Page 28 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 27

True Mates, True Monsters

FLOR

F or the first few hours after he left, Grigor’s happiness bubbled up inside my own chest, like a soda can that had been shaken up, and might explode at any moment. His joy at being mated to me was contagious, though his emotions tasted like rage, too. He was going off to kill the wicked witch, after all. I thought he might have found her, but when he caught me checking in on him, he sort of turned down the volume of the connection. Probably needed to focus.

I worried for him, but knew he was strong enough, now that we were mated. And he believed in me, as well as Brand and the others. He knew we could win our fight as well. Even with all the bad surrounding us, somehow it felt like good stood a chance.

I sat beside Mama on the bed as she rested, trying to ignore the funk that rose from the sheets. It was my father’s awful scent, but it seemed to soothe her.I kind of understood it now; I couldn’t get enough of my mates’ scents. I sniffed subtly at my arm, taking in a little of the cold, clean scent of Grigor.

Maybe I wasn’t all that subtle. “I did that for years after I mated Bradley,” Margarette murmured from the chair, exhausted but amused. Bradley had gone with Brand and Finn to guard the doors at the same time Grigor had left to hunt down Elina, so it was just the three of us left in the room. “I couldn’t get enough of his scent. I still can’t. I just hide it a little better.”

“Ah, sorry,” I said, but she shook her head.

“Never apologize. I’m the one who needs to do that, for so much. I got stuck in my way of thinking about rank and rules—you showed me that. I never thought I could be just as wrong about mates. I spent so much of my life learning about them, studying them to see if I could help strengthen our pack. But seeing you with Brand and Finnick, and even that Grigor…” She shivered a little. “You’re changing everything. You’re special.”

Was I? She might believe that, but I didn’t. “I don’t think so. I think the world just got bad enough that it had to change. If I hadn’t been here, the moon would’ve found some other way to force the shifters here to stop their bullshit.” I could tell she wasn’t convinced. “How many weapons are in this room right now, Margarette?”

“Your mother’s sword,” she said instantly. “And our wolves are weapons, of course.” I waited, and she looked around. “I suppose you could use the silverware on the table. You taught the women at Northern that. And at Southern, from what your mama told me.”

Del would have had a field day teaching Margarette. I grinned. “There are at least fifty things in this room I could use as a weapon.” I pointed to a crumpled peanut butter cracker wrapper. “Even that could be a way to disguise traces of scent.” I nodded to a few other things I could see—the chair legs that could be taken off and used as clubs, the sheets that could be used to strangle or bind limbs, or even made into a slingshot in a pinch. Glass bottles that could be broken and swung as clubs, beer cans that could be ripped and reshaped into knives or throwing stars. “But the most important weapons, you can’t see. Endurance for running. A mind that sees clearly, that can stand up to pain and pressure. Training.”

“I miss training.” She stood and stretched, her movements stiff.

“Me, too.” I slid off the bed, moving over to a cleared section of the floor. I sank into the first tae kwan do poomsae Del had taught me when I was young, and Margarette followed my lead. Both of us whispered our kihaps softly, so Mama wouldn’t wake up, and moved on through the familiar stances.

After a half hour, we were both warm. “Wish we could spar,” Margarette panted, taking a drink from a glass of water. I didn’t want to say what I was thinking: that she needed rest and food more than exercise. That we would be fighting for our lives soon, and she needed to conserve her energy. She knew all that.

“Let’s spar after we get out of here. Or fight as wolves, even. I shifted, you know.”

“I heard. I can’t wait to meet your wolf.” She smiled, then tilted her head. “Why did you ask me about weapons?”

“Because I need you to understand something. I’m not the reason things are changing. I’m not special. I’m just the weapon that came to hand, when the Moon Goddess finally got pissed enough to step in.” I held up the peanut butter wrapper. “Maybe She needed one that would be overlooked, counted out. One that no one would be afraid to let in their guard.”

“Flor, you have five true mates. I think that makes you pretty special.”

I shrugged. “You know, I never thought I’d take even one. Mama made me promise not to, for obvious reasons.”

Mama’s crackly voice came from the bed as she slowly sat up. “That’s because my own true mate was a monster.” She accepted the glass of water Margarette carried to her, and smiled at me. “You were the best part of him. The only thing he ever got right. Come here, baby.” I kneeled on the floor at her feet, waiting. “I need you to know a few things before moonrise. And I need to give you my blessing and pass on my legacy.” I had no idea what she meant, but she was as clear-eyed as I’d ever seen her.

“The sword?”

“No. I need to bless your matings. All of them.”

I didn’t get it. As far as I knew, matings weren’t formally blessed, they just happened. But Margarette sucked in a breath.

Mama put her frail fingers under my chin and lifted my head. I stared at her familiar scars, her red-rimmed eyes with dark circles like crescent moons beneath them. “Grigor tells me I’m the last Alpha Mother, and he may very well be right. But he won’t be after tonight.”

“It’s forbidden to speak of that,” Margarette began to protest, but she stopped when Mama lifted one eyebrow.

“The moon can’t be overruled. This is the old way, warrior. Listen and remember.” It sounded like Mama’s voice, but there was a thread of power woven into it.

Margarette went silent, her mouth still hanging open.

Mama stroked my cheek gently. “My own mother was dead by the time I met my mate, and sometimes I’ve felt that was a blessing in itself. But I am so glad to have known yours, all of them. I taught you that true mates were monsters. I was wrong, my baby girl. Yours are no such thing.”

Tears streamed down my face. “Grigor might be,” I half-joked.

“That’s true. But he’s the perfect type of monster for you. He’ll stay in the shadows, and guard you better than he could otherwise. Some of the moon’s children weren’t created to hunt in the daytime.” I didn’t know what that meant, but she had half-closed her eyes. “I learned these words when I was little, but no one has spoken them in so long…” She moved her thumb to my forehead and traced a crescent. “May the moon watch over your heart, daughter. May you and your mates honor Her above all, and follow Her laws from your first howl to your last hunt. May your matings be fruitful, and your pups strong, and when the evening of your life grows dark, may you run on spirit feet with your true mates, and return to Her in the sky as one.”She pressed a kiss to the place she’d touched with her thumb. She nodded at the sword. “Now, hand me that.”

To my surprise, Margarette handed it to her. “Alpha Mother,” she whispered.

Mama’s eyes narrowed. “So you know what that means.”

Margarette dropped her gaze. “We have a collection of books at home, all to do with true mates. Some of the books are old, with notes in the backs and the margins. I think I understand some of it. I never wondered what happened to the Alpha Mothers they wrote about. I was too worried about how few young were being born, how few mates were being found. I was trying to discover where they’d gone.”

“Many of your pack’s true mates were exterminated,” Mama said, the thread of steel stronger now. “Your pack, and others around the world, may never recover, not for generations.”

Margarette closed her eyes and fell silent again, her brow furrowed.

“The moon didn’t make Alphas to lead the packs,” Mama said. “Not alone. She balanced them, as she does all things. Light and darkness. Wolfcraft and witchcraft. Healer and destroyer. The Alpha Mothers in my pack were wise, strong women who balanced their counterparts. You remind me of them, Margarette.” I thought it was a compliment, until she continued. “You’re wise and strong, and blinded by prejudice. Easily led to your own destruction by the very ones who betrayed all the packs.”

“At the Conclave,” I whispered. “The last one at Southern, forty years back. The Betrayal.”

“Yes. My uncle told me more, on our journey here. The young girl at that Conclave, the one who was supposedly attacked by a Western shifter, wasn’t from Southern, but a smaller pack.”

Margarette spoke hesitantly. “The Southern Alpha was killed, and the one from… your pack… executed for the crime.” It was still hard for her to speak of Western, and I could tell that made her angry.

Good. More females needed to be angry at the males who’d talked them into giving up their power. More males should be afraid of what was coming for them, once the females rose up and demanded justice.

She coughed, and I told the part of the story I knew. “No, the other packs had already planned to strip Western of its rights before the Conclave began. Sergeant said that’s why they call it the Betrayal. Because the Western pack didn’t use magic at that Conclave to begin with. They’d vowed not to.”

She nodded. “The girl. The one from the small pack—she was the one who claimed she was attacked by Western, and when other shifters retaliated, Alpha Hollis was killed by magic. But not ours. My uncle believes it was by hers .”

“The girl,” I said, putting it together. “She was Finnick’s mother, wasn’t she?” Elina was old enough to have been there, though she must’ve been a teenager.

“He thinks it could be.” I wanted to ask more, but Mama started coughing, flecks of blood spraying into her hand. When I handed her another glass of water, she was obviously much weaker. “Help me put my sword on,” she whispered. “Quickly. The moon is rising.”

My wolf howled silently in grief and agreement, and I knew the final battle was almost here. Margarette wrapped Mama’s sword in a cloth and helped her tuck it into her shirt, along her spine.

Footsteps pounded toward us from both ends of the lower levels, and I felt my mates moving closer. Not just Brand and Finn, but Luke as well.

Mama rasped the last few words just as Brand shouted through our bond, and out loud just outside the door, for us to be ready. “My daughter, Florida Witch Wills, you are the Alpha Mother of the Occidens Pack. Serve the moon with every breath, and She will give you Her wisdom and Her strength.” There was no weird feeling, no magic or mystery. Except my own mama’s eyes on me, clear as day, shining with pride.

“I love you, Mama.”

“I love you, too, Flor.”