Page 14 of Ascendant King

The rest of the pack rose around me, flowing like a cloak at my back, each one ready to fight. I jerked my chin at Gabe, and he nodded once at me. My people were ready.

I opened the café door, squinting into the bright sunlight before stepping out. The wolves outside stood on the street, ranged around a couple of cars, their patches declaring them Ghost Pack.

No other cars dared drive past. No pedestrians risked walking the street right now.

“Well,” I drawled. “It looks like you guys are ready for the dance, and here I forgot my corsage.”

Chapter

Five

“Who the hell are you?” a wolf leaning against the hood of a sweet red Mustang asked. He didn’t smell like an alpha, which meant he was a Ghost Pack beta left in charge in Flores. “And what do you think you’re doing in Ghost Pack territory?”

“IthinkI’m here for the best lunch in town.” I sized them up. Twelve wolves, but none of them smelled like an alpha, not that Benji would have let an alpha into his pack in the first place. “And to see if anyone from the Castillo Pack survived.”

The wolf chuffed a laugh, his mouth dropping open for a moment before he worked his jaw back and forth. “Castillo Pack is long dead.”

“I hear not all of them.” I looked over the twelve again, recognizing more of them than I’d have liked to admit. How many of my mother’s pack had been absorbed by the pack that killed her children? “Some of them made the decision to live rather than die.”

“Cowards,” the man spat, venomous. “Who wants cowards in their pack?”

“Elena Castillo’s last remaining son.” I crossed my arms. “The alpha of the Los Santos Pack.”

“The Los Santos Pack?” The wolf blinked, his lip twisting. “And that’s you?”

“That’s me.” Confidence made my words firm. Iwasan alpha; I wasn’t a lone wolf anymore, and anyone who challenged me challenged my pack.

“Elena Castillo’s kid.” The Ghost Pack wolf shook his head. “All the way here? I saw her whole family dead myself.”

I didn’t react. Icouldn’treact, couldn’t allow myself to feel anything at the image of all my dead siblings, this man one of the people who stood above their bodies. But his words didn’t just have an effect on me. Around the circle of Ghost Pack, people shifted, murmuring softly, staring at me.

“All but one.” I managed the words through a clenched jaw, through the thick emotion that rose in my throat, desperately trying to claw its way out. I had to be an alpha, not just for the people who wanted to fight me but because I could feel my pack with me, needing me to be strong.

“And now the poor little boy wants his mommy’s throne?” The man scoffed, but his eyes traced over the people behind me.

I did the same for the Ghost Pack members he’d brought with him. The eleven other wolves were arranged by a hierarchy I didn’t understand. Some obviously strong ones were positioned toward the back, while a scrawny boy was next to the wolf in charge.

I squinted, recognizing one of the big men in the back. His shoulders were slumped, his black hair gone gray since I’d last seen him. How often had he sat at my mother’s table, talking with her until us kids interrupted? Then Emilio would swing two of us over his shoulders, laughing as he ran around the living room until we begged him to stop.

“Well, too bad for you there isn’t anything that remains of the Castillo Pack.” The wolf in charge stared at me. He didn’t even look over my shoulder to see who I focused on.

“That isn’t true. Ghost Pack might have taken my mother’s territory. They might have murdered defenseless children to keep it. But you can’t have my mother’s people.” The last words came from a pit in my stomach, a trauma that I wasn’t sure would ever heal.

It came from years of convincing myself that I didn’t need a pack, that it didn’t matter if my mother’s pack was wiped out. I looked around the wolves again, wearing their Ghost Pack allegiance on their shoulders or chest. I wasn’t speaking to the wolf still leaning against the Mustang when I said, “I’m here to take them back, if they want a home with me.”

For a long, drawn moment, the tension was so thick in the air that no one moved. The man in front twitched, his lips moving before he pursed them, holding steady and glaring over his shoulder. He caught eyes with Emilio and tilted his head toward me.

There was something sly, something cruel in the way his lips twisted. “Well, Cortez, you’re going to get your chance to finally prove yourself. Now it’s your turn to really join Ghost Pack and kill one of the Castillo kids.”

Emilio jerked, as though the Ghost Pack beta had actually hit him, as though his words had made contact, shocking him. He straightened from where he was leaning against the hood of the car, his movements jerky.

Emilio looked around, but none of the others would meet his eyes. The rest of Ghost Pack grew tense, and one of them murmured, “Harrison, you really want him to…”

“Yeah.” The man I had been talking to—Harrison—smirked. “What, you don’t want a chance to prove yourself now?”

He laughed, sharp. Emilio looked down, swallowing.

“Maybe you’ll finally have to stop licking our boots if you do this,” Harrison continued. Then he shook his head. “Or maybe, after eleven years, you want to be licking our boots. Why else would you stay?”