His shaking slowly stopped and he squared his shoulders looking me in the eye with a determined steel once more returning to his gaze.
“Jacket,” I murmured and he lifted his left hand, pulling aside his jacket to reveal his bare chest.
In silence, as everyone stilled to watch, I lifted the metal brand. Markus lit his zippo and I held the silver to the flame. It seemed to take forever for the metal to heat, but finally, satisfied it was hot enough, I pulled it from the fire.
I pressed the Omega symbol against Remus’ chest, in the same place where Chloe had bitten me. The instant the silver touched his skin there was a loud hissing sound, like meat touching a red hot frying pain and a wisp of smoke rose up from his skin. The stench of burning flesh assaulted my nose and I gritted my teeth.
Remus let slip a strangled cry but clenched his jaw tight and remained otherwise silent for the five seconds that I held the brand against his flesh. When I pulled it away there was an angry black burn left behind on his skin in the perfect shape of the Omega.
“Remus Reese is dead,” I said quietly. My grip on his shoulder was one of the only things keeping Remus on his feet, the other being sheer stubborn will. “Do you understand me, Remy?” He raised his eyes from the burn on his chest.
“I understand, William.”
“You need to be gone by sundown tomorrow, Brother.”
“Remus was your brother,” he said. “Remy Dulcet is an only child.”
I sighed, already feeling drained and lost. “Be that as it may, Remy, Remus Reese is dead, and you, Remy Dulcet, can start over somewhere else. Remy Dulcet
can
make amends where Remus would never be able to.”
He said nothing, but held my eyes, the deep obsidian of his gaze boring into mine with a frightening intensity.
“Return to our territory without an extremely compelling reason, and you face the death penalty that I spared you tonight,” I said to finish off the ceremony.
“I understand,” he said. “Take care of him, Chloe,” he added before he turned and slunk off into the night. I could still here his footsteps for some time as he left and eventually I felt a hand land on my shoulder and turned to look at Markus.
“Ya did good, Kid,” he muttered, voice pitched low so only we would hear him. “Omega might seem like a fate worse than death to him right now, but you gave him all the tools he needs. He’ll figure it out, Remu– Remy is a smart man. He’ll be fine.”
“I hope so, Markus. Because if he doesn’t, I just sentenced him to a slow torturous wasting existence when a swift death would have been kinder.”
Chapter 26
Chloe
I watched Remus thrash through the underbrush and listened to William and Markus speak on it. Deep, dark storm clouds of pity and remorse swamped me. The raw, naked pain and even fear that had flickered across Remus’ features made an indelible mark on my heart even as the brand had pitted and melted his flesh.
A weighted silence filled the clearing and I turned my eyes toward Sharon. She wasn’t looking so certain anymore and I couldn’t say I felt bad about that. The way she’d carried herself into the clearing had left me angry and I had decided on the same fate for her, but seeing Remus? Well that had softened my position some.
Honestly though, none of the options before me were that great. Both required a brand and I really wasn’t sure I could go through with such an intentional act of cruelty. I swallowed hard. A big part of being a leader was doing things you didn’t want to do. Another part of being a leader was never asking of anyone that which you weren’t willing to do yourself.
As reviled as he was, I was my father’s daughter in some of the more important ways. The ones that really counted. Having a backbone was one of those ways. I was also my mother’s daughter. Even though she’d died when I was young, she’d taught me understanding. To look beyond the surface. Past the color of people’s skin, past their clothes or where they lived or how they were raised. I tried very hard to do that here even though Sharon wouldn’t afford me the same courtesy.
She stared at me, her lips compressed in a thin line of contempt and I just had to ask her, “Tell me why I don’t afford you the same fate, Sharon.”
She visibly paled but held her ground, “I…” she closed her mouth, opened it again, closed it again and finally snarled, “Why don’t you just do whatever you’re going to do?”
“Because I don’t want to,” I told her honestly. I looked out over the assembled crowd.
“I don’t want to burn you, I don’t want to fight you, and I don’t want to start my reign of leadership with punishment and pain. There’s already been enough blood spilled on this hallowed ground,” Sharon scoffed and I turned my eyes back to her and cocked my head to the side.
“But part of being a leader, part of being an
effective
and
good
leader, means doing things you don’t want to do all the time.” I let the silence roll through the glade and settle in.
“Pack Law demands that I either banish you as Omega, or that I mark and demote you. There’s another option though,” I said; a sudden stroke of brilliance really. The wolves murmured to one another and Sharon looked at me puzzled.
I needed to cement my status with these people,
my people
,
I needed to impress upon them that I wasn’t weak. That I knew how and that I would lead them. That I wasn’t afraid and never would be.
“What are you talking about?” Sharon demanded, scowling.
“Chloe…” William’s voice held a thread of confusion twining with a thread of warning.
“How about it Sharon? Do you think you could do better leading this Pack than I could? Do you think you’re more Alpha than me? That’s your third option. You could Challenge me for leadership of this Pack, right here and right now and I could do the same damn thing I did to Lucinda to you the next full moon. I’ll let you think about it. Go ahead and take a minute.”
I locked gazes with her and her eyes widened. Rather quickly Sharon’s eyes only got wider still, as she realized I was dead serious and she went down on one knee, “No Alpha, I won’t challenge you, I… I don’t want to challenge you.”
“Looks like you have some self-preservation after all,” I uttered and heaved a great inward sigh of relief. I hadn’t been bluffing, I would have killed her the next full moon, I just really,
really
,
didn’t want to.
“You won’t be challenging anyone else anytime soon either,” I said. “Sharon, I pronounce sentence. You will be marked and demoted. Nora will take your place as Beta of this Pack. Do you agree to this pronouncement or do you wish to Challenge me? Last chance.”
Sharon looked up at me and the look was of pure venom, “I don’t wish to challenge you, Alpha. I agree to your sentence.”
“Good deal,” I said with a raised brow and plucked the brand Markus indicated out of the box. It was a straight line with two shorter diagonal hash marks through the longer line’s center. William made to take it from me and I shook my head. He gave me a proud little smile and I gave him a brave one in return.
Sharon didn’t take her brand quietly, not like Remus. She screamed long and loud and my heart broke a little. I made sure to brand her in a place that could easily be covered, figuring she was going to hate me no matter what I did.
“This matter is done, closed, do you all understand me?” I demanded.
“Sharon is not to be treated any differently than any other member of this Pack.”
“I don’t need your weak pity!” Sharon snarled.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Sharon. Don’t you ever confuse my kindness for weakness because I swear to God, I swear
on my mate’s life
, it will be the last thing you ever do! That goes for all of you!” I clasped William’s hand and looked up into my beloved’s eyes. We both turned as one to address our Pack and shouted in unison.
“I am the Alpha!”
Chapter 27
William
It took a while to get through everything after that. Not all night, thankfully. But definitely a while. The brands were taken away and Sharon stalked from the meeting with her head bowed noticeably in comparison to how she arrived on the scene earlier.
I pulled Chloe away from Nora where they were discussing plans for the next few days. Nora needed to set up lessons for Chloe, as well as give her a rundown on her responsibilities as Alpha Bitch of the Pack. She came willingly and I folded her into my arms, breathing in her scent and taking a great comfort from her body pressed against mine. Without thinking, her arms had slid inside my jacket and her hands stroked softly up and down my back sending tingles through my skin wherever she touched me.
“I hope that feeling lasts forever,” I muttered without meaning to. She tilted her head back and gave me a questioning look, but I just smiled and shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Just a stray thought.” I smiled and kissed the end of her nose, laughing as she made a face and scrunched her nose up as if she wanted to sneeze for a moment.
“So, how’d I do?” she asked in a quiet murmur and I pulled her tight.
“You did great, Love. I’ll admit to almost suffering a coronary when you asked if she wanted to Challenge you, but it was brilliant. Excellent work.”
“Little gushy fer my tastes, but he’s right,” Markus added. He walked up behind Chloe and she turned in my arms so she could see him. “Ya did good. Now let’s get the hell out of here. The wife’s waitin’ fer me and I want to get home already.”
I started and looked at Markus in an entirely new light. “You’re married? Why didn’t I know that?” I asked, surprised.
Markus laughed and gave Chloe a wink. “There’s a lot that you don’t know about me, Kid,” he said. “The sheer tonnage of things that you don’t know would knock you senseless.”
Chloe laughed and followed behind him as the old wolf started walking away.
“Hey!” I followed after them and took Chloe’s hand as we walked. She twined her fingers through mine but I was busy glaring at Markus. “That’s really not fair, you old dog,” I called after him and he just kept laughing. Laughter was something I think we needed a lot more of around here and I was content to be the butt of his joke if it put such a smile on my mate’s face.
Markus dropped us off outside the house after spending the entire drive fending off, or outright ignoring me pestering him about his wife, and we went in and upstairs, undressed and slipped into bed, both of us unconscious before we even knew it.
When I woke, my eyes opened and I stared up at the vaulted ceiling above me, feeling somehow out of place. Something was different. There was a feeling I had that I just couldn’t place at first, something I didn’t usually wake up feeling on an average day in the life of William Reese.
Chloe was sprawled across my chest, her arms thrown around me and her right leg lying across my hips. Her skin felt soft and warm against mine and my body told me how much it enjoyed her presence.
But that wasn’t it. To be perfectly honest I had woken up with a woman in my bed more than once. I’m in my seventies and certainly not a saint or a monk. So a beautiful woman in bed with me, not the unusual thing. Maybe it’s because she was my wife, for all intents and purposes?
No, that wasn’t it either.
I pulled her closer and breathed in the faint scent of peaches and sunshine that I associated so strongly with Chloe Reese. Holding her in my arms, her body pressed against mine, I felt more relaxed and content than I had in a long time.
My eyes popped open again, I hadn’t even realized I had closed them.
That was it. Content. I hadn’t felt content in longer than I could remember. Every day I woke up facing training, combat; the harsh life of a wolf-kind. As son of the Alpha, with two powerful brothers to worry about, I was always watching my back, all the time.
I didn’t have to watch my back anymore. Well, okay, yes, I still needed to watch my back. But I was the Alpha. My mate was the Alpha. We were an Alpha pair and I could honestly say that I was completely in love with her. When exactly had that happened? I chuckled quietly to myself. It’d probably happened somewhere between threatening to rape her and when she said ‘shut up and fuck me’, I just hadn’t noticed.
“What are you laughing about?” a sleep filled voice asked from the level of my chest. I tilted my head down, looking into her beautiful amber flecked blue eyes.
“I was just wondering when exactly it was that I fell in love with you.” She smiled and stretched languidly. As her leg shifted across me and her breasts slid against my chest, I wasn’t at all surprised that my dick started to grow harder beneath her thigh.
“And that thought causes you to get a hard on?” she asked, moving her leg down and taking me in hand.
“No, you sliding your body against mine does that.”
“Damn right,” she muttered and pulled me over on top of her. Her leg came up, thigh rubbing against my side as she opened herself for me. “So when did you conclude that you fell in love with me?” she asked.
I braced myself on my elbows and kissed her gently, resisting as she tried to pull my hips closer to her. The head of my dick just brushed against her and she pulled more insistently at my hips, lifting her own towards me.
She growled, frustrated, and I smiled against her lips.
“I realized it, I think, somewhere between threatening to rape you and when you said–”
“Shut up and fuck me already,” she growled and I laughed again as I let her pull me forward and slid into her with one slow thrust.
“Yeah,” I groaned. “That was what you said, more or less.” Chloe laughed breathlessly against my neck and rocked her hips against mine.
We had a lot to do still. The Pack was still a mess. The Hunters still knew that we had taken the state as our territory. Nora and Brent would be there soon to start going over things with Chloe and I had promised that I would stick around to help, so we were going to talk in my workshop while I finished the tree that I needed to dismantle and ship out to my client by the end of the week. We had time for this though.
I slowly pulled almost entirely out of her, until just the head of my dick remained, splitting open the swollen lips of her pussy before I plunged back into her, driving a loud moan from her lips.