Julien’s arms come around me and he buries his face in the scruff of my neck as he lets out a tense breath. “Are you satisfied now?”
I pull back, giving him a quizzical look.
He smiles softly at me. “Not you.” He jerks his chin in the direction of the rest of the room. “Them.”
I tilt my head to the side, still not understanding what he’s talking about.
“You used the mate bond to find me, right?” he asks.
I nod, then lean forward and lick his cheek.
“Then you just proved to all these other shifters that we really are fated mates.” He rubs his cheek across my fur, then adds in a low voice only I can hear, “Not that you would have needed to if William weren’t such an asshole.”
I chuff in agreement, letting out another soft whine and nudging Julien with my snout.
“Very well,” says William. “I’m willing to attest that Julien and Keir are fated mates, which means the omega belongs with our pack. There is—”
“You said you would support my case,” says Zachariah, the ice in his voice sending a chill down my spine.
William sniffs. “That was before there was undeniable proof of the omega’s status as my Alpha’s fated mate.”
“You mean before you thought the omega was valuable,” says a voice I’d hoped to never hear again. I peek out from under Julien’s chin. Yup. That’s definitely Malachi, my old pack’s cleric.
Zachariah rises to his feet, moving to stand closer to William. The carefully blank expression on Zachariah’s face is one that’s familiar to me—and one that scares me even more than if he were more obviously enraged.
“My reasoning doesn’t really matter,” says William. “All that matters is that the laws about fated mates are—”
Zachariah moves so quickly that no one has a chance to react before he shifts his fingers into claws and drags them across William’s throat. Blood sprays outward, pulsing from the injury as William falls to his knees, then crumples to his side on the floor. A few seconds later, the elder is dead.
Sixty-Two
Keir
Fromprettymuchthetime I could walk, I was exposed to random violence almost constantly in my former pack, so William’s sudden and rather bloody demise isn’t at all shocking to me. In fact, it’s barely a blip on my radar. Sure, Zachariah practically ripped the elder’s throat out with no warning, but it’s not like I haven’t seen the lunatic do something similar before.
However, the same cannot be said for my mate and the three other members of his pack who are present. Granted, none of them look particularly upset over William’s death—though Everett looks a little green—but they are clearly dumbfounded and none of them seem sure about what to do.
Even Julien, who had William up against the wall by his throat not too long ago, is staring down at William’s body with a stunned expression he’s not bothering to hide.
I knew Julien was slightly naïve to many of the realities of life in the less civilized packs. He didn’t quite get it when I talked about my former pack’s traditions and beliefs and the idea of the blood debt disgusted him, but I figured he at least had seen a violent death before.
Now, I’m not so sure.
I nose at Julien’s arm, whining quietly until he glances down at me. His face softens, and he runs his hand over my head and down my flank. He probably thinks he’s comforting me, but shit like this happenedall the timein my old pack. For Julien though, this might be the first time he’s seen such casual brutality so normalized, and I want to be sure he knows I’m here for him, too.
Zachariah cleans the blood from his hand by wiping it on his pants, then glances at Francis and gestures toward William’s body. “Get this mess cleaned up,” he says in an utterly calm voice as he returns to where he was sitting before turning his attention to Julien. “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s finalize the details of the challenge.”
My eyes about bug out of my head.Thechallenge? What the hell is he talking about?I cast a glance up at Julien and tilt my head to the side in question.
My mate runs his hand over the fur on my side in a soothing motion, but his gaze is fixed on Zachariah. “You’re still planning to go through with the challenge for control of Luke’s pack even though it’s been verified that the Sweet Water pack has no claim on Keir?”
“Of course,” replies Zachariah in a flat voice.
“To what purpose?” asks Julien. “What do you hope to gain now?”
My eyes dart back and forth between my mate and Zachariah as I struggle to put the pieces together. Why does Julien even care? What does it matter to him if Zachariah challenges Luke? I’m not too keen on the idea of Zachariah having any more power than he already does, and I definitely wouldn’t want to see Luke lose his life to the asshole. But why is Julien involved at all?
I don’t like this.
