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“Violet, are there any packs near the Wargs compound?” I asked. “I know Colville National Forest is on the other side of the mountain from us, but maybe a neighboring pack came through the area?”
Violet shook her head. “There isn’t another pack within a hundred miles of us. The three wolves who attacked you were feral wanderers, likely banished from their own packs. But we’ll likely never know where they came from. For all we can tell, their original pack might as well be across the country.”
“Oh. Right…” I hadn’t been asking about those wolves. I was thinking of the russet wolf with the silvery eyes. I was tempted to ask if Violet had ever seen such a wolf hanging around the woods, but I felt like a crazy person the more I thought about it. No one had mentioned seeing or smelling a fifth wolf; it might not have happened at all.
Violet surprised me when she patted the pack of my hand. “Bryn, honey, how much do you know about your past?”
I was caught off guard by the question. I thought I’d already told Violet about my origins, but I didn’t mind telling her again.
“My mom, Glenda Hunter, found me in the woods. I was just a newborn and apparently abandoned by my birth parents. I still had the umbilical cord attached to me. None of the wolves in the Kings’ pack had been pregnant, and no one knew where I had come from. At first, Mom was certain that I was a wolf, but when she took me home, she quickly realized that I was human. Gregor wanted her to get rid of me, but she chose to raise me anyway. Mom always said to me that the magic of the world had brought us together,” I finished.
Violet smiled. “I think I’ll like Glenda very much.”
I gave a sad chuckle. Violet said that as if she was going to meet my mom sometime soon, but that was silly. Mom was a four-day trek away, and Troy stood between us. For now, I would have to settle for this. My heart ached for my mom, but I was so grateful for the speed at which the Wargs pack had become like my family. Twenty years with the Kings had only left me feeling like an outsider.
“Do you know much about the Wargs?” Violet asked next. “About the Alpha who ruled us two generations ago?”
I thought about it. I knew that before Night, there was a scrawny stand-in Alpha who squandered away what little was left in the wake of the Alpha before him and abandoned the pack in the prime of his youth. He was the son of the kind and benevolent Alpha, who had led the Wargs into prosperity.
I explained this to Violet, who nodded with a smile.
“I’m proud that you’ve kept up with our history. You’re right. Before Night, there was Peter, who was an idiot, and before him was Gregor, and before him was his father, Alpha Craig Stone.”
“Gregor? That Alpha has the same name as the Kings’…” I trailed off, realization slapping me in the face. “No, they’re the same Gregor, aren’t they? But I thought…”
Violet nodded. “Yes. Gregor Redwolf used to be Gregor Stone. He abandoned us to take over the Kings.”
I gasped. Suddenly, it all came into sharp focus. I’d thought that Night’s grudge against the Kings had seemed to run deeper than simple vengeance. If the Kings and Wargs had once shared the same Alpha, then Night would have every right to be upset at that betrayal, to want to pay Gregor back for what he’d left behind. And yet, unlike the selfish Gregor or his arrogant, hot-headed son, Night never resorted to cheap tactics to get what he wanted. He was open about his designs to take over the Kings, and he had the strength to do it.
Violet watched as I navigated through my thoughts. “It looks like you understand my son a bit better now, Bryn,” she said gently, “but the story I want to tell isn’t really about Gregor. It’s about his father, Craig.”
“Oh.” I turned my focus back to Violet. I didn’t know anything about that Alpha.
“You’ve heard that Craig was the loving and kind Alpha of the Wargs, but that wasn’t originally true. Craig ruled the Wargs with an iron fist. He was an angry, bitter Alpha with a chip on his shoulder and a lot to prove. His father before him had also been angry, jealous, and mistrustful of everyone, including his pack and his mates. Though he would take many lovers, he doubted that any of his children were truly his. Many said that it was because he was crazy or driven so by his own paranoia. But it doesn’t matter now. His children were abused by him and grew to loathe their father and themselves.
“Craig was the only one of his father’s sons who wanted to take the role of Alpha, but when he did take over, he was shaping up to rule just the way his father had. He treated his pack like he hated and resented them for his misfortunes. Many Wargs left, fed up with his treatment, but Craig didn’t care. The only person he trusted was his younger brother. When his brother was murdered, Craig snapped. With vengeance on his mind, he relentlessly pursued the man who had done it. But when Craig had stalked the man into a corner, and it was time to deal the final blow, the murderer’s daughter, Dawna, came out of hiding and protected her father with her body. She begged Craig to spare her father’s life in exchange for her own.”
I gasped, enthralled by the story. I felt like I could see it happening in my mind’s eye, all of it playing out in perfect clarity.
“Craig accepted the exchange, but for years afterward, he wouldn’t understand why. He didn’t abuse Dawna, even though he had treated his own pack like they would eventually abandon him. The woman, true to her word, stayed by his side even when he was emotionally closed off or said cruel things to her. Over time—over years—she coaxed him into trusting her bit by bit until finally he realized the error of his ways. He announced to his pack that he had turned a new leaf, that he would never mistrust them or hurt them again. He lived his life seeking repentance for being a poor Alpha, and under him, we flourished.”
“But how did she change him?” I asked. “She was the daughter of the man who killed his brother. How did he learn to trust her?”
“It wouldn’t have happened if she was an ordinary woman. To Craig, she was the world, the moon, and the sky. She was his soul mate.”
“Soul mate,” I repeated, tasting the word.
“Yes. Soul mates are chosen by the spirits, not by two wolves who have fallen in love. It’s the rarest, most precious kind of love there is, and it produces some of the strongest loves the world has ever known.”
Though I was enchanted by the story, it felt too much like a fairy tale. I looked at Violet with some suspicion. “Is that a true story?”
“It is! You can read our history books if you don’t believe me. Though, to be honest, I wrote the most recent ones.” She grinned.
“But if Gregor was born from the love between Craig and Dawna, why did he turn out so awful?”
“Ah.” Violet’s smile faded. “That I don’t know, Bryn. All I can say is that sometimes, people change on their own, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” She turned away, but not before I saw her wipe away a stray tear.
I placed my hand on Violet’s back and patted gently. She must have suffered greatly at the hands of the Kings. “Thank you so much for sharing that story with me. You told it beautifully.”
