CHAPTER FIVE

~MARCEL~

MY BLOOD WAS roaring with rage at this woman and her ancestors’ crimes. The Moon Goddess had placed her in my hands for vengeance... and my grip around her throat tightened.

“Marcel.”

Bruce stood in the cell doorway. I dropped her without ceremony. She hit the stone floor on her cast and made a thin, choking sound, one hand clawing at her throat, dragging air into her lungs in ragged gasps.

Bruce’s eyes went to her, then back to me. He said nothing about it.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The elders are gathering," He replied. "They want a meeting.”

I scoffed. “Tell them to wait.”

“They will not.” He lowered his voice. “They heard you brought someone back last night. Half the pack is already talking.”

His voice slid into my head. Did you find out who she is?

I nodded once.

And? He prodded.

I did not answer. “Move her to the lower caves,” I said aloud so she could hear her fate. “Prisoner’s clothes. Two guards on her cell, day and night. And keep my sister out of it. She has a soft spot for criminals.”

Bruce looked at the woman on the floor, then at me, confusion plain on his face. He sent the order down the mindlink as he followed me out. I did not look back.

The elders numbered fewer than a dozen. They were the last of the generation that had lived through Charles Grogel’s war, and they carried the proof in their bodies, missing fingers, burn scars that had never closed properly. They were already seated in a half circle in the pack hall when I walked in. The smell of woodsmoke hung heavy in the air.

The room went quiet. Bruce took his place at my shoulder. It is done, he told me. She is moved.

Elara. The name kept sliding into my head. I stamped it out.

“Good morning,” I said.

No one answered.

“We heard you took a prisoner last night,” said Roderick. He had lost an eye and half his face in the war, and the good half was hard as granite. “A woman. Who is she?”

“Her name is Elara Grogel.”

The silence that followed was like the moment after a thunderclap. Then, a chair screeched across stone. Tomas was on his feet. He had been twelve when the war came. He had watched his father cut down in front of him, and he had never spoken of it. His hands were shaking. “Grogel,” he said, like a curse. “Grogel blood in our caves. Under our roof.” His voice cracked upward. “And she is still breathing?”

“She will be...”

“Then why is she alive now?” Roderick’s cane cracked against the floor. His good eye blazed. “Why did you not cut her throat where you found her?”

“Because I did not know who she was until an hour ago!” My voice was cold as ice.

“You know now,” Roderick said. “Do what must be done.”

“Listen to yourselves.” Elder Hilda had not raised her voice. She was a small woman with a silver braid, sitting very straight. “You would spill a girl’s blood for a crime she was not even alive to commit.”

“She is his blood!” Tomas roared.

“Blood is not a crime.”

“Blood is the crime!” His fist came down on the table, and cups jumped. “Charles Grogel’s blood killed my father. It burned my mother in her bed. Do you remember that, Hilda, or has age softened your memory?”

Hilda rose. She did not say a word as she pulled down the collar of her dress and showed the room her collarbone, and the old brand that had been burned into it, a crescent moon with a blade through it. I had seen that mark in the records. I had never seen it on living skin.

“I remember,” she said quietly. “I wore his mark for eleven years, Tomas. I scrubbed his floors. I know what the Grogels did better than anyone in this room. And I still say that girl is not him.”

For one heartbeat, nobody breathed.

Then the hall exploded. Voices crashed over each other. Someone shouted that I had gone soft. Roderick’s cane hammered the floor like a war drum, and Tomas wheeled on me, his finger shaking in my face. “Your grandfather made us swear!” he screamed. “On his deathbed, he made every one of us swear we would never let Bloodmoon forget what they did. Did you forget, Alpha? Did you forget?”

I remembered the promise I had whispered into the dark at my father's deathbed as his hand went cold in mine. “I did not forget,” I said quietly.

“Then what are you waiting for?” The fire cracked in the hearth.

“Enough.” The word rolled through the hall like thunder. Every head dipped, and the voices died down. Tomas swayed on his feet, breathing hard.

Bruce stepped forward. He had been silent through all of it, watching me out of the corner of his eye. He waited until the last echo had faded. “Are you finished?” he asked mildly. “Because I have something to say, and I would like you to hear it.” Roderick opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. “Every one of you has spent a hundred years hiding in these mountains, praying that no one would ever find us. If we drag her out tonight and cut her throat in front of the pack, what do you think happens next? Bloodmoon hears that a girl of their blood was murdered by a pack they believed was extinct. We stop hiding, and we are not ready for that war.”

It was a long moment before Hilda let out a slow breath. “He is right.”

Tomas said nothing. He sat down heavily and would not look at anyone.

Bruce turned to me. “So. What is her fate, Marcel?” His voice dropped into my head, where no one else could hear it. She might be your mate. Remember.

I thought of my hand around her throat. I thought of her whisper, you’re lying, and the flame that shot up my arm when we touched her in the woods. The Moon Goddess had a cruel sense of humor.

“In three days, she will be executed,” I said.

Bruce stared at me. Hilda closed her eyes. Tomas lifted his head slowly and smiled.

For the first time in my life, my wolf went silent and turned his back.