Charlie drained his glass and turned to them. “When are you thinking about retiring? I don’t think I’m ready for that level of responsibility yet.”
“Not any time soon. But I don’t want to spend my whole life in command. I’ve damned well earned the right to enjoy the fruits of our labors. I want to raise my pups and not have to look over my shoulder at who might be trying to climb the ladder behind me. And, naturally, when it’s time for you to take over, I’ll happily take a knee to you in front of everyone so they see you’re my rightful successor. I’ll also be happy to be a private advisor to you, if you want me to.”
“As will I,” Badger said. “It can all be yours, Charlie.”
“Think about this as a new tradition,” Duncan said. “You can choose your successor, and so on. Meanwhile, you build something that you get to run and control with my blessings. You get to help grow our pack. And that gives you even more legitimacy when you later take over as pack Alpha. Why would anyone doubt your abilities by then? We point to your accomplishments, that you are largely responsible for what we have, and that you rightly deserve to lead because you’ve proven yourself.
“Another thing to think about—if we do this, when there are rumors about others who want to start a pack of their own? We quietly approach them, encourage them, give them seed money if they insist on leaving, provide advice, support. Help them grow. Tell them there’s no need to fight for it. Mentor them. Treat it not as competition but as insurance for all of us. Emphasize to other Primes who join or are born into our pack that if we work together we all prosper because it’s not a finite pie where the slices disappear. There is plenty of room for us all to grow. There doesn’t need to be a fight for control when this is a huge damned country. We pledge to band together to protect the pack at large from outsiders who think they can come in and take over.”
“But if they decide to oppose us?” Charlie asked.
“We crush ’em,” Badger said, sharply nodding. “Make a highly visible example out of ’em. like those others. Except I think Duncan’s right. We build loyalty and anyone causin’ trouble will be run out by the pack members before they can even gain a foothold. Because it’ll be no secret that if someone wants to go off and start a pack that we’ll be happy to help them. Make itprofitableto work with us, not against us.”
“Exactly,” Duncan said. “As our pack grows and prospers, so will their loyalty.”
Charlie walked over to the desk and stuck out his hand to Duncan. “Deal.”
Duncan stood and shook with him. “Good man.”
Charles dropped to one knee and tipped his head back. “I pledge myself to you, the Targhee Pack Alpha. I serve you and this pack.”
Badger rose from his chair and joined him. “As do I. I pledge myself to you, the Targhee Pack Alpha. I serve you and this pack.”
Duncan rounded the desk and touched first Charlie’s, then Badger’s throats, motioning for them to stand. “Another round of drinks, gentlemen? To celebrate?”
Charlie smiled. “I’ll drink to that.”
* * *
Now
Duncan ran all day, only stopping to drink, not shifting back. He found the property’s boundary and ran along it, circling the property multiple times, stretching his limbs and his tongue lolling in his mouth as he exhausted himself.
Sometimes, he felt more alive shifted than he did on two legs.
Now, anyways.
Since losing Louisa.
He hated remembering the sound of his own howls that horrible day as Charlie and Duncan pinned him to the dusty mountain road while others made their way down the slope to see if a miracle had happened.
If she’d managed to survive, to escape the wreckage.
And how it’d taken Charlie and Duncan both using the full force of their Prime powers, with other Alphas helping them, to keep him subdued and under their control, begging him to let them take him back to the pack compound so he didn’t see.
If Duncan could have, he would have ended his life right then and there.
Sometimes he wished Badger and Charlie had given in to his mournful, howling pleas to kill him.
Dewi.
In those moments he hadn’t been thinking about the old woman, much less her words.
He’d barely been thinking about anything except grief and dying.
Then a few short years later, the afternoon he’d sat in his car on the mountain road and stared down at the river,thenhe’d thought about her words in the pub that night.
Love abides where cowardice fails
