Jethro had beaten each male hard enough during the pack fight to make certain his shirt was saturated with enough of their blood to leave a trail for Solomon and Fitz to follow.
He gave a sharp bark of laughter, the kind that only the condemned can make.
A phone call from an excited Fitz two weeks ago was the only thing making Jethro move around, and not stand his ground to fight. Fitz was now working in an ER and was still discovering things most humans took for granted.
But two weeks ago…he’d had a patient who’d needed to be processed for evidence of a crime. Fitz was so excited he’d put Solomon and Jethro on a conference call to explain what most human children learn by watching TV shows. Years after that conversation in the House, it was now true. The technology was now nearly perfect when it came to blood evidence.
Fitz couldn’t wait to discover why Weres existed separate from humans.
Solomon wanted to know the names of The Three so he could kill them.
Jethro had just smiled into the phone, knowing his Region would be safe under their hands.
But he’d not figured it’d happen so soon.
Oh, my poor boy.
Jethro shook his head to clear it, to make certain he was doing his best to keep his blood evidence safe from the forest he was stumbling through. Blood and pheromones would not last outside in these muggy conditions, beginning Hunters knew that, but he prayed as he shoved small pieces of cloth from his jacket, shirt and pants, soaked with his and his attackers’ blood inside of every covered crevice he stumbled across. Something should keep. Preserve it for the future.
His only hope for the truth to be found immediately was if his dead body wasn’t taken too far away from this place. But those Hunting him weren’t that stupid. He knew his corpse would be discovered miles away. Hell, they may take me to another country.
He gave another mad laugh while shoving a particularly bloodied chunk of his shirt deep into an arm length hole in a rock. Few outside his own…no, Solomon’s Region now…believed in modern science. The fools who were hunting him wouldn’t care about the blood he was leaving behind, thinking that he was only making their tracking job easier.
His mad laughter came from knowing his son would find the truth.
Solomon would never give up; never quit trying to find his killers.
He would never believe whatever lies they came up with to explain his battered body and death, so far away from where he was supposed to be.
He came upon a small stream, and dropped to his knees to lean over to take a long drink. Though nearly unable to keep upright, he knew the best way to keep his blood flowing, and continue his trail of evidence was to make sure he didn’t become dehydrated. He felt a small bubble of hysteria start to rise up from deep within him.
Once again, as he had with the tears, he ruthlessly shoved it down.
He didn’t have time to cry or be overcome with emotions, he needed to keep moving.
If he didn’t finish this in the order his mind had mapped out, Solomon would never get the truth. As much as his feelings, and his wolf, were mourning and howling in rage, he couldn’t afford to think of everything he’d miss out on: Solomon finding a mate, slowing down and enjoying more private time with Sarah as he handed responsibility over to his son, grandpups…
“Oh, God, Sarah!” he cried, allowing a few tears for his mate, who would know he was gone within seconds of his last breath.
Her inner voice would give her the truth of his death, but not the how or why or who.
“I’m so sorry, honey, so sorry,” he murmured, standing to continue on his set path.
He knew they were toying with him, waiting until his own body betrayed him with weakness.
“Cowards!” he roared into the forest, knowing they would hear him. “Too afraid to meet with me one on one, so you set up an ambush and come at once. You don’t deserve to be called werewolves. Or men!”
He knew that last barb would anger them more, and now he was nearly done with the pattern he’d set out to complete, he no longer cared. The amount of blood he’d lost was more than he’d thought possible, and still he remained upright and conscious.
Setting a stumbling run to the last point in his pattern, he tore his tattered jacket and shredded what little remained of his shirt. He remembered this hollowed out tree from when he and Sarah had visited just after he’d been made Regional Alpha, after The Trials won over his brothers and cousins. Sarah’s inner voice had told her that this normal looking tree had a secret.
After searching, they’d discovered the hollow. He knew there was a ledge within the hollow, where he could shove his clothing and it would be safe from the elements. He reached in, shoving his arm up and to the left. He retrieved the old pocket watch, noting with a calm glee, that it looked perfectly intact, even after more than two decades.
“Oh little one, there’s hope to stopping this,” he whispered, reverently putting the watch back. His vision darkened and he shook his head hard enough to make himself topple over. With a roar and a growl, he shoved up from the ground, taking all his clothing and shoving each piece up and to the left as hard as he could.
The world spun as soon as he released his arm from the hollow. He sat with his back against the hollow and looked up to the lightening horizon.
A new day.
And he was alone.
He looked up. “You know, I always knew I’d die alone,” he chuckled ruefully.
He picked up the pocketknife with a shaky hand and pulled his left leg toward him, so the bottom of his foot was resting against the inner thigh of his right leg. Glancing up to the horizon, he carved the outline of the horizon that he saw into his calf. It wouldn’t heal by the time he bled out, or they decided to catch up with him and kill him outright.
He was desperately fighting against the blackness and fatigue and knew he wouldn’t have enough time to carve anyone’s name into his calf. They’d just cut it off anyway, you’d do the same if it were you, and they do think like you. At least with this rambling landscape, it looked more like a series of deep scratches made by his fleeing through a forest. With one last shove behind him, he lodged the knife deep into the tree’s hollow, just below the ledge.
“Dear God, please let Solomon see this and understand,” he begged.
His blackening vision cleared slightly, but enough for him to be able to forcibly flip his deadening body over and crawl toward the stream he’d crossed over three times on his path. Let them think he believed that he could float away to safety, he knew better.
He was going home in a pine box.
He was able to get his upper body into the water before hearing noise behind him. He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth, forcing himself through the pain and blackness.
I’ll be damned if they kill me while I’m kneeling.
His shaky legs almost wouldn’t hold him, but he tightened all that remained of his energy and working muscles. He knew that he must look terrifying, bloodied, bruised, battered, naked…but still an Alpha. And not defeated.
He leveled a glare at the males in front of him, and gave them his best evil smirk, careful not to let his quivering chin show. “You will not win. My son will destroy you,” he rumbled. His vision started going black from the outside, slowly but steadily closing everything off.
He didn’t hear their words, but he didn’t care. No matter how long it took, he knew his son.
Solomon would win; he would kill them all.
His last thoughts as he let himself fade were of his mate and son.
In his mind, they looked older but they had smiles on their face and Solomon was looking tenderly at a pint-sized clone of himself, wrapped in his arms.
Jethro knew that God would grant his petition.
They would live.
Would thrive. Even with him gone.
He smiled at the loving scene. He could die in peace.
He took one last deep breath and let his body fall.
He never fel
t the crack to the side of his head that crushed his skull because he was already gone.
Thousands of miles away, Sarah Aleph crumpled to the floor of the Foundling House cafeteria where she was working. Screaming and holding herself tightly around the middle, she shifted and bolted out the door before anyone was able to blink. Her agony and pain sent her flying across the Ranch, deep into the forested areas, then farther into the high desert.
There were no words for the tearing, ripping and pulling…shredding her soul.
She wasn’t fully conscious for days, her wolf taking complete control of their shared body.
Her first waking memory, days later, was of answering the phone, knowing that Fitz had all that remained of her mate.
After she hung up, she stared out the window.
There were no words.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Only slightly recovered from the soul slicing loss of he mate, Sarah clung to Solomon’s arm, knowing he’d never let her fall down, Sarah forced herself to look inside the casket where the mortal remains of her bonded mate lay.
“He looks so peaceful,” Solomon said quietly.
Sarah turned his head so that he was forced to look her in the eyes.
“He was at peace, son,” she whispered, rubbing her thumbs along his tightened jaw. She could see he was going to argue, so she put her fingers over his lips. “He was at peace, Solomon, I know it.”
Having grown up with her inner voice telling her secrets about what he’d been up to as a pup, she knew that he couldn’t argue with it, but even having lived with it for 24 years, he was still having difficulty accepting it. “I think,” her voice broke, “I think that he got a glimpse of what is yet to be, Solomon, and it filled him with peace.”
“What, we’re going to be fine?” he snorted in derision. She could see his struggle, his desire to believe her; but he was ever pragmatic, just like his father.
“We are, Solomon, we are,” she said softly.
She wrapped her arm around him and turned back to the casket. This was small and private, for only her, Solomon, Paul and his mate, and Fitz. The old Lieutenant was saying good-bye to more than just his friend and Alpha. As soon as the casket was closed, Solomon and Fitz would be the de facto Alpha and Lieutenant until The Trials were held.
Sarah was confident in her son’s ability to retain his position. No one else had the training, or the will, to take it from him.
Her legs buckled when the lid softly shut with a thud.
When she came to, Solomon was sitting on the side of her bed, holding her hand. She gasped slightly and her heart stuttered for just a second. When he turned his head with questions in his eyes, she sent him a trembling smile. “For just a split second, I thought your father was here. When I was ill, he used to sit just like you are now, and hold my hand,” she said quietly.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, his voice the only thing betraying how much that request would hurt him.
She shook her head. “You are not your father, Solomon, and you never will be, but that’s OK. You are your own male, it’s just, sometimes you look so much like him,” she stopped to swallow hard.
He kissed the back of her hand tenderly. “I know mom, I know. It used to always bug me that everyone, everywhere, knew who I was, but now,” his voice broke, “now I can hardly stand to look in the mirror.”
She pulled him to stretch out on the bed next to her, tucking his head against her shoulder, like she had done countless times before as he was growing up. “It will get better, Solomon, some day. I promise.”
“How can you be so positive?” he asked softly.
“Because I know you, and I know me,” she smiled into his hair. No matter how old he got, this man was her child—the piece of Jethro still living.
He sat up and turned to put his feet on the floor, hands on the bed to lift himself and start walking, but instead of standing up and walking out of the room, he hesitated for a minute, sitting on the bed, facing away from her.
Without turning his head, he leaned his arms on his knees. “Mom, I had Fitz do a full autopsy and send as much as possible to human labs all over the nation to figure out what really happened to him, you know that, right?” He waited for her silent acknowledgement of this statement. “You know that that’s just going to enrage the Council even more. They, and my uncle and cousins, nearly killed dad because he saved you by sending you to surgery in New York, can you imagine the fit they’re going to throw over this? I allowed him to be cut up, allowed pieces of him to be tested.”
Sarah sat up quickly, jumped off the bed and knelt in front of her son. It was times like this where she knew that his soul was aching more for his father than it was for her. She had been privy to a lot of information and goings on at the Aleph House, by virtue of her status as Alpha’s mate, but as much as Jethro listened to her and valued her opinion, she was not the Alpha.
Her too young son was now that. She knew he’d value her opinion as much as his father had, but she was Mom and his only living parent, and that distinction meant he would try to protect her from his toughest decisions.
She took a deep breath and hoped that he’d listen.
“Solomon, the Council is your father’s, not yours,” she said, watching his face change. She could see he didn’t understand.
“The Council rotates based on votes,” he began, but she interrupted.
“I know that, son, and so do you, but as Alpha you set the tone for how the Council is expected to act and behave,” she softly reminded him. “If you go in the way you want to, forcing the changes on the Council within days of your Trials ending, they will dig in their heels. They are used to your father, and so is the Region.”
He raised his eyes from the floor, nearly knocking her over with the similarity in his eyes to Jethro’s, the same tender regard blatantly evident in those swirling tiger’s eye colors. “Then what do I do, mom? Dad’s transition was smooth, paved by Grandpa making the announcement and then slowly handing things over.”
“Oh, Solomon, your father’s transition was anything but smooth,” she chuckled sadly. To his astonished face she said, “Even though Grandpa Adam announced his intentions that your father be the Alpha heir years before we met, both of his brothers, several cousins and an uncle all fought him in The Trials. Though I do believe your Uncle Joshua only fought him to prove he was strong enough to be close to your father, not Alpha.”
“I didn’t know so much family had challenged him. I’m assuming that’s including the brother he had to kill when I was 13?” Solomon didn’t like talking about that day, and Sarah couldn’t blame him.
“Including him,” she nodded. “Though your cousins were too young or not born during the first Trials to challenge him.”
“After The Trials, your father still had to make his own mark on the Council, but the difference is they’d all had several years of him virtually being in charge, so everyone knew what to expect,” she said.
Solomon gave her a wickedly evil grin. “I love being the dark horse.”
She laughed and pulled him to standing to wrap him in a fierce hug. “I know you do, you thrive on difficult situations. You always have.” She pulled back to look him in the eyes. “You know The Laws well, almost better than your father did. I love you Solomon, but you have a tendency to be literal. It’s time to think outside the box.”
“Think outside the box?”
“Yes, son, outside the box. The Council will expect you to come in guns blazing because of your time in the Marines, so, maybe you should do something different,” she suggested.
She watched as something evilly sneaky spread through his thoughts. “Or I could just give them what they expect,” he mused. At her raised eyebrows he grinned, “You know the saying about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, well, I think I can pull that off, only I know what they’re both up to.”
“Do I even want to know what that means?”
He laughed, picked her
up and twirled her around. He plopped her down with a kiss to her forehead. “Probably not, mom.”
He ran out the door, once again the excited little boy he used to be, which made Sarah rather fearful for the Council. That excited little boy wiggle Solomon was doing down the hallway had always meant he was about to unleash holy terror in some way or other.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three weeks later Sarah sat on the couch in the living room of the Aleph’s personal apartments wondering just how everything had managed to go to hell less than a month after Jethro’s death. While Solomon had survived his Trials, he’d lost to the Council’s ridiculous edict about being married in order to be Alpha. Jethro had been well old enough to be mated when they’d met, so the edict would have made sense…but Solomon was only 24, not 47—the age Jethro had been when he’d become Alpha.
Yes, it was a Law…but still…there should have been some leeway given, to allow him to have at least a date with the female before marrying her.
She tipped her glass back, grateful Jethro had passed on his love of great scotch to Solomon. She didn’t usually drink, but was positive that her own private stash of high quality wines would not have been enough alcohol for her problems. She’d watched for years as Jethro had sipped his scotch while contemplating things and, invariably, before the glass was empty he’d have a brilliant solution.
She snickered to herself.
I’ve gone through three glasses and I haven’t been struck by the inspiration fairy, yet. Hmm, maybe it only works on males.
She felt, rather than heard, the soft footsteps walk across the darkened room toward where she was sitting. An exhausted, and frustrated, Solomon threw himself in the chair next to her, picked up the scotch bottle and drank straight from it. She started laughing and he lowered the bottle but kept his lips firmly attached. He raised that one purely Aleph eyebrow, and she only laughed harder.
“Mom, just how much have you had to drink?” he asked, still taking a few more deep gulps himself.
Lovers: An Aleph Series Stories Novella Page 8