And so she’d offered the best solution she could. A hollow compromise, one that hurt both factions equally, but a better path, in the end, than war. She had to keep telling herself that, anyway. It was the only thing that numbed the pain of dividing the pack, of saying a goodbye that felt horribly permanent to more than half of the wolves she’d intended to spend the rest of her life leading.
Laurent hadn’t been happy about the split either, though she couldn’t remember a time Laurent had ever been happy about anything, truth be told. But like her, he’d seen that it was the best way out of a terrible situation. With neither Alpha willing to back down, and with the pressing matter of pack safety on the demon-infested island they were attempting to make their new home, the wolves had come to a stiff, resentful agreement. They would part ways and divide the territory north of Ravil Island’s central lake evenly between them. There was more than enough space for both packs to coexist, ideally without ever seeing each other. And so they’d parted ways, almost a year ago. Laurent had been true to his word; none of her patrols had seen any trace of the other pack. Were it not for the occasional stiffly-worded missive left at the agreed-upon border between the packs’ respective territories, she might have wondered if Laurent and his wolves had left the island altogether.
She came out of these ruminations now, realizing that the weary back-and-forth argument within her pack was beginning to lapse into a resigned, heavy silence. They were coming to the same conclusion she’d reluctantly reached hours ago.
“What if he tries to use our position against us?”
That was Rovell, whose bandaged wounds clearly hadn’t distracted him from the political intricacies of the situation. His injuries, the most serious of the pack’s shared collection, had been sustained early in the fray, defending his mate and their newborn daughter against a scouting party of demons who’d come to investigate the pack’s weaknesses after the wildfires had swept through the area.
“What do you mean?” Rhietta always appreciated Rovell’s political insights. He was a few years older than she was and had been mentored by her father. He’d always been like an older brother to her, and his vociferous support for her leadership meant a great deal to her, as did his sharp political insights.
“We’re vulnerable,” he explained now, keeping his voice low to avoid disturbing the sleeping baby cradled gently in his bandaged arms. “Laurent will know that. I doubt he’s given up on reuniting the packs—we need to be prepared for him to attempt to leverage our situation to his own advantage.”
The other wolves in the circle were nodding, their faces drawn. Rhietta frowned. “You think he’d go so far as refusing us help unless I agree to step down as Alpha?”
“Maybe not in so many words,” Rovell said. “He’ll be subtle about it—an ultimatum like that isn’t exactly good for morale. But it’s worth considering whether you want to owe a debt like this to someone like Laurent.”
“I don’t,” Rhietta said with a sigh. “But if that’s the price I pay to keep you all safe…then there’s no question, really.” She saw Rovell’s eyes flick down to his sleeping daughter, nestled so trustingly in his arms, and his quiet nod was mirrored by the rest of the wolves in the circle.
“I’ll go as soon as it gets light,” Rhietta said into the heavy silence that followed. “I’ll talk to Laurent and make arrangements. If I’m fast enough, we may be able to get there before sunset.”
“Alpha, no,” Silea protested. “At least let me take the message in your place. The way he treated you last time you were face-to-face—”
But Rhietta shook her head. She knew exactly what Silea was talking about. She still burned at the memory of how Laurent had systematically humiliated her in front of her whole pack, and no part of her relished the prospect of seeing him again, let alone asking him for a favor. But her gut was telling her, loud and clear, that sending a messenger would be a mistake. “I appreciate the offer, Silea,” she said gently. “But this is something I have to do myself. Please understand.”
Silea opened her mouth, clearly wanting to protest, but after a moment’s hesitation, she closed it again, dropping her shoulders in wordless defeat. Rhietta looked around at the worried faces of her pack and let the warmth of her love for them well up within her, spreading across her face in a smile. That was a well that would never run dry. And her smile always had been infectious—it wasn’t long before the mood in the room had lightened considerably, and by the time sunrise came, she could tell her pack was feeling a little more hopeful about their future.
She was still dreading the journey that lay ahead of her, dreading the moment she’d be forced to meet the cold, calculating eyes of her old enemy. But there was nothing in the world she couldn’t face if it meant keeping her pack safe and well.
Chapter 2 - Laurent
Morale was low. His lieutenants had told him so. Not that they’d needed to—he might have kept his own feelings to himself, but it wasn’t as though he was incapable of reading the expressions on the faces of the wolves he passed on the pathways of the settlement. There was nothing to be done about it for the time being, however. Laurent had already given the matter considerable thought and concluded that the risks associated with any attempt at raising the pack’s spirits far outweighed any material benefit from doing so. They could handle low spirits for a while. A more difficult prospect would be handling the consequences of letting their defenses down against the demons that stalked this island.
Laurent’s eyes strayed from the notes on his desk to the darkness that lay beyond the windows of his office. This late at night, there was nothing to see out there, only the occasional dull glint of starlight in the cloudy sky above the trees. Still, Laurent gazed out into the darkness for a long time. It was a mark of how tired he was, he supposed, that his lieutenants’ quiet complaints about morale were still troubling him. Didn’t they think he was doing all he could? Didn’t they realize what a dire situation they were in? They were barely a year into Lowell’s grand plan to tame a new wilderness into being their home—could they really have grown so complacent so quickly?
The plan had been uncharacteristically reckless, and Laurent hadn’t forgotten the long hours he’d spent counseling the Alpha against it. But Lowell, who’d been sober and sensible man much of the time, had a sentimental, romantic streak in him that tended to rear its head at the most destructive possible moment. That was the part of Lowell that had resisted every last argument against the move. It was also the part of him that had insisted on naming his daughter as his successor in the event that anything had happened to him. Laurent’s jaw tightened even at the memory of that conversation, his body tensing up as though readying him to re-enter an argument against a ghost. An argument that had raged almost until dawn the night before the pack had left for the portal that would bring them to this strange new world. Laurent had argued, threatened, even begged Lowell to reconsider his position. The girl was barely out of adolescence—she was nowhere near ready for leadership, and likely wouldn’t be for years. The risk they were taking...
But Lowell had refused to hear him. He’d been training his daughter for leadership since she was old enough to walk, he insisted. By the time he was old enough to step down as Alpha, she’d be ready. No matter what Laurent had said, the old Alpha had refused point-blank to entertain the possibility that something other than old age might take him out of his position. And Laurent had felt like a doomed prophet a scarce handful of days later, when an unlucky blow from a demon’s talon had ended not only Lowell’s tenure as Alpha, but his life.
And Rhietta, fresh tears still rolling down her young cheeks, had stepped up to lead.
Laurent had never considered himself a man of any particular talent. He was strong, though many of his wolves were stronger; he was fast, though plenty of his packmates were faster. He wasn’t the pack’s fiercest fighter, though he could handle himself well enough. Even his lorekeeper training didn’t especially distinguish him—he’d been a thoroughly average student, deeply committed to his work, but unexceptional. He didn’t consider his intelligence above average, nor was he susceptible to great ideas or moments of inspiration. He was respected by his pack, but not especially well-liked—he spoke clearly, but he was hardly a gifted orator. He certainly didn’t possess any creative talents.
The singular gift he did possess, however—the quality that made him certain that he was the right wolf to lead this pack—was a quality it had taken him most of his life to realize was unique to him. It was his vision. He’d been well into his thirties before he’d learned, with a surprise that still lingered in him, that other wolves simply didn’t see things as clearly as he did. When they looked to the future, they saw a murky, impossible tangle of branching paths, quickly dissolving into absolute chaos. They didn’t see what Laurent saw. They didn’t see the map; they didn’t see the perfect harmony of cause and effect, the exquisite simplicity of it.
Other wolves, when faced with the future, struggled to decide what to do. Laurent did not share this burden. He didn’t need to decide—he knew. Maybe if he’d realized as a younger man that his clarity of vision wasn’t shared by those around him, he would have made different choices. Maybe it would have been Laurent who stepped up as Alpha, instead of leaving the pack for nearly a decade to train as a lorekeeper. But by the time he truly understood his own strengths, it was too late. Lowell, for all his faults, had entrenched himself as Alpha, his leadership not only respected but treasured by the pack.
Not that Laurent would ever have moved against him. He was no traitor, no schemer, no usurper…no matter what his former packmates might have to say on the matter. When Lowell had died, the pack had descended into a chaos of grief and confusion. Laurent, as ever, had seen the obvious solution, and said so. There had been nothing underhanded or sinister about what he’d done. He’d merely pointed out the absurdity of appointing a grieving girl, barely out of childhood and recently orphaned, to lead the pack through the most dangerous, precarious phase of its entire history.
He supposed, after much reflection, that delivering this impassive statement while the sobbing subject of his judgment stood beside him might have somewhat encouraged the pack’s impression of him as a cold, unfeeling monster. But what did that have to do with whether or not he was right? Still, he’d underestimated the power of sentimentality. He’d lost more than a third of his pack to that weeping child, and while his lieutenants never failed to remind him that the majority of the pack had chosen Laurent’s leadership over hers, that was little comfort. Before they’d left their home, he’d already been worried that their numbers were too small to safely establish a new settlement in a place so heavily infested with demons. He’d been convinced that sixty wolves weren't enough to accomplish the mission; now he was forced to take on the same task with less than forty.
All things considered, he’d worked a small miracle here. It had been a hard, austere year, but with tenacity and dogged commitment, they’d raised up a handful of roofs against the island’s wild weather and constantly encroaching demon population. His pack was sheltered, fed, clothed, and protected. Yes, the patrol schedule he insisted upon was grueling, as were the mandatory training sessions he held multiple times each week for every wolf in the pack. Yes, there were still strict rationing policies in place while they worked on establishing food security. And yes, the wear and tear on morale was regrettable. Nobody was having the time of their life here—this was hardly a holiday.
But this was what the pack had signed up for when they’d agreed, what felt like a lifetime ago, to Lowell’s heady promises of adventure in an exciting new world. Laurent refused to feel guilty about the reality of the situation. They could blame him all they liked for their hardships, but at the end of the day, the hardships were what would keep them alive. It was Laurent’s gift to see that so clearly. And it was his pack’s duty to trust in his vision and follow him—even if they couldn’t see it themselves. After all, wasn’t that what an Alpha was? That was what Lowell had failed to see; he’d let his fondness for being liked by his pack cloud his judgment. And he’d no doubt instilled the same fundamental weakness in his daughter.
Rhietta…Laurent felt his brow furrow, felt the usual stirring of unease that accompanied the thought of that strange young woman. He didn’t like the way she made him feel. No, that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t like that she was capable of making him feel. Even the thought of her, even the memory of her…her round, charming face framed by that tousled mane of curls, those shining eyes, the way the spotlight of her attention fell on you like the first touch of sunlight after a long, hungry winter…
Laurent shook his head sharply to dispel the feeling. Charisma, that was all it was. Her father had had it in spades, as had her mother, who’d died in the girl’s infancy. A superficially useful quality in a leader, at least when it came to keeping the followers happy and compliant, but no substitute for vision. No substitute for integrity, for clarity of thinking, for a willingness to make the hard choices for the greater good. He’d been right to oppose her claim to leadership, and he’d been right to abandon her and the fools who’d insisted on following her—even if it had cast a deep shadow over the year that had followed.