Page 26 of The Alpha's Chosen Outcast

“What I’ve heard whispers about are the laws regarding exile that came about when the humans were told of our existence. Only a few wolves have had to be exiled due to these laws, but those few have families that want them to come home. A couple of them have been gone for five years or longer. Some people want to know if maybe that’s enough time for them to have learned their lesson.”

“No,” Austin says immediately. Exile means exile. Forever. There is no length of time that will make them learn their lesson. The pack leadership that made those laws did so for a reason. Some of our practices need to remain ours alone.”

“I agree,” Grayson says. “The people who broke those laws put us all in danger. Wasn’t there that one girl from our pack who wrote an article that made it to a local paper?”

“Yes,” Austin answers, “I remember that. She outlined her coming of age ceremony and claimed that she was only talking about her own experiences, not outing anyone else.”

I don’t know why, but I feel the need to defend her.

“She didn’t name anyone and she did detail the ceremony only through her own eyes. It was practically a journal entry.”

“Trey, come on, she still broke the law.” Austin insists.

“She was pretty young, though.” Luca enters the conversation. “Wasn’t she barely out of high school? Around your sister’s age.”

“Yes,” I think about it, “I think she was in Violet’s class at school.”

“How would you feel if this was about Violet?” Luca asks.

“Honestly?” I shake my head. “I have no idea.”

“You’d exile her just like that girl’s parents let her be exiled,” Samuel says.

“Maybe,” I answer him.

“You would,” Samuel continues, “because you’re part of the pack leadership, too, and order among us in the pack is incredibly important. You’d want to uphold all of our safety. That’s what those laws have always been about.”

“I suppose you’re right.” I sit down at the head of the conference table.

“I am right.” Samuel crosses his arms.

The rest of them continue the conversation, saying much of the same things as I lean back and think about it. I wanted to know how they’d feel about me changing the laws in our region when I become Alpha, which may be sooner than we all think. This response is disconcerting.

The truth is that after my short interactions with Heather these past couple of weeks, I don’t want to kill her. I know I’ll have to when this is all over.

I can’t let her leave and risk anyone knowing she was here. Violet will be on her honeymoon and she’s planned a long tour of Europe with Brody for the day after the wedding. She wouldn’t have to know until she returned.

I think about Raymond and Melissa Cauley, her parents, and what I’ll have to tell them after she’s dead. It all seems so nonsensical. Should she really have to die for writing one essay? Or because she had to come back here for her job? I don’t believe so.

We end the meeting, and I head back home. If I can’t change the law without a ton of pushback, maybe I can find something in the family archives that can work as a loophole.

If I can find some way to circumvent the law without having to change it, then I won’t have to kill this woman, and everyone will just have to deal with that.

The archives in our family library are full of dust. I can see that no one’s been back here for years—particularly the housekeepers and their vacuums. Then again, why would they if no one ever comes here?

The books are intact, albeit filthy, so no harm done. I’m not going to bring it up with them.

There are many books with runes on the cover, the coded lycanthrope language of our ancestors. Most of these books have translations added.

The translations were written on thin vellum folded pages and added on top of the runes. This is interesting, but it’s not what I’m looking for. The laws I want to know about are more recent.

Near the bottom of one of the bookcases, I find a row of books with identical blank spines. They’re leather bound and the dust isn’t as thick on them as the others.

I pull one out and open it, pleased to find my father’s cramped handwriting. This is what I wanted to locate—his journals.

Father wrote extensively during his prime as Alpha, and I know he has notes here about making the laws when those councils first formed.

I see that I’m in the wrong year and I look through the next one, then the next, and three more before I find the right time frame.

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