by A. J. Downey
“How are you supposed to keep track of all this?”
“Years and years of practice and lessons. You’ll learn, my love. Try not to worry overly much about it right now, okay? It’s really not something you need to concern yourself with right this second. You’ll have time to get all this straight.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before she gave a short nod.
“So today we’re expecting in the fifty range as far as attendance goes?” she clarified and Markus gave a growling agreement.
“Somewhere around there,” he said. “The vast majority of the Pack left yesterday. They’ve got their regular lives to get back to. This situation with the Alpha succession has thrown everyone’s usual schedule severely out of balance. Jobs still have to be held though, so they couldn’t stick around any longer.”
“I’ll help go over all of this with you later, Chloe,” Nora offered from the back. “It really isn’t as difficult as it seems. One thing you have to remember is that you’ll probably never know where each individual member is at any given time. It’s just too big and constantly shifting and fluctuating. All you need to know is that even if we don’t have all their locations, we do have all of their phone numbers and we can contact any of them at any time. That’s how we get everyone here for emergency meetings like the Alpha’s death. Phone trees and coded email blasts.”
Chloe and Nora quietly discussed things as we traveled the last few minutes’ worth of miles to the clearing. I was starting to get tired of that damned clearing. I think I had seen it too many times in the last few weeks as it was and nearly every time it was because something terrible had happened or was going to happen. Father’s death, Chloe’s attack, the fight against Romulus, and Chloe’s battle with Lucinda…
Yeah, I really hate this damn clearing.
Next to me Chloe looked up and slipped her hand into mine, twining our fingers together. “I hate it too,” she muttered and I blinked for a moment.
“Did I say that out loud?” She nodded and I frowned. Pull it together, idiot. Now is really not the time to lose your shit.
“When are they bringing Remus?” Chloe asked and I gave her a sidelong look.
“They who? Who would bring Remus?”
“Well the…” she trailed off floundering for the word she wanted. “Guards or whatever the wolf-kind equivalent would be. I mean he had to have been taken into custody or arrested or something to get him to show up here tonight, right?”
Understanding dawns clear and bright on even the most overcast of days, as father used to say. That light of understanding went off and everything made perfect sense all of a sudden.
“No, no, he wasn’t captured or arrested or anything like that. He’ll be here of his own accord.”
She gave me a look that clearly suggested she thought I had lost my mind and I frowned at her. “What?”
“Seriously?”
“What?” I was getting confused again.
“You honestly believe that Remus would just show up here, knowing he’s going to be basically on trial for patricide, regicide, and treason? He probably high tailed it out of the state while we were on our way home from the fights of succession.”
“Chloe, wolf-kind don’t work that way,” I said gently, “If he ran we would hunt him and he would die in a very slow, very unpleasant manner. He knows that he’s in trouble and the wolf won’t let him just run. He’ll face his mistakes head on. Besides, if he ran, aside from us hunting him down, he would basically be declaring himself an Omega. No one would voluntarily do that.”
She still looked dubious but let the matter drop and turned just in time to see Sharon walk into the clearing, her head held high as if she owned the forest and I couldn’t help the turning of my upper lip into a hate filled snarl that bared my teeth for just a moment at her. I had counted Sharon as one of my best friends and biggest supporters. And while she might have supported me, she didn’t support my mate and in my eyes that was almost worse. An outright betrayal.
She didn’t react to me and walked on to stand to the side of the clearing, hands clasped calmly in front of her. The bleachers, still standing after they had been erected for the succession challenge, quickly began to fill. Stands meant to hold nearly three hundred people looked woefully empty with a paltry fifty butts in the seats but within half an hour everyone had arrived… except for Remus.
Chloe kept glancing at me. I could see her out of the corner of my eye. We stood between the stands, looking down the length of them toward the trees. Chloe stood to my right and Markus stood on my left with Brent and Nora behind us. Four of us stood still and calm, just staring ahead in a show put on for the wolves in attendance. We had to look as if we were calmly in control. Chloe didn’t quite fit that but she was new to the whole thing, so could be excused.
She looked over at me again and opened her mouth. “He’ll be here,” I interrupted before she could say anything. I turned my head slightly to look at her and gave her a small smile. “Listen, I can already hear him.”
She frowned but a moment later closed her eyes and cocked her head to the side slightly, straining to focus her new senses to hear what I had already heard. Footsteps. Deep, heavy footsteps. Approaching with no sense of urgency. A calm measured cadence of foot falls on the rich forest floor.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He stepped from between the trees and paused for a moment at the very edge of the field and across the expanse between us. Our eyes met. I think that he knew then what I intended to do for his shoulders sagged the smallest bit as if a heavy weight had just settled on him.
The quietly talking wolf-kind in the stands fell into silence as Remus started across the clearing. He walked with the same pace he’d used on his way in, the measured, even step of a man that knew everything that stood before him, and who knew that he deserved what was going to happen to him.
“William,” he said curtly as he stopped a few feet from us. He didn’t speak loudly but everyone in the stands would easily be able to hear him. He glanced at Chloe and greeted her as well. “Chloe, you’re looking better already than the last time I saw you,” he said in a polite tone.
“I’ve been eating better,” she told him and a small smile tugged at his stony features. He glanced back at me and I fought to keep my face an emotionless mask. Now was not the time for an Alpha to be emotional. Remus reached out and opened the left side of my loose jacket, just enough to see the scarred over bite mark on my chest and his face split again into a satisfied smile before he looked up at me, meeting my eyes with a steady gaze.
“Congratulations, William. You took one hell of a risk marking a human. I’m glad to see that it’s paid off for you.”
“Thank you, I wish these circumstances were different, Remus–”
“But they aren’t,” he said, cutting me off. “I know. Let’s get on with it. There’s no sense in dragging things out.”
He took a step back and let his hands drop to his sides, waiting calmly for my sentence. Markus waved one arm, motioning to a group of young men standing before the stands on my right. They came forward, bringing with them a small but heavy table carved from a solid chunk of redwood and two boxes made of a similar material. The men carrying the boxes did so as if they contained live ordinance that could go off at any moment and their hands were covered by leather gloves that reached past their wrists. Overkill, I thought. But they were scared of what the boxes contained, and I couldn’t honestly say that I blamed them. I wasn’t thrilled about it myself.
I took a step closer to Remus, raising my voice slightly even though it really wasn’t necessary for me to be heard. “Remus Reese,” I said. “You have committed crimes against this Pack that are unforgivable. You conspired to kill our previous Alpha, our father, with your brother Romulus. Worse, you conspired with The Hangman, the worst of the Hunters, and revealed to him the location of our Pack. In the months ahead, hard decisions
will need to be made. It is uncertain if the Pacific Northwest Pack can even remain in the Washington Territories any longer, knowing now that the Hunters know where we are.
“You have jeopardized the lives of more than two hundred of your own kind, who are precious few already, for your own selfish reasons. According to Pack Law there is only one punishment for your crime. Death, at the next full moon.”
Remus nodded. “I accept my–”
“I’m not finished Remus Reese,” I cut him off and he blinked in surprise. “Pack Law dictates that your punishment should be Death at the hands of the Alpha. However, I, as Alpha, reserve the right to adjust sentences as I see fit.” A quiet muttering spread through the crowd as people began to wonder where I was going with all this.
“Remus, you’re a smart guy. You’re driven and methodical. And despite everything you have been more of a brother to me than I would usually be willing to admit,” I added the last with a glance over my shoulder at Chloe who gave me an encouraging smile. “You helped Chloe, and me, when you didn’t need to. So I won’t be ordering your death today, Brother. I won’t bring in my reign over this Pack with any more of my family’s blood. But you can’t stay with the Pack.”
The mutterings grew louder as some people started to figure out where I was going with this and Remus had gone white, all the blood draining from his face as his mouth dropped open.
“No,” he whispered, hands beginning to shake at his sides. “William, no. Kill me. Don’t do this. Don’t do this, William. William!” As he spoke I turned and opened one of the boxes and reached within it to remove the item that had so frightened the men that carried it to our side.
It looked like a craft stamp, a simple handle of highly polished wood and set within the flat surface of it was a band of metal in the shape of the Greek symbol Omega.
The mutterings in the audience grew even louder as those that hadn’t realized it yet, finally figured it out.
“I can’t William,” Remus said. “You know I can’t. Blood Born need a Pack. Blood Born need a Pack!”
“Remus.” My left hand grasped his shoulder and I held the brand loosely in my right, my arm hanging at my side. “Remus, look at me.” The panicked expression on his face was difficult to see. Remus Reese had always been the calm and level headed one. The one that rarely showed emotion, and to see him breaking down at the mere sight of the brand…
He looked at me and I smiled at him as kindly as I could. “I love you, Remus. You are my brother, and I can’t kill my brother. There’s been enough death in this family already. Do you understand me? There has been enough death already.”
His shaking slowly stopped and he squared his shoulders looking me in the eye with a determined steel once more returning to his gaze.
“Jacket,” I murmured and he lifted his left hand, pulling aside his jacket to reveal his bare chest.
In silence, as everyone stilled to watch, I lifted the metal brand. Markus lit his zippo and I held the silver to the flame. It seemed to take forever for the metal to heat, but finally, satisfied it was hot enough, I pulled it from the fire.
I pressed the Omega symbol against Remus’ chest, in the same place where Chloe had bitten me. The instant the silver touched his skin there was a loud hissing sound, like meat touching a red hot frying pain and a wisp of smoke rose up from his skin. The stench of burning flesh assaulted my nose and I gritted my teeth.
Remus let slip a strangled cry but clenched his jaw tight and remained otherwise silent for the five seconds that I held the brand against his flesh. When I pulled it away there was an angry black burn left behind on his skin in the perfect shape of the Omega.
“Remus Reese is dead,” I said quietly. My grip on his shoulder was one of the only things keeping Remus on his feet, the other being sheer stubborn will. “Do you understand me, Remy?” He raised his eyes from the burn on his chest.
“I understand, William.”
“You need to be gone by sundown tomorrow, Brother.”
“Remus was your brother,” he said. “Remy Dulcet is an only child.”
I sighed, already feeling drained and lost. “Be that as it may, Remy, Remus Reese is dead, and you, Remy Dulcet, can start over somewhere else. Remy Dulcet can make amends where Remus would never be able to.”
He said nothing, but held my eyes, the deep obsidian of his gaze boring into mine with a frightening intensity.
“Return to our territory without an extremely compelling reason, and you face the death penalty that I spared you tonight,” I said to finish off the ceremony.
“I understand,” he said. “Take care of him, Chloe,” he added before he turned and slunk off into the night. I could still here his footsteps for some time as he left and eventually I felt a hand land on my shoulder and turned to look at Markus.
“Ya did good, Kid,” he muttered, voice pitched low so only we would hear him. “Omega might seem like a fate worse than death to him right now, but you gave him all the tools he needs. He’ll figure it out, Remu– Remy is a smart man. He’ll be fine.”
“I hope so, Markus. Because if he doesn’t, I just sentenced him to a slow torturous wasting existence when a swift death would have been kinder.”
Chapter 26
Chloe
I watched Remus thrash through the underbrush and listened to William and Markus speak on it. Deep, dark storm clouds of pity and remorse swamped me. The raw, naked pain and even fear that had flickered across Remus’ features made an indelible mark on my heart even as the brand had pitted and melted his flesh.
A weighted silence filled the clearing and I turned my eyes toward Sharon. She wasn’t looking so certain anymore and I couldn’t say I felt bad about that. The way she’d carried herself into the clearing had left me angry and I had decided on the same fate for her, but seeing Remus? Well that had softened my position some.
Honestly though, none of the options before me were that great. Both required a brand and I really wasn’t sure I could go through with such an intentional act of cruelty. I swallowed hard. A big part of being a leader was doing things you didn’t want to do. Another part of being a leader was never asking of anyone that which you weren’t willing to do yourself.
As reviled as he was, I was my father’s daughter in some of the more important ways. The ones that really counted. Having a backbone was one of those ways. I was also my mother’s daughter. Even though she’d died when I was young, she’d taught me understanding. To look beyond the surface. Past the color of people’s skin, past their clothes or where they lived or how they were raised. I tried very hard to do that here even though Sharon wouldn’t afford me the same courtesy.
She stared at me, her lips compressed in a thin line of contempt and I just had to ask her, “Tell me why I don’t afford you the same fate, Sharon.”
She visibly paled but held her ground, “I…” she closed her mouth, opened it again, closed it again and finally snarled, “Why don’t you just do whatever you’re going to do?”
“Because I don’t want to,” I told her honestly. I looked out over the assembled crowd.
“I don’t want to burn you, I don’t want to fight you, and I don’t want to start my reign of leadership with punishment and pain. There’s already been enough blood spilled on this hallowed ground,” Sharon scoffed and I turned my eyes back to her and cocked my head to the side.
“But part of being a leader, part of being an effective and good leader, means doing things you don’t want to do all the time.” I let the silence roll through the glade and settle in.
“Pack Law demands that I either banish you as Omega, or that I mark and demote you. There’s another option though,” I said; a sudden stroke of brilliance really. The wolves murmured to one another and Sharon looked at me puzzled.
I needed to cement my status with these people, my people, I needed to impress upon them that I wasn’t weak. That I knew how and that I would lead them. That I wasn’t afraid and never would be.
“What
are you talking about?” Sharon demanded, scowling.
“Chloe…” William’s voice held a thread of confusion twining with a thread of warning.
“How about it Sharon? Do you think you could do better leading this Pack than I could? Do you think you’re more Alpha than me? That’s your third option. You could Challenge me for leadership of this Pack, right here and right now and I could do the same damn thing I did to Lucinda to you the next full moon. I’ll let you think about it. Go ahead and take a minute.”
I locked gazes with her and her eyes widened. Rather quickly Sharon’s eyes only got wider still, as she realized I was dead serious and she went down on one knee, “No Alpha, I won’t challenge you, I… I don’t want to challenge you.”
“Looks like you have some self-preservation after all,” I uttered and heaved a great inward sigh of relief. I hadn’t been bluffing, I would have killed her the next full moon, I just really, really, didn’t want to.
“You won’t be challenging anyone else anytime soon either,” I said. “Sharon, I pronounce sentence. You will be marked and demoted. Nora will take your place as Beta of this Pack. Do you agree to this pronouncement or do you wish to Challenge me? Last chance.”
Sharon looked up at me and the look was of pure venom, “I don’t wish to challenge you, Alpha. I agree to your sentence.”
“Good deal,” I said with a raised brow and plucked the brand Markus indicated out of the box. It was a straight line with two shorter diagonal hash marks through the longer line’s center. William made to take it from me and I shook my head. He gave me a proud little smile and I gave him a brave one in return.
Sharon didn’t take her brand quietly, not like Remus. She screamed long and loud and my heart broke a little. I made sure to brand her in a place that could easily be covered, figuring she was going to hate me no matter what I did.