13. Sacha

Chapter thirteen

Sacha

I held Gavril's hands and swallowed down a sudden wave of nausea. In the calmest voice I could muster, I asked him, "Gav, why would you think Mother killed our fathers?"

He looked me right in the eyes as he said, "She told me. That's how you get to be in charge." His bottom lip trembled and tears built in his eyes. "She said I'd have to kill Uncle Titus and Uncle Marius someday. She said I'd have to kill you, too," he said as his tears fell and he started sobbing. "I don't want to kill anybody!"

"You don't have to." I picked him up, wrapping my arms around him and holding tight as he cried on my shoulder. "You'll never have to."

Rage was building inside me, right beside the horror and sadness.

How dare she drill into this innocent child that he'd someday have to kill his family in order to lead them? He was six years old!

Yes, fine, others farther back in our line had been killed for the same reason, but that was in the distant past. Nowadays, we voted out a leader who harmed the pack. We hadn't killed anyone for over a hundred years! The worst thing that we'd done since we landed in this country was that we'd split the pack upon arrival, some staying there and some coming here.

I didn't want to think about whether Mother had murdered Gavril's father or mine. I didn't want to know if it was possible that she'd somehow contributed to what had been deemed accidents. Both our own investigation and that done by the human police had said both deaths were accidental. Could we have been wrong? All of us? Mother could scheme and plot for sure, but to the point of pulling off two perfect murders? I didn't want to believe it.

"Alpha," Titus said.

I turned to face him with a quiet Gavril still cradled in my arms, only realizing Titus meant me when I saw him. I shook my head. "No. Not right now. I can't—"

"You can and you will. This is exactly the right time to speak to the pack."

"Jesus, Titus, you can't be serious. I might be alpha—"

"You are alpha."

"—and my mother might be a murderer! I can't even begin to—"

Titus stepped closer to me, his expression earnest and imploring. "The pack needs to know both of these things and right now. You need to have Elise brought to you for questioning. You need guards patrolling the forest. Only the alpha can order these things to happen."

Fuck. He wasn't wrong. I'd come into this room wanting Mother to do something about the cats and what they'd done to—

"Zeke!" I spun around, desperately looking for him.

"Here. I'm here." He gave me a soft smile as he wove through the others to stand beside me again. "Don't worry about me."

There would probably never be a time when I wouldn't worry about him.

I patted Gavril's back. "Hey, Gav," I said and waited until he sat back to look at me. "I need you to stick with Zeke while I do this, okay? He's my mate, and I trust him, so you can, too."

Gavril eyed Zeke a bit suspiciously, and I nearly laughed at the way Zeke was eyeing the kid right back. I had no idea if Zeke was good with children, wanted some, or even liked them at all, but we'd both have to get used to having this one around a lot more. Even if Mother was innocent, I wasn't going to let her have him back. I'd stick around in Gav's life and undo everything she'd done to him.

I set Gavril on his feet, and Zeke reached for his hand. They stood awkwardly holding hands, looking at me like everyone else in the room was. I'd never thought I'd be alpha. Never trained for it, learned anything about being one, but I'd been old enough to know my father had been a good one. I'd watched him lead his pack. I was his son and his blood flowed through my veins. I could do this like he had.

Looking Zeke in the eyes, I pointed at the floor beside me. "Right here, okay? The whole time, you're going to be right here ."

He grinned at me and stole a kiss. "I won't stand so close that you can feel my dick poking your ass," he whispered, "but you'll definitely know I'm there."

I snorted a laugh mostly because it really didn't matter that he'd whispered—we wolves had excellent hearing, so the whole room heard every word. But I also left the office with a smile on my face, which helped in ways he might not have even realized.

When the whole pack assembled, we met in the basement of the resort. It had pillars holding the ceiling up, but it was one huge room. Since Mother took over, we'd come here more on moon nights than for anything else. I realized now that Mother's leadership had cut off most of the pack from what was happening, making us rely on gossip passed down from those who had been in the room. I'd only known about the encroaching cats from rumors and scenting them. She should've told us everything.

Had she done it deliberately? Had she isolated us and made us ignorant of what was going on around us on purpose? That was one hell of a power trip she was on, if that was the case.

Marius had gathered everyone as requested because I could hear a lot of people shuffling around on the other side of the basement door. Nervousness rang through me. What if they didn't accept me as alpha? It could happen. Maybe. Or what if I just sucked at this because no one had ever shown me how to be an alpha? Oh, how I wished I'd paid better attention to everything my dad had done.

Titus opened the door and went through, holding it for me, and I realized he had stepped very smoothly into the role of my protector. "Stand for your new alpha," he bellowed to the room.

I saw a lot of confused faces as those sitting in folding chairs scattered around the room slowly got to their feet. Several looked at each other questioningly, and it was clear to me that they weren't sure who Titus meant.

"Show them who you are," he said as I passed him.

Show them… I hadn't meant to broadcast my upset earlier, but I knew I'd been feeling a big emotion and pushed it out of myself as I'd yelled at everyone. So I had to feel something and shove it at them.

I paused in walking down the aisle toward the front of the room, and Zeke put his hand on my back as though he'd had to stop himself from bumping into me. That was the feeling—being touched by my mate. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as I savored the sensation of his warm hand and the heat radiating from his body.

I already loved him.

That was what I released to the rest of the room, to my pack members. In my mind's eye, the love I felt rolled off of me like a gauzy pink wave that flowed over, around, and through everyone else.

I opened my eyes and started walking again when I heard gasps and awed whispers around me. Being an alpha wasn't an elected position, though we could put someone in charge if there was no alpha. Being an alpha was as magical as the fact that we could shift into other forms. It was a fated phenomenon that struck a select few, had nothing to do with lineage sometimes, and was believed to be right every time. Egos had gotten in the way of that acceptance occasionally, but I understood now that this wasn't something I could fight or deny. I was the alpha.

Everyone who wanted to stand did so around the edges of the room, while the rest sat on the floor or in chairs down the center. I walked all the way to the front and turned to face them, thirty lycans, fourteen humans, and sixteen children still too young to shift. This was my pack.

I took a deep breath, checked that Zeke was where I'd asked him to be—he stepped closer, grinning—and then focused on the faces staring expectantly at me. "I came into my powers less than twenty minutes ago," I said, "so please bear with me. We have a lot to cover."

I decided to start with the worst of it first. "I need those of you who investigated the deaths of our former alphas to revisit your work with a new suspect in mind: Elise Zizian Lupescu. She confessed to Gavril that she killed Alek and Cosmin."

Their horror was immediate and loud. Part of me hated to make that information public, but it was necessary. As was asking them to find her. "I need trackers to find her and bring her in for questioning."

Three men stood away from the walls, bowed when I looked at them, and then left the room. They were men I'd known my whole life, who I knew were excellent trackers, and still a little bit of me feared what they'd do when they found her. I was going to have to become as strong as steel to deal with her.

"You're probably already aware that we have cat shifters encroaching on our lands. Earlier, one of them aggressively propositioned my…mate." I swallowed hard after saying that, suddenly worried that Mother's wouldn't be the only bad opinion about my sexuality.

A few people growled and bared their teeth. This was a safe place to let our animalistic characteristics out, but which part of what I'd said had upset them? I glanced at Titus only to find him as unreadable as always. I pushed on.

"I have a theory that if they're willing to approach our human mates, they may be gearing up for more aggressive moves on all of us."

"A war?" Anatolle, Titus's teenage son, asked from nearby, shock all over his face. "You think we're going to have to fight them over territory?"

I could hear others murmuring their surprise and despair, while several wondered aloud why this was the first they'd heard anything about the issue.

"Yes, I think it's possible."

As several people began boasting that we'd beat all comers and others expressed worry over the fact that so many of us had never been in a conflict, I realized they weren't upset about me and Zeke. Maybe someone was, maybe several were, but the focus was on everyone's safety instead. I couldn't resist sending out a wave of peaceful gratitude to all of them that had the effect of quieting them as they took it in.

"What about the moon tonight?" someone hollered out from the back. "Do you think they'll attack then?"

Well, I hadn't thought about that, but damn, it made sense to get us when we were at our weakest. That wouldn't be while we were stuck in wolf form during the night, but in the morning after the moon released us.

"The moon?" Zeke said just behind me. "Like a full moon?"

I turned so I could see him. "Exactly like. Eight to ten hours stuck in wolf form. Still think treating it like running a marathon will help us?"

"Fuck yes," he said with a smile. "Carb load, light exercise, plenty of rest. My money's on you feeling better than you've ever felt once it's over."

I liked his confidence. Turning back to the pack, I said, "Zeke has a theory that if we treat prolonged shifts like running a marathon, we'll come out the other side much better. So we're going to need enough food—"

"Spaghetti," Zeke offered.

"So we're going to need enough spaghetti ," I amended, "to stuff ourselves with before the shift hits. We'll spend time in the hills together, and then we'll sleep here. Bring a swimsuit for the morning because we'll spend time in the pool as well."

I watched them all absorb this information and was pleased to see them sorting things out between them. We had human pack members—mates mostly—who helped us during the moon nights by providing food and anything else we needed. Now they were coming together and talking, so I had a feeling we would have enough spaghetti to feed an army or two by lunchtime.

Speaking of an army… "I'd like to have volunteers to patrol our territory. Observe and report only. I need resort security to stay here unless you're off today. Let's make use of all those radios we have. And if any guests ask, let them know we've spotted a cougar in the area and are being extra vigilant."

Several people raised a hand, and I was glad to see Titus wave them to him. He was taking that role of protection seriously, and I didn't mind that he was handling all aspects of it on his own. I might remember the pack having done things like this in the past, but he'd lived through those times and knew what to do in detail.

And goddamn, I was so proud of my pack right then! This was how it was supposed to work. Someone might be in charge, but we were all in this together. We were supposed to take care of each other. They had my back, and I had theirs. The whole one for all and all for one thing was exactly what a pack should be.

That my mother had become a dictator was almost as offensive to me as the fact that she might've murdered my father.

"Thanks, everybody," I said in lieu of dismissing them, my mind still stuck on how I'd never tried to do anything about Mother's rule before now. I'd let her convince me that I had nothing to offer, not even a voice. What an idiot I'd been.

"This is so cool," Zeke whispered as he leaned into me from behind. "I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm going to fan-boy for a while here because this is so cool ."

I chuckled at him and brought him around in front of me. "Squeeing is way better than screaming, so I'll take it."

He waggled his eyebrows at me. "Oh, the screaming comes later, Mister Alpha Wolf."

I blushed to the roots of my hair. "There's a six year old standing beside us."

Zeke winced and closed his eyes for a second. He let me go and crouched down in front of Gavril. "Hey, how about you help me get some stuff ready for tonight? We'll need to go shopping especially."

For the first time in a while, Gavril smiled. "I like shopping. Can we get toys?"

"Oh, we can definitely get some toys," Zeke said as he winked up at me.

I squinted at him as he took Gav's hand and led him from the room. Definitely get some toys? Like sex toys? No, not with a kid. He could buy kid toys, sure, but why the wink then?

Oh, shit.

"Zeke! Don't you dare buy dog toys," I hollered as I ran after him. "I mean it!"