Page 2

Chapter One

I ven Palmer had a bad feeling about the pack meeting, which was why he made sure it was all hands on deck. The first meeting since the alpha was charged with capital murder would be a shitshow. No doubt about it.

Tension hung in the air. He heard the occasional growl, but no one spoke. The silence was the worst part because it meant the first person to talk would get the shitshow started and it would be loud.

He showed up in uniform and kept a hand on his gun as he patrolled the space. No one really paid attention to him. All eyes were on Cass, who stood on a platform with Riley tucked under his arm.

Part of the unrest had to do with wards around the platform, but Iven hadn’t wanted to take a chance on someone hurting his son, who was adamant about coming to the meeting, even though doing so created quite the stir.

By that point, everyone knew about Riley’s extraordinary abilities.

The gossip made its way around town and through the pack.

Riley was the deadliest one at the meeting. He could easily subdue everyone in the pack all at once if he really wanted to, and everyone knew it.

Iven sighed as he scanned the crowd. It helped that everyone was inside the clearing. Cass’s Gran stood on the platform next to him, as well as two wolf shifters from the fire department and Danny, who also wore his uniform. Danny was still training, but he did a great job of staying vigilant.

Forests surrounded the clearing, but there was a parking lot on the west side.

The wolves seemed to be more comfortable in the forest than anywhere.

Even Cass seemed at home on the edge of the pack lands.

They went on for miles. Being so far from town left Iven uneasy.

Backup would take a while should he need it.

Cass’s gaze met his before darting to someone in the crowd on the west side. He knew the people in his pack better than Iven did.

Iven made his way to the area Cass had indicated and scanned the crowd.

He saw the man right away. He held a woman by her arm.

She tried to pull away, but he must have tightened his hold because she didn’t succeed.

She wasn’t so scared that she just took his abuse.

Instead, she growled and shifted, which forced him to let go.

Iven wasn’t sure how she did it, but she managed not to get tangled in her clothing.

The man’s aggression went from ten to sixty in just a few seconds.

He shifted his hand and took a swipe. He missed, thank the gods.

Iven conjured a ward, which acted as a barrier between them and closed the distance.

The guy growled at Iven, which was enough to make an arrest. Hell, holding the woman against her will was enough to arrest him, especially since it happened right in front of him, and he probably would arrest the guy, but he wanted to find out what was going on first.

The woman shifted and got dressed, glaring at the man the entire time.

“What seems to be the problem here?”

She gestured to the guy. “This jackass voted for a murderer. He’s a fucking dumbass if he thinks I’m okay with that.”

“How was I supposed to know he’d start killing the pack?”

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head.

“What the fuck did you think he was going to do? What did you think all that talk about tradition meant? And pitting us against Timeston’s pack.

Their Alpha didn’t start that shit. Ours did.

All this shit that’s happened is our alpha’s fault.

Our fault. We need to take responsibility.

You need to take responsibility. Everyone who voted for him needs to do a hell of a lot of soul-searching and figure out what you possessed to vote for someone so power-hungry that they would murder innocent people.

That’s fucked up, Trevor. Really fucked up. ”

“Couldn’t have said that better,” Maggie, Cass’s Gran, said.

Several people agreed, but not everyone.

Those who didn’t growled and gathered behind the man.

Trevor didn’t have a lot of support, but those who did were mostly male.

An overwhelming number of Trevor’s backers wore camouflage.

Iven had to wonder if they had somehow formed their own separate pack within the Fortune Falls pack.

Tension rose. Iven wasn’t sure why until one of the camo males came forward. Instead of addressing the woman, he turned to where Cass stood. “The alpha might have committed a crime—“

“He committed multiple murders,” Cass corrected.

The man waved off the comment, but the gravity of what the alpha did hung in the air between the pack members as if it was a ghost haunting everyone.

“The alpha had it right. We needed to build the pack. More wolves make the pack safer. It’s traditional for the alpha to arrange matings.” Several of the males nodded or made some sort of noise in agreement.

“Packs stopped arranging marriages a hundred fucking years ago, John. If you were smarter and learned how to read, you’d know that since Marsha Lawsom wrote a book on it fifty years ago.

” Maggie scanned the crowd. Her gaze landed on an older man who held a cane in his hand.

“Didn’t you teach him anything about our history, John Senior? Shame on you if you didn’t.”

“He knows enough.”

“Apparently not.”

The older man waved his cane at her but otherwise said nothing.

Unfortunately, that didn’t shut down the argument. If anything, it made it worse. The arguing escalated to include multiple people slinging insults at each other.

Iven pulled his gun out and shot it in the air when the fighting started.

Even the birds stopped chirping. Everyone turned toward him.

“Keep it civil.” Iven wasn’t interested in pack politics and didn’t care what their issue was. All he cared about was making sure everyone stayed safe.

“We’re here to talk about what happened and find out how we want to move forward.” Cass held up a hand when someone else started talking. “You’ll get a say, but we’re going to do it in an organized fashion.”

“Who left you in charge?”

Cass raised his eyebrows. “Five seconds ago, you all were at each other’s throats. If you were in charge, it would be anarchy.”

“It used to be fighting was the way we solved things.”

And that’s all it took to get the fighting started again. Riley and Iven had to freeze people to keep the peace.

Iven knew it would be bad when Cass told him they needed a police presence. Pack meetings had never needed one before. But it was worse than bad when wolves started going at each other with teeth and claws.

How could one bad alpha cause such big problems even after he was in prison? It was as if his presence still lingered, putting his evil touch on everyone.