“What you are yelling about makes no difference,” Solomon said seriously, “My mother is alive and all the curses you can think of isn’t going to change that. The issue my father put in front of you is about sending our pups to human schools to become trained doctors and nurses. It will happen whether you want it to or not,” he said with a shrug. “I guess your only choice is, does the Region pay for it, or does Aleph House?
“There is nothing in The Laws stating that we cannot use human knowledge and technology and science and medicine, in fact, there are a couple of subsections that specify that the Alpha and his Council should keep abreast of all advances so that we are not caught off guard again as we were in the Middle Ages,” Solomon stated clearly. Jethro was more shocked when he heard Solomon rattle off exactly which subsections.
He glanced down at Sarah, who had tears in her eyes. “Did you know he knew any of that?”
She shook her head. “Is he right?”
“He is.”
“He is so damned smart sometimes,” she whispered.
Jethro’s ego puffed up.
“He gets it from me,” she said, knowing it’d bug her mate.
She felt his fingers wrap in her red waves and yank slightly. “Just can’t help yourself, can you?” He felt her giggle and shake her head beneath his hand. “Remember who’s in charge here.”
She snorted, “That’s easy, I am.”
He gave a stronger tug, lifting her chin up to look at him. “If I didn’t love you so much, I’d take you over my knee right now and beat your ass for that.”
She turned her head to kiss his wrist, his fingers still tangled in her hair. “No, you wouldn’t.”
He tugged again, unwilling to lose the argument, but unable to refute her words.
The Council didn’t like being told their own Laws by a pup, especially because he was right, and were beginning to chastise him.
But Solomon stood tall.
Jethro walked over to him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “You are not wrong, Solomon, don’t listen to them,” he said loudly enough for the entire room to hear.
Solomon shrugged and looked at his father with a small smile. “They don’t matter. Mom is going to be fine, and when I’m Alpha, they won’t be on the Council anyway; they’ll probably be dead cause they’re already old.”
The sound of Jethro’s loud laughter echoed down the hallways.
CHAPTER NINE
Three Years Later
Staggering to his knees, right arm wrapped around his stomach, hand clamped against his left side, Jethro took several desperate gulps of air. His wolf was still front and center, the snarls and growls continuing out of his bleeding human mouth. “Jacob, what the hell was that?” he roared at his older brother. He knew that his decision to save Sarah by using human medicine was going to cause problems, but he was still shocked and stunned that his own blood was the most vocal against him.
Looking at the bloodied and beaten body of one of his nephews, his mind was trying to figure out just when his brothers and their sons had started hating him so. Any male was welcome to try against an Alpha, but there was a set order to The Trials, but usually males weren’t stupid enough to try after years of the Alpha being in power because a male had to complete The Trials on his own.
And it was never to be Alpha against many…at the same time.
Before he could get both legs under him, his furious brother barreled into him, knocking the wind out of him and completely breaking the rib that had only been cracked by his nephew. As they both wrapped their hands around each other’s necks, a blur knocked his brother out of the way. A furious Solomon ran over to him and Jethro allowed him to help him stand upright. He had to hold his son back from the wolf fight between his brother and Paul.
His Hunters had been surrounding them attempting to figure out how to intervene without killing someone—none of them could believe they were having to break up a fight between the Aleph men. They recovered from their stunned states and forcibly pulled Paul and Jacob apart.
Handing Solomon over to his Hunters, Jethro stalked over to his, once more human, brother and ignored the pain radiating from his left side as he gave a vicious right cross. His wolf snarled in glee when he heard his brother’s cheekbone crack. Gasping for air again, Jethro looked around him, making sure that his other brother, Joshua, was not going to come at him. He saw the same look of incredulous shock on Joshua’s face, and on one of his two sons, the other son glaring at him over the still body of Jacob’s eldest son.
Jethro was having a difficult time understanding why three of his nephews, and his older brother, had banded together to take him on at the same time. Not only was it completely against The Laws, and would result in either being killed outright, or physically hauled out of the Region, but it wasn’t that long ago that he’d played with these pups, roughhousing in the yard.
The eldest of his nephews was not quite 22...not much older than 13-year-old Solomon. He was still not moving. Past his early stages and puberty, while no longer technically a pup, he wasn’t considered adults in the Were community. None of his nephews were.
Still so young.
“Josh, what’s going on?” Jethro whispered, his heart breaking, knowing that Jacob’s hot-headed ways had rubbed off on too many Aleph pups; his family was never going to be the same again.
He couldn’t help it, but Jethro watched warily as Joshua, the youngest of the three Aleph brothers, walked over to him. At least he has the sense to hold his arms out and look at the ground, Jethro’s still bloodthirsty wolf snarled. He couldn’t help but agree that as much as he loved his younger brother, one wrong move and he’d let his wolf out.
Joshua didn’t look up when he started speaking.
“I don’t know what to say, Jethro, I’m not sure what happened,” he looked up tentatively and Jethro froze in anger, just waiting to see if he was going to need to spring. “Jacob has never really forgiven you for being dad’s pick for Alpha.”
Jethro snorted in derision. “That was his own fault for just assuming he’d be in charge just because he’s oldest. Besides, that’s ancient history, dad made that choice almost 20 years ago. But what in the hell does that have to do with this, and why is your pup over there glaring at me as if I did something wrong?”
He looked directly into his nephew’s eyes, full wolf and Alpha front and center. He was secretly pleased to see him start to cower in fear. “You realize, pup, that if you stay there with your cousins, your future will be forever twined with theirs, right? Before you glare at my back again, I’m giving you two minutes to contemplate the fate I can give you according to The Laws and make your choice.”
He looked back to his younger brother, his heart breaking at the pain written on his face. Joshua had never made waves, not once. He’d always been the peacemaker, and for that reason, and not because of blood, he was allowed into Jethro’s inner circle. Jacob had never been allowed inside his circle. The three of them had done everything with their father, but once the Region was handed over, Jethro cut him out.
Maybe that was a mistake.
“Joshua, I’m going to let you go over to him and try to straighten him out. But know this, no matter his choice and behavior from now on, he won’t fully be trusted by me, and I doubt seriously that Solomon will ever forget either.” He watched his brother walk to his son, and noticed Joshua’s shoulders straighten and tighten. For a werewolf who believed violence was the absolute last route to any problem, he was still a frighteningly good fighter.
He motioned to his Hunters to let Solomon go, but he held out his left arm to keep his son from barreling into his still bruised body. He wrapped his arm around Solomon’s quivering form, knowing that a heady mix of rage and fear was coursing through him. “Oh Solomon, I’m so sorry that you have to see this when you’re still so young,” Jethro groaned softly.
Solomon’s angry glare and tear streaked cheeks looked up at him. “I’m not a pup, dad,” his voice quavered.
/>
Technically a 13 year old was still considered a pup, but being an only child, and heir to the Region made for a serious mind. “No, you’re not, but this isn’t a lesson that I wanted to teach you,” Jethro said, walking to the closest clump of rocks in order to set his aching body down and not have to stand.
“Lesson?”
“Yes, son. A sad lesson and one that I hoped would never happen, at least not for a few more years,” Jethro sighed. He closed his eyes, trying not to look at the three Healers surrounding his oldest nephew, knowing that it just might be hopeless. Everyone knew that shifting somehow helped the healing process, but if a Were was too badly injured to shift, well, they lacked veterinarians right along with human trained doctors, and the chances of survival weren’t good if they didn’t have the strength to shift.
His nephew had not moved and Jethro could barely hear him breathing. Why wouldn’t he stop and submit? He’d be sent away for breaking The Laws, but he’d still be alive.
Jethro opened his eyes and looked into Solomon’s serious gaze. “The lesson, son, is that anyone can betray you, even family,” he said softly. He watched as his son processed this knowledge, but didn’t know what to do with it. He and Sarah had always taught Solomon that family was everything, especially since he was an only child. How was this going to change Solomon’s future?
Tenderly stroking his son’s head, he had to admit to himself that if he and Sarah had not had Solomon, he’d not have named one nephew as his heir, but he’d have gone outward to extended family. He snorted quietly to himself, what did that say about what they’d taught their son? Family’s everything to us son, but I wouldn’t trust any of them to run the Region well?
He watched with wary anger as it took four Hunters to detain, contain and chain his older brother and haul him over to where he sat. Deciding that his brother needed to learn a lesson of his own, he gestured as he stood while his brother was thrown to his knees. Looking down at Jacob, he asked his younger brother in quiet rage, “Joshua, were you a part of this?” He glanced up just long enough to see his brother shake his head, and pull his wayward son to his side.
Jacob’s answer was to spit at his feet. A resounding cuff against the sides of his head from two of the Hunters stopped any words that he might have been thinking to speak. Jethro felt Paul slide up to his side. Without words, Jethro let him know that he was no longer going to question his brother, but have his Lieutenant do it. It was an ultimate show of insignificance to have an Alpha in front of you but his Lieutenant speaks to you…showing that you are not considered worth words.
“Jacob Adam Aleph, your actions, and those of your sons, David and Aaron, have condemned you, there will be no trial,” Paul began formally. “You have knowingly broken The Laws, as have your sons…”
“No, they didn’t know,” Jacob began.
“They knew!” Paul yelled. He took a deep breath and Jethro was surprised at how composed his Lieutenant was under the circumstances. If he’d had to talk right now, his fists would have been his mouthpiece. His raging wolf was still not satisfied with only one of them being down.
“Your sons began their training under Adam Abraham Aleph and continued under the guidance of your brother, the North American Regional Alpha, Jethro Daniel Aleph. Do not add willful lies to your head, Jacob, you are already in enough trouble,” Paul said. “You have the right to challenge the Alpha any time, but you did not follow the protocol that is outlined in great detail in The Laws; you did not give notice of your intentions; but worse, you and your sons set upon the Alpha as a unit.”
He continued to tick off other violations of The Laws, but Jethro ignored them. Any one of the multiple violations they had managed to commit in an hour all required banishment, but the most violent one, coming at him as a pack and not one at a time, required death.
Jethro was trying to swallow past the lump in his throat knowing that it would be well within his rights to kill them himself, or have his Hunters do it. But he didn’t want to. This was his older brother. His friend, until their father had made his choice of heir public.
Jethro’s snarling wolf was more than capable of taking them down for their treachery, but despite what so many of the older generation believed, Weres were still human at their cores. And their human souls shrunk against needless bloodshed and murder.
I’m not a monster.
No, but I am, let me do it. The Laws will let the wolf tear traitors to pieces if the human can’t. The Laws are for both of us, not just you.
But he’s my brother!
He felt a derisive snort shudder through him. And did that stop him and his two devil’s spawn from trying to kill you? What if they’d succeeded? Do you think they’d have had mercy on Solomon?
With that thought, Jethro’s head snapped up. He watched as his brother shrunk visibly into the dirt, the Hunters backed up a step and Paul stopped speaking. Jethro looked to Solomon, not much shorter than he was, but still a pup, one who was holding his hand.
He watched Solomon cock his head to the side and raise an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with your eyes, dad?” he stage whispered.
Paul answered. “That, Solomon, is the look of an Alpha. You know how the eyes kind of look lighter when an adult is speaking to their wolf?” Solomon nodded. “When an Alpha, even a pack alpha, is fully in tune with his wolf, when they are of one mind in a decision, you’ll see his eyes do what your dad’s are doing.”
“They’re glowing,” Solomon whispered in awe.
“And so will yours someday, Solomon,” Jethro said. He turned back to his brother, who was no longer struggling. “Jacob Adam Aleph, for all the reasons given by my Lieutenant and for the many instances of sedition that I have overlooked throughout the years, your life is forfeit, as is the life of your sons, David and Aaron.” He made a motion with his hand, and the Healers stepped away from his still motionless nephew.
Jethro didn’t allow the grimace he felt to pass over his face. If his nephew had just stopped fighting and submitted, instead of continuing to fight, Jethro might’ve had more compassion and may have let both of them live. But the downed nephew had been egged on by his younger brother and father, and had listened to them, and not to him: his Regional Alpha.
Not following the Alpha, especially a direct order from him was dangerous, and his death was going to be a firm reminder of that.
Jethro ignored the screaming and crying of Jacob’s mate, and their two youngest pups. He spared them a glance and saw the animosity and hatred coming from the mate’s eyes and resolved right then and there to take his young niece and nephew from her. They would be better off in the Foundling House where his mother and Sarah would shower them with kindness. The fewer hours they spent around their mother, where they would hear lies about him, the better for all of them.
If she didn’t calm down within a week, he’d send her away. His brother’s hate had already done too much damage, she couldn’t be allowed to continue to spew more hate to her pups. Some Aleph blood had to be saved and he hoped his niece and nephew were young enough to be retrained. With another subtle hand motion, the young pups were herded away by two Hunters they knew well. They assumed they were going to go home, and were too young to really understand what was happening.
Jethro looked down at Solomon, and saw the sadness crawl across his young face. He was close to those two, and he hoped their connection would help overwrite any indoctrination done by their parents. It was bad enough that Solomon understood what was going on and he knew that he was going to lose family members because of this, but he had no siblings to lean on and if Jacob’s young pups were too far gone, then Solomon would lose the only blood he was close to.
Jethro made a mental note to talk to Fitzwilliam’s parents. Solomon was going to need that pup’s support more than ever.
With his head high, but dying inside, Jethro stalked over to those who’d been tried and condemned. He vowed to make justice swift.
The Alpha had traitors to kill.
<
br /> CHAPTER TEN
Two Years Later
“Sarah, when did I get so damned old?” Jethro chuckled.
She didn’t answer, just laughed at him instead. According to her, he’d been old since they’d met over 20 years ago. But with Solomon now 15, and already the size of an adult, which translated into taller than his father, Jethro was finally feeling old.
“You know, if I were human, I’d be able to retire now,” he chuckled.
He watched in the distance as his son and Fitz worked the Ranch, using their horses to rein in and guide the cattle. The best idea his dad ever had for the North American Region was turning their small family size ranch into a commercial size working Ranch, where all manner of delicious and useful farm animals had been bred to not be afraid of werewolves, or “anti-Were’d” as Solomon called it.
“I take it Solomon told you about his plans,” Sarah said softly, coming to stand next to him. He raised his arm and tucked her underneath it, tight against his side, her head barely clearing his shoulder.
They both knew that as the Regional heir, who had many places to go and much to learn before taking over, Solomon would be off on his own sooner than normal pups, but neither of them had anticipated that his own inner drive to prove himself against his own standards would push him so far away from them so quickly.
Sarah chuckled lightly. “Didn’t expect your 15 year old son to pummel the U.S. military without your help, did you?”
Jethro laughed. “Not expecting it would be one thing Sarah, I’d not thought about doing anything different with Solomon than my dad did with me. But hell, making this kind of deal never entered into any corner of my brain’s radar. Can’t blame him for wanting it, though.”
“Oh, don’t lie to me, Jethro Aleph, your manly pride is just bursting at the seams with this move of his because it shows just how much he’s already learned from his father,” Sarah smiled, smacking his chest with the back of her hand.
Lovers: An Aleph Series Stories Novella Page 6
