26. Back at the Lodge

26

Back at the Lodge

FLOR

M argarette and Bradley had turned me away when I tried to help the night before, insisting I rest. So I did, and for the first time since I could remember, I slept the day away, though I was chased by nightmares. First, I was running from rogues and Alpha Callaway. Only the strains of a guitar playing a song I knew I'd never learned as a child kept them from catching me.

Then the dream changed, and I was staring down at Vanessa's dead form, an older woman who looked like her weeping at my side. Her dead mother? She grasped my arms with clawed hands, and I noted eyes just like Margarette's. The stranger didn't speak, but turned me to face another figure—a hazy, familiar one—who stood on my other side. Luke?

"What are you doing here, little fighter?" He was gaunt and gray, his dark hair grown out, his eyes dim. Blood flowed from the gut wound I'd given him, and from his ears as well. "I didn't want you to see me like this. Go back. Live."

"Luke!" I tried to scream his name, but the word came out a whimper. He reached for my face with one hand and mouthed something more, but I couldn't make out the words.

The woman turned me back to face her, taking a breath to say something, but before she spoke, I woke up, feeling a warm, bristling coat under my fingers. I was on my bed, not alone.

A raspy tongue lapped my face, removing the tears that streamed down my cheeks. "Thank you, Brand," I whispered, trying not to wake Finnick or Glen, who were both asleep in their wolf forms on the floor beside the bed. The curtains were drawn, but it felt like late afternoon.

I spent a moment quietly petting Brand, trying to shake off the sense from the dream that I needed to hurry, I needed to run… somewhere. That it was almost too late.

But there was so much to do here. Hard truths to share, mysteries to unravel. Secrets that had burrowed their way into the heart of this pack that should have been a refuge, but had turned out to be the opposite.

Warm fur moved beneath my fingers, and I resumed my petting as I worried about Brand. When we'd reached the Lodge the night before, and dragged ourselves into my bedroom. Brand still hadn't been able to change back without excruciating pain, so I'd asked him not to try.

He stood now, shaking his fur, waking the others. The next second, a knock came, and a maid called out, "Alpha Hillier requests your presence in the family sitting room."

Waking instantly, Glen and Finnick leaped to their feet as I rose and opened the door for them. Glen whined softly, rubbing his coat against me as he left. Finnick didn't even glance my way.

Asshole.

"Time for the meeting," I said to Brand. He huffed, turning his back as I changed. We were going to have a long talk about why he was fighting his attraction to me, and keeping his distance. But not yet. Not while he was still injured.

I stripped out of the too-large sweats from the night before, showered in record time, and threw on a set of black sparring clothing. At the last minute, I tucked my steak knife into my belt and grabbed my sword, glad someone had returned it to my room. I wasn't going to be taken by surprise again.

Brand and I were the last ones to arrive. Margarette's face as we entered betrayed her inner turmoil. It looked like she couldn't decide if she was pissed, ashamed, confused, worried, or overjoyed.

"Flor, it's good to see you awake," she said, rising from Alpha Hillier's side. I nodded to him, but Margarette had me in an awkward hug before I could greet anyone."We're beside ourselves. Northern was meant to be your refuge."

The Alpha agreed, promising to make amends for what happened. I wasn't sure how, but Patrick had told me his dad had experienced a full and miraculous recovery, around the time I had been abducted.I'd been skeptical, but it looked like the truth. The Alpha looked better than ever, except for the dark circles under his eyes and the pain reflected in them. Everyone in the room looked like they might fall over from exhaustion, except for him.

Was it possible that his recovery was Grigor's doing? A mating gift at Northern, for you and your Mountain mate… The more I thought about it, the more I knew it was likely.

I pulled away from Margarette, mumbling some vague words to them both about water under the bridge.I wasn't sticking around long enough to find out if Northern could pull their collective heads out of their communal ass. I knew they had more snakes in this den.

A fancy den it was, too. The room was probably twenty feet square, with dark wood paneling and oversized furniture that made it feel smaller. Right now, there were seven grown shifters gathered inside: the Alpha and Margarette, Patrick, Glen, Finnick, me, and Brand. Everyone else had changed clothing, and my enormous mate was the only one still in his wolf form.

Finnick had shifted at some point after leaving my room, and had put on dress pants and a cable-knit sweater, but it must have taken every last ounce of his strength to do so. His pale skin was almost translucent.

I looked around like I was trying to find a seat, but I was taking in the windows and doors, all the exits, and any possible weapons. There were almost too many, since someone had hung a whole assortment of swords and daggers on one wall.

I wandered to a long table under the sword wall that had a selection of food on it, taking enough of the carved meat on a plate for Brand and a selection of sandwiches for me, then settling on a sofa, where Finnick and Glen moved to make room. Brand settled at my feet, making a furry barrier between the sofa and the rest of the room.

"Flor, please let me express our remorse as a pack, and my own as the one who brought you here," Margarette murmured as she sat back beside Alpha Hillier, who wrapped his arm around her as she launched into a longer apology.

Brand and I ate while she talked, and our first helpings of food were gone long before she finished. Apparently, escaping magical chains and certain death and then sleeping for a whole day built up an appetite.

Glen, Finnick, and Brand all waited patiently for me to finish my meal, not leaving my side until I was done. Then Glen cleared my plate, while Finnick got me a drink. It made me feel weird to be waited on, but good weird, even if I was still worried about their slow healing.

"...the honor of our pack has been besmirched, and we will not rest until…"

Huh. This sounded a lot like Glenda after he'd creeped on me at the stream in Southern. I leaned down and whispered in Brand's ear, "I see where Glen gets his drama llama tendencies." He gave a wolfy huff that sounded like a chuckle.

Alpha Hillier frowned slightly, and I wondered if he'd heard me.

Brand pressed against my legs. I could feel his need to be closer to me. Now that his hunger for food was sated, the emotional hunger in our bond came close to overwhelming me. Shame, rage, guilt, desire, and something that felt like grief kept seeping through. Until we spoke, I wouldn't know exactly what was going on, but it wasn't good.

My own moods were a bit turbulent, too. My head ached, and Margarette's protracted guilt and shame-filled apologies were making it worse.

"...never once imagined she was a viper in our den, and I know you may not ever forgive us…"

What the hell was I supposed to say to that? I wasn't sure that they deserved forgiveness. I half-wished I'd jumped out the window when the maid had knocked on my bedroom door. I didn't need apologies. I needed action.

I tuned Margarette out, sipping on the lemonade Finnick had brought me, and wondering if the rogues were really taken care of, like the Alpha had assured us when we returned.

Since the Lodge was well protected, and the Enforcer barracks were too close to the well-guarded main house, the assholes had decided to blow up the unranked compound as a consolation prize before they abandoned their attack. No one had been killed, though more than a few of the unranked shifters had been injured enough to need medical care.

Conveniently, Northern had a doctor on hand whose patient no longer needed him, and others who knew enough first aid to help the unshifted younger ones.

By the time I finished my drink, Alpha Hillier had started talking again, answering a question I hadn't even heard Glen ask. "Yes, the injured unranked shifters have been moved into the servants' quarters of the Lodge, and the uninjured ones have been moved to tents in the training yard."

Was he kidding? I felt rage well up in me and almost cussed out the Alpha, but Del's voice rang in my head. Pick your battles, girlie, and make sure you're willing to die on whatever hill you decide is worth claiming.

Did I want to fight this fight? Was this hill worth dying on?

I lifted a hand to my ear, feeling the tag that hung there, and knew the answer wasn't yes.

It was hell yes.

I was about to leave this pack, and not look back. But before I went, I had to make sure a few things changed. Not for me, but for the unranked at Northern.

"Excuse the shit out of me, but why aren't the unranked shifters being given rooms in the Enforcer barracks?" I muttered, interrupting Margarette's renewed rant about betrayal and traitors.My simple question brought every conversation in the room to a halt. "Or in the Lodge? There are extra bedrooms here." Vanessa's was probably fancy as fuck.

The whole room stayed silent for a moment, like I'd said something they'd never thought of. To my surprise, the Alpha answered me first. "We can't let anyone into the Lodge right now who we don't trust implicitly. The unranked, well… some of them may have been a part of the attack."

I fought to keep from rolling my eyes. "No offense, but that shit's so fresh, you could cook an egg in it."

More awkward silence ensued, though Brand sent a wave of agreement through our bond, and Glen nodded slightly.

For some reason, Patrick was the only one who spoke. "Damn straight."

Finnick coughed, but I thought he was covering a smile.

The Alpha gave one of those I'm not mad, I'm disappointed sighs. "I'm not sure what you know about our ranking system here, Flor?—"

Oh, buddy, mansplain to me about ranking bullshit. It was a good thing I was on my way out. I had a lot to say. "Ya know, maybe Vanessa wouldn't have made the choices she did, Alpha, and sold y'all out to the enemy, if your shit wasn't as rigged as an eighteen-wheeler haulin' two trailers."

The room went completely still, like a photograph. Or a grenade, before it exploded.

Glen's curse cut through the silence. "Rigged? What is she talking about? Dad?"

The Alpha stayed quiet.

Glen's blue eyes went stony as he met his father's gaze, then looked to his mother and brother. "It's not true, is it?"

"Abso… lutely… is." Patrick was fighting to get the words out, the tendons on his neck stretched taut.

"Aw, you see? That's some bullshit right there," I murmured.

I was sick of it all. Leaving everything I knew at Southern to come to a paradise that was every bit as shitty, being treated like crap by the Northern ranked shifters, then abducted. All of it. So the tiny bit of tact I sometimes had was nowhere to be found.

I gave a low, mocking whistle. "That's some serious Alpha command. Won't even let your own sons talk about how fucked up this pack is. I shouldn't be shocked, but… I am, a little."

Glen stood up, facing his father. "Alpha command? What's she talking about? Mom?"

Margarette had gone still in the Alpha's arms. "Bradley. You have to tell him."

The air crackled with unspoken emotion, and my heart broke for Glen.

He turned to me, a question in his agonized gaze. I shrugged. "You weren't here to see the ranking tests. The part where I almost died wasn't the worst of it. It was how the unranked shifters were set up to fail. All of them. And they knew it. Vanessa knew it."

At the sound of her name, Brand snarled, snapping at the air, then glared at the Alpha.

Alpha Hillier looked around the room, taking in the universally horrified and confused expressions. He rubbed his forehead with one hand before he spoke. "It's not my command, or wasn't originally. It's a… policy that's been in place since my father was Alpha, when the war started."

"The war that ended just before I was born?" I asked, wanting clarification. I hadn't had much schooling, but Del had told stories about a big shifter war before I was born. "Against the Russian shifters and… some rogues or somethin'."

He nodded. "The North American Council declared that all able-bodied ranked shifters would need to fight if and when the Russians came close to pack borders. Of course, our pack was the only one that bore the brunt of the attacks, since they invaded our land." When Brand curled his lip and let out a nearly silent growl, he amended, "Our pack, and yours, Brand. Mountain was always our most reliable ally."

"What policy? " Glen demanded. I wondered for a moment how he couldn't know about something so fundamental in his own pack.

Then I thought about Glen, how important his honor was to him. If he'd known about the rigged ranking, it would have destroyed his own belief in his pack. In its honor. No father would want to snuff out that faith.

I knew I was right when guilt shone from the Alpha's face as he explained, and watched the last of the innocence sputter and die in his Heir's eyes. I could almost feel Glen's pain as his dad spoke. It had to hurt to discover his role model was every bit as flawed as the rest of us.

No, role models. Because Margarette had known as well. I tried not to let my own pain show. There would be time for me to cry about that betrayal later.

Alpha Hillier went on. "Our losses were severe. Dad told me we were likely to lose the entire pack, if we couldn't get more help from the others. Even our youngest shifters were trained in combat, our girls. They were so proud to be ranked, even if they weren't skilled enough to be Enforcers, until the Council's decision meant they were on the front lines of the battle against wolves that used magic. Dark magic that killed almost every one of ours it touched."

His hand tightened around Margarette's. "To get the Southern and Eastern packs to commit their own ranked shifters, as well as to keep our own younger shifters and women from being slaughtered, we had to come up with a way to be certain our ranked members didn't include the generation we would need. My father had to be sure they didn't move up."

"So, what? You just… cheat?" I was about fucking done. I leaned down to Brand and whispered, "That lake is sounding good right about now." His massive head swiveled to me, and I could see he was ready to do it. To take me, right now, out of here and to his pack.

His ears twitched forward, and the bond inside me shivered with the unspoken question. I was tempted to jump up and run out of the room, run on two feet all the way to Mountain if I needed to.

All the Northern pack had done was show me that there was no such thing as a safe place, no real system of honor. "Maybe they aren't as rotten as Southern, but that remains to be seen," I leaned down and whispered into Brand's fur.

Or thought I'd whispered.

"As rotten as Southern?" Glen repeated.

I cringed at the roomful of horrified faces. "I probably shouldn't have said that." Even if it is true.

Glen turned back to his father. "Who knew about this, besides you and Mom? Patrick?"

Patrick's glare at his father, as well as his jaw that was working like he had an entire mouthful of taffy, gave the answer.

Clearly shaken, Alpha Hillier walked to his son and put a hand on one shoulder. "You may speak of the ranking." A rush of Alpha power rippled in the air around the two males, then retreated.

"Sergeant knew," Patrick spat out, once he could speak. "He was the one who ran the tests. He was the one who set up the fights."