Page 102 of Pack Rage
Behind him, I saw Grigor slipping through a shadow, no one even glancing his away. He had his hands almost around the guy’s throat when I shook my head and thought,Stop.
I pulled the neck of my sweater down, so they could see my scar. “You’re right, I shouldn’t be. But not because I’m a witch. Because I was almost killed by one. A witch tried to murder me before I was born. From what I understand, that ripped my soul into pieces. The moon kept me alive for some reason, but it means I have five true mates, instead of one.”
The guy’s bearded jaw dropped.
“I know. Miracle, magic, I don’t know how it worked. All I know is that I’m damned glad. Have you found your true mate yet?”
He shook his head.
“Well, I promise you, the way you’ll feel when you do will change how you think about rank, or power. Who taught you that females were weak anyway? My guess is some male with a tiny dick and self-esteem issues.” A chorus of feminine laughter rose from the crowd.“You see this tag?” I flicked my ear. “My pack gave this to the shifters they thought were the rejects, the trash. But my mates saw past that. We need to go back to the old ways. No rank, no tags, no believing that being weaker means you’re less than. Weaker means you get more of the pack’s protection, so you can grow strong.”
Brand had stood quietly and was moving through the crowd as I spoke. In the middle of the kneeling Mountain shifters, he stopped and held out a hand to a female shifter. “Alpha?” she asked, standing. She was at least six feet tall herself, with long dark hair twisted into braids. She wore a black leather bandolier lined with knives, stretching from one shoulder to her waist. I wanted it.
I will get it for you, Grigor answered.
Damnit, was I not going to have a single private thought from here on out? I cringed when Finn replied,Probably not, Wills.
Don’t steal my packmate’s pretty weapons, Grigor,Brand thought.I’ll make my flower her own set.Then he said aloud, “Sarah, come and meet your true mate.”
Her brow furrowed with disbelief, she followed Brand as he strode to the foreign Alpha. The two stood, face to face, for a long moment, before the male reached out a trembling hand and touched Sarah on the cheek. The air around them seemed to shimmer with moonlight and magic, as they both gasped out, “Mate!”
As they embraced, Brand moved to one of the Northern males and led him across to the tree line, where one of the few Eastern Enforcers who hadn’t been locked away stood. He might have been handsome before the battle, but now he was missing an ear, and his face bore the marks of silver dust. Brand didn’t have to encourage them to touch; the second they did, they fell into each other’s arms, crying quietly.
True mates.
It felt like a spell had been cast over everyone who stood in the ring, and all around it, but this time, not one made of blood and salt.
It was of hope and possibility.
“No more killing,” I said when I could speak again. “No more being afraid of what’s different, or unusual. No more ranked and unranked. No more Council. Just the moon and the pack, joined under Her, running together. Hunting and howling and protecting each other.”
Every Alpha stood and shouted their agreement. Every single one. Then, only seconds after Brand talked me through calling an official vote to do away with the Council on the next full moon—once every pack had a chance to receive a copy of the oldlaws from the Mountain library—a wind whipped through the clearing. It was like the world had let out a breath it had been holding for a long while.
Someone in the crowd howled.
Someone else sobbed.
Then, a pulse of light poured out like a wave from the moon, and every shifter fell to their knees, heads bowed. Well, every shifter but Brand, who stood at my side, his face upturned, smiling at the sky.
Without a single match being lit, the pyres all exploded into flames at the same time, their smoke rising straight into the sky, gray and black shadows in the shape of wolves running higher and higher, going back to the moon.
Without thought, or intention, or even a hint of pain, every shifter alive in the ring, no matter their age, shifted into their wolf form. We ran through the night, together, singing.
Healing.
Chapter 48
Threads
FLOR
Aday later, the leaders of all the North American packs sat around talking about what exactly it meant to have no rank. Except for Alphas and Alpha Mothers—a title they all agreed needed to come back—they were more or less agreed on doing away with the separations, and all of them swore to stop marking the unranked with physical signs, like ear tags.
Three days after, as they decided about what to do with the silver weapons that were left, and how to punish or rehabilitate the Eastern Enforcers who were twisted in ways that could never be fixed, shifters in the Mansion began to whisper about what had happened in that ring when the fires had lit, and after.
Sergeant took some of them into the parlor and began teaching them about the balance of witchcraft and wolfcraft. About the Western pack, and what had happened to cause the war, and the eradication of the most powerful magic-wielding shifters in the world. Not all the smaller packs allowed their members to sit and listen, but some did.
A week later, the foreigners had gone home with new treaties signed between all the North American Alphas, from the smallest pack to Mountain, and scribbled on by me as well, though it made me feel like the biggest faker to see my name on the documents. Even worse was how the strangers had treated me before they left, making sure I knew their names, where they came from, and even inviting me to their packs.
