Page 50 of Wishes in the Moonlight (Rocky Mountain Wolves #4)
~Troy~
Before I even fully woke the next morning, I felt Amanda, warm and quiet beside me, her breath a steady rhythm against my chest. We’d worn each other out the night before, just as I wanted, and if my life did end that day, I could go with no regrets about how I’d spent my final night.
I let my fingers trace the edge of the sheet near her hip, almost touching her but not quite as the revelations of the previous night repeated in my head.
My father, an Alpha.
Blood I never asked for, that seemed hotter than ever as it ran beneath my skin.
It changed nothing, and yet, nothing felt quite the same either.
Amanda stirred, stretching beside me like she already knew I was awake.
"You okay?" she asked, voice soft and heavy with sleep.
That was a loaded question, but I nodded anyway. "We’ve got work to do."
Although I still hated the idea of putting Amanda in front of the whole pack when someone had tried to kill her only two days earlier, I’d been unable to come up with an alternative that would give us the same results.
So, once we were dressed and invited the rest of our small task force into the room for one final debrief, Amanda sent out a pack-wide mind-link.
All-pack meeting at the assembly field in half an hour. Attendance is mandatory. An attack is planned against our pack for later today. Stay calm and report to the field for your orders.
“That ought to get everyone’s attention,” Jasper said grimly. He carried a bag filled with silver handcuffs, as many as the pack could spare, so he, Leo and Darius could detain anyone who failed Amanda’s loyalty test. We had no idea how many defectors to expect.
“We’ll go and keep an eye on things as people gather,” Savannah offered. “Alpha, you should wait until the last minute and take an unexpected route.”
She didn’t say why but we all understood the danger another would-be assassin posed. I’d already had the same thought. “I’ll bring her when it’s time. Everyone else can head out.”
We barely waited five minutes after the others left before we also left the pack house.
Rather than heading towards the assembly site, we went the opposite direction, holding hands as we took a roundabout route through the forest. Neither of us spoke, our attention focused on watching for danger, but it felt good to be outside with her and doing something as ordinary as going for a walk.
Maybe when all this was over, we’d be able to do it regularly.
By the time we arrived at the field, members of the Ravenstone pack stood in large clusters, murmuring amongst themselves.
Uncertainty hung thick in the air. At the centre, Kalo stood out.
Even though Leo had insisted he dress in borrowed clothes to try to blend in more, his white hair and golden eyes still gave him away.
Of all of us, he was the only one who didn’t look on edge.
Perhaps he’d been in so many life-or-death situations before, it no longer phased him.
Felix was already there too, arms crossed over his chest, scanning the crowd like he expected trouble and was almost looking forward to it.
His little mate stood beside him, attracting her fair share of attention too, especially among the younger wolves who seemed to realize they had something special in their midst.
On the opposite side of the crowd, Savannah stood in place with Jasper, the two of them whispering to each other as they surveyed the gathered crowd.
I would have liked to stay at my mate’s side, but I couldn’t, not when she needed me to form the fourth corner of the square. Instead, I pressed a fierce kiss to her temple.
“You’ve got this. You’re stronger than anyone I know.”
Clear and determined eyes met mine as I stepped back, and I bowed my head to my Alpha before striding away from her, eating up the distance as quickly as possible until I reached the back of the crowd.
Directly in a line with Kalo in the centre and the podium from which Amanda would speak, I took my assigned position.
When she stepped forward onto the platform, posture unyielding and head held high, my breath caught. She looked just as much like an angel as she had that day I first saw her, magnificent in her beauty. I could barely breathe just looking at her.
Her eyes met mine for a heart-stopping second before she began to address the pack.
“Thank you all for coming. As I mentioned, the pack is under threat and we have a plan to deal with it. However, there’s another threat we also have to deal with, which is the main reason I called you here today.
A threat from within, from those among us who would betray us and perhaps already have. ”
A ripple of shock moved through the group, furtive glances flying back and forth as everyone tried to guess who she might be talking about.
“You know who you are,” she continued, her voice growing even more resonant as Cinder pushed close to the surface, her wolf’s authority mingling with Amanda’s own Alpha power. In my chest, a humming started. “Now, you’re going to reveal yourselves to me.”
Ahead of me, Kalo stood centred in the middle of the group, facing Amanda.
Closing his eyes, he began to rotate in a slow circle, and when he turned in my direction, I almost staggered back.
The power that emanated from Amanda suddenly tripled in force, pressing down on me like gravity thickening in the air.
Rather than letting it go through me, though, I focused back on the crowd in front of me, doing my best to reflect it back onto them, hitting them from all sides.
And as that power flowed through me, for the first time, I felt it: Alpha blood, burning clean and true in my veins. Not because of the man who gave it to me, but because of the woman who stood at the head of the pack and made me hers .
My fingers tingled, my breath slowing to match the steady beat of power thrumming in the air. Felix straightened to my right, and to the left, Savannah leaned forward, pushing back against the invisible force.
Fuck, that’s strong, the Beta’s voice panted in my head. Felix nodded as if she’d spoken to him too.
The square held, its power contained within, and when Amanda spoke again, I didn’t just hear her words. They echoed in my very bones.
“All traitors step forward. Now .”
The silence that followed was so total it felt like sound itself had frozen.
And then… someone moved.
A woman near the front edge of the crowd, wearing the uniform of the border patrol. Someone from my team, I realized, my stomach sinking. Lily, one of the team leaders I’d fought beside as recently as a few days ago.
Her face twisted in pain, hands shaking like she was trying to fight the movement, she stumbled forward.
Behind her, more followed. A young man from the supply team. A nurse from the hospital, a close friend of the Beta’s wife. A couple more, and a few more after that. One by one, they moved to the front of the crowd and dropped to their knees in front of Amanda, chests heaving, sweat on their brows.
Ten people, all told, in addition to those already being held in the pack’s prison. Though any and all betrayal stung, it also wasn’t the full-scale revolt we’d been threatened with. I breathed a sigh of relief, and across the distance separating us, I thought Amanda did too.
Meanwhile, the crowd erupted in anger, accusations and disbelief hurled at the self-declared traitors kneeling at the front. From the side, Jasper, Leo and Darius stepped forward, cuffing the traitors.
As the last person was secured, Amanda’s expression softened and she turned back to the crowd. The swell of power over the clearing faded, the air becoming lighter, and I inhaled a deep breath of it, my body still buzzing with what it had just achieved.
“Thank you to the rest of you for your faithfulness and support. We’ve faced fear together in the past and we’ll do it again, but I want to offer you something else today too. I want to share hope. I want to share with you that, after all these years, I’ve claimed my fated mate.”
Another rush of whispers swelled through the crowd, these ones filled with curiosity and interest rather than suspicion and fear.
“He grew up in this pack and has spent the last ten years working to protect us all. Now, he will take on the role of Commander of the pack’s security, both internal and external. I’m delighted to introduce you all to…”
Her eyes met mine across the distance between us, and even with all that space, I felt the spark of our bond simmering along with the remnants of the power she’d shared with me.
But before she could speak my name, her eyes rolled back and she crumpled where she stood, collapsing onto the platform like a puppet with its strings severed.
“Amanda!” Her name came out in a roar as I broke formation and ran, dodging stunned pack members as the field exploded into noise and chaos.