The Alpha's Oracle

by Merry Ravenell

  “How serious are the injuries?” I asked the doctor from the relative safety of Gabel’s office later that afternoon. The white-haired wolf dug under one of his fingernails with a scalpel and twirled the point of it against the pad of his index finger.

  “Nothing but some meat stitching,” he said with a little grin that sent a shudder down my spine. Not the same kind of shudder Gabel caused, just a shudder of pure revulsion.

  “No more dead bodies to worry about?” I asked. The disloyal wolves had died in combat, thank the Moon. I hadn’t had to deal with them personally.

  “Probably not. Might need to clean up some festering. Debride some tissue.”

  Another shudder of revulsion. “Great. Thank you.”

  I gestured to the door to shoo him out as quickly as possible. The less I saw of him, the happier I’d be. Creepy old sadist. Pack doctors were difficult to acquire. There weren’t many. We were lucky to have that one. At least that’s what I told myself.

  I cringed at the idea of him doing so much as a pregnancy test on me, much less delivering a pup. Gabel would make a better midwife.

  But no time for that. I headed to Hix’s room to find out if he’d been a good Beta and gotten stitches like I’d demanded. If he managed to kill himself out of pride, I’d cross the Tides to drag him back to life so I could kill him myself.

  Hix’s rooms were at the far opposite end of the house, on the second floor and not far from Flint (who preferred life on the first floor). Even as I stood at the closed door I caught the scent of antiseptic and blood, and a very grumpy wolf. I knocked.

  No answer.

  I knocked again.

  No answer.

  I knocked again.

  “What!”

  I pushed the door open.

  A very angry male glared back at me from his couch. So angry that it took a few seconds for him to shove all that anger down and away from sight, and he moved to sit up around his bandaged midsection.

  “You don’t have to get up,” I said.

  “I am not—” he growled. “What are you doing here?”

  “Making sure you’re being a good patient like I ordered.” I didn’t try to stop him from wrestling himself into a sitting position. He only had on a pair of abused black sweatpants, which is not really the most flattering look for any man. But with his midsection wrapped and padded, I couldn’t fault him for being comfortable. He also hadn’t shaven. I didn’t tell him he looked more like an angry wet cat than the First Beta of IronMoon.

  But I did spot some fresh stitches on his shoulders, and that wrapping around his midsection looked better than a homegrown hack job. He also had a couple other stitches puckering his torso and arms.

  “As you can see, I am obeying your order, Lady,” he grumbled.

  “Good. Because that is a stupid way to die.” I pointed at his swaddling, then looked at his television. “What on earth are you watching?”

  He clicked it off. “It doesn’t matter. You have my attention.”

  “Were you watching the weather? You were watching the weather.”

  “It is very numbing.” Hix glowered. “Lady, I appreciate your concern, but I am being obedient, as you can see, and I will not die. I prefer you only see me when I am at my best.”

  “What is the difference between you trying to nursemaid me, and me showing enough concern to come down here to make certain my First Beta isn’t bleeding to death?” I asked, annoyed. “Wait. Wait. Let me guess. You’re male, I’m female.”

  “You are learning.”

  “A Luna should value her warriors. You’ve been injured several times in my service.”

  Hix looked uncomfortable. His eyes moved to my shoulder, then to the muted television.

  “I don’t take any of it for granted. What you did last night was your duty, and I’m not going to insult you by thanking you for it. But what you did that earned you most of those wounds... you didn’t have to do any of those things.”

  Hix glared at me. “I did, but you don’t understand that. Most of the wolves here wouldn’t. It’d be best if it wasn’t mentioned again.”

  “It won’t be.”

  He was comfortable with that. He nodded to me. “It is an honor, Lady Gianna.”

  Gabel arrived home the following afternoon during a snow storm. Waiting outside on the snowy front steps was very cold business.

  Gabel slammed the car door as he got out. My insides leapt at seeing him, a shiver of pleasure, the Bond roiling happily at his return, and I did not feel the cold so much. His eyes locked with mine, and he strode across the snow with purpose.

  He grabbed my face and yanked me to him for a hot, summer-inducing kiss.

  The hungry, possessive lust curling through him was new and unexpected.

  “You are not hurt?” he hissed to me, still holding my face in both his hands and looking me up and down.

  “I am fine.”

  He kissed me again, hungry and slow this time, pulling me against his body. One of his hands released my face so it could grip the small of my back and hold me against him.

  “Later.” My breathing felt ragged. I swallowed, breathing hard in the cold.

  “Not much later, buttercup,” he growled, “not much later at all.”

  “Don’t you want to hear about what happened here?”

  “I got the details from Hix late last night.”

  “I would have told you.”

  “He is a warrior. That is the report I wanted. I know they came for you. They got to our door,” Gabel growled.

  “Not exactly, that’s a bit of an exaggeration—”

  “No! It is not an exaggeration. It is the truth!” Gabel smoldered, furious and angry that this had not been properly foreseen. He glared at me, but his anger was elsewhere. “This is why I do not have windows in that room, Gianna. They could have been upon you!”

  It should never have happened, but could it be avoided in a pack like IronMoon?

  His fingers dug into my skin. Without a word, he growled and took my hand, leading me into the house, just grunting acknowledgments at Hix and Flint as he passed them.

  His anger only grew when he saw the foyer, which still reeked of bleach, and the gouge marks outside our rooms. He crouched down and ran his fingers over the ones my claws had made. “These are your dainty claws, buttercup. Did you fight? Did you have to defend yourself?”

  “I bolted between their legs as Flint came up the stairs.”

  “But they had you cornered. They got our door. You were cornered.”

  “For a moment, perhaps.”

  “They should never have gotten this far.” Gabel herded me into our room, closed the door.

  “Gabel, you were gone. They took the opportunity.”

  “Yes. Yes, I now realize that. I did not realize Romero’s supporters had such stubborn stupidity. They heard we were going to complete the vows and decided to act while there was time.” Gabel began to yank off his clothing. He paused, looked at me. “You are not angry?”

  “Only confused.” His shoulder had not ripped open again. He had not shifted forms while traveling, but he had lost his bandages somewhere, and the skin around the stitches was angry and red.

  “You are still in shock.”

  “Am I?” I asked. “Or am I just your mate?”

  “I felt you call upon the Bond,” he said pensively.

  Was that what I had done? Gabel seemed so pensive, and I was confused as well. I didn’t respond directly. “This sort of thing never happened in Shadowless.”

  “And it will not happen here! They must come for me, not you!” He threw his clothing to the ground, stepped out of his pants. He came over to me, grabbed me by my arms and inhaled my scent. “You smell of pain, buttercup.”

  “I have bruises, Gabel. Remember?”

  He pushed my sweater off my shoulders and down my arms.

  “Gabel, what are you doing?” I breathed as he kissed my neck, moving close to me, his hands sliding under my top.r />
  He didn’t answer. The Bond did: needing something, assurance, connection, to be fed, to be satisfied I was not hurt, that I was well. He pulled me over to our bed and divested me of the remainder of my clothes, his lips moving over each bruise and scratch. His fingertips explored a bruise on my arm. I whimpered and swatted at him, but it did no good.

  “This is new,” He growled.

  “I fell down the stairs in the commotion.” Like a total klutz.

  “And this,” he brushed his lips over a scrape on my hip, “this is new.”

  “Do you know every bruise?” I asked.

  His hands lifted my hips, he kissed my belly, moving lower, and lower, “Yes.”

  “I thought warriors did not care about such things.” My fingertips found his hair. I closed my eyes and bit down a mewl, the Bond sighed and warmed at his caress.

  “On ourselves we count nothing. On our mates, we count everything.”

  Summons

  Gabel stared at his map. He held a yellow push pin in his fingers, uncertain where to move it.

  “So the SaltPaw were a lie? It was a trap? They ran?” I asked.

  “The houses were there. The territory markings were there. They had very recently been there. But they had not left in too much of a rush, either.” Gabel jabbed the pin into the side of the map, having decided to not put it anywhere. “Everything important in the house had been taken.”

  “They abandoned their territory.” I couldn’t fathom that.

  “No. I suspect conveniently absent. The houses weren’t ripped up in chaos, like they had fled. They also hadn’t been packed up as if to move. Save for the curious absence of anything sensitive. I sent Donovan to the south to watch for their return. I suspect they will be back.”

  “If they’re not there, nothing to conquer, hmm?”

  “Exactly. I had to return here else I could have tracked them down. Their Alpha is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. I will remember this. Donovan will find their scent, and he will find them. I suspect they have scattered, and other packs have taken them in. These packs are all very small. Close knit. Inter-related.”

  “Except for IceMaw.”

  “Except for IceMaw.” He nodded.

  “It would say a great deal about Aaron if he could convince an Alpha to run away and hide,” I mused.

  A whole pack just... leaving their territory to avoid a war party. It was sort of clever, in a cowardly, sneaky, backhanded way: if he wasn’t there to surrender, Gabel couldn’t do anything. The IronMoon show up, no wolves present, territory cleaned of anything useful, and the whole of a pack just pleasantly not there to answer the door.

  “And me, without my Oracle,” Gabel told me.

  That might be a permanent affliction for him if we really did share the same future. I didn’t tell him that, though. “What are you going to do? Go find them?”

  “I was tempted to raze everything. Burn it all down. But I wanted to see what would happen if I just left. I’ve never heard of this strategy. I want to see how it plays out.” Gabel grinned, excited by the new mystery and the prospect of Aaron of IceMaw being the source of it.

  “Aaron might be a worthy adversary,” I needled him. Aaron was a safer choice than Magnes of SableFur, certainly.

  He came over to me and leaned down, his hands braced on either side of the sofa back. “I take them where I can find them, buttercup.”

  “You aren’t King yet, Gabel.”

  “As you so often remind me. Do you want me to send a group down there to raze it?”

  “No.” I sighed.

  Gabel chuckled. “So you found what you were looking for. How long until your new bowls are ready?”

  “Three full moons to purify the chunks, then whatever time is needed to carve the bowls, then another three moons to prepare them. I still have my dreams and meditations, but scrying is out for now. I found a stone I have never seen before, nor heard of. I need to mediate on it. Gabel.” I put my index finger under his chin and pushed upward. “My eyes are up here.”

  Before he could reply, a knock on his office door, then the door opened.

  The warrior on the other side coughed and averted his gaze. He clutched a red leather folder in one hand, ancient, well-worn, with a patina that bespoke age. “This arrived for Lady Gianna.”

  “From who?” Gabel demanded. “Who brought it?”

  “A SableFur messenger.” The warrior handed me the folder, stretching out his arm and sidling toward me so he didn’t have to get closer to Gabel than was actually required.

  “Leave,” I told the warrior.

  He beat a hasty retreat out the door.

  “What is it?” Gabel turned his burning attention to me.

  “Elder Oracle.” I flipped open the top of the binder, and peeled apart the ancient leather edges. Despite its fancy exterior, inside was just a common sheet of white paper and a note scrawled in a quivering, ancient hand.

  Elder Oracle Anita had summoned me to SableFur on no uncertain terms.

  “Screw the old bat,” Gabel spat as I read the demand to him. “You are the Luna of IronMoon and you will not be summoned—“

  “I am not Luna yet,” I reminded him. “I am still an Oracle and—”

  “She cannot do this!”

  “She can defrock me,” I said mildly. It wouldn’t strip me of my gifts, or the Moon’s Blessings, but I’d be a renegade. “Could you be with a disgraced Oracle? I’m not a male. I can’t redeem myself through combat. I’m a female. Once we’re damaged, we tend to stay that way.”

  “You are not going to SableFur because their old crone demands it. Withered old bitch thinks she can just summon the Luna of IronMoon—”

  He wasn’t listening. I slapped the binder shut and threw it aside. “I am not the Luna of IronMoon! I am the IronMoon Oracle until Solstice, and I’ve been summoned. She doesn’t have to explain why.”

  Gabel fumed. “You do not have time to play handmaiden to some withered old bitch.”

  “Stop calling her that. Elder Oracle Anita was one of my teachers. She deserves some respect.” I secretly despised Anita and had thought of her as a withered old bitch on more than one occasion. None of the students liked her, and I doubted her disposition had improved in the three years since I had seen her. She was one of those old women who expected the world to cater to her, that all her students were also her slaves, and that her will was to be obeyed.

  But she was also an Elder Oracle, and had proven time and time again she was a master of enduring the Tides.

  “No.” Gabel’s tone grabbed my spine and twisted. “I forbid it. I am going to have this folder shoved right between that messenger’s teeth!”

  I snatched the red folder against my breasts. “Do you want to attract SableFur attention? The SableFur probably don’t know I’ve been summoned. This is Oracle business—”

  “Unless it isn’t. Has it occurred to you that the SableFur might not have liked us annexing their precious rock farm, so they are going to take my mate prisoner?” He’d sent IronMoon warriors back to the SaltPaw territory. If they’d thought they’d quietly return to their homes... they were wrong.

  “This is an Oracle summons,” I corrected. “If I ever become an Elder Oracle I can summon little Oracles here, and I’d never bother to tell you. You’d eventually find out, but I doubt you’d pay attention.”

  “I am sure the SableFur leadership knows you have been summoned. You think they send a formal messenger into IronMoon territory, and nobody knows? What guarantees do I have of your safety? Can I send an escort with you? Those rocks are valuable. SableFur is not going to let me just have them.”

  “There’s this.” I held up the red binder. “Although...I have to take it with me, as it will grant me safe passage.”

  “How convenient. Leaving me with no proof. And anytime she wishes, this Elder Oracle can just snap her fingers, and off you’ll run!”

  A summons was so rare and unusual that I didn’t think it would happen
again. It was also very convenient it happened right then. “If I don’t go she’ll strip me of my status as an Oracle, and I’ll be disgraced.”

  “Some wizened old crone does not get to pull my Luna’s strings!”

  “I am not your Luna, and I won’t ever be if you don’t let me go. You won’t mate with a disgraced she-wolf who can’t keep her promises!”

  “She is going to try to stop us,” Gabel said. “Your Oracle vows will always be a string she can pull.”

  “I am not giving up my vows,” I whispered.

  “That crone is loyal to Alpha Magnes, as you are loyal to me. You will not dance on her string.” His anger boiled over. He snapped his elbow back, then forward, plunging his fist into a wood column. I flinched.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  “Stop it!” I shouted.

  “Give me one reason why I should let you walk out of this house at all, much less without a full escort?”

  “I’m not your Luna yet,” I said, annoyed he would shout at me like I was the enemy. “But I am an Oracle now. If you refuse you’re handing her my pelt, and that might be exactly what they want. If I don’t go, I will be disgraced, and I will be dishonored. They’ll poison the well.”

  Gabel simmered. Then, in an ugly tone, he said, “And if they murder you? Take you prisoner? If you are lured there, will it reflect badly on this crone?”

  “And this might just be Oracle business,” I reminded him.

  He growled, deep, deep in his throat. “I will permit you to go. With Donovan. A warrior would be too hostile. If they refuse to let you in with even a token hunter escort, Donovan is bringing you back.”

  “Donovan is hunting the SaltPaw.”

  “Now he will escort you,” he growled. “Do not linger with this Elder Oracle. Be wary of delay.”

  He snatched the red binder from my grip and pulled out the summons. “You can take a copy. I’m keeping the original as proof. Inform her I will never allow you to answer another summons again.

  “You will leave tomorrow. And I expect you back in three days or sooner. If you are not back, I am going to tell that gutless birthpack of yours that they are going give me every warrior they have, and I am coming to get you.”