Page 37 of Chasing Dawn

I looked down at these wolves who were meant to protect and care for their pack, and compared them to the family Vance had created up on Black Mountain. “They are all guilty.”

Benson stepped forward, and his Alpha pheromones punched out, dropping the men who were already on their knees to their bellies. Even my old Alpha struggled to stay upright, folding in half like origami.

“You’re all found guilty of the trafficking and abuse of your pack. As is our way, you may be imprisoned for the total of your life, or you can be executed here on your pack land so that your blood may nourish the soil in the hopes that something better will grow from your deaths.”

Unsurprisingly, the cowards that they were, they all chose death over incarceration.

Vente sighed heavily. “So be it. Alexander couldn’t make it today, for which you should all be very, very thankful,” he showed his teeth in what was probably meant to be a smile, but was chilling all the same. “However, I’ve been tasked with ensuring that every ounce of valuable intel is removed from those tiny little brains, and I promise, it won’t be quick or pleasant.”

Vance led me away, back toward Franklin and Talbot, to the women and men who’d been my family and my tormentors. I looked them over. In the three weeks I’d been gone, we’d lost four more of my previous pack. Only fifteen adults remained now that the guilty had chosen death.

They were in so much pain, and my Omega pheromones flooded out in response, calming the children and the crying females. Some of the men held their families close, and I looked them over. They hadn’t been strong betas and had been kicked around only a little less than I had. Most of the male betas left, but some stayed to keep their families safe from our Alpha and his cronies. Now they could be free, but none of them were strong enough to lead and keep what remained safe from encroaching packs.

Maybe we should just let them be subsumed into other packs and let the Truckee-Reno Pack die here tonight. If I could have guaranteed that whatever pack took my former pack mates in would be good, then maybe I would have suggested it and done a dance on the ashes of my former life. Unfortunately, not all packs were fair, and I couldn’t take that risk. Benson seemed good, and my Omega natured knew that he and Maxi would provide good leadership until it was time for someone else to step up.

I flinched as a gunshot reverberated around the clearing and closed my eyes again. Both the demons of my past were buried in the ground now. I could move on.

Vance wrapped his arms around me, kissing my shoulder. “It’s over. We can go home now.”

I nodded, because this might have been where I was born, but it had never been home. My home was with Vance, Franklin, and Talbot. It was high above sea level, buried deep beneath a mountain. It was in the sweet laughter of the cubs that terrorized the den.

It wasn’t here, with the sound of the Truckee River still audible from miles away. It wasn’t in the sad, familiar faces that were so like mine.

Home was lost inside the caramel eyes of the bears who loved me.

“I’d like to go home.”

CHAPTER 24

VANCE

Unfortunately, despite Dawn’s whispered request to go home, we were stuck in Reno for another two days. I wanted to say screw this place and drag her home, but she stubbornly wanted to stay to see her former pack settled.

I sat beside her as Franklin and Talbot helped Benson, Maxi, and a couple of the brawnier betas clean the place up. Surprisingly, Vente remained behind too, despite the rest of the team leaving yesterday with the remaining buyer who survived. He was scheduled for a personal meeting with Alexander, and I bet he wished he’d been executed right along with his buddy.

The bodies of my mate’s abusers had been burned in the woods and buried in the earth. Soon, the wildflowers would grow over that spot, and nothing would be left to mark the dead. It would be like they never existed, except for the scars that remained on every single member of the Truckee-Reno Pack—physical scars, and emotional ones too. While Dawn had tried to be the buffer between the Alpha’s rage and his remaining pack members, no one had escaped. Not the young, the old, the women, or the children.

I wanted to dig him up and shoot him in the head personally. No, I’d want to make it hurt. The pup we rescued lay across Dawn’s lap, his eyes blinking slowly. His mother hovered beside him with one hand on his ankle, her battered face proof that she’d fought to keep him safe.

They all eyed Benson with trepidation, but that was something the wolf Alpha would have to overcome himself.

We sat around in a circle as Dawn and I answered their questions, and it felt a little like group therapy. “Can we get rid of the Alpha house? Smash it to pieces with a bat or something?” The young wolf who snarled the query glared at the mobile home in question.

“As therapeutic as that would be, it’s probably best to sell it,” I told her gently. “The pack could use the money.”

She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. There was a lot of anger now that the fear was gone, and bitterness had replaced anguish. It was why Dawn didn’t want to leave immediately, not when she could soothe them.

“What if we don’t care about this pack? What if we want to leave?” the same girl asked, and I gave her a sympathetic expression.

“You have options. No one will ever take them from you again. You can stay and rebuild this pack into something you can be proud of, or you can return to Black Mountain with Dawn and me and live in the dens. Or you can branch out on your own. The pack and the convocation will provide you with a limited fund of cash to get yourself set up.”

Everyone murmured softly, but somehow, I knew that none of them would follow Dawn home. Even now, I could see the haunted looks they gave her. Whatever happened the last time she was here had physically scarred Dawn’s body but had mentally scarred them all.

“What if this new Alpha is the same as the last one?” someone asked, and my chest ached for these battered shifters.

Vente rumbled, “I guarantee on my immortal life that he is not, but to assuage your worry, I will stay in the area for some time to ensure that he doesn’t succumb to the lure of power.”

They all blinked, almost in unison, at Buenaventura. He was terrifying. I’d only seen his beast form once, and I’d had nightmares about it for a month. He was powerful and deadly, and it came off him in waves. Having him lurking at the edge of my den lands would give me gray hair, but the way the whole circle relaxed told me these wolves didn’t feel the same. They sensed the monster beneath his mortal facade, and they thought he was a better option than Alpha Derrick.