Page 2 of A Gathering Storm
"Your time is over, MacRae." Graeme squares his shoulders, playing to his audience now, voice pitched to carry to every listening ear. "The clans won't bow to a leader who coddles outsiders and ignores threats to our territory."
There it is. The challenge I've been expecting for months, delivered by a boy too young to understand what he's invoking. The words hang in the air like a gauntlet thrown, formal andfinal. By the laws that govern us, I have to respond either with submission or with dominance.
Around the circle, wolves straighten with predatory interest. This is what they came to see, consciously or not. The old order tested, the established hierarchy challenged. Some lean forward hungrily, anticipating blood and change. Others step back, recognizing the danger of being too close when alphas clash.
Murmurs ripple through the gathering like wind through grass, carrying fragments of conversation that sting like barbs. They're all thinking it—about the smuggling operations I've allowed to continue because they keep human law enforcement busy chasing ghosts instead of investigating disappeared hikers. About the careful dance I maintain with mainland authorities, feeding them just enough truth to keep them from looking deeper. About the compromises that taste like defeat to wolves raised on stories of absolute dominance.
About whether strength means isolation or survival.
The scent of judgment fills the air, mixed with anticipation and fear. Even the storm seems to pause, lightning flashing silently in the distance as if nature itself waits to see how this confrontation resolves.
"You think me weak." Not a question. I let them hear the edge beneath calm, the barely leashed violence that lives in my bones and has since I first shifted at thirteen. Let them remember that diplomacy backed by deadly force is still force, just wielded with precision instead of rage. "You think diplomacy is cowardice. That secrets are better kept with blood than misdirection."
Graeme's nostrils flare as he scents the danger rolling off me in waves, but pride and youth make him stubborn. He's committed now, trapped by his own words and the expectations of his pack. To back down would mean losing face, possibly losing leadership. So he doubles down, stepping closer with the swagger of someone who's never faced a real predator.
"I think," Graeme steps closer, and fuck, the boy's got balls if not brains, his boots scraping against granite worn smooth by centuries of similar confrontations, "that you've forgotten what we are. Apex predators. Not politicians playing human games."
The insult lands like a physical blow, but I've heard variations of it before. Every generation of young wolves goes through this phase—mistaking subtlety for weakness, confusing strategy with cowardice. They want the simple days of their ancestors, when problems were solved with claws and territory was held through strength alone.
They don't understand that those days ended when humans developed satellite surveillance and thermal imaging, when forensic science made disposing of bodies an art form requiring expertise most wolves don't possess.
Another young wolf, this one wearing Eastmoor's colors—a leather jacket marked with the crude sword-and-wave symbol they've adopted in recent years—spits at my feet. The glob of saliva steams against sacred stone, mixed with the metallic taste of blood where his extending canines have cut his tongue. It's an insult that would've meant death in my grandfather's time, when disrespect to an alpha was answered immediately and finally.
"Unity?" He echoes Graeme's contempt, his voice cracking slightly with youth and adrenaline. "You've let smugglers run wild, let outsiders probe our borders. Where's the strength in that?"
The accusation hits deeper than intended. The smuggling operations do serve our purposes—keep federal attention focused on drug runners instead of the more disturbing patterns of missing hikers and unexplained animal attacks. But the boy's right about the border probes. The survey teams have gotten bolder, their equipment more sophisticated. Questions are being asked that we can't deflect much longer.
The storm that's been building overhead answers before I do.
Lightning cracks across the sky, close enough that everyone flinches instinctively, the thunder following almost immediately with a sound like the world splitting open. The electromagnetic pulse makes hair stand on end and sets teeth on edge. The wind picks up, howling through the standing stones with a voice that sounds almost alive, almost angry. And beneath it all, beneath the natural fury of weather, something else stirs.
The storm sense that defines true island blood—a gift preserved in only a few families, with the MacRae line the strongest of all. It's older than the wolf, older than human civilization on these shores. It speaks to the part of us that remembers when the boundary between natural and supernatural was thinner, when magic ran in the very stones beneath our feet.
Power builds in my chest, electric and wild, responding to both the external storm and the internal one. The air pressure drops suddenly, making ears pop and hearts race. Several of the younger wolves whimper involuntarily, their beasts recognizing something their human minds can't process.
I don't shift. I don't need to. This is older than wolf, older than claw and fang. This is the power that first claimed these islands when the world was young, and magic still ran wild in the veins of the earth. It's what made the first MacRae alpha, what bound these stones into a place of power instead of just wind-carved granite.
The stone circle trembles.
Not violently. Just enough to remind everyone standing here that this ground is sacred for reasons beyond tradition, that forces beyond understanding sleep restlessly beneath our feet. The sensation runs up through boot soles and into bones, a vibration felt more than heard. Ancient magic recognizing ancient blood, responding to need and authority in ways that predate written law.
The runes flare white-hot, casting shadows that dance and writhe like living things across the sacred ground. Each carved symbol blazes with inner fire—protection, binding, judgment, power—words in a language that predates human speech. And every shifter present—young, old, dominant, submissive—feels the beast within their mortal, human coil cower before something older and more terrible than any earthly predator.
Graeme staggers back a step, his face gone pale as his wolf tries to force submission his human pride won't accept. Around the circle, others drop to their knees without conscious thought, overwhelmed by power that bypasses rational mind and speaks directly to the animal brain.
"I invoke the Right of Judgment."
The words carry on wind that shouldn't exist, cutting through the howling gale with perfect clarity. They seem to echo from the stones themselves, multiplying and growing stronger until they fill the air with the weight of absolute law. Ancient authority settles over the gathering like invisible chains, binding every wolf present to traditions older than memory, older than the clans themselves.
The Right of Judgment. The nuclear option of our kind—absolute dominance claimed through blood right, sacred ground and the approval of forces that govern more than just wolves. It supersedes all other challenges, all other claims to leadership. It's meant for moments of existential crisis when the very survival of our kind hangs in the balance.
Using it for what amounts to a territorial dispute... my grandfather would've called it desperation. But then, my grandfather never faced government survey teams with ground-penetrating radar and infrared cameras. He never had to balance pack politics against federal interest in ‘unusual wildlife patterns.’
Graeme tries to hold my gaze, tries to maintain his challenge, but his wolf knows what his human pride won't acknowledge. The Right of Judgment carries power beyond political maneuvering, beyond personal ambition. It speaks to the fundamental structure of what we are—apex predators bound by laws written in blood and bone.
His knees hit the granite, the impact hard enough to split stone. The shock travels up his spine, and I see the exact moment his wolf completely overrides his human will. Head drops, exposing the vulnerable line of his neck in perfect submission.
One by one, they submit.
