The bottom dropped out of my stomach as several gwyllgi who had joined us for cookouts and block parties, on hunts and on vacations, fidgeted where they stood, preparing to step forward and declare their loyalty.
To Argus.
“Her words are wasted breath,” Argus assured the others. “She won’t be your alpha when the sun rises.”
“The formal rites have been observed,” Hood interjected for the first time. “I’m falling asleep over here, waiting for you to do more than flap your gums.”
“Eager for your mate’s death.” He flashed his teeth. “You’re a cold one, Hood Lehenga.”
“Kinase,” he corrected the challenger. “I mated the alpha, who would rather fight you to the death than be yours.”
Red crept into Argus’s cheeks, a fitting counterpoint to his bluster. “You’ll pay for that.”
“I can afford it.” Hood shrugged. “Now shut up and let my mate kick your ass so I can get back to that carving station.”
An unseen signal raised Argus’s spirits, never a good sign, and he grinned nastily before shifting.
Lethe waited for his cue and still almost beat him onto all fours, causing a ripple of admiration through the crowd I no longer trusted to remain impartial, if they ever had been.
Hello, paranoia, my old friend.
With the Kinase heir at my side, who had been made into a talking point, I welcomed the tunneling of my vision until she and her protection were all I had room for in my mind. Not the worry, not the panic, not the fear.
Lethe was all nimbleness and lean muscle. Argus was bulk and speed. Their clash was terrible.
A few members of the crowd shifted to four legs, as if the bloodshed had flipped a switch they were helpless to control. They didn’t interfere, but neither did they assume their human guises. Somehow that made it worse. The animalistic quality of the battle was amplified by their snarls of eagerness or bays of support until the lawn became an arena, and Lethe’s fight for her life a spectator sport.
“Grier,” Hood whispered, barely an exhale. “Hold it together.”
I wanted to punch something. I wanted to take my dagger and ram it between Argus’s eyes then spit in them and watch as his soul extinguished.
“You said that out loud.” Eva blinked up at me. “You’re almost as scary as Mom.”
“Thanks.” I accepted it for the compliment it was and vowed one day to gain control of my mouth.
The stairs leading up into my head loomed in the forefront of my mind, an easy escape within reach. I could take those steps, cozy up in my safe corner, and forget all about this nastiness until it ended. But I was part of this pack, and I strived to follow its rules, even when I didn’t agree with them. I owed it to my friends, and to their daughter, to witness the cost of leadership.
Cletus, who had been watching our backs, tapped me on the left shoulder. I whirled in that direction to find a rangy blondish gwyllgi sneaking up behind us. Her eyes gleamed with malice where they locked on Eva, and saliva dripped from her open jaws.
Eva, who was Lethe’s daughter.
Eva, who was Lethe’s heir.
Eva, who would be a threat to Argus’s claim if he managed to defeat Lethe.
This guy really wasn’t taking any chances.
This ace in the hole must have been what put that ugly smile on Argus’s face.
“Savannah?” I reached for my bond with the city. “Can you handle that for me?”
The ground beneath the stalking gwyllgi turned the consistency of quicksand and mired the beast up to her knees.
“You can still come after Eva, if you want.” I watched her struggle and sink lower. “You’ll have to chew off your own legs to do it, though. Sucks, huh?”
The thrashing gwyllgi bayed a haunting note that her packmates lifted into song. It chilled my blood, but I couldn’t let them distract me.
With Linus by my side, Cletus watching my back, and the city roused to wakefulness, I returned my attention to Lethe.
Just that fast, she had snapped the long bones in Argus’s forelegs. His butt waggled in the air in a mockery of a puppy asking to play, but no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t regain his feet. The match was over. Point to Lethe. Except she didn’t stop there.
In the past, she had shown her challengers mercy, and it almost always blew up in her face.
Tonight, she didn’t shift back onto two legs, she didn’t try to make peace, and she didn’t dole out a second chance.
Teeth flashing, she ripped out Argus’s throat, gnawing until her muzzle gleamed with his blood and his spine shone through the ravaged flesh. The threat vibrating up the back of her throat promised vengeance on swift wings to the next gwyllgi foolish enough to think themselves worthy of her title.
Neither did she walk off and give the others a chance to revive him. She stood over Argus and waited for his eyes to cloud and his soul to flee, just as I had wanted to do.
Only then did she change back and address the pack, and I cringed at the crimson smearing her mouth. She didn’t wipe it away, didn’t attempt to humanize herself at all, and it was terrifying.
“Anyone who came with Argus has five minutes to get off my property.” Her gaze bored into Bo and Ty, who had shifted when things got heated, and they slinked away with their tails between their legs. “After that, I will challenge you. I will win. You will die.” Her annoyance transferred onto her pack. “As for the rest of you, you belonged to my mother, to Atlanta, and you chose me and Savannah.”
Hood stood statue-still, and I wondered what he read into her speech that I hadn’t grasped yet.
“For anyone whose allegiance has changed, Mom came down for the wedding. Feel free to follow her home.” She turned a slow circle, making eye contact with all those remaining. “For anyone who thinks they can or should run this pack, or who has a brother or cousin or uncle you want to see as alpha, get the fuck off my lawn.”
The tension bled out of Hood, and he dropped my hand so he could lean around me, take Eva’s tiny fingers in his, and join Lethe in the ring made by the gwyllgi.
“We are not true gwyllgi, and neither are we wargs.” Lethe’s hands balled at her sides. “Argus called me out because there are necromancers I consider pack. Who was he—or any of you—to judge who I call family?” Her voice cracked, but not with any soft emotion. Rage scorched the words as they left her tongue. “Grier Woolworth saved my child’s life, and there was a cost. I am happy to pay it, and if that means we become a pack of five, so be it. Traitors will not be tolerated in our ranks.”
A few members of her pack turned and left, and it hurt her. I could see it, but I doubt anyone who hadn’t eaten five gallons of ice cream in a single sitting with her could read the cues as well as me.
“For those who want to stay, who want to belong to the Savannah gwyllgi pack, you will submit to truth testing by Grier. You will answer a battery of questions, and if you fail one—just one—you’re gone. End of story. You can challenge me, and that’s cool with me. I really do not care at this point.” She rested her hand on Eva’s shoulder. “This is my child, my heir. No matter how many kids we have after her, she will inherit this pack when I step down for as long as she can hold it. If you can’t live with that, if you can’t obey her, then you need to go. Right now.”