“No challenge?” Diesel asked suspiciously.
Jaxson shook his head again. “No. We don’t do that in my pack. Father knew it was time, and I was ready.”
“Why are you here?” I echoed Killian’s bluntness.
“We seek refuge,” Jaxson said with the same simplicity as his beta. “We’ve been attacked by rogues for many months; we’ve lost many. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
“You could fight?” Killian challenged.
“Our pack is small,” Dex said. “They’re not all ours.”
I looked over to the gathering of the shifters in front of me. “Where are the other alphas?”
“They were led by pack leaders,” Jaxson explained. “They’re lost.”
“Rogue attacks, you say?” Diesel asked. “Where? How recent?”
“Three territories to the south, the most recent one was last week,” Jaxson informed us. He was a tallish male. Sandy blond hair, clean-shaven,neat. Everything about him was…clean. “We don’t plan to stay,” he told me. “But we heard you’re fighting, and we think the enemy we believed we had might actually be the enemy you have.”
Killian glanced at me, then back at Jaxson. “What does that mean?” His attention was on Dex. “You were at the Pack Council when we were there.”
Dex nodded. “I was. Jaxson asked me to go and ask for help. But when I saw what shitshow you were put through, I changed my mind and made my way back home.”
“So you were on the road when the Pack Council patrols were?” Diesel asked, voice dangerously low.
Dex held his hands up. “Hey, I was on a different road, going a different way.”
“It was my brother who convinced me to leave Emberfell and come and talk to you,” Jaxson said with more force than he’d shown previously. “From what he saw at the Pack Council, and what you were told, and the pattern of attacks.” Jaxson held my stare. “They’re clearing all the territories here. I just don’t know why.”
“I don’t trust you,” Killian said with a hard glare at Dex.
“I don’t need you to trust me,” the other shifter said calmly. “I’ll leave if you want, but my pack needs protection, and you’re the only territory I trust enough to kick the Pack Council’s ass.” He looked at his brother. “Emberfell can help you.”
“Don’t do it,” Diesel warned.
“You think they lie?”
“No. I just don’t fucking like them. They smell shifty.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Not helping.”
“Killian? Thoughts?”I asked my more sensible beta.
“They smell of fear and exhaustion. Pretty sure we do too. I sense no ill will from them.”
“Your father is still alive?” I asked the other alpha, when he nodded, I looked past him to the shifters behind him. “Where is he?”
“Emberfell,” Jaxson responded smoothly. “He is old and was ready to step down, but he, my older brother, and some of my father’s betas stayed behind to guard what’s left of our territory. Our hope is that they are small enough not to attract attention but large enough to defend it should they come back. We took the majority of the pack with us…just in case we’re wrong.”
“I believe them,”Killian said to me, and I nodded. I did too. It made sense, and it was what I would have done.
“You cannot come into the Hollow,” I told Jaxson. “Not all at once. But…we can house some of you. Do you have children with you?”
“Have you learned nothing from the other children who were spies?”Diesel growled.
“I will not turn a hungry child away.”
“We may as well lie down and give up now,” he grunted, then turned and walked back up the hill to the Hollow.
