“You can run your mouth all you want, but you won’t put your hands on an unwilling woman.”
“My stupid bitch of a sister is going to stay with me, like good family should,” he seethed, just before Jerica’s palm landed with a ringing slap against his cheek.
“I think she’s given you her answer. Come with me,” I urged her more quietly, using my arm to clear a path through the crowd so she could step away from him.
She spat on his boots as she walked away.
I escorted her to the front row, where Dakota urged her to a seat with the rest of our women.
That handled, I climbed back onto the dais, accepting a half-hidden fist bump from Lucien and an approving growl from Dirge.
As nice as it was to be on the right side of things now that Petró was dead and gone, I was done waiting for approval from others. If the trash inmy own packneeded taking out, well, call me the garbage man. I was ready to get dirty.
To my eternal chagrin, Kane invited Alajos onto the stage, gesturing that he could take the front and center position to address the wildly curious crowd.
It never occurred to Alajos that Kane was unafraid because he was on the right side of history. That his words might not land.
But as he stood there and began to fling accusations and curses at the crowd who’d just watched him manhandle his own sister, he was impervious to it all.
The way the mood changed. The fury that lit so many males’ eyes. The rumble of unease, the slow chant beginning at the back of the crowd.
Exile. Exile. Exile.
One word, repeated on loop until it grew in such volume that Alajos could no longer shout over it.
Kane stepped forward, loosing another tendril of his dominance to quiet the crowd and gesturing Lucien forward.
“I remand Alajos into the keeping of Alpha Vasilescu of the Hungarian pack, as his sister has been harmed by his decisions, and she’s a member in good standing of his pack. He’s yours to do with as you see fit.”
Lucien didn’t hesitate to unleash his own dominance, driving Alajos to his knees in a single move, then zip-tying his hands behind his back and marching him off the stage.
I didn’t see who he passed the prisoner off to, only felt the relief that he was gone.
With any luck, I’d never have to see him again. He was a shit stain our pack couldn’t seem to clean off, a glaring reminder of the cancerous wound Petró had all but nurtured inside us.
Good riddance. Good fucking riddance.
Chapter 47
Elodie
Valens was a dark angel, sweeping off the stage with death in his eyes, and he’d never been hotter. It was shameful, the way I drooled over that seething power. Shameful, but undeniable the way it called to my wolf’s bloodlust. Pride welled up inside me as I saw how he put himself between Alajos and Jerica, how he didn’t take it too far, but protected her well.
That was a man I wanted at my side. That was a man who understood my life’s work.
Maybe it could beourlife’s work.
Suddenly, I was curious about touching that second sword. Rational? No, but… If he was right, if that second sword was meant for me, maybe it wouldn’t be so painful to lose my own.
I shifted my grip on my butterfly sword, the weapon I knew as well as my own limbs. Most of the time, it felt like an extension of myself.
A broadsword would be very different, but I knew how to use one.
I’ll ask him tonight.
It wouldn’t hurt to have all the information. If the sword wouldn’t respond to me, I’d know. That would make moving forward easier, at least, to know for sure.
After Lucien dragged Alajos’s sorry ass off the stage, things devolved away from formality pretty quickly. People arrived for hours in small groups to speak to Kane, Brielle, or both. For all those hours, our pack stayed, holding the space with hypervigilance.
