Page 33 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 32

Stealing Power

FINNICK

T he fading moonlight spurred my father into action. While Luke and Callaway fought, Niall, along with some of Eastern’s most vicious Enforcers, had surreptitiously flanked our small group, separating those of us who had been locked in the lower levels even farther from the circle of observers. I kept some of my attention on them, knowing they would make a move if they saw the opportunity.

My mind worked frantically, as I tried to predict what gambit Father would attempt next. It had to be something to do with our pack’s place in the shifter world. Some new grasping at power.

He’d brought shifters here from other packs in North America, but also from abroad. It was their presence that had tipped him off to my involvement in Tana’s disappearance. He’d had his driver take us to one of the hotels our pack used to house guests when the Mansion was full, and I’d been shocked at the foreign presence. There had been dozens of shifters milling in the lobby, and when one of them began speaking Italian, my heart had raced. I’d thought for a moment that perhaps Tana’s rescuers hadn’t gotten her safely away, and I’d sucked in a sharp breath.

My error had drawn Father’s attention at just the wrong moment, and when he’d asked about my most recent involvement with the Italian packs, I hadn’t found a conceivable lie or diversion in time.He’d used his Alpha command to force me to admit to helping her escape. But that was all I’d given him. He hadn’t been able to beat her whereabouts out of me, though he’d tried.

It helped that I truly didn’t know where she was.

All of the shifters from the hotel were here tonight, and a few more. I recognized two from a Hungarian pack who’d visited a decade before, and a few more who I thought might have been a part of a German business contingent in the city a few years after that. He’d brought them here for a reason, to attend this Council, but I still had no idea why.

To watch as he executed the Hilliers, perhaps, so he would have “impartial” witnesses to their deaths? That couldn’t be his reason, or not all of it. Foreign packs were only invited to witness Council meetings when the outcome would affect their packs as well. It had to be a far-reaching decision with international implications.

It was a risky move, though. The scent of silver was overwhelming, and some of the foreign packs had even stricter laws about its use than we did. The obviously displayed guns were the most shocking part of the whole evening, and I noted the appalled expressions worn by many of the smaller packs’ Alphas as they took in just how many of our Enforcers wore them on their hips.

The Long Hunt , my wolf murmured. I agreed. There was something coming. Something bigger than Father being named Alpha, or the Hilliers or Brand being punished, or accepting Luke as Southern Alpha.

Something that involved Mother. Where the hell was she?

I had a terrible feeling the spell that had been laid where we stood—though I had no idea how such a thing would have been accomplished—had something to do with what was taking place tonight. I’d felt the rasp of salt under my shoe as I stepped into the ring, and seen more circles of the stuff even farther out. The way our bonds had been stifled when we crossed into the final ring, and the way even the moon’s light was muted, it was all planned. It was an enormous trap. But for whom? And how would they spring it?

As if in answer, a cold breeze started up, and I scented something over the silver that had my heart racing. Blood. Not fresh, but days old… and I knew whose it was.

My mother.

I wanted to cry out, alert the others to what she’d done, what my father had done. But even though my connection to my father had grown less… central, after Grigor had given me his name, and Flor had marked me again, the decades of Alpha commands not to reveal our family’s secrets was still there, making it impossible to reveal the truth to anyone outside my bonds.

I didn’t have time to think through what the scent of Mother’s blood meant for anyone inside the circle. My father had stepped into the center of the ring, gesturing for Enforcers to haul off the remains of Callaway and Lily. “Get rid of them.”

Before anyone could touch Lily, Flor spat out a curse and flung herself toward her mama, steak knife in hand. Brand moved forward as well, murmuring to Flor as he lifted the dead, red-furred wolf gently, then carried her a few yards away to set her beside Margarette. Someone in the crowd offered up a shawl, and Flor lay it over Lily’s body, while Brand stood watch.

Two Enforcers picked up Calvin’s corpse, but my father didn’t wait for him to be carried away before he announced, “Luke Callaway, you are Alpha of the Southern pack.”

Luke blinked. “No, I’m not.” A wave of tension ran through the crowd, as the truth of his statement was felt. “Why am I not the Alpha?”

That was a very good question. I’d never witnessed Alpha power moving from one Alpha to another, but Brand had shared some of his own transition when we waited in the lower levels, and this was nothing like that. Luke was no more powerful now than he had been an hour before. The visiting Alphas in the crowd began to shift restlessly, moving away from my father.

He smiled. “The Council has to give you the power.” Another truth, sort of.

“That makes no sense,” Brand called out. “When an Alpha loses a challenge, the moon gives the winner the power of Alpha, not some committee.” He strode forward, towering over Aidan. “When I fought my father, the power was an avalanche, and instantly moved into me. Why isn’t the power of Southern moving into Luke right now?”

“I’m the Head of this Council. He’ll receive his Alpha power when I give it to him.”

The tension in the gathering became a deeper unease as the heresy of what he said was understood. One or two voices murmured loud enough to hear their dissent.

“Those are not the old ways, or the new.” Brand straightened, staring up at the hidden moon. “Our strength comes from the moon, and returns to Her when we die. Who are we to try to steal Her power? Aidan McDonnell, I challenge you.”

My father’s jaw dropped, but I knew better than to believe the shocked expression. His left fist was clenched in the way it did when he’d made a winning move on the chess board, or clinched a victory in a boardroom.

“You cannot challenge me, Brand Becker. You ask who I am to steal the moon’s power? Look at you, with your eyes shining with strange magic. You’re the one with power you have no right to.” His voice rose over the crowd, and they went quiet again. “Too much power. Six thousand shifters in your pack alone, and yet you’re not satisfied. You come here, unwilling to pledge to the Council, challenging me for the leadership of the entire North American pack. What could your end goal possibly be? To take over this continent? Or would you be content with that? Perhaps you have your eye on a greater prize: another continent, or even the world. Do you see yourself as another Alpha of Alphas, perhaps? I look at those eyes, filled with forbidden magic, and wonder where they came from.”

He held out a hand and pointed at Flor. “But I shouldn’t wonder. You’re bonded with a witch whore, aren’t you? You, and the Hillier boy, and Luke as well, and who knows how many more.” He gasped for effect. “Could the moon have judged Luke as unworthy to receive the Alpha power, because of this unholy connection? Or is it the Moon Goddess’s way of protecting the pack from your influence, from another despot who would rule over us all?”

None of what he said rang as false, but only because he phrased all his accusations as questions. It was a ploy he’d taught me when I was a child, and a way of leading the gullible that was too often successful.

It worked now. The mood of the crowd shifted quickly from awe and unease to anger. Brand’s eyes became, not a miracle, but a threat.

But my father was not done. “Brand Becker, you cannot challenge me. You’ve broken the deepest laws we hold sacred, and I will defend the pack law with my last breath if it means keeping you from tainting our packs with her filth.”

Flor only lifted her chin, standing beside Brand. “Well, this filthy whore knows how to read, and you’re the one breaking laws right now, asshole.”

“Silence!” Aidan commanded. Flor wrinkled her nose and sneezed twice.

Then she wiped her nose and took another step forward. Her hair was pushed back over one ear, revealing the metal ear tag she still wore. “I can’t believe you think that’d work on me. You really are a weak-ass Alpha.”

The crowd roared in disbelief, but an icy cold finger of dread worked its way down my spine. Many of the shifters here would see her ability to talk back to my father not as a sign of her strength, but as evidence of her witchcraft.

Someone would attack, and soon. But who?

My wolf snarled. Niall .

Where was he? I couldn’t find him in the group standing behind us, and I stepped closer to Flor. He wasn’t the most physically imposing shifter in our pack, so he could easily slip in and out of this crowd, but he was clever and twisted, taking more pleasure in torture that anyone I’d ever met, with the possible exception of Torran.

My blood went cold. Niall was evil, but Torran was worse. I hadn’t even thought about where he might be, not for days. He’d vanished from Southern after the fight, but where had he gone? I wasn’t fool enough to think Mother had let him slip her leash. He was more than her primary informant and torturer. He’d been her lover for years, although what he felt for her seemed closer to addiction than affection.

Flor kept going, ignoring the dark looks that were leveled at her from all around. “I’ve read the old law books, at the Mountain pack. All it says is an Alpha challenge has to be offered with witnesses, and take place under a full moon. A fight to the death, and the winner is the one who survives. That’s the old way.” The cloud that had been over the moon moved away, and Flor’s hair lit up like a flame. “The moon’s ancient, Aidan McFuckface. Your new ways are like that cloud, blocking out the light for a flash, then gone. The old ways will still be here when you’re a patch of bloody fur and a few bones.” She arched an eyebrow and nodded to the ground, as if to indicate that moment was about to happen. “How about you man up, or wolf up, and fight.”

“No!” “Becker’s power hungry!” “He’s trying for a coup!” The shouts were planted, voices I knew, but the crowd responded, surging forward, intent on keeping Brand from challenging again.

Brand roared at the noisy crowd in return, and whirled around, trying to keep himself and Flor safe in the center. I glanced at Father. Enforcers were holding Luke’s arms now, and a gun at his temple. The Hilliers… Shit.

That’s where Niall had gone. Bradley and Margarette had guns in their faces as well, both of them snarling but unable to fight. Silver ammunition at this range would mean death, with the moon’s power—their pack’s power—somehow cut off.

“You cowardly piece of shit,” Flor shouted, ignoring the Enforcers who were circling her and Brand, trying to find an angle to attack, though none of them were able to get past Brand’s long reach.

Father sneered at her. “The Alpha challenges are over. It’s time to begin the Council meeting, and the sentences for these traitors.”

“Too chickenshit to fight?” Flor called out again, her voice cracking.

Father laughed. “Who would I fight? You?”

“No,” Bradley Hillier shouted, his voice raw. “You’ll fight me, Aidan. You stole my position. I’m going to make you give it back.”