“You think I’m bad for the pack, but you’ve been sandbagging us for the past three years?” I shake my head at him. “How does that make sense? Where’syoursense of duty?”
He flinches like I landed a blow. He moves like he’s going to come for me, but Ty angles his huge body between us.
“You’re the weakness in this pack,” Connor growls at me. “He’s too blind to see it, but no one else is.”
There’s more growling from the pack now, and it’s not at me.
Ty bares his teeth in a terrible growl. His golden eyes find mine, then go back to Connor, but when he speaks he’s talking to all of us. “He started this years ago. Figured he could weaken the pack’s standing before the gathering. If we were weak, he assumed that someone would challenge me and take me out. Put the pack back on the right foot.” He barks out a laugh. “With a little psycho-bitch death cult conversion in the middle to make it that much creepier to be a liar and a backstabber and a traitor to us all.”
The wolves press in, many of them low in battle-ready positions. All of them, I’m happy to note, focused on Connor as their target. Not Ty.
Not a single one focused on Ty—telling me that whoever Connor has been working with, it’s not another wolf.
It’s a little hit of relief in the middle of all this ugliness.
“Too bad it went the other way, I guess,” Ty is saying to Connor, shaking his head as if he’s disappointed when it’s clear he’s not. “Such a fucking shame that you were wrong not only about Maddox but about me.”
He looks around at all the wolves who’ve come tonight, then. He doesn’t seem to spare any of them. “You think I don’t know all the shit you’ve been muttering all these years? Do I really strike you as someone who’s led anywhere by anyone? Much less my dick?”
This time the growls have a different tenor. A little more rueful, maybe.
“If I want to follow Maddox’s advice it’s because it’s good advice,” Ty snarls. “If some of you would start listening to something besides your own testicles, maybe we could take this pack out of the Dark Ages.”
This time there are barks of support, and the volume starts to rise. What’s clear is that Ty is done. He doesn’t look at the pack again.
He delivers his full and furious attention directly to Connor. “But you’re not going to have to worry about that, old man. You should have stayed in the Dark Ages.”
“The one I serve is coming,” Connor snarls back at him. “And she will have her vengeance. Just you wait.”
“If you mean that worm-faced death bitch, bring it,” Ty throws back at him. “Last time I was bored out of my mind with her douchebag priests. As far as I can tell, she has pathetic taste in minions. You’re not changing my mind on that,brother.”
The way he saysbrotheris an insult. It’s deliberate. It makes most of the pack howl, because it’s as good as a death knell.
Connor knows it. He throws himself into the air, claws outstretched, going straight for Ty’s head.
What it looks like is that Ty simply ... moves aside.
That’s all.
It’s simple and elegant, and it doesn’t look like he does anything at all.
When Connor crashes to the ground, everything is quiet. Breath held in all directions—until we all realize that Connor isn’t moving.
It only takes a second before I can see that there’s fresh blood everywhere.
A lot like someone ripped the better part of his stomach out.
Ty circles back around Connor’s fallen body, then lets out a long battle cry. The wolves all around echo it, me included.
“Say hello to your bitch goddess for me,” Ty taunts Connor, leaning down close so he can growl into his treacherous second’s face.
Yet Connor, even though he’s gurgling blood, laughs. “She’s already here, asshole. Do you really not get it yet? It doesn’t matter what you do. You’re all marked for death.She’s here.”
Ty snarls and rips out Connor’s throat, and it’s done.
The snow continues to spiral down from above. The wind is cold, sweeping down from the mountains. I see the glimmer of Savi’s usual golden light, but it doesn’t seem to make a dent in the darkness.
The pack is restless on their feet, but no one makes a sound.
