And God, he'd decided well.
CHAPTER 15
RIVIK
The Birch Lake pack was dead. It had always been small, maybe two dozen people, but now what remained of it sat across my council fire, a hollow-eyed teenage wolf named Cera who'd run three days without sleeping to reach us, her paws bloody and raw. When she shifted back to human form, her clothes were rags and her voice scraped down to nothing.
"Four females taken," she said, and the words fell into the silence of the elder's cave like stones into still water. "Including the alpha's daughter and his mate's sister. My sister was one of them too. She was barely sixteen summers. Karik's wolves came before dawn when we were sleeping, and the males who fought..." She took a breath. "They killed Orin first. Then his son. Then old Bren, though Bren could barely lift a spear anymore. They killed him anyway. All of them. Except the pups. They took all of the pups."
Nobody spoke. Elder Sira sat to my left, her lined expression carved from granite. Ryke was on my right, and I could feel thetension radiating off him like heat from a forge. Torin and Jarak sat across the fire pit from me and behind them, Miska stood with his arms crossed, jaw set tight. Several other elder wolves sat around the firepit too, listening. Their expressions ranged from grim to furious, but none of them looked surprised. That was perhaps the worst part. None of us were surprised anymore.
We’d always held council here. A larger firepit, set apart from the main camp and built big enough for the entire pack to converge around for ceremonies and celebrations. Those days seemed very far away right now. An entire pack, wiped out. Karik's wolves had claimed their territory, their stores, and their hunting grounds, and its females, save for Cera.
“How did you get away?” I asked gently.
She closed her eyes. “I was… I had snuck out a few hours earlier. I was meeting someone and we… stayed out for a while. We were going to sneak back in before the sun rose, but we heard the screams and howls, and didn’t know what was going on. One of them spotted us, but Mesk, he told me to run and I did. He stayed behind so I could get away.” She looked up at me, her eyes glassy, and shame on her face, clear as day. “I hid, Alpha. I hid while they slaughtered my pack. My mate to be. By the time I went back… there was nothing left.”
She hung her head, and I got up and crossed the pit to where she sat, crouching in front of her. “Cera, you couldn’t have saved them. One young she wolf against a pack of wolves like Karik’s you would have been ripped apart or at best, be facing the same fate as the females they took. You did the right thing. Now we can warn everyone. Now we can demonstrate what Karik truly is at the summer gathering.”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “But what do I do now?”
“You stay here,” I said firmly. “With us. And on the next full moon, we will adopt you into Hanging Rock Pack officially.”
“I… thank you, Alpha.” She attempted a weak smile, and I nodded. Kessa stood up.
“Alpha, I don’t believe I would add much to the following conversation. You already know my stance on Karik’s pack, and my view hasn’t changed. If you would pardon my presence, I believe Cera could do with some good food, and some warm furs. She will get both at my hearth.”
“Thank you, Kessa. Cera, go with Kessa. Rest, eat. Things will look a little brighter tomorrow.” She nodded, and allowed herself to be led away by the older woman.
I waited until the sound of their footsteps faded before I sat back down and let out a long breath. The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks upward into the dark mouth of the overhang above us.
"Birch Lake is gone, then," Sira said. Not a question.
"Gone," I confirmed. "Territory, stores, everything. Karik's absorbed it all."
"That makes three packs in two winters." Ryke leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "Stone River, the Ash Creek pack up north, and now Birch Lake. He's not just raiding anymore, Rivik. He's expanding."
"You forgot River Bend," added Miska.
"River Bend submitted willingly," Torin pointed out.
"River Bend submitted because Karik stationed hunting parties on their borders and starved them out until they had no choice." I kept my voice level, but the anger beneath it was clear. "That's not willing. That's conquest with extra steps. Karik has been pushing boundaries for years, testing how much the other packs will tolerate. Taking females from smaller packs, absorbing territories, positioning his wolves further and further into neutral hunting grounds, including ours."
Three of our hunting parties had reported finding Broken Ridge kill sites in our eastern territory over the last moon. Notdeep incursions, just enough to test the edges. To see if we'd respond.
"They've been hunting in our territory," I confirmed, because there was no point hiding it. The elders needed the full picture. "Eastern range, and circling round to the west. They attacked the travellers right on our western borders, with no hesitation.”
“What do they want though?” asked Jarak. “No pack is big enough to hold that much territory, and they don’t need it either, their hunting grounds are more than sufficient.”
“They’re not after the ground, they’re after the females,” I said grimly. “Expansion is the distraction. Karil doesn’t want anyone to know his females aren’t breeding. He thinks it’ll make them look bad.”
There was a pause. I’d said the thing everyone had been thinking for a long time, but no one wanted to say. Because our females weren’t breeding either. There were less and less pups every year, and from the whispers at last year’s gathering, it wasn’t just our pack, but a widespread problem. Karik, of course, wasn’t the type to listen, only to swagger about, showing off.
"The question is whether Karik will come here," said Torin.
Ryke shook his head. "He won't. Not directly. Hanging Rock is the largest pack in the region. We have, what, nearly eighty wolves? Even with the territories he's absorbed, he doesn't have the numbers to challenge us outright. Karik's a bully. He picks off the weak. He won't risk a fight he might lose."“He doesn’t need to fight. We already have something he believes is his, and he can challenge us for it,” stated Sira flatly.“What do we have of Karik’s?” asked one of the other elders. Sila was one of our best hunters and fighters, and she’d been longing to pick a fight with Karik for a long while.
"The travellers," said Sira. “Specifically, the females. One wolf, one human. Both young, both of breeding age.”Anger sparked inside me, and I swung around to glare at Sira.“They do notbelong to him.”"Karik considered those females his. You took them from him. He will not have forgotten."
