Page 14 of Pack Ruin
She scowled, then sighed. “Damnit, I didn’t want to like you. Every shifter within a hundred miles knows you’ve let more than one male claim you, which has not happened in”—she stood, sliding a book out of the stack and opening it to a page marked with a silk ribbon—“one hundred and forty-three years, to be precise. And those shifters were identical twins, which kept the packs from executing them. Some excuse about twin souls. Though they did cast them out.”
My throat tightened. “Is this pack planning to cast me out? Cast us out?”
“Over my dead body, and as many of theirs as I would take out if they tried,” she muttered. “No, whatever happened to my grandson’s eyes has set the rumor mill going, but kept anyone from thinking there’s a sinister connection.”
I frowned. “Because they’re the color of the moon?”
Her stern expression softened as she pulled up a chair next to mine. “Not only that. This pack knows him and his family. We’ve followed the old ways for a very long time, or tried to. They trust us to explain how all of this—your bonds, his eyes—is the moon’s will.”
I wasn’t sure it was, but she snapped her fingers, instructing me to read over her shoulder as she found a page in the Legends tome, and I obeyed. “The Legend of the Moonblessed Alphas.” I read aloud, and she listened with her eyes half closed.
“Once upon a wolf moon, in the coldest winter the world has known, a pup was found outside the borders of a pack, alone and freezing. The Alpha Mate brought him into the pack, and nursed him alongside her own pup. The pups were inseparable.
When the two brothers grew old enough to shift, they went into the wilderness with the Alpha, who taught them to take fur and run with joy beneath the moon. Smaller than his brother, the adopted pup fell behind as they ran for the first time in wolf form.
That is what saved him.
Far ahead, the Alpha and his child were set upon by traitors to the pack, and though he fought with all his strength, the Alpha was murdered. The traitors also left the Alpha’s pup for dead.
No one but the moon saw the wolf that found his dying brother. No one but the moon witnessed his pain.
And when the adopted brother prayed to the moon for help, no one knew how that help arrived.
But when the two brothers returned to the pack, one was a wolf with midnight fur, the other a bright white, with moonblessed eyes, and both shared a bond as Alpha.
They ruled until the mountains crumbled, and the seas rose and washed away the forest, and the moon cast its shadow over the sun.”
I stopped reading. “It’s a fairy tale.”
“Yes. This one is the only reference to moonblessed eyes I’ve found in two days of searching.”
“Is it enough to keep the pack from wanting to burn me at the stake? I already got that reaction from Northern.” I tried not to let how much that had hurt show on my face, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded. Verona’s eyes flashed dark, and her lips tightened.
“I would imagine you did. That pack is all muscle and no memory of what we were given in the first place. And what is required of us in return.”
“What is required, Verona?” I asked bluntly. “I don’t know much about who we are. Shifters, I mean. I don’t know enough, and I want to learn. I need to, for Brand.”
The woman’s face remained every bit as stern, but her gaze was filled with something like acceptance. “I’ll teach you.” Then she actually smiled. “But perhaps you could put on some clothing first.”
8
What is Magic?
BRAND
Iwent from the cell straight to my father’s office, not checking on Flor. I didn’t have to anymore. More than just my eyes had been altered. I hadn’t told her, though I knew I would need to, but the nature of our mate bond had changed entirely.
Instead of having a vague sense of her emotions, I now had a direct line to her thoughts. I could hear her speaking, though perhaps I only heard her thinking of what she might say. I knew she was with my grandmother in the library, which pleased me. After my mother’s death, Grandmother had closed herself up with her books and stopped interacting with most of the pack.
I could feel that Flor truly liked her, and was… reading stories aloud to her? Yes. I could also sense that my little mate was feeling strong, fully healed. It was the perfect time to plead my case—and Glen’s—with Dad.
He was on the sat phone when I stepped into his office, really a sitting room with a large desk for the paperwork that came with being an Alpha of one of the largest packs in the world. While he spoke, I took a seat on the firm leather sofa and waited.
It was beyond rare for him to take calls. Dad hated technology, and only allowed a few vehicles on our land, as well as one satellite phone for the Alpha’s Den and one for the medical outpost. Most of our six thousand shifters lived in smaller sub-packs in the forests that stretched from Southern Wyoming, across Colorado, and down to Northern New Mexico. I had a feeling some of the ones closer to the border had scavenged some televisions and other tech, but for the most part, our pack lived like shifters had for centuries before: hunting, fishing, growing crops and herbs, making art, and running together under the moon.
Dad’s voice on the phone was a snarl. “Aidan, you can’t be serious. You’re calling for the execution of one of our sons. An Alpha Heir. With no hearing, no special meetings—” He went silent, but his face grew flushed. “Of course I know you’re the interim Head. Listen, Margarette and Bradley are on their way to you. I’m not making any decisions until you hear them out.” A long pause. “Yes, he’s in a silver-barred cell. I know the law better than you do.”
He slammed the phone down on the desk after he hung up and stood, pacing. I waited for him to speak, knowing there was no need to plead my case. We both knew what was at stake.
