Price looked like he’d eaten a lemon every time Dad gave him an order, but there was nothing he could do about it. Once I caught him trying to talk other wolves in the pack into challenging Dad. But no one was willing to do it.
I told Dad, but he just said, “Price can go if he wants. No one’s keeping him here. Of course, if he leaves, he’ll have to abide by his own pack laws.”
Like I said, every pack has its laws. Whoever starts the pack makes them, and then they’re kept forever, long after the pack founder dies, as long as the pack itself survives. A new alpha can’t make new laws for the same pack.
It’s a wolf thing, like the way dragons are all obsessed with gold and jewels. Wolves have to have packs, and they have to obey the laws of their pack. Maybe it’s because wolves are wild at heart, and they need something to keep them in line, or they’d go totally out of control.
Dad’s old pack allowed anyone to leave if the alpha gave them permission. The gang had a different law. It was that anyone could leave, but they had to run the gauntlet. The entire gang shifted into wolves, and stood in two lines. The person who wanted to leave had to walk between the lines in human form, and every wolf he passed bit him. Each wolf got to decide where and how hard. The bites couldn’t be to places that would kill instantly or that would make it physically impossible to walk. Like, no biting through the Achilles tendon. But other than that, anything went. If you were still on your feet by the end, you could go. If you fell and couldn’t get up, the pack tore you to shreds.
You have a fucked-up macho gangster pack, you get fucked-up macho gangster laws.
Nobody left while Dad was alpha, but some of the wolves had seen gauntlets. One was an old guy who wanted to retire and be with his family, so they just nipped him and let him through. The other was a guy Price didn’t like. Price and his buddies bit him so badly that he passed out from blood loss two steps from the end, and that was it for him.
Price had made a lot of enemies as an alpha, so there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive a gauntlet. And he didn’t have the nerve to challenge Dad. So he stayed. He seethed every time Dad gave him an order, but he obeyed.
Dad ran the gang for a couple years. Then when I was eighteen, a new wolf came to town. I never did hear his story — whether he’d lost his pack or been run out of it or what. He just showed up one day and challenged Dad.
I don’t know what Dad was thinking, either — maybe he figured he could beat that guy, maybe he was afraid he couldn’t protect me if he wasn’t the alpha, maybe he didn’t care if he lived or died now that his mate was gone, maybe a little of everything.
He took the challenge. And the other wolf killed him.
I couldn’t do anything but watch. Pack laws — no one can interfere in an alpha challenge. Those laws go down to our blood and bones. I don’t know if it would’ve even been possible for me to jump in. But I just assumed Dad would beat him. It never even occurred to me that he might die.
It happened so fast. I never got to say good-bye. One second they were rolling around on the ground, and the next second Dad was dead and that guy was standing over his body.
He shifted and told us all, “I’m your alpha now.”
I didn’t think. I just said, “Not for long, you fucking aren’t. I challenge you.”
He laughed. That fucker laughed at me.
He said, “I’m not stepping down for you, kid. Take it back and beg for mercy, or come at me and die with your daddy.”
I was barely eighteen. My wolf wasn’t full-grown, either. There was no way I could win a fight with a big, strong, experienced, adult alpha. But I was so heartbroken and furious, I didn’t care if he killed me, so long as I died with my teeth in his throat.
My wolf took over. I don’t remember the fight. To this day, I don’t even remember his name. All I remember is a red haze.
Then I was standing in that alley with blood in my mouth and two wolves dead at my feet. Dad was gone. And I was the alpha.
I buried Dad and had that fucker’s body tossed into the town dump. And then I ran the gang pretty much like my father had, but not quite so non-violently. If a rich mark was a real asshole, I might rough him up a bit. Uh, or a lot, depending on how bad he was. Like, if he was the kind of person who’d fire a man for trying to save his mate’s life. No murder, though. And no harming innocent working people.
I’m not saying I was Robin Hood. I was a fucking gangster. Okay, so sometimes I shoved an envelope of money under some single mom’s door, but it was money I got from breaking and entering on the other side of town. I don’t want you to think I was better than I was. I didn’t hurt anyone who couldn’t fight back and I didn’t steal from the poor, and that was as good as it got.
I ran the gang for about five years. I got two challenges early on, both from outsiders who figured a teenage alpha was easy pickings. It was kill or be killed, and I killed them.
After that, word got around, and that was it for challenges for a couple years. Sometimes wolves came round who’d lost or been kicked out of their pack, and asked to join mine. If they seemed okay, I’d let them in. If they were an asshole, I told them to take off. One of the assholes challenged me, and, well, here I am.
A couple of the guys I let in couldn’t hack it and ended up asking to leave. Thing was, they weren’t criminals. They just needed a pack. If they kept looking long enough, they’d find one that suited them better. So I stood first in the gauntlet, which was the alpha’s prerogative, and gave them a little nip, just enough to draw blood. The rest of the gang followed my lead, and both those guys walked away.
But Price stayed. He didn’t like me any better then he liked my father, but he knew he couldn’t beat me in a fair fight. And no matter how a wolf left that pack, whether the alpha throws them out or they go of their own accord, they still have to run the gauntlet. I kept hoping Price would choose to leave, but the alpha doesn’t control the gauntlet. I could suggest how it goes, but every wolf gets to decide for himself. He knew and I knew that he wouldn’t make it to the end of the line.
We fucking hated each other but I felt like I had enough blood on my hands. I didn’t want his too. So he stayed.
And that was my mistake. My very fucking big mistake.
Then two things happened that changed everything.