5. Battle in the Dining Room

5

Battle in the Dining Room

FLOR

M argarette's back was so close to mine, I could feel the body heat emanating from her as we took up a fighting formation I'd never tried. I'd never had someone who would stand at my back and fight with me. Never had someone who could, since the only one who would've fought with me, Del, had also been unranked, and weapons had been illegal for us to so much as touch.

Was it possible to miss something you'd never had? To miss the experience of fighting with someone? I realized it was as I readied myself for battle now, steak knife held low in one hand.

Someone else in the room let out a deep battle cry. I knew that roar. Brand.

Then another joined his. Glen.

One more sounded. Wait, Finnick? When did he arrive? I thought he'd stayed at Southern. Then I had no more time to wonder.

The males chasing me tried to leap across the room, but Brand, Finnick, Glen, and another shifter—Glen's brother, Patrick—were suddenly in the formation with me and Margarette, and they were armed with a hell of a lot better weapons than a steak knife. Short swords and knives sliced the air, and the snarling younger males were a pile of whimpering, bleeding idiots in a handful of seconds.

Vanessa burst through the door as the last male fell to the carpeted floor. "Aunt Mags, kill her! Glen, help your mother! Get that bitch away—she's gone feral!" Everyone still standing looked at her like she was crazy. Then she screamed, "Glen's bleeding!"

We all turned, and I gasped aloud.

She hadn't been overreacting. Glen's arm was cut almost to the bone, a deep, ragged cut across his forearm at a diagonal. With his free hand, he was struggling to hold the edges of the gash together, in an attempt to staunch the flow. The wound wasn't closing at all.

"Do you stab all your potential mates?" he joked weakly, his eyes flitting to mine. Finnick crossed the room with a white napkin and wrapped it around his arm, murmuring something I couldn't make out.

I dropped the knife, aghast. "I didn't… I didn't know who it was," I explained, as Margarette turned to me, her eyebrows flying high. "I didn't mean to…" My breath started to come fast, and dizziness threatened, but she settled one hand on my shoulder.

"Breathe slowly, Flor," she ordered. "In and out, one . In and out, two . Focus on me, nothing else. No one else."

The edges of my vision were still black, but I did as she asked. I focused on her face, breathing. Ignoring everything but her.

She had suffered at Southern, too, but I hadn't had time to really appreciate how much she'd gone through, and changed, since the battle. The cuts the Head Enforcer had given her were still scabbed up. They would scar, like silver-tipped blade wounds always did.

She had been so beautiful before, but almost too perfect, like a model. Now she looked like a heroine from some fantasy story. In the past few days, someone had cut her ragged hair into a style sort of like mine, but with asymmetric angles that mirrored the angular slices on her face. Like she was showing the scars off. Didn't she care that her face was scarred?

"Badges of honor," she told me, noting where my gaze landed. "I will tell the story of that battle to every shifter I meet. How my late sister warned me that my hair was a liability in battle, and that I almost died for my vanity. It took a teenaged warrior to get me to finally cut my hair."

Story. Margarette had heard a lot of my stories. Maybe it hadn't been Glen.

"Did you—" I paused, but I had to know. "Did you tell them?" I nodded to the pile of whimpering males, and then to Vanessa. "About the haircut, and my name. That I was unranked." I felt rage growing inside me when her face went even more pale. "Was it you who told them about the Hunt?"My voice rose, got stronger. "Did you know your shifters have been hunting me all day, in the woods? Here, in your own damned house? "

It was like I'd set off a bomb in the room.

The Alpha Heirs all began cursing. Something was happening with Brand—another partial shift, I thought—and it took Finnick and Patrick both to hold him back from the pile of wounded shifters. His snarls filled the room, and the smell of urine and fear rose from the defeated young males.

Margarette's lips trembled as she took in my words. "I told Vanessa," she admitted, "but I only told her so she would understand, so she would help you."

That bitch.

"She set the Hunt on me," I hissed, and Margarette's eyes widened. I turned to see Vanessa wrapping a fresh cloth napkin around the soaked one on Glen's arm. It was still oozing blood, so much blood. "I should kick your ass for that, Vanessa," I told her quietly. "In fact, I plan to."

She blinked. "You want to… fight me?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely. Here and now, or in a ring." I'd love to meet this stuck-up princess in a fighting ring and let her try to laugh at me with no tongue in her damned mouth.

Brand nodded, like he agreed. The wounded males were already stirring, and I stepped as far from them as I could.

"Y-you can't fight me," Vanessa sputtered. "You're unranked."

"No, she's not." Glen shoved her away. "She's ranked higher than you. She's my—" Margarette cleared her throat, with a pointed look at me. "She's special," he finished weakly.

"Special enough to become an Enforcer?" Vanessa spat, but she was staring at Margarette.

"Vanessa, must we have this same conversation again? Glen, you'd better go see the pack doctor." Margarette sighed heavily. "You'll need to get that stitched."

"Stitches?" Vanessa's face was red, but she still sneered at me and then at Glen. "I wasn't allowed to go to the Conclave and try to find my true mate, because it was too dangerous. I guess Aunt Mags was right—Southern was too dangerous, if it turned you into a weak-ass wolf." Her gaze darted around the room, taking in the pile of wounded shifters, the blood splatters that decorated the carpet by Glen, then rested once more on the cloth around his arm, which was still dripping fresh blood. "Why aren't you healing?" she demanded.

Glen didn't answer, but the males who were slowly picking themselves up off the floor and trying to leave froze. Wide-eyed, they looked at him, then over at me. The ones still on the floor began backing away on their hands and knees, eyes cast down and to the side. Like they were afraid.

They fucking should be. Finnick was still struggling to hold Brand back. And I had a feeling that with a little coaxing, Margarette might let me kill these males for their insult.

"Glen, what happened?" Vanessa's voice was fearful now.

He stayed silent, holding the napkins on his arm. But the blonde girl who'd glared at me in the blue room had slipped inside at some point, and she answered for him. "She's his true mate. She must be." Her gaze landed on me, sharp and filled with rage. "You don't deserve him."

I closed my eyes. "Not this shit again."

Margarette took charge. "Right. Why Glen is bleeding is not your concern. What is your concern, Vanessa, is why you would bring up the terrible abuses I told you about in confidence, so that Flor would have a friend who understood all she'd lived through."

"You expect me to be a friend to an unranked piece of fur that Glen brought home as a fu—" Vanessa couldn't finish her sentence, since she was on the floor, holding her face. Margarette had slapped her so hard, it had sounded like a gunshot.

" Enough. I have spoiled you, if you think you can speak to me that way—your Alpha Mate, this pack's Head Enforcer. That you can treat a guest of our pack in such a manner. Vanessa, you have dishonored yourself, and our pack. I am stripping you of rank."

The room went silent. There was something I didn't understand being said.

"You've got to be joking. For her? I work for decades to test for Enforcer, I'm finally given the chance, and of course you're pulling the rug out. Of fucking course ."

Margarette let out a low growl. "Get out of my sight, Vanessa. Out of this house."

"I have to move to the unranked compound?" Vanessa's jaw dropped, her eyes darting to all the others in the room, except me. "You're kicking me out of my home?"

Margarette scowled. "No. You may continue to live here as family. But you will report to the training grounds for remedial lessons with the elementary shifters on pack law and tenets tomorrow, after you clean the dining rooms."

Vanessa sputtered, "Remedial—I could teach that class! I have taught it!"

"That concerns me as well." Margarette's eyes clouded with grief and disappointment. "If you haven't learned the central tenet of pack law—that the pack protects —what have you taught the others?" She shook off her sadness when Vanessa continued to sputter and make excuses, then growled louder. "Go, now."

In seconds, all the shifters who'd been in the other dining room were gone. The blonde took Vanessa's arm and whispered something in her ear while pulling her to the door, glaring at me like she was imagining me chopped into pieces the size of stew meat.

Glen stayed, Finnick holding him still so he could bind the wound tightly. It looked like the bleeding was stopping at last. Good, maybe then they'd shut up about this true mate bullshit.

Two maids came bustling through the door, clearing away the broken dishes and spilled food, replacing it all with fresh platters and table linen, as if this sort of thing happened often. Brand stood close to me, his breathing still labored, as if he was struggling not to chase down the males.

"Where were you?" I managed to ask in a whisper. "You said you wouldn't leave me alone."

"Margarette said you were coming straight from your room, and asked me to escort her here," Brand replied quietly as he guided me to an empty space at the table. "She sent a servant to bring you to dinner; I heard her."

"She took me to the other dining room." I wasn't certain if she'd misdirected me on purpose or not. The servant had asked about my rank and mated status—but who knew what was going on in this fucked-up pack? Certainly not me.

I sniffed, and felt ill. I had blood all over my clothes. "Can I go change?" Then my stomach let out a growl. "I'm hungry, but I smell."

"Food first," Brand said, guiding me down onto a cushioned chair, then sitting beside me. "You can change after, but only if I go with you. I will never fucking leave your side from now on." That seemed a bit extreme, but I appreciated the sentiment.

"Where are your new clothes, Flor?" Margarette asked, her voice strained. "What happened in the few hours since we arrived?"

"Same old, same old, Margarette. Don't worry, I'm used to it." I patted her arm.

"Don't worry?" She was shaking with something. Pain, or exhaustion?

I peeked at her face. Nope.

Door number three: incandescent rage.

She didn't need my mess to deal with as well as her own. Change of topic required. "How is Alpha Hillier?"

"He's still not… The doctor says he could be healing, slowly," she said, her voice raspy. "Scars are unusual on any shifter. My mate's scars will not be as attractive as mine. But every scar on a shifter tells a story of battle, and victory."

I pressed a hand to my own chest, wanting to ask her if she was sure about that. I'd had mine since I was a baby, maybe since I was born. But I wasn't sure where mine had come from. Only that they'd been aching since I left Southern.

"Here, little badass." I flinched as Patrick moved close to my arm, serving me a large rare steak on a wide plate. Brand snarled, and Patrick returned his aggression, though he stepped backward. "Give me a break, Brand. She's hungry."

"Mine," Brand growled, and I thought he meant the steak when he pulled the plate over. But he began cutting pieces for me with his own knife and fork, and holding them up to my mouth. Feeding me? I took one, making a small sound of appreciation. Brand froze, then smiled, his teeth oddly sharp.

Okay, that was weird. He was enjoying this a little too much, and when I peeked around the room, Glen and Finnick were both staring with fascination at the next bite of steak. Or at my lips? They looked hungry for something, though Finnick's nostrils were flared. In distaste, probably. Finnick had made sure I knew exactly how much he didn't want to be around me back at Southern.

"Um, maybe I should go shower."

Brand grunted. "Eat first. You don't smell bad."

Sitting on my other side, Patrick leaned in and gave a sniff, making a face. "Don't listen to him, Flor. You do smell. But eat anyway."

"Thank you for the food." I laid a hand on his arm.

Growls erupted from all the other males in the room. I rolled my eyes when Brand moved my hand from Patrick's arm and placed it on my lap.

"As I was saying, I think my scars will be quite attractive," Margarette said, her lips twitching as she ignored whatever was going on with the guys. "I rather like the angles. They go perfectly with my haircut. I never would have tried something this modern. Thank you for giving me the idea, Flor."

"Giving you the idea? I hacked it off with a steak knife." She was bugnuts. I liked it.

"Mhmm," she murmured, turning back to her meal like it had never been interrupted. "Now, I don't want to upset you, but I would like to hear what happened with Vanessa and the others." She bared her teeth delicately. "In case I need to strip the ranks from them all."

"Who are they?" I asked, chewing the steak Brand offered me slowly. "They remind me a lot of the shifters back at Southern. They were overcome with the instinct to chase."

"Strip their ranks," Margarette instructed Patrick.

"Done," he replied.

I blinked. "No, wait!"

Margarette raised an eyebrow, tucking into her own food. "If they can't control their wolves, their instincts, they can't hold rank. That's what rank means, Flor. Strength."

Huh . I'd never heard it put that way. I wasn't altogether certain I believed it either. The maids I'd met here who were unranked had seemed as strong as most of the ranked shifters back at Southern. But I supposed I'd need to meet more of them before I could judge fairly. The young males who'd chased me definitely didn't need to have any kind of authority over other shifters, so I ended up nodding.

"Just… don't do it for me. I don't think I'm even going to be able to stay here."

"You can't leave!" Glen, Margarette, and Finnick all said at the same time.

I glanced at Brand. He mouthed one word. Lake?

Just seeing that made me relax. "Not yet."I turned back to Margarette. "I can leave," I said calmly. I didn't like the silence that fell in the room when I said it. "You said it yourself—I'm not a prisoner."

I stared down the woman who'd felt, for a short time, like a friend. Like safety and hope rolled into one. But her pack wasn't at all like I'd thought, like she'd led me to believe.

"Or am I?"