The uber-alpha, I realized even as I sprinted forward, could have stopped us all in our tracks. Even under the influence of his drug-induced haze of power, Justin's wolf would have stilled in a second at a command from Mr. Sassafras. But, instead of intruding, the Tribunal member simply waited and watched, his odor softening against my teeth as I ran in the opposite direction. It appeared that Mr. Sassafras, like Justin, didn't care about the life of one halfie girl child.
Or maybe he knows there will be no one to punish if we don't break the rules, my wolf thought sardonically, and I had to agree. From what I'd seen of the werewolf world to date, most strong shifters got quite a charge out of lording their power over others. So why would this uber-alpha be any different? Why save the life of a half-blood infant and of my own pack members when he could simply munch on metaphorical popcorn and enjoy the drama before slapping us all back into place?
But soon I had no attention left to spare for the Tribunal member. Because Wolfie and I had reached the bed at last. The bed that had turned into a site of carnage that made last winter's battle resemble a jovial game of touch football.
Lantana, I was relieved to see, had fallen to the floor during the struggle and was now screaming at the top of her lungs. But none of the combatants had a moment to spare for soothing her inflamed temper or checking her presumably bruised noggin.
Because Ethan's wolf teeth were fastened onto Justin's foreleg. And Wolfie's grandfather's sword—in Fen's firm, strong arms—was being pushed upwards through Justin's belly and into his lungs and heart.
Then as I watched in horrified fixation, my brother-in-law gasped once. And blood gurgled out of his muzzle as the light snuffed out of his eyes.
Chapter 21
If you'd asked me that morning whether Wolfie loved his brother, I would have said that my mate would gladly gut the monster himself if given the opportunity. But the ties of blood are strong. So once my co-alpha was confident that Lantana was alive and well, he shifted quickly back to human form and clutched his sibling's limp paw in two hands of his own.
My only blood brother. I could have sworn the words flew out of Wolfie's mind and into my own. But maybe I was just so closely attuned to my mate's inner wolf that I was able to get the gist of his feelings from the way his animal half cringed, belly flat against the ground within his human form.
There were other matters begging for my attention, of course. Like the blood and urine soaking into our quilt, mattress, and floor. Like the uber-alpha waiting impatiently to pass judgment on our heinous crime. And like Acacia, who was even now rushing into the room, her wrists rubbed raw from what must have been rope bindings, but her previous pain forgotten as she swept her daughter up into trembling arms.
Still, I spared a moment to crouch by Wolfie's side and to place one hand atop his naked shoulder. The cord-like muscles of my mate's upper arm usually took my breath away, but now I could only think of how much I yearned to pour my own strength into his hunched body. How much I would give to make this battle end differently, if only for the sake of my partner's peace of mind.
"Justin was a monster," Wolfie rumbled almost too quietly to hear, his voice as hard as he could make it as he disavowed the shared heritage that ran between him and the corpse atop our marriage bed. But deep inside, I could tell that my mate saw himself in the face of the man who had looked like nothing so much as his own twin. And what Wolfie saw made him not only mourn his brother's passing, but also doubt his own strength.
"Justin was your brother," I rebutted gently. "He created Ember. That alone proves that he couldn't have been all bad."
As if summoned by her name, the wolfling in question padded up behind us and leapt from floor to bed as gracefully as a cat. I moved to shield the youngster from the vision of her gutted biological parent, but she deftly evaded my grasp and proved she had eyes only for her true father. Then, with an obvious effort, the young wolf shifted into a little girl so she could wrap her arms around Wolfie's neck.
"I'm sorry, Daddy," the younger bloodling breathed into the older bloodling's ear. "You loved him."
As usual, her words were as profound as they were simple. Wolfie had loved this troubled werewolf who hounded him and mocked him and tried to tear his pack apart. So I left the two shifters I loved the most to mourn in peace. And I turned to face the music.
***
"We broke shifter law." I figured I'd better cut right to the chase. After all, wasn't it better to admit to my crimes rather than being pushed to my knees by the mere sound of the uber-alpha's voice as he read me the riot act?
The Tribunal member in question cocked his head to one side in lupine form, and he stared so deeply into my eyes that I thought he might be speaking directly to my wolf. Behind my new adversary, I could see and hear dozens of pack members milling about in our living room, counting on their leaders to deal with any new danger to the clan. Ethan and Fen, on the other hand, had remained standing stoically at the bedside, waiting for a sentence they clearly didn't expect to survive.
The duo were right to worry since shifter justice was simple and swift. Our Tribunal was still firmly rooted in the Dark Ages, when a life was considered fair trade for another, so I assumed that at least one Haven werewolf would be put to death tonight. But unlike the young shifters who had chosen to share my vigil, I also understood that the alpha, not the underlings, were held accountable for inter-pack crimes.
The truth was that I'd been reading up on shifter law ever since receiving the cordial but disturbing visit from Frank, the Tribunal's peacekeeper. Despite the additional knowledge, though, I couldn't think up any way to sidestep the justice Mr. Sassafras would surely be dishing out this morning. Instead, I figured the best I could do would be to shield my mate so that one leader at least would remain in the wake of our upcoming judgment, holding Haven's clan together.
So I straightened my backbone, did my best to send soothing energy toward Ethan's and Fen's wolves, and waited for the metaphorical ax to fall.
"No arguments? No he-said, she-said?" Mr. Sassafras had become two-legged in the time it took me to suck in a single breath, and his scent had also mellowed in that moment away from the frigid-spring-water aroma that had permeated my skin only seconds earlier. I wanted to think the transformation was a good sign, but it seemed premature to raise my own hopes. So I simply shook my head, keeping my eyes carefully downcast.
"Look at me," the uber-alpha commanded. It was a strange request since most dominant werewolves wanted nothing more than to enjoy the sight of cowed underlings, but I found myself unable to do anything except obey. My human half wanted to at least send my gaze skittering away to the side for safety's sake, but my inner wolf instead seized the reins and pointed our eyes straight ahead to stare into those of Mr. Sassafras.
"Better," the uber-alpha murmured, walking forward and taking Wolfie's grandfather's sword out of Fen's limp grasp as he did so. I could tell that his words had the same effect on my companions as they'd had on me at the peacekeeping grounds, bending their knees and forcing their upper bodies to slump in the epitome of submissive despair. But due to the extra alpha strength I'd been gifted by my mate the previous day, I was instead able to continue standing tall beneath our judge's extreme alpha dominance.
His next words, though, set my heart beating at such a fast clip I thought the organ might pound its way out of my chest. "Do you, Terra Wilder, admit to killing a guest within your own home? With no just cause that would stand up under shifter law?"
Before I could accept full culpability as I'd planned, my mate's large hand stroked gently across my cheek, proving that he'd finished mourning at his usual accelerated pace and was ready to rejoin me in protecting our pack. I risked a glance to the side and saw that Ember had returned to lupine form during the same short moments and was now curled across Wolfie's shoulders like a mink stole. But the pup's eyes were alive and alert and her needle-like teeth were bared in the face of the threat before us.
"I..." Wolfie be
gan, clearly planning to take the fall for our crimes just as I'd begun to do. But I stilled my mate the only way I knew how—by stomping down hard on his bare instep with my shod foot. "Ummph," my mate finished abruptly.
This is no time for chivalry. Not when Haven can't afford to lose its strongest pack leader, I thought as forcefully as I could. And just as the uber-alpha had done a moment earlier, my mate cocked his head to one side in response, assessing the clues provided by my inner wolf.
I could tell when Wolfie realized exactly how determined I was to take the fall for Justin's death, because both wolf and man drooped visibly. And I was relieved not to see anger flare in his eyes, since I knew that any other alpha would have gainsayed my silent request. My mate had an even greater tendency to take all dangers upon his own strong shoulders than the average pack leader, in fact, so I'd fully expected him to ignore my hints and to sign his own death warrant.
But Wolfie had clearly meant what he said earlier about giving me complete control of my own destiny. Because he merely slid one hand down to cup my waist while his lips remained firmly pressed shut.
Before us, the uber-alpha smiled. I almost thought Mr. Sassafras meant the gesture to be reassuring, but the baring of his teeth still made my breath catch in my throat. In response, my hand unconsciously rose as if I could push air into my lungs from outside my body.
"Hmm," our judge mused slowly. In the silence that followed, his gaze drifted away from mine, taking in the other inhabitants of the room and giving my brain a short respite from his alpha dominance. "Perhaps you'd instead like to argue that this travesty was an internal affair," the Tribunal member suggested quietly, crooking his finger to draw our younger pack members forward. Fen and Ethan walked woodenly toward us, no longer in command of their own feet.
"Perhaps you'd like to say that your underlings simply disobeyed your express command," the uber-alpha continued. "A command that I recall hearing with my own two ears. Which would give you the right to punish these disobedient werewolves in your own way rather than submitting to the judgment of the Tribunal."
It was a way out, a ray of light glimmering through what I had assumed was a heavy wooden door closed and solidly barred against my escape. But was I willing to pass the fatal blame along to Fen and Ethan rather than letting it settle upon my own shoulders?
No, my wolf and I thought in tandem. What alpha would kill a pack member rather than taking the fall for a crime that she'd agreed with wholeheartedly, if not before then at least during and after the fact?
"N..." I began. But now it was the uber-alpha's turn to still me with one finger raised to his lips.
"Take your time. Think about it," he commanded, the words forcing me to obey.
There's nothing to consider, I complained silently. But my wolf was instead nudging my attention toward Wolfie and Fen, whose eyes were locked in a silent conversation.
My first thought was disbelief. Surely Wolfie would never ask such a sacrifice of another pack member, not when he'd been willing to accept total culpability only moments earlier.
But there did indeed appear to be a question in my mate's eyes. And, after a moment of deliberation, Fen nodded shortly, her own spine straightening further into the rigidity of a military recruit.
"Yes," Wolfie said then, before I had time to squash his bare feet further in warning. "We decline your judgment and choose to punish our own pack members as we see fit."
He hadn't rushed his words, so time had existed for me to counter my mate's decision. To rush into the breach with a solution of my own choosing. After all, the uber-alpha had accepted me as a pack leader even as he dominated me upon the peacekeeping grounds, so my word would presumably carry as much weight in this matter as Wolfie's.
But how could I gainsay my mate when he clearly possessed at least a semblance of a plan? While all I had was the gut-wrenching need not to see any member of our pack die today.
I couldn't. Not when my mate had pulled us through other rough spots using his quick wits and alpha strength. And not when Wolfie had trusted me in a similar instance only moments earlier.
No, I simply had to depend on my mate, as always, having the good of the pack front and center in his heart. Surely the pack leader who had refused to risk anyone else's safety and had gone to All-Pack alone wouldn't allow this to come to a matter of Fen's and Ethan's lives exchanged for our own.
Surely.
You're not very good at faith, are you? my wolf murmured. But even her attention was trained on our mate, who had taken his grandfather's sword from the uber-alpha with one confident hand then placed the palm of his other firmly atop Fen's forehead.
I shivered, eying the still bloody blade of the sword and forcing myself not to close my eyes.
"This shifter," Wolfie said, addressing his words to the uber-alpha even though his attention drilled into that of the female yahoo instead, "expressly disobeyed her pack leader's command. She ordered another shifter to do her bidding, a shifter who is blameless in this matter."
As he spoke, Wolfie's eyes flitted momentarily to Ethan, who seemed prepared to protest his own guilt. But when my mate raised a single eyebrow, my brother instead snapped his mouth shut with a click of abused teeth. So I guessed I wasn't the only Wilder who had chosen to accept Wolfie's greater wisdom this morning instead of using our own best judgment.
"There are only three valid punishments for such an egregious crime," my mate continued, his attention trained once again upon the female yahoo. "The criminal may be killed...or banished."
Wolfie paused, and I thought even the uber-alpha was straining forward to hurry along Fen's final sentence. I'd gotten the impression the previous morning that Mr. Sassafras had more than a passing interest in our female yahoo, so it was no big surprise that he was now more invested in this issue than his earlier hands-off policy had suggested. But, like me, the uber-alpha evidently saw no way out of this sticky wicket and was choosing to hold his tongue.
That lack of alternatives was the reason I'd been willing to take the fall for Justin's death in the first place. Sure, Wolfie could simply banish Fen from our pack, supposedly saving a life. But such a sentence was almost worse than being killed for a pack-yearning werewolf.
In fact, I knew from hard experience that life without shifter companionship could range from gut-wrenching to life-threatening depending on the day of the week. And yet...during the entire decade I'd spent outside my father's clan, I'd always known that I could rejoin werewolf society at any time. I'd been confident that even a strange pack would have welcomed me with open arms after smelling pack-princess status upon my skin.
Fen, on the other hand, was a halfie, bound to be looked down upon by every clan except our own. Worse, being banished settled like a pall across a werewolf's signature aroma, making Fen fair game for any shifter who felt like releasing pent-up aggressions by pounding upon a rejected member of someone else's pack.
To make matters worse, there would be no recourse to Tribunal law in such a scenario. After being banished, Fen was considered worse than dead.
"Or..." Wolfie continued at last, once the room seemed nearly devoid of oxygen due to our joint anticipation. My mate raised the sword he still held in one hand, and my breath caught in my throat, fingers rising unbidden to cover my mouth.
"...the offending party may be sent out into the world as the alpha of a new pack," Wolfie continued, gently passing the weapon he so clearly cherished into Fen's wooden fingers. "With this sword, I hereby grant Fen Young her freedom and the right to offer membership in her new pack to any Haven shifters who so desire to join her."
As I relaxed, I could feel Fen's scent transforming in the air around me. The subtle aroma of Haven was being replaced before my eyes and nose with that heady alpha flavor that promised danger and protection alike.
And the abrupt change must have been painful since tears welled up in Fen's eyes despite her attempts to stand firm and unyielding before the peril that faced our pack. Still, she smiled w
hen Wolfie patted her shoulder consolingly, and her wolf seemed to glow beneath her previous pack leader's regard.
My mate wasn't quite done yet, though. He bared his teeth in a parody of a human smile as he challenged Mr. Sassafras to gainsay the conclusion of his decree. "And with the gift of my grandfather's sword, I hereby make Fen my sister in all ways that matter. If any dare harm her pack, then they will face me first."
For a moment, the uber-alpha and my mate challenged each other with a stare, the room charged with their aggressive intentions. Fen and I, although both alphas in name, each took an unconscious step back to distance ourselves from the battle that seemed bound to break out in the middle of our bedroom.
Then, as suddenly as the staring contest had begun, the air crackled once and eased back into cordiality as the Tribunal member nodded in acceptance of my mate's decree. And the characteristic human twinkle returned to Wolfie's eyes as he finally turned back to look in my direction.
"Assuming that my co-alpha agrees with this judgment, of course," he finished calmly.
Chapter 22
A pack leader in her own right. It sounded like a reward rather than a punishment. But Wolfie, Fen, and I all knew that this solution would be nearly as dangerous as banishment.
After all, a halfie alpha with no clan and no lands might as well have a target painted on her back. Sure, unlike outcast-Fen, pack-leader Fen would have the right to take grievances to the nearest Tribunal...if she was able to make it there alive. Which she likely wouldn't.
Given the dangers of Fen's upcoming predicament, I wanted to protest. But I could tell that Wolfie and Fen had settled this issue between themselves during the staring session a few moments earlier. And when I met the new alpha's eyes, she merely nodded, Fen's wolf serene as she provided the reassurance my guilty conscience craved.
Alpha Ascendant: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 3) Page 15