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Chapter 138: The Rival Alpha's Terms
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2026-10-26 00:24:20Arden came into the pack house kitchen with four of his wolves behind him and he sat down at the table without being asked and put his hat on it.
“Alpha,” he said. “I have been thinking about your offer.”
“I did not make you an offer,” I said.
“You made me a choice,” Arden said. “And I have been thinking about it and I have decided that you are right. The Council is going to fall and I am not going to be the wolf who stood on the wrong side of the circle.” He put his hand on the table. “So I am going to bring four hundred wolves to the Council hearing in Boise and I am going to stand with the Palouse Ridge pack.”
I sat down across from him.
“And what do you want in exchange?” I said.
“The mill land,” Arden said.
“The mill land is the pack’s.”
“The mill land is the pack’s and the pack is going to need a wolf to hold it while the Alpha is in Boise.” He put his hand on the table. “Give me the mill land and the east field and the circle for twenty years. Not forever. Twenty years. And the Snoqualmie pack will hold it and work it and keep the Council out of it and at the end of twenty years it comes back to the pack.”
I looked at him.
“And the circle?” I said.
“The circle stays open,” Arden said. “The keeper stays the keeper and the pack comes to the circle every full moon and the whole of it goes on.” He put his hand on the table. “But the keeper does not.”
The kitchen went quiet.
“What?” I said.
“The keeper does not stay,” Arden said. “The keeper is a cursed wolf and the whole of the north knows it and half the Council is going to vote against the rebuilding if there is a cursed wolf standing in the circle.” He looked at me. “Send the keeper east. Let him go and live in the mountains and be a wolf and let the pack have a keeper who is not a cursed wolf.”
I stood up.
“Get out,” I said.
Arden did not move.
“Alpha,” he said.
“Get out of my pack house,” I said. “The keeper is my mate and he is the father of my child and he has been carrying the curse for seventeen years and he has been standing in that circle since the night the mill burned and he is not going to be sent east so that a wolf from the Snoqualmie pack can hold the mill land for twenty years.”
Arden stood up.
“You are going to regret this,” he said.
“I have been regretting things since the calf in the combine yard,” I said. “One more is not going to kill me.”
Arden looked at me for a long moment.
And then he put his hat on.
“There is a thing about the Council you do not know,” he said. “And I am going to tell you because I am not the wolf you think I am.” He put his hand on the table. “The Council has been keeping a room in Boise since 1902. It is not the vault and it is not the archive. It is a room at the back of the Council building and it has a door with a lock and it has a keeper who has been the keeper for forty years.” He looked at me. “The room has cursed wolves in it.”
The kitchen was quiet.
“What?” I said.
“The Council has been collecting cursed wolves for eighty-five years,” Arden said. “Not one in every generation. Not the wolf in the trees. The cursed wolves who were taken from their packs and put in that room and kept there.” He put his hand on the table. “And there are eleven of them in that room right now and they have been in it for a very long time.”
I sat down.
“How do you know this?” I said.
“Because I have been the Council’s west hand for ten years,” Arden said. “And the west hand takes the wolves to the room.”
The kitchen was silent.
And then Elias came out of the back room.
He was in his shirt with his side wrapped and his face gray and he had heard the whole of it.
“Eleven,” he said.
Arden turned.
“Keeper,” he said.
“Eleven cursed wolves in a room in Boise,” Elias said. “And I have been the cursed wolf of this territory for four months and I have been in the trees and in the mill and in the field and nobody has ever come for me.” He put his hand on the door frame. “Why did they not come for me?”
Arden looked at him.
“Because you were not in the register,” he said. “Because the chief clerk wrote in 1953 that the child of the Palouse was dead and he closed the file and he never opened it again.” He looked at me. “And the whole of the room in Boise has been waiting for a cursed wolf who is not in the register.”
I stood up.
“Then we go to Boise,” I said.
“The Council hearing is in a month,” Arden said.
“The Council hearing is in a month and there are eleven cursed wolves in a room in Boise and I am not going to leave them in it for a month.” I looked at him. “You are going to take me to that room.”
Arden looked at me for a long moment.
“And what do I get?” he said.
“You get to be the wolf who opened the door,” I said. “And the whole of the north is going to know it.”
Arden stood in the kitchen.
And then he put his hat on and said, “I will take you to the room. Tomorrow. And the Snoqualmie pack will stand with the Palouse at the Council hearing and I will not ask for the mill land and I will not ask for the keeper and I will not ask for anything.”
I looked at him.
“Why?” I said.
“Because I have been the Council’s west hand for ten years,” Arden said. “And I have taken eleven wolves to that room and I have never once looked at their faces.” He put his hand on the door. “And I am going to look at them tomorrow.”
He went out.
Elias came and stood beside me.
“Eleven cursed wolves,” he said.
“Eleven cursed wolves.”
“And I could have been one of them.”
“You could have been one of them,” I said. “And you were not because a forger wrote a lie in a register in 1953 and because my mother signed a contract and because the whole of it went wrong in exactly the right way.”
Elias put his hand on my face.
“Tomorrow we go to Boise,” he said.
“Tomorrow we go to Boise,” I said.
And then June came into the kitchen with a wire in her hand.
“Wren,” she said. “The wire is from Boise. It is from the Council and it says the hearing has been moved. It is not in a month. It is in three days.”
I stood in the kitchen.
“Three days,” I said.
“Three days,” June said. “And Wren. There is a thing at the bottom of the wire. It says the Council has received a petition from the Snoqualmie pack asking for the keeper to be exiled from the territory. And it says the petition has been signed by eleven Alphas.”
I looked at the wire.
“Arden,” I said.
“Arden,” June said.
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