone before. They rolled across the green together snapping and biting, ripping at each other with their claws and scrabbling for dominance from one end to the other.

  Aster couldn’t see who was doing what in the wild flurry of roiling bodies and vicious snarling attacks.

  Then, suddenly, the black wolf was on top, his jaw wrapped around her father’s ruff, pinning him to the ground. Aster’s heart nearly stopped. But her father gave a mighty leap and shook him off, spinning to face the other wolf. The two stood panting and bleeding, pink foamy spittle dripping from their open jaws. Aster’s stomach lurched. Her father was favoring his right front leg. After three shifts, the original wound on his shoulder had closed, but he had lost a lot of blood, and there was another gash along his ribs.

  Marten growled and launched himself and her father sprang to meet him, but Aster could see his strength was beginning to flag.

  Shifting took energy, and after three in a row, combined with the fights, Aster had a sinking feeling even the power of having his pack around him was not going to be enough to beat this maniac.

  They went down again in a heap, with her father on the bottom, but he rolled and scooted out from under the black wolf. Somehow he’d managed to shove Marten off balance and he pounced, pinning the black wolf to the ground, with his teeth clamped around the younger wolf’s throat. Marten went still, and then slowly rolled to his back.

  Aster let out a breath, but just when she thought the horror was over, the black wolf brought his back legs up and raked her father’s belly with his claws. A cry of dismay went out from the crowd. Everyone had expected him to submit. Her father had paused, offered him mercy for exactly that reason. But with a complete lack of honor, Marten had used that opportunity to attack.

  Her father sprang back with a yelp of pain, blood soaking his white underbelly and running down his legs.

  Aster’s heart stopped.

  Marten rolled to his feet and lurched into her father. No longer quite steady himself, he still managed to hit her father with enough force that they both went down again. They rolled twice, yapping and snarling, and then Marten clamped his jaws around her father’s throat, and with one vicious pull, tore the life from his body.

  Aster stood there in shock, unable to speak, unable to move, as her father’s head slowly sank to the ground, his lifeblood soaking into the grass beneath him. And then suddenly, her mother was there, bending over her father’s prone body and blocking him from her view.

  Aster shook her head and sank back into Dean’s hold, his strong arms the only thing keeping her upright.

  “He didn’t offer mercy,” she said thickly, her throat tight with emotion. “How could he not offer mercy?” There was no answer.

  In the center of the clearing, Aaron’s second youngest brother Eli walked over to her father with the mantle. He must have grabbed it from the ground when the fighting started. He shook it, preparing to spread it over her father’s prone form, while Leanne knelt by his side, tears streaming down her face.

  “I’ll take that,” Marten said, pulling the mantle from Eli’s hands. He looked down at her mother, kneeling there by the body of her father. “And I’ll take you,” he said with an expression of satisfaction that was not quite a smile. “I have breeding rights now. By right of conquest.”

  There was stunned silence.

  Leanne turned to the interloper and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

  “Wrong,” she said quietly, her voice firm. “Now I challenge you.”

  She was already shifting as she peeled the clothing from her body.

  Marten stood there, naked and bleeding, a long gash along his back, blood leaking from a savage-looking bite in the back of his thigh and deep bloody scratches down his chest. He just stared, a look of befuddlement on his face.

  And then like a streak of grey vengeance, her mother attacked, going low and obviously not caring about the dishonor of wolf attacking man. Marten had lost any claim he had to honor when he faked surrender to escape her father, and then denied him mercy.

  Like an avenging flurry her mother streaked in, snapping at his exposed flesh, first his legs, then dancing back, attacked from behind. Marten snarled in anger. He shifted with another burst of power. A moment later the big black wolf chased the smaller grey across the clearing, scattering the crowd as the combatants clashed and broke apart again.

  With a cry of aguish, Aster broke free of Dean’s restraining hold and rushed after them. She heard her mother’s yip of pain as the black wolf snapped at her side, but then she was free again, spinning and charging at the larger animal, nipping and biting at his flanks. She rushed in again, worrying him from behind, then darted away. Leanne was nimble and fast. And savage. Again and again she attacked, scoring bites and then racing away across the green, the larger wolf lumbering in pursuit, clearly tiring and bleeding from multiple places. But Aster could see he was avoiding actually causing harm.

  Still he chased her. She was clearly taunting him now, turning and facing him with her front paws wide apart in another parody of play, before darting away jus
t as he grew close. They reached the edge of the green that comprised the pack’s gathering place. The forest and mountains stretched out beyond. Aster wondered if her mother had some plan to lure him away from the pack for some reason, but couldn’t think how that would help.

  Once again her mother planted and faced him, her sides heaving, and Aster was afraid she was slowing down. Just then Marten leaped in at her in a mighty bound, but she darted away at the last second, and Marten sprawled on his face. Just that quick, her mother was on him, jaws clamped around his throat—and biting down. There was a collective gasp from the pack. But it was an awkward angle, with her mother sprawled on top of him, trying to use her full weight to hold him down.

  With an eerie, menacing growl, Marten sprang up on all fours and then leapt into the air. He crashed down again, twisting and bucking wildly. Her mother’s smaller form shot off like it had been launched from a cannon. Straight into a tree. There was a horrible smacking sound, and then the small grey wolf slid down the trunk to the ground, completely limp. The black wolf stood wavering on his feet, growling and blinking at her, a bewildered expression on his face.

  With a cry of anguish, Aster charged to her mother’s side and dropped to her knees. Blood leaked from her nose and tickled out from between her lips.

  “Moman! Moman!” Aster’s voice choked and cracked. She couldn’t take in the horror of what had just happened. Her hand shook as they stroked her mother’s soft fur. Golden eyes winked open for a moment, and then, with aching slowness, her mother began to shift.

  “Lucas,” she said. “You must send him away…” Her mother coughed, bright red blood trickling down her chin. Aster felt cold all over at the sight. The shift should have healed the worst of her internal injuries. Unless they were too extensive... Unless the damage was too great.

  “Six months…” her rasping breath was interrupted by another cough, followed by a gush of blood. Aster felt her heart clench tight. This couldn’t be happening. First her father and now her mother—