21: The Breech

We follow the crowd inside and I try not to gape at the interior because it’s massive. The ceiling has to be at least thirty feet high with exposed wooden beams and there’s a fireplace against one wall that’s big enough to walk into.

Pack members file in and take seats on benches and chairs that line the walls and I’m left standing with everyone staring and I’ve never felt more exposed in my life.

Elder Blackwood settles into a high-backed chair at the far end of the hall that looks less like furniture and more like a throne and he studies me with the kind of cold look that makes me want to shrink into myself.

“Tell me, human.” The way he says human makes it sound like an insult. “What makes you believe you’re worthy of an Alpha?”

“I don’t—” I start but he holds up one hand and I stop talking.

“You don’t,” he agrees. “Yet here you stand, having triggered a war responsible for dead in my son’s home, do you even comprehend the magnitude of what you’ve done?”

“Viktor wants to hurt Rhys through me—”

“That you are a liability. Now victor has the perfect excuse to annihilate us by claiming we’ve broken sacred law by allowing a human to know of our existence.”

“I didn’t ask for any of this—”

“Yet here you are.” He stands and I have to fight every instinct that tells me to back away.

Selene steps forward with a smile that’s all teeth. “The pack needs a Luna who can fight alongside the Alpha, not a fragile human who needs constant protection.”

The murmurs of agreement ripple through the hall and I’m surrounded by hostile faces and I’m trying to think of something to say that won’t make this worse when the doors explode inward.

Rhys strides in and the entire room goes silent.

He’s changed into clean clothes, dark jeans and a black henley, but his hair is still damp from a shower. His eyes scan the room until they land on me.

“What the hell is this?”

“A pack meeting,” his father answers. “As is our right when you bring a human into our midst.”

Rhys moves and suddenly he’s standing between me and everyone else.

“She’s under my protection.”

“She’s a threat to pack security,” his father counters coldly.

“She’s my mate.”

The words drop like a bomb and the entire hall erupts in shocked whispers and gasps because apparently this is the first time he’s actually said it out loud in front of everyone.

Elder Blackwood’s expression doesn’t change but his voice gets colder. “You would choose a human over pack law?”

“I’m choosing my mate,” Rhys says flatly. “That’s the end of the discussion.”

“It most certainly is not.” His father descends the steps from his chair and crosses the floor until he’s standing directly in front of Rhys. “She has no strength, no healing ability, no combat training, the first real fight she’s in she dies and then what? You go feral from mate loss and take this entire pack down with you?”

“That won’t happen—”

“You can’t guarantee that!” His father’s voice rises for the first time. “I raised you to be strong, trained you to lead, and you’re throwing it all away for a human”

“Maybe I should just go—” I start to say but Rhys doesn’t even turn around.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

He looks back at his father and his voice is absolutely final. “She’s my mate, the bond chose her, I don’t care if you like it or not, she stays.”

Selene steps forward and her face is carefully composed but I can see fury burning in those ice-blue eyes. “And what about me, Rhys? What about our engagement?”

“An arrangement I never agreed to.”

“Our families agreed—”

“I didn’t agree to anything, my father agreed.”

The color drains from Selene’s face. “You would humiliate me? Humiliate my entire family? For her?”

“I’m ending an arrangement that should never have been made,” Rhys says and there’s no emotion in his voice at all which somehow makes it more brutal. “I’m sorry if that embarrasses you but I won’t mate with someone I don’t choose.”

Selene’s expression goes cold and hard as stone. “You’re making a mistake you’ll regret.”

“That’s my choice to make.”

She turns on her heel and stalks toward the doors and I can see her hands shaking with rage before she disappears into the night.

The silence in the hall is suffocating until an alarm suddenly blares through the building, loud and piercing, and red emergency lights start flashing along the walls.

Kade bursts through a side door with panic written all over his face.

“We have sighted rogues at the perimeter!” he shouts. “Fifty at least, maybe more, they’re testing the walls on the eastern side.”

Elder Blackwood’s face goes hard as granite. “This is what she’s brought to our door.”

“Get into defensive positions now!” Rhys’s voice carries that Alpha command that makes every wolf in the room jump to their feet. “Kade, organize the western flank, Isaac, take the south, I’ll handle the east personally.”

The hall erupts into chaos as pack members flood toward the exits.

Rhys turns to me and grabs both my shoulders hard enough that it almost hurts. “Stay with Kade, do not leave this building for any reason, do you understand me?”

“Rhys—”

“Do you understand?” His eyes are already flickering gold and I can see he’s barely holding onto his human form.

“Yes.”

He cups my face with one hand and his thumb brushes across my cheekbone and for just a second the hardness in his expression cracks. “I’ll come back.”

Then he’s gone and I’m left standing in the great hall with Kade and all I can think is that this is my fault, all of this death and violence is happening because of me, and I have absolutely no idea how to make it stop.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​