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She hung her head and nodded slowly. Brandon’s mouth moved without speaking. He wiped blood from his nose and then turned to the pack, as though he was looking for the answer to a mystery that he just could not solve.
“Go,” he said.
Naomi looked at him with wide eyes. When she didn’t move, Brandon turned back to her and flung his arm into the distance.
“Do not disobey me again Naomi. I trusted you with everything, and you betray me like this? You dare to show such disrespect?” he shook his head. “It is only because of your position that I do not slaughter you where you sit, and because I have learned wisdom from my father I will let Ewan go as well.” He then raised his voice and focused his attention on the crowd. “And as for anyone else who agrees with her or Ewan, you can leave as well. Leave this place and make a home for yourselves elsewhere, and if you ever return or you try to make a stand against us then I will not hesitate in ending your lives. This is your one and only chance Naomi, so I suggest that you take it.”
His words bit the air like a winter breeze, coated in hostility and devoid of affection. Naomi opened her mouth, looking for all the world as though she was going to try and argue with him, but in the end she thought better of it. It would have been a brave woman to try and stay in the same pack after she had cuckolded the Alpha.
“I mean it,” Brandon growled towards the pack, “if anyone here agrees with them, then leave. I don’t want you in my pack. I will not allow traitors to stand side by side with us when we are fighting for our lives.”
Slowly but surely a few wolves began to lumber forward. They had sullen looks on their faces and clearly had not expected their champion to lose. There were some heartbreaking exchanges on the faces of people who hadn’t realized their friends and lovers had turned to this way of thinking, had let this hatred fester in their hearts. They were drawn towards Naomi and helped her with Ewan, pulling his limp body up. He was still groggy, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, but he would live.
Brandon glared at them and waited as they stalked away, a motley group of traitors who had betrayed their pack, all because they couldn’t stand to have a former vampire in their midst. I was not responsible for their actions though. They had done this all by themselves, and now they were going to have to suffer the fate and shame of exile. We all watched until they disappeared from view, obscured by a thicket of trees. Then, Brandon turned towards us and spoke in a low, but serious voice. He was still clearly wounded, perhaps more by the betrayal of his mate than the fight itself, but either way both of these things ran deeply within his soul.
“I had not been aware that this pack was rotting with betrayal. I do not want this to happen again. I am the Alpha and you must trust that I have the best interests of this pack at heart. There is a battle coming and I will not stand side by side with people who are not committed to protecting each other. As a pack we must be united. This is the way forward, and the Alpha has spoken. If anyone disagrees with this then you can go and join the others,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of Naomi and her cabal, and as nobody dared move he gave a satisfied nod and retreated back to his chamber.
It was all over. He had won. Willow and I were safe.
But it was only one threat that was dealt with. Amara was still out there, lurking like death itself.
Chapter Twelve
Willow
It was all over and people were tense. As soon as Brandon left the conversation exploded. There were tears shed as people had seen their sons and daughters and loved ones leave. There were about a dozen in total who had decided that they couldn’t bear to live in a pack where a former vampire was allowed to stay. Naomi and Ewan must have poisoned their minds. I should have known that she had been behind the attack, but I had never believed she could be capable of such a thing.
I squeezed Cassius’ hand and offered him a reassuring smile. It was good to know that this was all over. My father gave me a squeeze on the shoulder as well. I was relieved that Brandon had won, but I couldn’t help but feel pity for him, and after all we had been through together I thought it was only fitting that I should go and speak to him.
I peeled away from the crowd and went to his home. The door was ajar. I nudged it with my fingers and it creaked open. I found him standing at the window, gazing out into nothingness.
“How did I not see this Willow?” he asked, knowing that it was me even before he turned to look at me. I closed the door behind me and walked further into the room. As I grew closer to him I could see that he had not treated his wounds. His fists were blistered and blood still poured from his nose. There was a great welt on his head as well. I looked around for a cloth and picked it up, handing it to him. He absently pressed it to his face, wiping away the smearing scarlet stain.
“She must have kept it well hidden. You can’t see it if you’re not looking,” I said, trying to reassure him. It didn’t work.
“I am the Alpha. It’s my job to notice these things.”
“Sometimes you can’t tell the truth when it’s all so close to you. She was doing this right under your nose. If anything, I should have suspected her.”
Brandon nodded slowly. “You two never did get along.”
“That’s not quite true. We were friends once, a long time ago,” I said softly. It was long enough now that it didn’t matter really. We were both different people since then. “But she accused me of trying to win you back. She thought that I was still in love with you. She must have been projecting her own behavior, fearing that if she was betraying your marriage then you could have as well.”
Brandon wore a grim smile and nodded. “I wonder how long this has been going on for.”
“Does it matter?”
He sighed. “I suppose not. But it would have been nice to know. I just can’t believe she has thrown her lot in with them.”
“Can’t you?” I challenged. He arched an eyebrow. “I mean, what she said wasn’t entirely untrue. You were like that before. I assume that you learned a lot from your father.”
His eyes flickered with shame and he hung his head. “At the time I thought it was the only way forward. I believed that any problem had to be met with force, and that the easiest thing was to kill anything that disagreed with me or stood in the way of what I thought was progress, even my own father.” He paused for a moment, choking on his breath. He pressed his hand to his forehead. I thought he was going to burst into tears, and if that happened I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it. I didn’t like the idea of him becoming emotional. He had always been as steadfast as a rock, never unbending, never broken, but here I saw a man who was alone, who had lost all the people closest to him. “There was a look in his eyes when it happened. At the time I thought it was fear, but now I know it to be pity. He never tried to reason with me. He didn’t treat me like a child. He took the challenge like a man, knowing that it was inevitable, and then at the end I know he looked upon me with disappointment. I’ve thought about that look for a long time since then. I see it every time I close my eyes. I thought leading this pack would be easy, I thought all I needed to do was be strong, but there’s much more to it than that. Dad tried to prepare me as much as he could, but there are some things you can’t teach anyone. There are some things that you have to just learn yourself. I wish that I hadn’t killed him Willow. I wish he was here to deal with this now because I’m sure he would have a better idea of what to do.”
I thought about what to say. I hadn’t expected to have this raw or emotional chat with him. I suppose in some ways we were still bonded together, although our mating bond had been severed. “Brandon, just because you did something you regret doesn’t mean that you’re not a good leader. You’ve learned from your mistakes and you’ve tried your best to emulate him as much as you can. You’ve protected this pack, and you’ve proven that you are the rightful Alpha. You don’t have to doubt your position.”
“I find that as I get older I am doubting everything,” he said with a tired smile.
“I think that is the nature of things. The more we learn about the world the more we realize how much there is that we don’t know. When we were younger we were so confident in our opinions because we thought we were learning everything. But then we get older and we realize how ignorant we truly are.”
