Page 34 of Wolf's Reckoning
Killian gave me a speculative look. “Look, you’ve told me a little bit about the life you had here, and I know you and her have some history, and…”
“And?” I asked, one eyebrow raised.
“She doesn’t know why you came,” he said carefully. “You didn’t tell her.”
“She didn’t ask.”
“Do you plan to discuss it with her?” Killian probed.
I shook my head. I stopped then, just outside the southern slope, where the trees grew thicker and the curve of the mountain rose in the distance. The scent of the pack drifted in the morning breeze.
“No point,” I told him honestly. “She’d never listen. She…” I looked around me. “She can handle herself.”
“You took us all the way here to tell me she could handle herself?” Killian looked at me in disbelief. “You serious?” He looked over his shoulder. “You’re not going to say anything about what we heard?”
I thought about it. “Nah.”
“Nah?” Killian was glaring at me.
“Age only made her fiercer,” I said. “I pity the guy she ends up with.”
Killian didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. “So we make our pack’s intent known and go home?”
“Yup. Alliances. This is a pack that’s close enough toStonefang territory to keep them amiable, let them know the new alpha has no ill intent, and then it’s homeward bound.”
Killian mulled it over. “Does the alpha really have no ill intent?”
I grinned. “Let’s see how we go; it depends on how he’s feeling. I’ve heard he can be a real prick.”
Killian laughed. “Praise be to that.” We resumed walking. “Their alpha looks frail,” he added solemnly. “Do you think he’s heard the rumors of the attacks?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. They’ve been kept quiet when they shouldn’t be. We can discuss it with Alpha Malric and his betas before we leave.”
“This pack is prime for attack,” Killian murmured. “I’ve seen no patrols since we’ve been here.”
I nodded. “Before, when I was here, they sent out regular scouting parties, but we didn’t come across any on our way here. I wonder if they still do.” We’d walked in a slow circle, coming back to the hall. “This territory used to be impossible to cross without meeting a patrol or a scout.”
Another thing to check before we leave, I told Killian.With a dying alpha, she can manipulate whatever pack leader she sees fit,but an alpha or a rogue comes through here? This pack is prime for the taking.
It’s not too far from Stonefang…you could take it.
What the fuck do I need with two packs?I asked him in surprise.
Think about it, you could build an empire.EmperorWolfe.
You’re an idiot,I scolded him, fighting the grin, my eyes looking over the packlands that I used to know well and seeing how open they were. The pack was spread out, for one. There may be a pack hall, but the pack was seldom alltogether. Bone and iron markers did nothing to the living and, if I were being honest, not much for the dead either. Those on the fringes could be attacked and killed before the rest of the pack knew.
There was something off in the air. Not wrong exactly. Just…watchful. Like the forest was holding its breath.
Or waiting for someone to bleed.
I’d grown up here. I came to the pack when I was eight or nine. My parents were killed when I was a babe. My uncle took me in but was killed in a pack war between two old enemies. They hadn’t cared what he’d left behind, and his house was reallocated before he was even on the burial pile.
I’d left and didn’t look back. An old wolf from the Hollow found me in a ditch, covered from head to toe in mud, trying to blend into the dirt in case he was a rogue. He took me back to Blueridge Hollow, brought me before Alpha Malric, and asked the alpha to give me a place in the pack. He left the next day, and I never saw him again.
But the Hollow had been kind to an orphan. As long as I worked and did odd jobs, I received schooling and had food in my belly. Malric let me stay in the hall, a room off the kitchen, and I was fairly content in the years I spent here.
I had grown up with Rowen and watched her scrape her knuckles raw on pack law while still keeping up the fight. Determined to change tradition, while she clung to those same values as if they were lifeblood.
