2

As he and his men took the guards to be questioned, I addressed those who remained. “Finding Troy must be our priority, and we need to find more information on the ferals and why they’re working for him. Some of you mentioned that there are banished wolves who might not be as insane as a typical feral. Do we have any records of those wolves? Any records of the wolves that have been banished from our pack?”

“Of course we keep records of that,” Elder Queene said, his wavy dark hair lifting in the breeze. “But we have no idea if they became feral. After all, they might have been accepted into another pack after banishment.” His voice was a low monotone, his expression grave.

“Well, I’m willing to bet that at least some of them were within the feral pack,” I said, crossing my arms. “Why else would they have helped Troy escape?” Harlon and Samson were both deeply loyal to Troy. They had arranged for the ferals to do what they wanted, and I was positive they were working under Troy’s orders.

Elder Queene inclined his head, accepting my point.

“If we track down those who’ve been banished, we might be able to find leverage to get them on our side. If we do that, they might tell us more about what Troy’s planning. The sooner we do that, the sooner we’ll be able to find Troy.”

“We will look for them, Alpha Hunter.”

Despite those words, the elders’ lingering looks told me they still doubted doing so would do any good. I could hardly blame them. So far, my ruling had only resulted in an attack on the pack and Troy’s escape. According to the guards, Troy was the first escapee in the pack’s history. I was sure that looked great on my record.

“It wasn’t your fault, Bryn,” Tavi said as we left to join Night and Dom. “You couldn’t have known Troy would escape.”

I sighed. Logic told me she was right, but that didn’t make this situation easier to swallow. Troy wasn’t even here, and he was still making my life as difficult as possible. I tried to ignore the sting of that as we caught up with Night.

“…want Troy found as soon as fucking possible,” he was saying. To my surprise, there were a few Kings’ men gathered along with Night’s men. It seemed his actions during the battle had really earned their respect.

“Now get moving, all of you,” Night finished, and the search party immediately dispersed, Dom included.

Night turned to me. There was still a lot of stiffness in his posture, and I knew it wasn’t only from the pain he had to be feeling. “Bryn, mind if we talk?” he asked.

“I don’t mind.”

“I’ll take a walk around the compound and note the buildings with the worst damage,” Tavi said. “Let me know if you need me.” She patted my arm before leaving. The old Tavi would have hugged me, but she hadn’t been the same since we had been rescued from Troy.

“See you later,” I said. As Tavi left, I looked at Night. “Lead the way.”

The alpha cabin wasn’t a far walk from where we stood. I wanted to grab a notepad before we assessed the damage the feral attack had done to the pack. To be honest, I would have loved to head up to our bedroom to talk, but that wasn’t an option. I felt exhausted, but there was still so much to do.

Night took a deep breath, and I knew I was in for a lecture.

“I understand that you didn’t want to kill Troy before,” he began, “but now it’s time for you to reevaluate the situation.”

I held back a wince. I should have known Night wanted to talk about this. “I know Troy has been the bane of our existence from the beginning, but—”

“That right there,” he cut in. “There shouldn’t be a ‘but’ after that. Not only has Troy been fucking with us all this time, he’s also become a threat to the Kings and the Wargs—and probably the Idaho panhandle, with the ferals on his side.” He shook his head. “Leaving him to rot in his cell was a risk to morale, but I let it go because I understood and respected what you were trying to accomplish. But now he’s on the loose and has an army of unhinged wolves on his side. He’s not just a threat to morale but to the lives of every wolf we know. It’s not a search party we need; it’s a fucking hunting party. And I’m going to tell them to kill on sight.”

I was prepared to take Night’s lecture because I thought I deserved it, but he had gone too far. He was not only telling me he no longer respected my goals for my pack, but he was also about to exert his will over mine. I thought we were past this. I thought he respected me as an alpha and his equal, but his words had proven me wrong.

What he didn’t seem to get was that the Kings were my pack, not his. The Kings were under my rule until the alpha ceremony. Though I wouldn’t be in charge for long, I didn’t want to be the kind of alpha who killed other wolves. I would never be as prepared for bloodshed as Night was. I had already killed Evan, and I didn’t want to add Troy’s blood to my conscience. I just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the kind of environment I wanted to foster as alpha.

But with all that said, there wasn’t an alpha around who would let someone else undermine his orders. My wolf bristled at the thought. What Night was saying would piss off anyone in my position. He wouldn’t stand for another wolf telling him that they were going to ignore his orders and do what they wanted. So, why did he think that was okay to do with me?

“We don’t need to kill Troy,” I said slowly, trying to get control of my emotions so I didn’t bite my mate’s head off. “We just—”