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Flynn shook his head, a small relief. “Not in the way you mean. Mostly money, but also control over the pack.”
“Being the alpha wasn’t enough?” I scoffed. Somehow, it still surprised me when an alpha went rogue.
Flynn rubbed a hand over his face and grimaced. “He’d started an underground fight ring. I didn’t know about it at first. He did a good job keeping it a secret—until he couldn’t. Too many wolves went missing. Too many dead without a good explanation. I thought it was for the money when I first found out about it, and I confronted him. But it went so much deeper than that.”
“How so?” Holden’s voice turned sharp.
“He was building a separate team with no ties to the leadership already in place. Making promises of power, doling out money from the fights to keep his followers quiet and loyal.” Flynn’s face twisted in disgust. “But he was rigging the fights, making sure he took the winnings. I still don’t know what he was going for, lining his pockets the way he was. It could have been greed, but my gut tells me he wasn’t going to stop with money.”
“So, you have no idea what his real ambitions were?” I asked. “Why build another faction of followers? Was he recruiting for a larger scheme?”
Flynn’s shoulders tensed. “That’s what I suspect, but I have no real proof. It didn’t just stop with the fights, though. He took advantage of the pack’s more vulnerable members, especially women. He’d developed a reputation as a ladies’ man, never settling down with anyone. I saw that much, but I should have seen more. I don’t know how it went undetected for so long.”
“So, what happened today?” Holden crossed his arms over his chest. “What was the tipping point?”
Flynn glanced over his shoulder to where the medics were working on several shifters. I followed his gaze, my eyes catching on a woman with waist-length hair the color of night. She was watching us as a medic stitched her up, her eyes narrow.
“That’s Amelia,” Flynn said. “Someone close to her got caught up in Vincent’s games, and she’d had enough. She took it upon herself to challenge the alpha and protect the pack.”
I sucked in a breath. “She killed Vincent?”
She was petite but still fit and strong. I’d only known of one other woman with the grit and guts to go head-to-head with an alpha—and she was mated to Holden.
Holden looked at me, and I could see the wheels turning in his head.
“Go talk to her,” my alpha commanded.
I nodded, striding away immediately, leaving Holden to gather the rest of the details from Flynn. Amelia’s eyes tracked me as I made my way across the blood-splattered town center, her body stiff as I approached.
“Hey, I’m Garrett,” I said, offering a smile and extending my hand, wanting to put her at ease.
She narrowed her large, gray eyes. “I know who you are.”
I grinned. “My reputation precedes me, then.”
Amelia snorted, clearly unamused at my attempts to neutralize the situation, ignoring my outstretched hand. “You’d have to be living under a rock not to know the North American alpha and beta.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to take that, as her tone was guarded. “You aren’t in trouble, Amelia,” I said softly.
“Even though I killed my own alpha?” Her eyes glittered, almost as if she were daring me to tell her she was in the wrong.
I sighed, glancing at the medic, who was so focused on his work that it was clear he was hanging on our every word. “I’ll let you get cleaned up here, and then we can chat.”
A few moments later, the medic left us alone, and I sat beside Amelia. “Tell me what happened today.”
Her jaw clenched. “I saved my people from a corrupt alpha who only hadhisbest interest in mind.”
I sat calmly, waiting for more. Not pushing. She’d been through enough already.
Finally, she heaved a sigh and shook her head. “He went too far. He was pulling people into his secret circle, into his fight rings. I…” Her breath hitched. “I lost someone important to me and saw where things were headed. Even my best friend was sucked in by his promises. So, when a group of shifters started meeting secretly, discussing what could be done, I was all in. This fight today wasn’t random.”
Her glittering gray eyes met mine as if she were challenging me to tell her that what she had done was wrong.
“You did the right thing,” I told her quietly.
Surprise flickered across her face, but my words seemed to put her at ease. “I didn’t intend to be the one to kill him. But when we attacked, I saw an opportunity and took it.” She paused, her mask of strength faltering for half a second. “Does that mean I’m the alpha now?”
According to pack laws, yes. Whoever killed an alpha became the next alpha by right. But there wasn’t much of a precedent for a woman challenging her alpha—only Kayden. “Have you heard the story of the alpha’s mate?”
