The Alpha's Oracle

by Merry Ravenell

  Hix frowned thoughtfully.

  Gabel chuckled.

  Ana eeped like a woodland creature.

  “You’re overthinking this,” Gabel’s voice was low, rough, something out of a nightmare. “Are you forgetting that the goal of the little rebellion was to kidnap Gianna? Not kill her. Now the MarchMoon has wolves in GleamingFang—wolves who are known to associate with the RedWater cowards—waiting for an opportunity. Anticipating I will go there for Anders. Knowing,” Gabel looked at at Hix, “that I have been careless and arrogant. SableFur failed in their effort to use Anita to get Gianna away from me. The world knows we have consummated the Bond. Why kidnap her, when killing her would be more expeditious?”

  “Because killing her instead of you is disgraceful,” Hix said.

  “Exactly.” Gabel smiled unpleasantly. “These are Aaron of IceMaw’s machinations. He is pulling all these strings.”

  I almost trembled with relief. The MeatMan and MeatTaker tied up in a neat little bow that had nothing to do with the Petitioner Wolf.

  “A worthy adversary.” Gabel growled low in his throat, practically gleaming with pleasure.

  Ana fanned herself, “Wow-ee, excuse me, but all this medieval male posturing is really hot. Mmm-mmmm-mmmm. Gonna melt right into my panties. Oh wait, I’m not wearing any panties!”

  “This is serious,” Hix grumbled at her.

  Donovan, suppressing a sideways grin in Ana’s direction, said, “So are we going after MarchMoon or IceMaw?”

  Gabel’s smile sharpened. “MarchMoon. There’s no reason to alert Aaron we are onto his scent. I’ve suspected MarchMoon’s disloyalty for some time. Now I have the proof I need to act. And demonstrate to the IronMoon I do not suffer promises made in bad faith.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Hix asked.

  Gabel’s cold, cruel malice curled over my spine like tentacles. “Tell the IronMoon there will be an offering of blood and flesh at Solstice. In keeping with the old ways.”

  Nobody Likes Weddings

  Solstice dawned grey and extremely cold.

  “Don’t trust her?” Gabel asked.

  “Would you?”

  “No.”

  I sipped my morning coffee and watched the final preparations from the window in Gabel’s office. The pack was in understandable chaos that morning. We had brought our breakfast up to his office so we wouldn’t be underfoot. The scent of roasting animals had started around midnight, and now Gardenia stood in the center of the backyard, directing an army of assistants like a queen bee directing her hapless drones. The trees were decorated with the blue and silver paper lanterns of the Solstice, and with the red lanterns of a pair-vow ceremony. They danced in the breeze. The sky hung overcast, but supposedly, it was not going to start snowing until after midnight. It wouldn’t matter if the paper decorations were ruined then.

  Long tables had been set out to receive the food Cook had been preparing for the past four days. Four pigs and two cows hung on spits over pits dug into the yard

  Better safe than sorry, Cook had decided.

  Tradition dictated the color and decorations. Due to the short time we had, Cook had chosen the menu based on what he could pull together. There would be the traditional run through the woods for males, and since the party was outside, dress code was... functional.

  Even being in human form was optional. “Traditional attire” on a werewolf party invitation meant you could wear fur if you preferred.

  Even me choosing my dress had been easy. The traditional color was bright red, and since I owned two dresses of that color, I had just chosen one. There had not been time or mental energy to spare on dresses or fittings, especially since I knew someone was going to die that night, and odds were good I’d be close to the blood spray.

  The oldest of the old traditions, back from the darkest days of our kind, was that an Alpha welcomed his new Luna by vanquishing an enemy. Proof of his strength and prowess, that he would keep their den safe.

  Alpha Marcus of MarchMoon had unwittingly volunteered.

  I watched the activity below, fully expecting to see Gardenia trying one last, sneaking mistake, but I had to admit, she seemed too busy to have pulled any sneak attacks. Things churned around her.

  “Too bad she is convinced her only option in life is to attach herself to a male like a parasite,” Gabel observed. “She is not stupid. Just low quality.”

  “Would you want her if she suddenly developed some quality?” I asked, feeling more than a little prickly at his backhanded compliment. We were discussing a traitor, although I didn’t like to think of Gardenia as a traitor. Traitor implied some conviction. Gardenia was just a flea, hopping from male to male looking for the next feast.

  “She is not fierce enough to suit my tastes. She only thinks she’s bloodthirsty. Unlike you, who thinks she is not bloodthirsty until the scent of a challenge comes to her snout.”

  “I think that’s a compliment?” With Gabel you could never be quite sure.

  “I think it was.” He observed the scene below with just a sharp a gaze. Hix and Eroth had been set to make sure nothing snuck through to the heart of IronMoon, which put the otherwise restless warriors to task. Orders had been given that had sent the young, most restless warriors out to the perimeter of the immediate territory, with instructions that anything that wasn’t where it was supposed to be could be killed.

  They were pleased at the orders that gave them discretion to kill whatever they saw. They just needed to bring back a head, or hand, or paw, or some teeth, or whatever else would identify the wolf’s origin.

  “Nervous, buttercup?”

  “Not really.” This wasn’t exactly a day I had been looking forward to, and it was one I had actively tried to avoid. I had surrendered to the inevitable more than summoned it to my side.

  Would I have changed any of it? I didn’t know. I tried not to think about what I would have done or what could have been, because none of that mattered. For better or worse, I was about to become the IronMoon Luna.

  And perhaps the force of Balance that kept the Moon’s Comet from destroying everything he wasn’t supposed to destroy.

  Or help him destroy everything he looked at.

  “Are you?” I asked him.

  “No,” Gabel said.

  “You don’t even care,” I said.

  “You and I are already Bound together, buttercup. We sealed it months ago, and we made our own promises that night in the garden,” Gabel said. “We are just doing this for everyone else. Tonight is about IronMoon, not you and I.”

  “Come for the wedding, stay for the bloodshed?” I asked dryly. I opted not to remind him the way my Mark seethed like oil on water sometimes.

  Gabel’s presence roiled and swirled next to me. “How morbid, buttercup. Will you reject my offering?”

  “No, Marcus betrayed you.”

  “Us. He betrayed us.”

  “And Aaron? Are you worried about him and what he wants? There’s no assurance the vows will erase my scent.”

  Gabel grinned. “I find that most intriguing, but not disturbing. There is always a wolf who wants what is yours.”

  “And you want what every other Alpha has. You want their power.” Gabel didn’t want their groveling or their wealth or their lives. He just wanted their authority and their power under his hands, as if they were carriage horses, and he was the whip.

  “How sage of you, buttercup.”

  “Well, if we’re allowed to take intangible things, I can think of a lot of things I want.”

  “Like what?”

  “Knowing why Alpha Jermain showed his belly.” That still sat badly with me. Jermain wasn’t gutless, so why had he acted gutless? Maybe I had been in IronMoon too long and had become too paranoid.

  “Ah, an apology of sorts.” Gabel nodded.

  I clenched my teeth. I didn’t want an apology. I just wanted to know why.

  “Does it still sting?”

  “I don’t know. M
aybe.”

  Gabel sipped his coffee, “He hasn’t done anything to violate our treaty. Punishing him for giving me what I demanded isn’t fair. But you know how I feel on it.”

  He had a chewed up shoulder, and Hix had a gash on his belly. It was impossible to not warm a little to how they had tried to make up for Jermain’s cowardice.

  “Tonight may be very bloody, buttercup,” he added.

  Calling Marcus out for his disloyalty may bring Aaron to the surface as well.

  People could argue Gabel was a monster who had to be destroyed, but they had knelt and sworn loyalty. They could have fought to bloody defeat and been conquered. Some had chosen that, but many had simply surrendered. Violating that surrender later was betrayal.

  But I had seen how gutless most of those Alphas and packs had been at Anders’ party. Most of them had seemed to just want the scene with Aaron to be over, and not get involved.

  Everyone was going to be put on notice tonight.

  This was IronMoon.

  The guests started to arrive around moonrise. The overcast skies obscured the moon’s light, which was unfortunate. Snow was on the wind. So were the scents of burning torches, food, and roasted livestock.

  The lanterns shone in the barren trees, and the IronMoon laughed and chattered in the garden. Many of the local males had been put on scout or guard duty, which suited them fine. They didn’t want to be at a party where manners counted and women were in short supply. The promise of leftovers and brawling afterward were more than enough.

  All the perks of a fancy party with none of the actual party.

  All of them were in kilts and barefoot. The males would run before the ceremony, howling to the Moon. The bitter cold was held at bay by large torches throughout the terrace. Torches. Actual fire.

  Was it wrong my first thought was what Gabel would do with one?

  “Why do I get the feeling some shit is gonna go down?” Ana asked.

  Not caring to stand on ceremony or reverence, she had found a kilt (somewhere) that fit her, hacked off half of the length, and wore a white button-down knotted under her breasts. Over that she wore a lab coat and had a stethoscope in her pocket.

  “Because it’s an IronMoon party,” I replied.

  She waved it off. “You know what Flint told me?”

  “Aside from no, never, and not happening?”

  Ana laughed again, “Can’t help looking.” She craned her neck about. Flint, his tattoos seeming to move and shift in the unsteady torchlight, was chatting with a wolf about twenty feet away. Ana sighed. “I must limit myself to admiring him from afar. Oh well.”

  I smiled, and prodded, “What did he tell you?”

  “That I’d have to leave my human sensibilities behind.”

  The same thing Gabel had said to me. Interesting. So perhaps Flint had tamed Gabel? They both did love books an inordinate amount.

  She patted me on the shoulder and bid me have ever so much fun, then skipped off to amuse herself somewhere else.

  The guests passed through the path that wrapped around the house (I think Cook would have brained someone with a ladle if we brought guests through the kitchen), and as they arrived, they greeted me. Gabel was out front, greeting them as they arrived. Hix loomed nearby, the barely-healed gash on full display, wearing a plain black kilt. He looked ready to rip someone’s arm off.

  “Don’t you like parties, Hix?” I asked him.

  “You don’t seem to be having a good time,” he retorted.

  Well, fair. This was more work than party.

  “Blood may erupt at any moment,” he added.

  That possibility did exist.

  Alpha Anders’ arrival with his Luna, First Beta, and a few other high-ranking males made a familiar nausea curl in my stomach. “Lady Gianna.”

  I stretched my face into what I hoped passed for a warm smile. All I could think of was how mortifying our first meeting had been, and how he was also a pale excuse for a traitor.

  I knew Shadowless had been invited and would attend, but I still wasn’t prepared when they rounded the corner of the house.

  My heart burst into a rapid pace, fluttering and flipping in my chest. My stomach roiled.

  Amber was with them, walking just behind Jermain’s shoulder.

  She was as beautiful as ever, sleek as a lioness, and even Hix gave her a brief glance.

  “Lady Gianna,” Jermain greeted me.

  My father embraced me, pulled back, a damp sheen in his eyes, “Gianna. Gianna, you look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” His words didn’t reach where the stinging ache resided.

  “Hello, Lady Gianna.” Amber’s voice pulled my attention.

  I had always thought I would be the one addressing her by title. The reverse caught me off -guard for a moment.

  “How have you been?” she asked.

  The question rubbed me the wrong way. But what other sort of small talk was there? We hadn’t been especially close friends. It had been more me in awe of her.

  Besides: how did I answer that? I almost laughed. How had I been?

  Things happened. More things happened. Chaos ensued. Gabel threw books around. The Moon dragged me beyond the Tides. Hix growled at everything. Flint spoke in riddles.

  “Busy.” I decided on an honest answer that didn’t answer the actual question.

  How do you think I’ve been? You watched him make off with me. You’ve heard the rumors. How dare you ask me that.

  No matter how my life with Gabel ended, I would always remember how it had begun, and part of me would never forgive Shadowless.

  Admitting that lifted a huge burden from me.

  I sighed with relief.

  My father hesitated moving to the party. He lingered as if he had more to say. Jermain tugged on him.

  “Should I have them kept at a distance?” Hix asked me.

  “No, no. They’re my family.”

  “So?”

  “Hix,” I sighed.

  The parade of guests continued, and I was relieved when Gabel came up the walk with the last of them, smiling and nodding to whatever they were saying.

  He could be so charming when it suited him.

  “Gianna.” He slid his arm around my waist. “All our guests are here.”

  His touch, with the Moon overhead, veiled as Her eye might be, knowing we’d make promises that couldn’t be broken soon, flustered me.

  And what would come afterward...

  “What have I told you about those thoughts?” he whispered, his lips grazing my ear. He bit down very gently, just a soft pinch that made me gasp.

  “I will be more disciplined.” Or at least I would try. We had been so distracted that the Bond roused from its sleep to tell us it was more than a little neglected of late.

  He nipped me again, then pulled away.

  My father watched the scene, quickly looked away, but not before I saw the flash of distress on his face.

  Gabel and I moved through the crowds, trying to head toward one of the roasting pits, but constantly distracted by guests.

  Ana sidled up next to me. “The blond bimbo is talking shit.”

  My stomach smashed into my knees. Did I ignore it? Maybe I should. Platinum wanted attention. Carefully, I asked, “What kind of shit?”

  “Something about she’s the real thing and not a decoy.”

  Gabel went rock-still.

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Platinum wasn’t going to sabotage the party or spike the punch, she was just going to flat out ruin it.

  I couldn’t ignore it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t let her go blabbering that sort of thing to anyone who would listen, and everyone there would listen. I’d have to go at her again, and give her the goddamn fight she wanted so badly. Nevermind she was a pale shade of a traitor, too.

  Ana led me (with a very concerned Gabel) to the scene, where Platinum (who, I must confess, looked beautiful) stood, chatting with Alpha Anders.

  “Gianna,” she greeted me che
erfully, her eyes gleaming daggers. She had dropped my title deliberately. “Alpha Gabel. Are you enjoying the party?”

  “You did an excellent job,” Gabel said.

  She smiled prettily. “It’s what I had planned for our—I mean, my wedding.”

  Gabel’s lips bent downward in a frown.

  Anders and his Luna seemed more than a little uncomfortable.

  If she couldn’t have Gabel, she was going to force me to acknowledge her as a once-rival. Unfortunately for her, I knew what she’d done.

  I had never hated her before. Now I hated her with a burning, dark passion.

  Still, composure. Within an hour I’d officially be a Luna, and better to get started sooner than later. I gripped my emotions and said, as blandly as I could manage, “Yes, it’s quite lovely.”

  Her beautiful face tightened a few notches. “I was just explaining to Alpha Anders about what happened a few months ago. That meeting where I was presented to him? That subsequent ugliness with Romero over you?”

  “You and I already had this conversation,” I said in a cold tone.

  She smirked at the tiny triumph. “Oh, that bit about the decoy to protect your feelings? We all know Gabel grabbed you in haste and regretted it.”

  “And you’re the one he secretly wants?” I didn’t even hide my sarcasm.

  “I know what he wants,” she said mildly. “It’s been clear to me more than once. He made a mistake with you and regretted it right away. He told me that.”

  Maybe he had to put Gardenia right where he needed her to be to bait me. Not because he meant it.

  “You think Romero didn’t know?” Gardenia prodded. “Oh, he knew. He knew you were a weak Luna, and Gabel didn’t see what was right in front of him.”

  Now she was dangerously close to insulting Gabel. I snorted. “Romero didn’t want to behave properly. Like you.”

  “Oh really? Is that why you told me you didn’t want Gabel, so I could have him? You didn’t care? Such a nasty thing to say. No wonder Gabel regretted it. No wonder Romero wanted you out. You don’t deserve Gabel’s loyalty!”