The Alpha's Oracle

by Merry Ravenell

  “Gabel Marked me without my consent,” I heard people inhale as I confirmed the rumor for anyone who had thought, perhaps, it had been an exaggeration. “So, yes, I was angry. It doesn’t change Romero being a weak fool, or that you were anything but a cheap pawn. But if Gabel actually wants the likes of you, he can have you. I won’t shed one tear. Not one. There are no chains on him. Take him if you can.”

  I spat the last word. Because I meant it.

  Gardenia faltered.

  A dark violence like I had never known seeped into my bones. This bitch. Now it wasn’t just embarrassing, and now it wasn’t some private war between Gabel and I. It was her humiliating the Alpha, the Luna, and undermining the IronMoon’s status in front of the whole court. I had given this horrible little mutt a chance to have some damn dignity, which was better than she deserved.

  “But I know what you’re really about.” I smiled at her. “I know you’re a spider stumbling along a web. You’ve served your purpose, Gardenia. To both those you spied for, and for me. Hix!”

  The First Beta melted out of the shadows.

  Gardenia backed up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Pretty little spy,” I said sweetly. “Pretty, pretty little spy. But not a very good one. Hix, put her somewhere the Moon cannot find her.”

  Hix grabbed Gardenia by the arm. She shrieked and smashed her fist into his jaw. Another collective gasp at her harpy antics. Hix rolled his eyes, tossed her over his shoulder, and walked to the house.

  “He doesn’t love you, Gianna!” she screamed. “He was fucking me the whole time! It’s all a lie! I know where he’ll be tomorrow night! He’ll have his tongue between my legs!”

  Anders coughed.

  She flailed and pounded Hix in the kidneys and shrieked, but punching Hix was like punching a very large rock. I hoped she broke her fingers, and I vowed after this party, I was going to deal with her once and for all.

  “Crazy biiiittttcchhhh.” Ana shook her head.

  “Traitorous bitch,” I replied coldly.

  “Oh well, you know how it is. Every wedding has at least one crazy relative, and one drunk person sobbing in the bathroom,” Ana consoled me. “So, we’ve got one down.”

  Gabel said to me, “On that note, I believe it is time for the run.”

  When Gabel returned, he would kill Marcus, and we would make our vows. I had asked him just to make Marcus’ death clean and quick, and not to play with his prey. I frankly would have preferred to make the vows before the offering of blood, but it didn’t work that way.

  Gabel turned his attention to Anders, “Come, Anders. Bring your First Beta, and we will run.”

  “I—” Anders hesitated.

  “It is tradition,” Gabel said. “You do not wish to honor the tradition and honor the Moon with praise?”

  Anders balked again.

  Gabel grinned, grabbed Anders, and hauled him off. “Come, man, you will enjoy it! I promise to return you to your Luna in one piece.”

  In Blood and Bone

  “Wolves!” Gabel shouted. “We run to the Moon!”

  Howls from the IronMoon.

  Ana and I went to get something to eat before the hungry males returned. They’d strip everything off the bones. But before we got halfway there, Amber came to my side.

  “I have to speak with you,” she murmured.

  Ana tugged my wrist. “Na-uh. Come on, Lady, Gianna. I see tits, and where there are tits, there’s drama.”

  Amber sighed.

  “It’s fine, Ana. She’s from my birthpack. I’ll be along in a moment,” I assured her.

  Amber led me off to the side, where the shadows were the longest. She took my hands in hers. “Are you really going to take the vows?”

  “I’m wearing red, aren’t I?”

  Her grip tightened. Her hands were deeply calloused from training. “Come with me, Gianna.”

  “To where?”

  “Shadowless.”

  “Are you insane?” I asked bluntly.

  She tugged harder. “We can leave now. While the males are gone. We can be out of scent range in twenty minutes!”

  I pulled back, she held on. She tugged again. “Now’s your chance, you idiot! Come on! There’s a car waiting,”

  “I’m not leaving.” She clearly thought I was being held against my will.

  “Yes, you are. This has gone far enough!”

  “What are you talking about? This was the deal. You were standing right there. Me for Shadowless!”

  “Just come on,” she growled.

  I yanked back. “Gabel and I are already Bound. I could have pups in my belly right now. You think I can just leave?”

  “Let’s go.” Amber’s voice cracked on panic.

  I permitted her to tug me a few steps. “This was the deal, Amber. What’s going on now?”

  All these months later and the first rescue mission. Now I didn’t need rescue.

  “It will be fine,” she crooned. “You don’t have to be afraid of him. The Bond can still wither and die. It isn’t permanent or forever.”

  “He’ll come for me like wildfire ripping across dry grass.”

  ... or a comet.

  “He won’t get you,” Amber promised in a whisper. “You never wanted to be a Luna, Gianna. You’re an Oracle. Forget this. It’s gone far enough. You don’t have to stay!”

  “IronMoon will destroy Shadowless to get to me.” I couldn’t believe what she was saying. This didn’t seem real. Even months ago I wouldn’t have let her drag me away like this. I knew, better than anyone in the world, what Gabel was capable of, and what he would do.

  I had expected SableFur or IceMaw to crash my wedding. But Shadowless?

  She shook her head yet again. “SableFur promised to help us get you back. Now move!”

  I yanked back. “What are you talking about?”

  Realizing I was not moving, and if she created a big scene, I’d have Hix and Flint on me in an instant, she grimaced, stood close, and whispered, “Before you were taken. SableFur told Jermain to give up without a fight if IronMoon came to us. Their Oracle predicted that he’d take a Shadowless female, and when he did, they’d help us get her back in return for our loyalty.”

  Oh Anita, what have you been up to? So you’ve been spying on Gabel for a long time now. How long have you known he was Magnes’ s son?

  “So there are SableFur here?” I whispered.

  “No, it’s only Shadowless. We just can’t let this happen, so we’re going to force them to do what they promised. Now let’s go—”

  “Which Oracle had the vision?”

  Amber paused while she searched for the name. “Anita.”

  “And she saw me with Gabel?”

  Amber hesitated, then said, “She saw me with him.”

  Balance: the point on which light and dark turns.

  “I’m not jealous. It’s not like that,” Amber hissed. “Please, Gianna, let’s go. Please! It was never supposed to be you. It was supposed to be me!”

  “And you were supposed to kill him,” I said with sudden understanding.

  “Wouldn’t you have, if you could have?” she whispered, eyes bright.

  Anita lied. Had Anita lied to Magnes, too? Did Magnes know Gabel was his son?

  It didn’t matter. The SableFur hadn’t kept their promise, and they never had intended to. The Mark would never have allowed Amber to kill Gabel. But it was a nice lie to tell her. I smiled grimly at her. “SableFur isn’t going to keep their promise.”

  “Come on!” She tugged.

  “I was in SableFur three weeks ago. Anita summoned me. She told me to leave Gabel. That I must leave him. But they didn’t offer me sanctuary. Even when she told me Gabel will destroy everything he touches, and when I told her my Bond had been consummated, and Gabel would hunt me to the ends of the earth, she told me to leave anyway. But she offered me no help.”

  “What?”

  I yanked my hand free this time. “You have been played
and lied to. SableFur will never keep their promise. Not now, not ever. They never meant to. I doubt there was ever a vision at all. Just a way to play Shadowless into doing their dirty work.”

  She lunged forward, grabbed me, and pulled. I twisted my wrist, ducked under, and wrestled myself free. She tried again. I slid left, jumped backwards.

  “Come on!” Amber snarled.

  A gold shadow brushed past me. A large arm yanked me behind a male body.

  Flint’s other hand seized Amber by the throat.

  He squeezed, his fingers finding the blood vessels on either side of her neck. She clawed at his wrists.

  “While the IronMoon value females such as yourself,” Flint said, “this is a party. Please do not abscond with the hostess. That would be very rude.”

  He released her. She sagged and gulped down air. “Gianna, please, come—”

  “No.” I had no idea what was going on outside of IronMoon, but I was certain I wanted to stay with Gabel. Gabel’s cruelty was simple. Gabel did not lie, and he did not break his word, and he did not abide by dishonor. That was more than I could say for anything beyond our warped borders.

  The Comet indeed.

  “Lady Gianna,” Flint said, “your guests await.”

  Not that any of it was Amber’s fault. She hadn’t known.

  “Gianna, please!”

  Flint raised a hand to Amber. “You are a warrior, she-wolf. As am I. She is my Luna. I will strike you to defend her.”

  Amber sobbed and crumbled to her knees.

  At least my wedding was not dull.

  Gabel and the other males returned, his nightmare wolf-form crushing terrace slate, the hunt rising off him, and fierce glee singing in our Bond.

  As promised, Anders was unharmed and in one piece.

  “Buttercup.” Gabel nuzzled my neck, gloriously naked and pressed against my hip. I shivered with delight. “You smell of ferocity.”

  “I have a gift for you,” I murmured as I handed him his kilt. I did not want him to move, the press of his skin on mine... but that would make our guests blush. I would have run my fingers along the outline of his abs, trailing lower to—but best think of SableFur now. And not let their little Shadowless spies (or Anders, or Aaron, or anyone else) think I was enthralled with Gabel. Let them think I was a prisoner of the Bond.

  His blue eyes warmed, and the Bond pulled on us both. “Where is this gift?”

  “I can’t tell you yet.”

  “Pups in your belly, perhaps?”

  “No, not quite.” I winked at him and moved away.

  Through the crowds I spotted Amber gesturing to my distressed father and a frowning Jermain.

  Gabel sashed his kilt around his waist and sprang onto the short stone wall separating the garden levels. “Wolves of IronMoon!”

  The crowd hushed, and slowly eyes turned to him. Hix and Flint moved to stand closer to me, Hix right behind my shoulder, Flint a few feet away.

  Gabel gestured to the crowds. “Many thanks to all who have come to join us on our Solstice, and to welcome our new Luna.”

  He gestured to me. No few wolves bristled at the word our, meaning their Luna... when they had one of their own.

  But their grumbles were drowned out by the howls of celebration that struck the sky. Through the layer of winter clouds, the Moon’s light shone.

  Gabel waited for the songs to end, then continued. “IronMoon is a pack that honors the old traditions and the old ways. Tonight, I will prove to my mate that I will spare no pain for her, that I will bleed for her, that our den is safe from all harm.”

  A soft buzz of conversation.

  “Alpha Marcus of MarchMoon. Come forward and assist me in this.”

  The MarchMoon Alpha stepped forward, and the guests around him pressed backward into a semicircle.

  “Alpha Marcus,” Gabel said in the hushed quiet, “a year ago, you knelt before me and pledged loyalty to IronMoon. In return, I did not permit the destruction or abuse of your pack. I have left MarchMoon as I promised I would, under your direct and complete stewardship. I have not asked more than that which you agreed to.”

  Marcus did not say anything, and he didn’t understand. He stood there like a nonplussed sheep.

  “When the MarchMoon wolf came here to petition Gianna, his question was honored. I did not ask after it, she did not offer. I have kept my end of our deal. You have not.”

  “It offended you that one of the MarchMoon petitioned an Oracle?” Marcus’ voice had contempt in it.

  “Not at all. Your betrayal offends me. I know you collude with Alpha Aaron of IceMaw. You are not nearly as cunning as you may think.”

  “I have done no such thing!” Marcus shouted.

  “I know about Aaron. I know about the wolves you had in Gleaming Fang ten days ago.” Gabel grinned at him, the glint of cruelty in his ocean-blue eyes, the hunt rising off him again. “You are incompetent, or a traitor. How do you want to be remembered?”

  The only sound was the crackling of torches.

  The Bond sung with Gabel’s bloodthirst and sharp-edged anger. I suppressed a whimper of pain, just as it filled me with its own cruel delight in the next heartbeat. Marcus would get what he deserved, hot, swift justice at Gabel’s claws. There was no hope for him, and I would enjoy watching Gabel dispose of him, even though it caused sharp pain to feel it within me.

  “Your pet Oracle betrayed me!”

  I gasped in horror, but Gabel laughed it off. “Gianna betray her Oracle vows? Never. She cannot be bent, nor broken, nor manipulated, nor intimidated. She has fought me every step, every breath. She did not consent to the Mark and still growls at me. She has hardly been tamed, and after all these months, I cannot take my eye off her for a breath. It is a glorious thing to keep such danger so close. To have her skin against mine, taste her pleasure, and know that she could do something most terrible to me.”

  Gabel, my father is in the crowd, and I’m sure nobody here is interested in what we do in private...

  Marcus spat on the ground. “The Alpha Kings of old are dead, Gabel. They are dust and have remained dust. Your pack of dogs will never succeed!”

  Gabel grinned. “Now you will be the offering of blood and bone for my Mate!”

  He sprang off the wall with a curdling howl, his body twisting into the familiar, leathery nightmare, yellow talons and immense yellow fangs. Marcus, for a split second, was so transfixed with horror he did nothing.

  Hesitation, even for a split second, was a death sentence for anyone faced with Gabel.

  Gabel tackled him, flattened him, slashed once, and before Marcus’s shift was even complete, Gabel twisted his head and clamped down on Marcus’s throat. Marcus made a horrible noise. Gabel’s fangs slid deep, hooking around the windpipe and delicate tissues.

  Gabel yanked back, and Marcus’s throat came with him.

  Gabel spat out the rope of flesh and tissue, then raised his face to our guests and growled.

  It reverberated through the air, the ground, through bones and hearts and brains.

  Many of the guests dropped to their knees. The rest, after a pause, followed, either because compelled or just out of good sense to play along.

  Gabel uncurled, melting back into human form. Blood darkened him into shining blackness in the night, as if he were a shadow passing before the Moon’s eye. “Gianna, Oracle of the Moon and my chosen mate, I have removed the danger from our den. Do you accept it as proof of my worth?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  Gabel flicked gore off his hands. He was smeared from face to thigh in blood, his teeth stained red and his hair copper. Several IronMoon scurried over to clean up the mess he had left behind.

  “You,” Gabel pointed at the MarchMoon First Beta, “crawl back to your hovel. I will expect MarchMoon’s affirmation of loyalty or writ of war within two days. On the third day, I expect your proxy here to swear loyalty, or you can expect First Beta Hix for breakfast.”

  Gabel stood in front of m
e, reeking of blood, death, and hot, dangerous triumph. “I will wash. Then, you are mine.”

  I took a breath.

  There was no doubt in my mind I would go through with this, or that Marcus had to pay the price he paid.

  The looks of bewildered pity from the crowds of guests told me everything. Flint came to stand next to me, and Ana actually took over the duties of stirring the party back up. “Goddamn! So this is a fucking werewolf wedding? Holy shit! It’s not as crazy as my nutty cousin’s wedding where her girlfriend brought a shotgun and tried to take out the groom, but hey, hell hath no wrath, right? Hey, do you guys believe in Hell? Like with devils poking you in the butt with pitchforks for eternity?”

  “She is... a strange human,” Flint muttered to me, watching the crowds try to resume some normal flow and motion.

  “Very,” I agreed. “Do you think she’s actually a full human?”

  “I would not be surprised if there was a hybrid far back in her pedigree,” Flint agreed. “A peculiar find, but this is a pack of peculiar finds. Perhaps she was just tired of the human world.”

  Gabel returned in half an hour, clean, smelling of soap, his hair mostly dry and roguishly askew. He wore only a clean kilt, not even shoes. He gripped my bicep. “Come, buttercup. We will not delay further.”

  “Pull me a bit. For show,” I murmured to him.

  He yanked me against him. “You want to play rough?”

  I suppressed a naughty gasp as his skin sent jolts through mine, and the Bond quivered and squirmed with desire. “For the guests. I can’t seem too willing.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s part of your gift.”

  Gabel’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes smiled for him. He stepped back, pulling me after him and over to the stone wall.

  In modern times, mated pairs spoke their own vows. Promises for whatever the pair wanted to promise each other. The vows were a formal, public declaration of what they already knew. Gabel had made it clear we would use the old vows specifically for Alphas and Lunas.

  Gabel held my hands in his, lifted them between us as his ocean-colored eyes churned in the firelight, his breath warm on my cold fingers. “Will you rule justly and wisely at my side?”