Page 100 of Pack Rage
Brand leaned down and whispered in my ear, “We’ve asked everyone to stay in human form for the meeting, until the pyres are lit, and then shift to run.” He stepped behind me, his massive form casting me into a shadow that felt safe, somehow. He laid one hand on each of my shoulders, squeezed gently, then let go.
I relaxed slightly. I’d never run with Southern for a pack funeral, but I knew how it went. When the sparks rose into the sky, the wolves shifted and ran through the forest toward the moon, howling the way for the spirits who’d gone on.
Luke moved up on my left, and Glen on my right, Finn stepping around all of us to stand in front. It looked like some kind of honor guard, and the thought sent a hysterical laugh into my throat that choked me slightly. Me, the pack reject, marching into the middle of the gathered packs from the whole continent and more, like some sort of queen.
Grigor’s whispered,You thought it was a term of endearment? Little queen, I recognized you from the beginning,had me choking in earnest.
Luke shot an amused glance my way. “Need a cough drop?”
I scratched my nose with my middle finger, but stayed quiet as we began to move through the crowd, the shifters parting in silence, surrounding us as we drew closer to the dead that had been placed in the center of the field, near to the place where I’d killed Elina. I’d wondered if the ground there would feel tainted, but it was clean, as if our blood had never stained the earth.
The wooden pyre there was smaller than I’d expected, and a lump rose in my throat as I noticed what someone had done to the two shifters on top of the carefully arranged wood.
Only one of the Northern members had died from silver gunshot, and none from Mountain. The Northern Enforcer lay in his wolf form next to Bradley. Someone had placed Bradley’s hand on the top of his pack member’s shoulder, and the picture it made had tears springing to everyone’s eyes.
“He would have liked that,” Glen choked out, just as Patrick came to greet us. The two hugged. “You did that?”
Patrick nodded. “Dad was his Alpha to the end. They’ll run together to the moon.”
Ahead of us, Margarette stumbled and let out a heartbreaking whimper. Sergeant wrapped his arms around her, before two of the maids ran up and escorted her a few yards away to where the rest of them stood, near the twenty smaller, covered bodies of the Eastern maids. Margarette, Sergeant, and the Tenebris boys stood between the groups, and the kitchen staff who’d helped me sneak into the lower levels were there, or most of them.
One of the Tenebris pack was holding hands with Vanya, who had a stunned expression on her face. When her eyes met mine, I shot her a silent question.
Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she mouthed two words.My mate.The bearded male beside her was one of the older Southern rogues, and had seemed the most feral in the cave in the woods. But now, his eyes were clear, though he held an unsheathed sword in one hand, clearly ready to kill to protect his true mate if anyone tried to hurt her again. I smiled at Vanya, happy that something good had come out of the battle.
Brand hummed. “Their bond is beautiful.”
“You can see it?” I squinted, but I didn’t see what he meant.
Finn answered, though. “It’s so bright. Their bond, and the ground beneath them. What are those other threads, Brand? The ones that are spreading from?—”
Brand hissed for some reason, but just muttered, “Later.”
“Not too much later,” Finn urged. “They should know before they go back to their packs.”
I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I could tell they were both shocked, in a good way.
“None of the Tenebris boys died?” I asked, taking in the hundreds of shifters that began to move out of the trees, ones from the visiting packs who wore still-bloody clothing and expressions of distrust and fear.
“Not one,” Luke replied. “They fought like demons after Lily…” He sighed, and I squeezed his hand.I hadn’t let myself look to the pyre where she lay, though when Luke said her name, I let my eyes fall on the small stack of wood near Bradley’s.
Mama’s pyre was almost beautiful. The wood had been stacked carefully, with evergreen branches woven together like lattice around the sides, her still form covered with a gleaming white cloth. Around the edges, small items dotted the fabric: a pocketknife, a folded up heart made out of duct tape, a small pile of limestone fossils, and another of shiny agate stones like the ones in the creek that ran through the Southern hunting grounds.
A few pieces of paper held down by a small, stuffed bunny caught my eye, but before I could ask, Luke explained. “Some of her boys wrote letters, poems. They loved her so much.”
My eyes burned with unshed tears. “I’m glad they all made it. She loved them right back.” She’d been their mother, too.
I fought to control my emotions, surrounded on all sides now by quiet shifters. Once the last wolf had emerged from the pines—though I spotted one or two of the Tenebris boys in the treetops still—Brand squeezed my shoulder again and spoke. “Tonight, we come together to mourn our fallen, and to run as a pack. But the Council meeting was never adjourned, and decisions must be made.”
“The Council’s dead,” someone shouted.
“Fuck the Council,” someone else added.
Brand waited for the crowd to quiet before continuing. “Luke Callaway is Alpha of Southern. I am Alpha of Mountain. Glen Hillier is Alpha of Northern, and Finnick of Eastern. The Council is still formed, and the bonds of your packs, and the alliances created, remain. For the moment, at least.”
The crowd was silent, as he spelled out—mostly for the visiting shifters—how the War Council had been allowed to continue. How it had been meant as a temporary solution, but had been kept in place out of fear and anger.
“It is our belief that the new ways of governance caused much of the death and pain on our continent, and led us to this.” He gestured at the stacks of dead. “The new ways are not the moon’s ways. The Alphas of the four main packs have spoken, and we would return to the old ways, where the moon’s law is all.”
