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These council meetings are a waste of my goddamned time.
But I come to them because that’s what I’m supposed to do. The alpha plays nice with the other packs. The alpha builds bridges and shakes hands and kisses rancid ass to ensure cooperation between them and us. Inter-pack cooperation and all that stupid bullshit.
That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I hate this drafty barn the North Pack has built out of recycled materials and spit, and I especially hate listening to fucking Ridge Harcourt droning on about trespassers on their land, or Archer from the East Pack talking about his sick father.
Their problems are real, and they have my sympathies—but their problems aren’t my problems. My pack is doing fine. We’re handling the witch threat, beefing up our own security, and not for the first time, I’m spending every boring second of this meeting wondering what the fuck I’m doing here.
The West Pack has never been stronger. My pack hasn’t lost a wolf yet, and those goddamned witches haven’t trampled the slightest blade of grass on our lands. These two are the ones who can’t protect their packs. I’d rather be back home taking care of my people than standing here watching Ridge’s expressionless face drone on about recently lit campfires near the boundary.
So I’m catatonic as if I’ve been drugged, holding up the wall as if it’s my mission in life and trying desperately not to fall asleep.
One of my advisors elbows me every time I nod off, and irritation burns in my chest every time he does, but he’s got a point. I need to play nice unless I want to make enemies of the other packs. I may be a cocky asshole—hell, I’d be the first to admit that’s exactly what I am—but I take the protection of my people seriously. And maintaining good relations is part of that, as boring as it may be.
But my boredom is quickly shoved away when the door bursts open, slamming into the wall so hard the whole rickety shack quivers.
Lawson appears in the doorway, all bulk and no brains with a shadowy figure dangling from his hand.
The edges of my lips curl up, and I fight the inherent urge to snarl at the North Pack alpha’s younger brother. Lawson is as cocky as I am, but he’s got no fucking class, the kind of giant tornado that can do damage to a city but can’t wipe his own ass.
Even my people know he’s been trying to steal the pack out from under Ridge since their father died. I’m not a big fan of Ridge with his serious, holier-than-thou attitude, but I really don’t like Lawson. He’s a sociopath in wolf’s skin, and that ticking time bomb is set to blow at the worst possible time.
The blond man storms into the barn and throws the second figure onto the floor. He crosses his arms over his broad chest before turning to address his brother with a smirk.
“Found your whore trying to sneak away,” Lawson says, his deep voice booming through the room like a gunshot. “Did it ever occur to you
when you brought her onto pack land that she might run away to her friends and tell them all our secrets? Since you’re here and I found her trying to run off into the woods a few minutes ago, I assume that means you left this witch alone in your damn house.”
The entire council reacts to that bomb, people surging to their feet as a ripple goes through the gathered crowd. Loud voices rise around me, every face turning to Ridge for answers.
But I exchange glances with Archer, the East Pack’s acting alpha. I may not like Lawson, but I doubt the ass-hat would walk into a council meeting and accuse his alpha—and his brother—of bringing an unsanctioned visitor onto pack lands if he didn’t have proof to back it up. Not to mention the inflammatory implication she’s a witch.
If all this is true, that means Ridge broke the treaty, and now Archer and myself have to clean up the mess.
Fuck, as if having to come to these meetings isn’t bullshit enough, now I have to do damage control?
The grumblings get louder, nearly all of it directed at Ridge, who’s staring stone-faced at his brother. Instead of joining the growing number of dissenters, I level my gaze on the girl.
She’s small and petite, probably a few years younger than I am—all wide eyes and delicate limbs with so much fear rolling off her, you’d think Lawson had jammed a knife against her throat. Not that he’s been anything but a raging asshole since he dragged her in here, but her level of fear makes it seem like she thinks she’s about to die.
The woman looks like she wants to curl into a ball small enough to disappear into the floor. My jaw clenches as Lawson grabs her once more and yanks her to her feet, yelling at his brother about breaking the treaty.
The woman doesn’t just let him manhandle her again though. She gets her feet underneath her and yanks away from Lawson’s iron grip with a low, breathy shout.
“Let go of me, asshole!”
My eyebrows twitch upward in surprise, and even Lawson looks a little shocked.
Huh. Little thing’s got a backbone under all that fear.
Her wide blue eyes are feral, her gaze darting around as if she’s cataloguing every person in the room while also seeking out the nearest exit. I watch her clock the door Lawson left wide open behind them, and how the crowd of council members isn’t blocking her route of escape. She searches the crowd on either side, and I can almost taste the way she’s weighing her odds of getting past us. Can she outrun us? Can she reach the forest and disappear?
Sorry, hot stuff. There’s not a chance in hell you can outrun and outsmart wolves.
I think she knows it too. But before she comes to any kind of decision on whether to try anyway, her gaze meets mine.
The weight of that gaze hits me like a falling boulder off a ravine.
