“I know what I heard.” She said it with a sneer. “You are out of line. Peter, you need to do something.
“Thank you, Regina. I’m aware of that,” he snapped.
Regina had never learned how to back down. “Well?”
“We’ve given them plenty of time. They haven’t come.” It wasn’t a pronouncement, but a testy capitulation. Peter didn’t sound happy that Regina had offered up a valid point. “I made it clear to Noah, in front of the pack, that he wasn’t to kill any more undead. Do you all agree?”
Hesitant mumbles.
Ears flat, sides heaving, Noah put on a burst of speed. Kayla reached inside for moon-given strength to keep up, and knew the rest did the same.
Peter heaved a sigh after a too-long pause. “Then I have no choice but to—”
“What if something has happened to them? I’m telling you, they’ll come!” The guard was still pushing hard to give them time.
“Do not interrupt the alpha! Peter, do it!”
“Both of you stop!” Peter snarled. “Whether or not I enjoy what I have to do next, it is my duty. I have no choice but to declare Noah Craig—”
“Declare me what?” Noah reached the edge of the small clearing and shifted form. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his chest rose and fell like a bellows, but he stood with an unmistakable confidence. All heads turned to look at him, and Kayla could see hope on more than a few faces as she pulled short just behind him.
At the back of the pack, Todd turned pale. This time, however, he didn’t look away when she caught his gaze. His regret was plain as he bowed his head, the sorrow of a man who sees the noose as it dangles from the tree.
Regina had murder in her eyes. “It’s too late. You’ve been found guilty. No one will believe anything you have to say.”
Noah ignored her. He locked gazes with Peter, shoulders square, every inch the alpha. “Is this how you want to go out? After all you’ve done for us, after all the respect you’ve earned, is this the memory you want to leave them with?”
“What are you talking about? You’ve broken the laws! Endangered everyone here!” Regina fumed as she paced forward to stand in front of her silent mate. “You have no place here!”
“You know what you need to do.” Noah didn’t look away from the older man. Kayla saw more gray in Peter’s dark hair, more lines in his face, the struggle behind that brown-eyed gaze. He did know. The knowledge obviously cut like a jagged blade. “This is the last chance you’ll have to set it right.”
The muscles in Peter’s jaw twitched. His shoulders drew straighter. “I want to hear what he has to say,” he said quietly. “It seems you were wrong, Regina.”
Somewhere, a night bird chirped. Leaves rustled as a breeze blew through them. The gathered wolves watched in profound quiet.
Peter’s words had left her with no voice. Her jaw gaped open, but no sound came out as her mouth worked. “Then tell us,” she forced out in a snarl at last. “Did you kill two vampires last night? Against the alpha’s orders?”
“I had Lord Vincenzo Pirelli’s permission. I did not violate the truce.” Now Noah turned his attention to the infuriated woman before him. “They were killed for their involvement in an offense against one of our members.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Regina barked out a raw laugh. “Is this about your little vendetta? Your personal war?”
“The war you’ve been calling for right along with me, Regina?”
She glared. “No one cares anymore. You know that. The pack is tired of hearing about this!”
Someone cleared her throat. “I care. I think the pack deserves to know more.”
Regina whirled, hands curled into claws. “No one asked you.”
“That’s enough.” Peter stopped her cold.
She inhaled a sharp breath but somehow kept her temper under control. “What offense? What could they have done? The whole reason for your – your disobedience – is right there with you. Did you two plan this?”
Attention focused on Kayla. Part of her wanted to hide from their keen scrutiny, but the time for that had passed. No known force could make her anything but what she was, and the pack would have to accept it. So she stood before them, unflinching, and pulled her glasses from her face.
Several werewolves gasped. Peter frowned. “Kayla? What happened?”
“Regina lied to you.” She didn’t know how many times she’d rehearsed this moment in her head, gone over the words again and again until she was satisfied. Now that she had arrived here, all her careful planning flew away. “Ask her. Ask her about the ritual. About Paul Kiplinger.”
“I don’t know what she’s talking about.” Regina lied well. She had plenty of practice.
The moon drew higher. Kayla’s inner wolf had little patience for these games. She’d waited too long already. “Did you tell them how you moaned when Kiplinger left those marks on you? While Miles and Mason Bristol dragged me off to where you kept the other werewolves, how you ran back to lie about how you’d been attacked? How you gave me to them, you lying bitch?”
She sneered. “You’ve gone too far. What do you think you’ll accomplish with this story? I’m the alpha’s mate. Who are they going to believe? You or me?”
“It’s true.”
Startled, Kayla watched as Todd stepped forward. Whether he had broken under the strain of expired lies or had found his tarnished honor, she couldn’t say. Somewhere beneath his stooped shoulders and shamed demeanor, perhaps the man they had known still lived.
“Of course you would say so!” Regina’s laugh had the edge of hysteria. “You’re Noah’s best friend.”
“I was there. I helped. And I called you last night, when you sent the vampires to burn down their apartment. I told you Kayla had come back, and I told you where she was.” He turned to face them. “I’m so sorry.”
Behind Kayla, Cameron and his guards shifted to close ranks. Their support was clear to all who watched.
“I saw you with those strange wolves last night, Regina,” Cameron said.
Regina turned to Peter. “You can’t believe any of this.”
Hurt showed in every line of Peter’s face, deep, profound pain that cut to his soul. All that he had tried not to see, he could no longer ignore. He had loved his mate. He mourned the woman he had bound himself to so long ago. “No more lies,” he said hoarsely.
“Peter—”
“No.” His chuckle had no humor in it. “Do you even know how to tell the truth anymore? Did you ever know how? I loved the woman you were when I met you. You made me feel like I deserved to be loved, even after the ocean of blood I spilled to clean up the city.”
“Oh, shut up, Peter.”
Peter shook his head. “Not anymore. When you turned on me, I thought I’d earned it. It must have been my fault, I decided. All this time, I’ve tried to justify what you’ve done. How you treated me. That was why I never married you. Because every time you cut me down, I realized you didn’t want my past in your future.”
Color drained out of her face as the words sank in. Kayla remembered Regina’s caustic bitterness on the night of the ritual. It had never occurred to her that she’d done it to herself with her lack of basic emotional care for the man she’d convinced to love her.
The realization turned to contempt in an instant. “You’ve always been a fool.”
“Maybe I have been. Not anymore.” He turned to Kayla. “I’ve allowed this to happen. Whatever the reason, this is my responsibility as alpha. I can’t take back anything that happened. But I’ll do what I can to repay what you’ve lost. Just name it.”
“Give her to me for justice.”
It was a challenge. A demand. And he obviously knew what it meant; he closed his eyes against it. Kayla had asked for a fight to the death.
“Does the pack have any objections?” he asked after a moment, opening his eyes and looking around the gathered pack.
Regina’s eyes had gone cold. “You fucking cowar
d,” she growled. “You can’t even deal with me yourself. How did you ever take this city? Spineless bastard.”
No one voiced an objection. Peter looked torn, unsure if he wished they had or not. “You know the rules. You fight in a circle of your peers. We will let only one of you leave.”
“These are not my peers. These are dogs in a pound, just waiting for the biters to put them down. You’re just delaying the inevitable,” she shouted at Peter’s back as he turned to take his place in the circle. “You stopped too soon, and you’re standing on the wrong side of history. We could have owned this city!”
Noah said nothing. Instead, he cupped Kayla’s face in his hands. Blue eyes met hers, searched them, before he leaned down to give her a long, warm kiss. She saw no doubt in him, despite the tension in his muscles. To him, only one outcome was possible.
Then he walked away to stand beside Peter. Cameron and his enforcers stood outside the circle, the final line in the sand. Cameron patted her shoulder as she stepped into the ring.
Wolves smell fear. They also smell arousal, sadness, excitement. The scent of anticipation hung thickly in her nose, thick enough to taste. She couldn’t remember the last time a call for justice had ended in a death, and it seemed no one else could, either. Tomorrow, they would feel the loss of the pack’s relative innocence. Tonight, it was catharsis, an end to the misery of the previous year.
The circle closed the moment Kayla stepped into it. Regina wasted no time, taking her half-form before the last spectator had taken their position. Still human, Kayla rolled to the side and dodged the massive brown-furred form that flew toward her. Her opponent landed hard on the ground but found her feet without hesitation.
For hours, the wolf had paced, demanded its freedom. She let it loose at last and felt her bones shift, her body bulk, her skin stretch as fur covered it. Power coursed through her, wild, untamed energy gifted by the full moon that shone overhead. In this ring, she didn’t have to fear herself or her killer’s instincts. The shadows roiled within her, and she rejoiced in them. Take me. Give me strength. Win me peace or earn me death, but let it end tonight.
They circled, growling deep in their throats as they sought a weakness in the other. Regina left herself open. A feint proved her speed. It was a deception, a ploy to lure her opponent in. She played her strengths.
But Kayla was the monster Regina had helped make. And she couldn’t wait any longer.
She bunched her muscles then uncoiled like a spring. Their bodies collided in a tangle of limbs. Teeth bit into her arm, but she didn’t care. Her own jaw closed around Regina’s shoulder. As her teeth bit in, she thrashed her head with vicious shakes. Flesh tore free. A yelp split the air.
Blooded, Regina flailed her limbs until Kayla flew free. She didn’t pause but launched back into the fray. Momentum rolled them over once, again while their claws raked blindly over each other’s skin.
She expected pain, the burn of cut muscle. It fed her rage, each wound more fuel for the uncontrolled blaze within. But she didn’t expect the unnatural numbness that touched the edges of each claw slice. Her mouth tasted sour, stale. Dead.
Regina had drunk blood from a vampire.
It was the vampire’s defense against the werewolf. Pain riled the beast inside, so the undead left a lack of sensation instead. Kayla’s dark nature conferred some immunity to it, but another wolf couldn’t say the same. Another plot, another betrayal. Anger exploded inside her.
All the world disappeared but for the enemy. Gore dripped down Regina’s arm from her torn shoulder. She didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she launched herself at Kayla, aiming low, and hit her in the midsection. In her distraction, the white wolf saw the leap but too late.
She had no traction. A turtle out of its shell, she had gotten trapped on her back. Claws raked down her sides, first with a white-hot burst of pain. Then the numbness, cold and flat. Teeth tore at her thigh. She kicked Regina in the head, hard, again and again, until she disengaged.
One arm tingled. Her sides itched with dribbles of crimson. And the blood in her mouth did not taste like victory, but ashes.
Her opponent leaped. Kayla saw it this time and drew her knees up at the last moment. Her hands closed around Regina’s upper arms. Kayla held fast as she raked her clawed feet down Regina’s midsection in a brutal rabbit kick. Flesh ripped away with each successive tear. Like a rag doll, Regina flew as the white wolf shoved her away, and she landed in a heap of limbs.
Regina tried to stand. She struggled to regain her feet, but her ruined torso had taken too much damage. On one knee, she tried to fend the shadow wolf off, but her injured arm had grown too weak. Kayla beat her down, pummeled her with merciless blows until the brown pelt had turned red. Then the fur receded and Regina lay broken, barely breathing, on the ground.
Kayla threw her head back and howled, the signal that alerted the pack to a kill. With the moon so high and the roar of her own pulse in her ears, it took all her strength to rein in the beast. She wanted death, the crunch of a neck in her jaws, but she pulled her back, held her down. She had questions that needed answers.
A wet wheeze came with each breath Regina took. Blood trickled out of her mouth and nose. Her eyes rolled right, then left, but seemed to see nothing around her. Kayla knelt next to her, and she could see the violent purple glow of her eyes reflected in that empty gaze. “Where is Kiplinger?”
Heinous laughter turned into soggy coughs. “Far away. Safe— Safe from you.”
Wrath gripped her. Her jaw ached as she clenched it too hard. “Where is he?”
“Ungrateful. We gave you...” Pink foam flecked the corner of her mouth as she coughed again. “...power. More than you know.”
“I didn’t want it.” Kayla shook with unreleased tension. The moon did not stop its climb to watch its children fight and die. Soon, she would lose what control she had.
Regina’s eyes rolled again. “So close. The pack... Almost mine. In my hand. The city. In my hand. My time. Our time. Should have...known your place.”
“Where is he? Damn you, where is Kiplinger?” Unable to hold back, Kayla gripped the woman by the arms and shook. She battered against the ground, unable to fight back.
“Back...” She gasped. “...where it all started.”
Regina’s muscles seized, and her back bowed. A moan, blank but terrible, escaped her lips, then she dropped back to the ground. Tremors shook her body, but somehow, she lifted her arm to reach toward Peter.
Then she went slack. The soft whistling from her lungs quieted. She was dead.
For the span of a heartbeat, no one moved. Noah shifted, half-wolf, and lifted his head to give a long, mournful howl. The pack followed suit, until melancholy notes haunted the night and echoed from the mountainsides. Betrayer or traitor, the pack had once numbered Regina among them, and they would give their fallen comrade one final lament.
Noah took his human form again when the last howl died away. The time had come. He wished he could give Peter longer to grieve, to pull himself together, but the moon’s relentless climb gave him no choice.
Regret smothered the triumph he had thought he would feel. He had imagined wresting control from a strong, determined alpha, not a broken man who stood before his disgraced mate’s body.
Noah cast a glance at Kayla. He glanced at Peter, then back at her. To Noah’s mind, she had as much right to the alpha position as he did, maybe more. But she shook her head once, then offered him the smallest of smiles. He took a deep breath.
“Peter,” he said as Kayla came to stand next to him.
Peter looked up, expression somewhere beyond sorrow. “I know,” was all he said.
No, this wasn’t how Noah had envisioned it. “Then I challenge you for leadership of the pack.”
The wolves had not dissipated from the previous fight. With a sigh, Peter stepped into the circle next to the imploring hand of his dead lover. “I accept your challenge. Enforcer, it is your duty to declare the new alpha, by the tradi
tions of our kind.”
“I will do so.” Cameron looked grim.
Noah stroked Kayla’s hair once, for luck, for strength. Then he stepped into the circle. At another time, he would have pressed the attack right away, but tonight, it seemed disrespectful.
And Peter had no fight left in him. Instead, he went to one knee and bared his throat to Noah.
“The alpha yields,” came Cameron’s voice. “Noah is our leader.”
No cheers, no howls, no barks of anger or celebration. Only a solemn silence, and the breath of wind through the leaves of the trees.
“War has come,” Noah said when he couldn’t bear the weight of it any longer, “but not from the vampires we know. This is a new enemy. A new fight. Everything that we’ve known will change. It has to.
More than ever, we have to come together. Stand with each other. In the coming weeks, we’ll meet again, when the full moon isn’t over our heads and in our spirits. We’ll try to understand what has happened and decide what we need to do. But tonight, we hunt the mountain together, as a pack, and we remember who we should be.”
Someone called out, “We’re with you, alpha,” and Noah smiled.
“Cameron. Bring Todd to me.”
The big enforcer grabbed Todd’s arm in an iron grip. Dani grabbed the other arm, and together, they hauled him forward, trapped so he couldn’t run.
Noah didn’t think he would. Like Peter, Todd had no resistance left. He shuffled forward between the men that held him, and Noah saw in his eyes that he expected to die.
Noah clenched his fist, relaxed it, clenched it again. I should kill him. Had another member of the pack done what Todd had done, Noah would never have hesitated. A good leader, a strong alpha, would remove the traitor to the pack. Yet as he stared at the man he’d once considered a brother, Noah discovered the true weight of the crown.
Perhaps a strong alpha would kill a traitor, but could a friend do the same?
He wanted to demand answers. Yet when he opened his mouth, he found a single word on his lips. “Why?”
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