He, like Knox, hit the ground hard—except he didn’t get up.
Again, Knox turned to the crowd, his face bloody and bruised. “Who’s next?”
One after another, different members of the pack stepped forward to challenge Knox. And one after another, they were rendered unconscious. But the alpha’s continued success was taking a toll, and the rest of us knew it. It was then that I realized what was really happening; the real plan at play here.
“They’re wearing him down,” I whispered, a new kind of terror snaking up my spine. “They’re going to keep this up until someone beats him.” The wolves around me said nothing, and I could only assume that was because they already knew and were praying that it didn’t come to pass. “He can’t keep this up forever,” I continued, an edge of panic rimming my words. “We have to do something!”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Foust said sadly.
“Why won’t he kill them? I mean, I know that’s not who he is—who he wants to be—but they’re not going to stop if they have nothing to lose!”
“We know,” Brunton replied. The steel that normally filled his voice was absent altogether, and I officially slipped into freak-out mode.
“Then make him take it back! Make him live!”
A sickening crack rent the air, and I looked down to find Knox’s leg bent strangely. He struggled to stand, and I launched forward. I made it halfway through the crowd before either Foust or Brunton caught my arm and hauled me back. I kicked and struggled and threatened to use magic on them if they didn’t let me go, but they held fast regardless, and I realized how deadly serious they’d been about not interfering.
So, instead of continuing to fight them, I reached out for Knox with my magic, tugging on the tether between us. Exhausted, empty eyes met mine through the crowd.
“You have to do it,” I said softly. “They will never stop…”
Yellow flashed in his gaze, and he forced himself to stand just as the wolf attacking him slashed at his throat. Knox caught his hand and snapped his wrist, then dropped him with a vicious elbow to the face. Standing over his opponent, he looked like a bringer of death, his body covered in blood, his blond hair stained red. The other werewolf began to stand, and Knox took his head in his hands. He stared down the pack until his eyes found mine again.
“I know,” he said.
Then he snapped the wolf’s neck like a twig.
Chapter Sixteen
The room went silent just in time for the body to hit the floor. Magic surged, and Knox’s eyes flared like a lighthouse as he inhaled that power. The veins in his arms and neck bulged as he threw his head back and howled.
Then his attention snapped to Keegan, who was slowly coming around. The moment he got to his feet and turned to face off with Knox again, the alpha tore his throat out.
Another rush of power.
Another blood-curdling howl.
One by one, those who’d dared to challenge Knox for his position were cut down. And with every death, the wolf within the man took over even more.
“He’s taking on their spirits,” Foust said, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing—but obviously he did. “Their power is now his.”
“This is what he wanted to avoid,” Brunton added. “This is why he left this place.”
I watched as Knox stormed around the pack’s circle, the challenge in his wild glare plain as he silently dared another to volunteer to face him.
No more hands were raised.
“Is this how you want to be ruled?” he asked, his head swiveling back and forth as he addressed them. “Is this what you’d hoped to achieve? Your brothers dead at my feet?” Not surprisingly, nobody replied. “If it’s death you want, then you’re in luck, because the fey are coming for us all, and regardless of what Mack told you, you will not be spared. If you want to live, you’ll get with the fucking program and fall in line. If not…” He glanced at the carnage around him. “I’ll gladly deal with you now.”
Again, nobody spoke. Nobody moved. I wasn’t sure they dared breathe.
But then a howl split the air—a combined pledge of fealty to the new alpha of New York City . Brunton and Foust joined it. Then Jagger. Even Kat couldn’t avoid the call and lent her female howl to the collective. When the haunting sound finally dissipated, the deed was done.
With wolves, it was just that simple. That organic.
I wrenched my arm free and shoved my way through the crowd until I stood just inside the makeshift ring, staring at the werewolf I loved—or at least a version of him that I wasn’t entirely sure I knew. Those golden eyes turned to me and he smiled, but there was something in it that I didn’t recognize. Something that, in truth, scared the shit out of me.
He reminded me of Merc the night I’d fled New York.
The night he’d tried to kill me.
“Piper,” he said, reaching his hand to me, “come meet your new wolves.” When I hesitated, his smile fell to something altogether terrifying. “I said, come meet your new wolves.”
I took a step toward him, but Foust slid past to put himself between his crazed alpha and me. “Should we bring them to the mansion?” he asked. Brunton, Kat, and Jagger joined Foust to help fortify the wall.
“Yes,” Knox replied, his focus still on me. “They can stay in the cells until we need them…it will remind them that their loyalty is still in question.” His gaze slid back to the group. “I suggest they find it while they’re in there.”
Without another word, Knox snatched the remains of his blood-spattered shirt off the floor and used it to wipe his face as he walked away from the bodies he’d just dropped and the pack he’d inherited.
Away from us, too.
Disbelief washed over me as I looked to Foust and Brunton for explanation, but I found nothing more than concern in their shared expressions.
“He’ll be fine once he comes down from his adrenaline high,” Kat said, looping her arm around my shoulders. “Men…too much testosterone for their own good.”
Her attempt at humor fell flat, and I shrugged out of her half-hearted embrace. I took in the faces of the pack and found a nasty mixture of hatred and contempt. They’d been poisoned against us one way or another, that much was certain—even before Knox had walked in and started killing their brothers.
I wondered if we had Mack or the fey king to blame for that.
“The vampire king will send for you soon,” I said, addressing them. “I’d wait here if you don’t want any more problems.”
Following Knox’s lead, I turned and walked away, the others falling in behind me. I walked out of that place wondering what in the hell had just happened—how everything had gone to shit so quickly. Then I wondered if this inherited pack would be more trouble than they were worth. Knox’s power was binding, and they would do whatever he commanded, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t grey areas within those commands, even outside the concern posed by the fey king’s connection to them. They would have to fight alongside us, but how hard would they try? And would they work with the Alaskan pack or sabotage them? Anyone who mourned Mack’s death was of questionable character at best, and it was clear that they wanted retribution.