Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir
Chapter Fifteen
Holly was injured but alive. She had heroically managed to fight off and defend a sizeable number of attackers and was relieved when her brother defeated the remaining enemies as she depleted the last of her effort. Had Theo not arrived when he did, Holly likely wouldn’t have survived the final group of attackers. As soon as the last of the pure-blooded shifters had fallen, Theo shifted back into a man and ran to grab his sister, who was struggling to stay up on her feet. She was badly wounded, but she would survive.
“You guys always give me the hardest job,” Holly teased as she fell against her brother’s strong arms.
“You’re okay,” Theo said with a reassuring smile. “I’ve got you now.”
Just then, the rest of their family bounded through the doors. Rubius ran up to take their daughter from Theo, and Cassandra immediately saw to treating her wounds. Aeron did a final sweep of the castle to make sure that there were no other pure-bloods lurking and then went to reinstate members of his guard at their proper positions to secure the castle. Some of his pack members had followed him back into the city, something that the wolf shifters rarely did, to make sure that their alpha’s stronghold in the kingdom was secured.
“Where is Marquette?” Theo asked Holly while Cassandra began to bind her wounds.
“I don’t know,” Holly replied with a concerned frown. “I had left her barricaded in her bedroom as soon as we realized that the castle was under attack. I told her to stay hidden inside there, but knowing her, she might have tried to come out and fight. I had been guarding her room, but then the pure-bloods drew me away from the corridors by attacking some of the human servants, and I had to go and help them or they would have been killed,”
Rubius looked up at Theo.
“They did that on purpose,” Rubius said. “This was all part of their plan. I saw their alpha leave the battlefield as soon as it became clear that they would lose. They were after Marquette.”
Aeron reentered the room just as Rubius had finished speaking his dismal assessment. He saw the look of sheer and debilitating panic on his son’s face.
“Theo,” Aeron said as he put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “We may not all agree with your relationship with a human, but it is exceedingly clear how much you love Marquette, and we all love you. We will all join together in the search to find her.”
Rubius nodded and stood up.
“Holly is in good hands now with Cassandra. The three of us will search the city for Marquette,” he said.
The three men shifted back to their wolf forms and ran from the castle into the city streets. It was just past dusk, and even though most of the townspeople were not in the streets, there were still a few curious eyes that fell upon the three giant wolves. Aeron would deal with that later. Right now, their only focus was to find Marquette. Aeron and Rubius had superior tracking skills and senses as alphas, but Theo was so familiar with Marquette’s scent that he would have been able to locate her from a million miles away, even though it was raining, and the fresh air threatened to wash her scent away.
Theo tracked Marquette all the way out of the city and back into the deep bowels of the forest. The three wolves tread onto the rival pure-blooded pack’s territory in the pouring downfall of rain. The sound of the thick raindrops battering against the moist ground worked to their advantage to cover the sound of their padded paws approaching. Theo’s tracking led them right up to the entrance of the rival pack leader’s den, where Aeron, Rubius, and Theo all shifted back into men and stood outside before entering.
“We will talk to him first,” Aeron said.
“I don’t see why we would give him the chance to speak,” Theo growled. “We should stay as wolves and tear him apart.”
“I have to admit that I agree with your son this time,” Rubius said as he thought about his injured daughter back at the castle, whom this rival alpha nearly killed. “I see no reason to continue playing by the rules with these fools.”
“Until we find Marquette,” Aeron said, “we stay as men.”
They walked into the den, expecting to be met with a swarm of shifters that had rallied around their alpha, but instead, all they saw was the alpha sitting in a chair near his table—and Marquette. Marquette was badly beaten, but when she saw Theo come into view, her bruised face lit up, and she leaned back against the wall that she was sitting in front of with relief.
Theo’s blood boiled as Aeron made a last attempt to speak to the rival alpha and avoid the destruction of this pack. But Rubius saw Theo’s reaction upon seeing Marquette so badly beaten, and he knew that there was no point in trying to stop Theo from losing control. He stood by and watched as Theo flew into a blinding rage, and not even Aeron tried to stop Theo once he saw what his son was about to do.
Without even shifting fully, Theo’s eyes glared a burning yellow, and his claws pushed through the tips of his human fingers. He lunged at the alpha and dug his razor-sharp claws into the top of his shoulders, rooting the alpha in place before he could make a move against any of them. Theo didn’t think about anything, not even about Marquette’s reaction to seeing what he was about to do. He opened his jaw, felt his long canines push through the gums of his mortal mouth, and gnashed his teeth down onto the neck of the alpha until he felt the bone and cartilage break apart in his jaw. Marquette didn’t even cover her eyes or look away. Instead, she stared right along with Aeron and Rubius as they watched Theo shake his head like a dog with a chew-toy until the alpha’s neck tore away from his shoulders and his head was flung across the room, hitting the side of the den before dropping to the ground with a sickening thud. Theo then ran to Marquette, with his mouth still dripping with blood from the fresh kill, and lifted her up into his arms. Her head fell against his chest, and she let her eyes close to rest once she felt herself safe in his grasp.
But before they got ready to leave the den, the remaining members of the pure-blooded pack gathered at the entry. They were not confrontational or aggressive; they were the pack members who had stayed behind. They were the elderly, the pregnant females, the children. Theo looked at the gathered remnants of the pack and then looked at his father in confusion about what they were supposed to do.
“There is a new issue to deal with now,” Aeron said to him as Theo held Marquette tightly pressed against his chest with her legs draped over his arm. “According to shifter law, by killing their pack leader, you are now the new leader of this rival pack.”
Theo didn’t know what to think. He had no desire to lead this pack, or to become an alpha now. The only thing he wanted to do was get Marquette back to the castle and tend to her. Rubius picked up on Theo’s hesitation.
“You three should go back to the castle,” he said. “I can stay here and keep temporary control over this pack until you are ready to deal with it. But, Theo, you’ll need to tell them.”
Rubius glanced at the confused wolves whose pack was now falling into disarray with the death of their alpha and a shift in control over their leadership. “They will only listen to you now.”
Theo was stunned. He had no experience with giving commands or wielding control. But he did as Rubius said so he could leave with Marquette.
“I give Rubius command over this pack,” he said loud enough that they could all hear him.
It didn’t matter what the pure-blooded shifters thought about the change in command. Pack law was absolute when it came to the succession or assumption of new alphas. Theo was their alpha now, and they had no choice but to listen to him. Which meant that for the moment, they would listen to Rubius. The stray pack members moved out of the doorway and let Aeron and Theo pass, leaving Rubius to look after them until their new alpha returned.