AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Elspeth was reluctant to go back to the coven building with the other witches to help Blair prepare to meet Mickael, but I assured her that it wouldn't be for long. I needed time to deal with Tala.
It's painfully obvious that she's more devious than I gave her credit for. She convinced ten of my wolves to betray me and join the other side, and they'll need to be punished, too. It gives me no pleasure to discipline them, but I can't shy away from the task, either. I can't let my pack see me coddling them.
But I don't want to toss them out of the pack, even though that's the appropriate response to insurgency, and most of the pack would support that move. But I just don't feel right about it.
Tala has been a part of my pack since she was a young girl. And although I don't trust her, she is still a member of my pack, and therefore I'm responsible for taking care of her—andallthe wolves in the city. Throwing them out of the pack would sentence them to a difficult life, one in which they're ostracized from everyone and everything they know.
Maybe it's my fault they betrayed me. Maybe if I had been a more heavy-handed alpha, they wouldn't have turned against me. But regardless, they need to be punished. They harmed their own, and that is an unforgiveable sin.
I walk into the part of the den where Tala and the other traitors are being held and sit down on my haunches a few feet away from them. I look her straight in the eye, even as she diverts hers. I talk to her like I would to a disobedient teenager.
"You have proven yourself to be untrustworthy and dangerous," I scold, hoping my tone will instill the guilt she ought to be feeling. "I 'm so disappointed in you, Tala. You are a valuable member of this pack, and yet you betrayed me and your fellow wolves at every turn."
She says nothing, and I can't tell if she's listening to me.
"I wouldn't be out of line to banish you," I say sternly. "No one would blame me. How can any of us trust you after you succumbed to your delusional visions of grandeur and joined the vampires, our foe for centuries?"
Tala still doesn't say a word. It's as if she already expects either execution or exile and doesn't have the patience to argue her case. So I continue, hoping to surprise her into compliance with my generous offer of mercy and a second chance. I know this tactic will be unpopular with some of my pack, but I have to follow my instincts. I can't simply turn my back on Tala and the others, even if they are now liabilities.
"I am going to offer you all a chance to stay in the pack and reform yourselves," I say, addressing the crowd of wolves behind her.
Instantly, her eyes look to mine, wide in shock.
"What?" she asks in disbelief. "You're going to let us stay? You're going to letmestay?"
"With some conditions, yes."
"What conditions?"
"You'll be heavily guarded by the other wolves, and won't be able to move freely around the city until you've all proven that you can be trusted. Do you agree to the conditions?"
"What happens if I don't?" Tala asks.
"Then you will be banished and prohibited from setting foot in Back Bay again. If you do, you risk death."
She looks as if she's thinking it over, but her decision is obvious.
"Fine," she says as if she is doingmea kindness instead of the other way around. "I'll stay."
As soon as I leave her room, Gregory and Renna stop me. I can tell by the looks of disapproval on their faces that they've been listening at the door.
"You're making ahugemistake not banishing the wolves who betrayed you," Gregory warns. "You can't simplyreforma traitor. They are bound to go against you again, and the next time you might survive it so easily."
"Trust me." I think back to when Mickael was torturing me. "It wasn't so easy to survive this time either."
"This isn't a joke, Lucian." Renna frowns.
"And I don't mean it as one. But I think everyone deserves a second chance."
"This isn't Tala'ssecondchance," she reminds me. She isn't wrong. Tala has crossed me more times than she hasn't.
I reassure them both that just because I haven't banished Tala and the others doesn't mean they're allowed to go back to their normal ways. They will be heavily watched.
Elspeth comes back to the den later and informs us that Blair will speak to Mickael the next morning. We eat dinner, and it's obvious to everyone that we're together now. She spends the night with me at my apartment and we make love again. We fall asleep wrapped in each other's arms, and everything feels like it's working out. That should be the first sign that things are about to go sideways.
When I wake up the next day, something feelsoff. I walk onto my balcony. When I inhale a deep breath, I smell it—death. I shift so that I can use my wolf tracking senses, and run down the building in the direction of the stank odor. Whatever has died, it hasn't been dead long. The smell is strong and gamey but not yet pungent. The first thing that comes to my mind is that Tala broke out of the den and led the other traitors on a hunt through the city. I will befuriousif I find out that the smell is the death of from innocents. But I couldn't have possibly braced myself for the source I find.
It isn't animals slaughtered by Tala and her gang. It's Tala and the traitors themselves. Their bodies are strewn across the streets. They've been mauled and dismembered like they were attacked by other werewolves, but they've also drained of blood, a punishment only the vampires inflict upon their victims. And their shoes, clothes, and jewelry—anything valuable—have been removed, something I've only ever known humans to do.
