Oh.
People sometimes got in fistfights for dominance in Wolf City, but it wasn’t like a real dominance fight you heard about hundreds of years ago. Was I ready to get in some fight right now and kill this guy to prove to them I was an alpha? I just came here for help. I needed help.
“But I’m…” I couldn’t even say it now. It felt wrong. Was I an alpha? Astra and Arrow had begged for my help and I’d merely sent them food. Oh God. Guilt and shame burned its way across my skin until my entire face felt hot.
“The title of alpha needs to be earned,” Arrow murmured under his breath, as his brother fought his wolf’s change. “You’ve earned a bit of respect with the women just now, but the men won’t be so easy. Your charity food delivery, instead of coming to meet everyone, was a poor choice.”
Shit.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the man who I’d just knocked on his ass stood and glared at Arrow.
“Can she stay, Rab?” Arrow asked. “Prove herself? Enter the alpha trial?”
Alpha what now? Stay and prove myself? Fuck that, we were at war.
“No. I need your help,” I pleaded. “I can’t stay. The witches, fey, vampires, they are all together now. They are marching on Wolf City as we speak. I need warriors or thousands will die. Please.”
Rab, or whatever his name was, gave me a maniacal grin, the thick scar pressing his lip down in a lopsided sneer. He stepped closer to me, slowly. My wolf gave a low warning growl and he stopped.
“You need warriors?” he asked, and I couldn’t get a read on him. “You need our help or your people will die?”
I nodded. “As many as you can spare. And in exchange I’ll send more food, monthly even—”
“You need warriors … okay, then, we can send you some weapons.” His grin widened and the men cheered and clapped their hands.
I frowned. Confused. Weapons. Like spears and arrows? No thanks.
“I don’t need weapons, I need—”
He growled in my face and I froze. “We didn’t need food! We need our land healed. We need our pack’s power restored, our crops replenished. You put a Band-Aid on a bullet hole and now you expect us to help you?”
He laughed, tipping his head back, and the men in the darkness of the trees joined him.
Fuck.
He met my gaze and his eyes flashed golden yellow. “I’d rather turn into a human and starve to death than follow a cowardice alpha like you.”
He spun then, giving me his back, and walked away.
Each one of his words lashed into me, cutting deep into the bone, into the very core of who I was. I’d rejected Arrow’s plea for help to restore their people and their land, and then I’d come and asked for the same thing.
My body sagged with shame. Arrow had told me thousands would die and I needed to return home to help them, and I’d sent dried food and fucking firewood. This was a moment of reckoning, one that would haunt me for the rest of my life if I didn’t choose wisely.
“You’re right!” I yelled, and Rab froze.
An eerie calm washed over the space as a chilly wind rose into the air, whipping my hair around my face.
“When Arrow and Astra told me they needed my help, I panicked. I don’t know your ways, I only just learned who my real father was, and my life has been hard enough. I was selfish. I wanted to get married and live an easy life and not have to worry about other people’s problems.” My lower lip quivered with the truth and it felt dirty in my mouth. I wanted to spit it out.
Boos came from the trees, but they were soft, accepting and admonishing at the same time.
I lowered my head, thinking of Astra and Arrow’s heartfelt pleas.
Our people are dying.
The land is dying
Our magic is dying.
Come home.
I’d just … ignored him. My throat constricted with emotion and I cleared it, steadying myself. “I’ve come home,” I declared, the goosebumps on my arms standing up as the wind rushed past me faster. “I’ve come home to save our people and our land, if you will forgive me and give me a chance. Let me prove I’m worthy to hold the title of alpha.”
Rab spun as the people in the trees started to beat on the trunks with their fists, cheering as they screamed into the night like madmen and women. It was savage and beautiful, and my wolf tipped her head back and howled at the moon right along with them. This felt right, this was where I belonged, where I was needed, but as soon as I thought it, Sawyer’s pained wail sifted across my memory and I swallowed hard.
I needed to be alpha. I couldn’t let these people down, my people. I needed to do both. Be both a Paladin and a city wolf.
“Send the warriors I need by first light and I will stay. I will stay here as long as needed and do whatever is required of me to save this land and these people.” I gestured to the trees and the howls and cheers got louder in agreement. More of them must have come, because it sounded like a chorus of thousands all echoing into the treetops.
Rab watched me with two thin, blue slitted eyes, cold and calculating. “I’ll think about it,” he said.
His nonchalant reply angered me. I’d fucking apologized, laid myself bare. I was willing to do anything. Using my vampire speed, I zoomed across the clearing and got into his face. “Now it’s your pride and selfishness that’s showing!” I screamed in his face, and the voices cut off.
He huffed through his nose, trying to control his wolf, but his eyes went yellow anyway.
“Don’t make me draw a line in the sand,” I whispered.
I would, I would ask for volunteers, those with me to go to Wolf City, and I would go against him even though he was clearly in charge. He opened his mouth to speak when a small, delicate hand brushed his shoulder.
We both turned, blinking out of our rage-fest to see Astra looking up at Rab with an angelic smile. Her mousy brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and she wore a patient and understanding look that neither of us deserved.
“God wants this. She’s blessed. She will bring a thousand years of prosperity to our people. I’ve seen it.” She raised her wrist and held the scarred bite mark in his face.
‘Pack.’ My wolf echoed her gesture and I had to blink back tears at the risk she was taking for me. Making up some prophecy or whatever she was doing to get him to agree.
The trees shook, people whooped, drums even started to beat deeper off into the trees, and Rab gave a resigned nod to Astra. Reaching out, he brushed his thumb across her forehead in a delicate, loving gesture. “Our priestess has spoken!” he bellowed, spinning in a circle.
Priestess? I looked at Astra more closely. Was he talking about her? She was in her mid-teens, meek, shy, wearing no headdress or fancy regalia.
She simply gave me a small smile.
“Because I trust the mouthpiece of God, I will allow this city alpha to prove herself to us.” His voice projected into the trees, which shook like a troop of monkeys were rattling their branches.
“And the help? For … the city wolves?” I asked.
He sneered at me. “What does God say of that?” he asked Astra.
She looked at her feet, quiet.
‘Please. We need help or thousands will die,’ I begged her.
‘God does not condone war,’ she said to me.