Killian rushed from the room.
Diesel was checking my hands. “Did it spill on you?”
Wolfe took my hands from his beta and checked himself.
“I’m fine,” I told them both. “I didn’t even get a chance to sniff it,” I added with a shaky laugh.
Killian came back in, his face grim. “Omar is gone.”
“Traitor?” the shaman asked.
Wolfe shook his head before remembering the shaman couldn’t see him. “No, the six with us are loyal. I tested them myself.”
The shaman nodded. “Find his body if you can before you leave.” He stood. “Blackroot with a little extra,” he said aloud, but I had the impression he was talking to Diesel. “Distinct but not pungent. Keep alert.” The shaman looked at Wolfe over his shoulder. “You need to go back to your land. They won’t hold off their attack.”
“I thought you outranked them?” Killian asked him quietly.
“Sometimes rank doesn’t come into it when it’s about greed and power. Be careful, daughter of the Hollow, there is worse coming.”
He left silence in his wake. I stood and took the three steps to get to my mate’s side.
Diesel and Killian were poised, ready. Wolfe shared a look with them both, and they nodded to his unspoken question. Wolfe looked down at me. “We leave now. You ready?”
“I am.”
To hell with the Pack Council’s decision. Someone justtried to kill me, or Wolfe, or all of us. Either way, they’d made their first step in this war, and we weren’t waiting for the next one.
In the corridor, Wolfe spoke quietly to the small guard we’d taken with us. Diesel slipped away and I knew he was going to look for Omar. He was a Stonefang shifter, and I felt bad that I would have had trouble identifying him had I been asked.
We left the large tent quickly. Not running but not leisurely. There were no guards. The Pack Council was so sure we’d do as they said and wait for their decision. We were at the tree line when the shadow became a man as an older shifter stepped out onto the path.
My heart lurched, and Wolfe pushed me behind him. “You’re either stupid or brave,” he told Lewis, my father’s old beta.
“I’m just an old man who is looking to see a girl he’s known for a long time.”
“You tried to kill Axel,” Wolfe growled. “You never waited to see if Perry would live. Did you think your ‘sorry’ meant anything to the boy bleeding out on the grass?”
Lewis flinched, but it didn’t stop him from trying to see around Wolfe to look at me. “The boy wasn’t supposed to be there, neither was your man. I planned to fail, I never wanted what’s happening now. It wasn’t supposed to go this far.”
“Well it has,” Wolfe growled, stepping closer. “What do you want?”
“They won’t stop,” Lewis said with a defeated sigh. “Blueridge Hollow has always been coveted by them. Malric didn’t feel it like some do, like maybe you do,” Lewis toldWolfe, grudgingly. “I knew Rowen would; her mother was tied to the earth, and the druid was always hovering near her.” The old beta rubbed his forehead. “They said you would try to take it from her, house her at Stonefang, sever her from her birthright.”
“You think I am so weak that I would go?” I asked him, stepping around Wolfe. “All my life, you barely spoke to me, and now… My father trusted you the most.”
Lewis looked down at his feet, then when his head rose, he wasn’t meek or afraid. He was angry. “Your father put it into their heads that the land was worth something more than trees and a mountain. The way he controlled those rogues for all those years. The rogues weren’t trying to claim the Hollow; they were protecting it.”
My father was part of this? “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Lewis gave me a look I’d seen many times in my life. He may not be one to use his words, but his looks spoke volumes. “You were never dumb, Rowen. Don’t let grief blind you as it did me.” Lewis rolled his head from side to side, preparing himself. “Okay. I’m ready, do it.”
He was inviting them to kill him. I knew Wolfe heard my gasp of shock. I felt bad for letting it slip free, but it was just so…inhumane.
“Your punishment is banishment,” Wolfe said slowly. “Your daughters are still at the Hollow; they never left. They are loyal to me, to my wife, to our pack.”
“They won’t talk to me,” Lewis told us, his voice breaking.
“It’s lonely being a traitor,” Wolfe said, reaching out to me and taking my hand. “Next time any of my pack sees you, will be the last.”
