I was sick with anticipation and worry. I knew that Max would test clean, but still, this test was life or death.
Three shamans from out of state packs were selected, and their names were announced to the crowd. Max and Kray were led to a spot directly in front of the Elders.
First they tested Max. They did it by having him slash his arm with a sharp knife, and dripping his blood into a vial. Each of the shamans tasted it. The shamans pronounced it clean.
“Oh, thank God.” Virginia slumped against me. I realized I’d been holding my breath, and I let it out and gulped in air, dizzy with relief. Jade and Vince gripped each other’s hands; “Praise the Lord,” Jade murmured. Whatever came next, at least Max was all right.
Kray didn’t want to be tested. He fought the wolves, and the Wardens had to hold his arm down, while Ragnar himself slashed it. His family was now hunched in their seats, looking away from the disgraceful and cowardly spectacle.
The shamans immediately detected the magic in his blood. Kray was dragged out into the center of the field for the pronouncement of sentence.
“Kray Renker, you have brought disgrace upon yourself, your family, and our glorious race,” the chief Elder boomed down. “Your blood showed significant signs of magic enhancement. The sentence is death.”
Chapter Seventeen
“You can’t kill me! You can’t kill me! There was cheating, there was no way he could beat me, no way, no way!” His voice rose to a hysterical screech.
The Wardens, gripping firmly on each arm, began dragging him out to the center of the clearing.
“Stop! I have information that you need!” Kray howled.
They paused, looking at Ragnar for direction, while Kray wailed and blubbered. Apparently, he had more corruption to expose. One of the other Elders, a man named Timor, had been on Kray’s payroll. Timor was paid to notify Kray of any complaints filed against his pack, so Kray could challenge the Alpha of their pack.
Standing there before the Elders, Kray ratted him out in a desperate attempt to get out of his death sentence.
It didn’t work. Kray screamed and threatened and begged, while his family grimly looked on. Kray died on the field, with two wardens holding him down and a third slashing his throat. It was the most embarrassing, disgraceful death that anyone could remember witnessing.
The Renkers were now a social disgrace.
Timor was led away for questioning, protesting loudly. Shamans have spells that can detect lies; he’d be exposed and also executed.
Max came back to the Timber Valley side of the field, hugging his parents, hugging his siblings, hugging me. There was shouting and cries of relief. On the other side of the field, there was cursing and shouted threats and screams of rage.
Kray’s younger brother Kimball jumped up. “I issue a death challenge to Maxwell Battle, to retain control of the Iron Claw Pack, and to take over the Timber Valley Pack! And I demand the immediate return of all pack members to our custody, until the death challenge has been carried out!”
Oh no he didn’t. It was time to make my move. Max wasn’t the only one who’d been studying the Covenant. I’d been studying it frantically for the past few days, knowing that this gathering of the Elders in front of a huge crowd of shifters would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. The crowd was even bigger than I’d expected.
I leaped to my feet and rushed into the field before anyone could stop me, turning to address the
“I demand audience on a matter of vital importance to shifter welfare!” I had the right to demand this, but woe to me if the Elders felt that what I brought up wasn’t vitally important.
Ragnar gave me a look of great displeasure. I wasn’t an Alpha, and therefore, in his eyes, I was clearly not worthy of notice. He was a notorious chauvinist. However, he couldn’t refuse me permission to speak.
“You may address the Elders.”
“The Renker family has been abusing members of their pack! They’ve been forced to seek sanctuary with us because they are in fear for their lives! They have killed young males without provocation, they have murdered the family of the former Alpha in a cowardly fashion. They’ve sexually and physically abused the females, and refused to let them leave their compound to seek help. I propose a rule change to prevent this ever happening again. I propose that any member of any pack be allowed to leave their pack without fear of reprisal.”
One of the other Elders, a shifter named Algernon, shot to his feet, shooting a murderous stare at me. “That is a violation of our basic covenant! To propose it is death!” His haughty voice rang through the air.
My heart dropped into my stomach. I knew the risk that I was taking, but it had to be done.
I heard Max yelling from the stands. “Covenant rules can be changed!” he shouted. “There have been significant new rules added to the Covenant over the past century.”
“Only to reflect changing technology!” Ragnar glared at him. “And only Elders, or a majority of 90 percent of Alphas holding an emergency meeting, can propose a change to the Covenant.”
“You are condemning wolves whose packs have abusive Alphas to live with abuse, or die!” I protested. “An Alpha should protect his pack members, not rape and torture them! And don’t tell me that they can turn to the Elders for help, because Kray cheated in his last fights, and a corrupt Elder protected him, and so did a corrupt shaman! A shaman that you Elders chose! If a shifter wishes to leave their pack, they should be able to leave their pack. And if numerous shifters want to leave their pack, that says something about their Alpha, doesn’t it?”
I turned to the crowd, and was relieved to hear yells of agreement and encouragement. Right now, when they’d witnessed outrageous cheating and corruption, was the time to strike. I had the crowd right where I wanted them.
“This is outrageous. She must be punished! Death to the Traitor!” Kimball bellowed. Of course he was against it – most of his pack would leave. There was a very small but vocal chorus of agreement, coming only from the Renker family.
“I put this to a vote of all Alphas!” Max announced. “And I challenge your position as Elders! You have held the same position for too many decades. It’s time for new blood and new laws! Why should a female be compelled into marrying anyone that her Alpha decrees? That is barbaric! It’s slavery! Why should pack members be killed for wanting to leave their pack? For that matter, why should gay shifters have to hide their identity or risk death or exile? We’re in the 21st century! I call for an open election to the position of Elder!”
Every Elder there had held their position for at least fifty years. Most had been in their position for seventy years or more. Given that a shifter’s lifespan is about a hundred and fifty, they could be expected to continue to hold those positions, and their archaic laws, for many, many decades to come – unless they were voted out by the overwhelming majority of Alphas.
The Elders were panicking now, loudly exclaiming amongst themselves, shooting looks of hatred at Maxwell and me.
“Death to the Traitors! I order the immediate execution of Alpha Maxwell Battle and his bride Josephine Battle!” Ragnar bellowed.
Our entire pack began shouting, growling, howling, crowding around Max and I. The packs that Allied with them crowded around us as well.
My heart sank. I couldn’t let all these people die for us!
“No!” Warden Redthorne’s voice carried across the field. “We are a nation of laws! This is not a legal order. They have not committed treason. First, the vote will take place.”
“That process takes months,” Ragnar snarled. “Every Alpha in the nation will have to be given the chance to vote. You have no justification for this. This is a complaint from one traitor and his wife.”
“We want a vote!” one of the Alphas in the crowd, a shifter I had never seen before, bellowed.
The other shifters, including many Alphas, began yelling too. “We want a vote! We want a vote!” they chanted. They were obviously furious over what th
ey had just seen. The word of an Elder was supposed to be sacred; if an Elder and their shaman were corrupt, that threatened the rules that we lived our lives by.
Ragnar went pale. With that many Alphas demanding a vote, he could no longer argue.
“It won’t take more than a week, at most,” Warden Redthorne said calmly. “These days, we can contact all of the Alphas by email and telephone. If you look in the Covenant, you will see that in a situation such as this, it is up to me to appoint an Elections Committee to supervise the results. The committee will be selected by random drawing, with one Alpha from each state.”
Ragnar and the Elders shouted and spluttered protests, but it was no use. We all were ruled by the Covenant.
It took a little more than a week – it took ten days, to be exact. Those ten days were the longest of my life. I knew that Max’s parents and his whole pack, and all the packs we were allied with, stood with us, which made it even worse. We risked an all out pack war if the Elders weren’t voted out.
My Aunt Prudence flew out to Colorado to meet my new pack and to offer moral support. We were waiting to find out not just if the Elders would be unseated and new Elders put in their place, but if we’d face the death penalty. If the current Elders kept their seats, their power would be reaffirmed, and they’d find a way to ensure that we were executed.
I was hopeful, but frightened. I knew that the majority of shifters wanted change. As human society and rules had changed, Shifters had followed suit in some ways, but in other ways we’d been far too slow to adapt. The Elders hadn’t helped their cause over the years, becoming more arrogant and imperious with every passing year that they’d held power. Their attitude and behavior was obsolete.
Still, to get a vote of 90 percent of the Alphas…that was the challenge.
While we were waiting, Kray’s compound was raided by the Wardens, in an attempt to arrest the scientist. Before he could be captured, he was shot to death by Kimball, who was in turn killed by the Wardens. They found a laboratory hidden on Kray’s property, which was seized. Who was this human, and where had he come from? How did he know how to create magic formulas that enhanced a werewolf’s strength? Nobody knew, and that had shifters everywhere very worried.
We got the news on a Monday, as I sat with a circle of wolf cub girls teaching them origami. Max had already arranged for me to start teaching third grade when the school year started up in September.
When I saw Max striding up to me with a huge smile on his face, I knew.
“Yes?” I called out to him.
“Yes,” he said. “Eleven of the thirteen elders have been replaced. The two remaining Elders are among the more progressive ones, and now we will be able to propose an immediate change that allows shifters to leave their pack without fear of their Alpha coming after them.”
I leaped to my feet, ran over, and threw my arms around him.
“Are you going to take over the Iron Claw pack’s territory, then?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No need to. I never wanted it in the first place. I don’t want to disrupt the lives of a bunch of shifters who simply had the misfortune to be ruled by an abusive dictator. I’m drawing up paperwork to ensure that the property is theirs, and they’re going to select their own Alpha, by a democratic vote. The Renker family, however, has been kicked off the property and they are now homeless.”
He picked me up and spun me around as if I were light as dandelion fluff, then set me down and kissed me, hard.
“I’ve never been more proud of you,” he said. “The change you made will benefit all shifters. The wolves from the Iron Claw Pack are safe from retaliation now.”
“Wow. Who ever thought that having a big mouth would finally pay off?” I said. I grinned at him wickedly. “Speaking of my big mouth, I plan to put it to good use later.”
“I will hold you to that. And now, I have one little favor to ask of you,” he said.
“Anything for you. Wait. Let me rethink that.”
He went down on one knee, and I was shocked to see that he was holding up a diamond ring.
“Josephine Southpaw Battle, will you marry me all over again?” He winked at me. “I want to do it right this time. By the way, I mean really marry me. All of it. The ceremony, the Running, the Claiming…”
“Why yes, Maxwell Battle,” I said, tears running down my face. “I will marry you again.”
THE END
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