The People's Alpha ✔

17: Congress

Then, three days before he was to be crowned Alpha of the Thunder Falls pack, Grayson had been killed in a skirmish with Zirconian border guards. A valiant death, by all accounts. Adlai was immediately recalled from medical school.

Nobody had ever been able to work out the exact events of what had happened afterwards. All we knew was that one by one, the loyal old guard that Sefton had cultivated had been slowly but surely picked off. One of them was found by Zirconians in an impenetrable part of the Highlands on their side of the border, his decomposing body strapped in the fuselage of a crashed Cessna. The watch of another washed up several years later on the banks of the Arrowhead. Most of them were simply never heard from again.

This overwhelming air of secrecy had bred some incredible rumours about Adlai; that he travelled at all times with a three-piece band, as he abhorred recorded music. That he shifted into an enormous black wolf, and that his first shift had occurred at age eight. That he had never found a mate, and he never intended to.

While knowledge of Adlai was scant, information on Stevenson was even scarcer. Even his first name was a mystery. All we knew was that he had been a rising through the ranks quite rapidly in the twilight of the Sefton days, and in the years afterwards he had somehow worked his way up to becoming Adlai's right-hand man and stand-in at most public events. It was widely theorised that he had helped Adlai in the power struggle after Sefton's death, and his current position was his reward.

But that was all hearsay, mostly rumours from people who had claimed to have escaped. But then Zirconia was rife with people levelling unsubstantiated accusations about their predicaments at the hands of alphas, so the efficacy of these claims was debatable. None of us knew for certain very little of what was going on in Thunder Falls, even the people who lived in the adjoining packs. Few people were allowed in, and any journalists who dared to broach the cone of silence either changed subject or started spouting surprisingly effusive praise. 

***

I noticed in the chaos that Kaden was nowhere to be seen. Where the Salmon Creek pack delegation usually was, there were two people I'd never seen before, sitting stock-still, looking like they were scared shitless at the carnage unfolding around them.

I nudged Brian, momentarily distracting him from his task of trying to keep Mason immobile.

"What the hell?" He put on more pressure as Mason tried to break free, as Reid yelled expletive after goading expletive. Mason's wildly mobile elbow caught him in his ribs. "Ow. Fuck."

I pointed in the general direction of where the two delegates from Salmon Creek were sitting. "Who are they?"

"They're Ronan and Rain. Pack doctor and chief warrior."

I nodded.

"Order!" Wethermore's voice was more strident this time round, and he banged the gavel impatiently.

Tobias Wethermore struck an imposing figure on the chairman's podium, with an intensity that belied his wiry frame. The lone ruler of the ... Pack for over thirty years, his beta and Luna both taken early by fate, he was well respected by all.

Meanwhile down in the sheol that was the lower regions of the chamber, Thurgood, Brian, Jack and I had the two co-regents of the Quaking Tree pack restrained as best as we could manage, for the moment at least. He was struggling so hard that he was starting to tear apart the seams of his clothes, and his eyes flashed yellow with each laboured extertion. Jack, and a bunch of other Alphas had Mason pinned down.

With an almighty show of force that practically disintegrated the entire left side of his suit, Reid finally broke free and managed to land one more punch on his brother with a bloodied fist, sending him sprawling backwards, before we could drag him back again.