Page 23 of Wolf's Vow

“Reduce the patrol sizes,” he said quietly. “Three not five. Every patrol has two Stonefang, one Hollow, until they’re ready, and then we switch it.” He saw my look. “Wolfe…” he sighed. “They’re two pack names until I know every fucker’s name, and there are too many to learn in too short a time.”

“You will need to pick a name, you know,” Axel agreed. “Until they have one pack name, they will never beonepack.”

“Yeah, thanks, genius. Iknow,” I snapped. “I’m fighting one battle at a time, okay?”

Axel lifted his shoulder in a careless shrug. “So with one of the suspects out of the way, how many are left?”

“Five,” Brand growled, his face grim once more.

“All Hollow?” Axel asked.

“No,” I shook my head, my gaze resting on Cale as he talked through a fighting kick with one of the younger Hollow. “Why the fuck is he on my training field, Beta?”

Brand glanced and sighed. “Your dislike of my cousin is irrational.”

“Your cousin is a motherfucker.”

Axel choked back his laugh, and I didn’t care that Brand’s eyebrows were in his hairline.

“For Goddess’s sake,” Brand hissed in reprimand. “You’ve beaten his ass in the ring more times than anyone else. You purposefully chosenotto have him as a beta, even though he would be a good one. He’s never done anything to you, exceptsupportyou.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t care. I don’t like him.”

Brand shook his head but let it go and went back to the training ring.

Axel snickered through the mindlink.Is Cale on your list?

He’s the very top of it, I admitted.Brand doesn’t know.

Axel smoothed his hands over his head.Well, he won’t hear it from me. I’m going down to help with the training.

“I’m going to the druid,” I reminded him, and I got a raised hand in the air to tell me he had heard me. I would prefer to be down there, helping them learn, but Ezra had been right. I was trying to do too much since I got here, and the pack would learn more without me watching them and without them thinking I was judging them.

I’d told them too many times that if they didn’t like the way I led my pack, they could leave. While I still stood by that, I think my delivery could have been better, given that theywerevulnerable when I said it.

I didn’t feel too much guilt though, because someone down there was still responsible for the blood that stained the grass in the Hollow. Four deaths since I became alpha here. Five if you added that idiot, Kirk.

Stonefang hadn’t seenanydeaths since I took over as pack leader.

As I walked to the druid’s tent, I wondered if Killian was going to beat Rowen in the race he planned to run to Stonefang. I didn’t doubt that he would; she had always been fast, but she wouldn’t win this. Killian’s advantage was that he knew the paththey needed to take; he knew how to use his speed as a weapon, and that itself would stop her.

The real question was whether Rowen’s pride would be the real loser.

I wondered if it wasmypride that would cost me her heart.

I hovered outside the tent, suddenly unsure if I had the right mindset to barter for advice from the druid today, but the canvas parted for me before I could turn back.

I ducked to enter and wasn’t surprised to see the druid sitting with their hood over their head, and three bowls emitting smoke in front of them.

“No time for tea?” I asked as I settled on the cushion, no longer caring about the advantages of who looked down on whom.

“I thought you orchestrated that very well,” they said without acknowledging my jest. “It was clever,” they carried on. “Only on my walk back did I see the seeds that had been sown for that to come to fruition so…naturally.”

When it hadn’t been natural at all, I had schemed and plotted for this afternoon’s showdown in the hall.

“The truth always speaks the loudest.” It was an old saying of Lars, one I had learned the truth of myself over the years.

“You still doubt your mate?” The druid looked up at me.