Bride of the Alpha (16 page)

with them crowded around us as well.

My heart sank. I couldn’t let all these people die for us!

“No!” Warden Redthorne’s voice carried across the field. “We are a nation of laws! This is not a legal

order. They have not committed treason. First, the vote will take place.”

“That process takes months,” Ragnar snarled. “Every Alpha in the nation will have to be given the

chance to vote. You have no justification for this. This is a complaint from one traitor and his wife.”

“We want a vote!” one of the Alphas in the crowd, a shifter I had never seen before, bellowed.

The other shifters, including many Alphas, began yelling too. “We want a vote! We want a vote!” they

chanted. They were obviously furious over what they had just seen. The word of an Elder was supposed to be sacred; if an Elder and their shaman were corrupt, that threatened the rules that we lived our lives by.

Ragnar went pale. With that many Alphas demanding a vote, he could no longer argue.

“It won’t take more than a week, at most,” Warden Redthorne said calmly. “These days, we can contact

all of the Alphas by email and telephone. If you look in the Covenant, you will see that in a situation such as this, it is up to me to appoint an Elections Committee to supervise the results. The committee will be selected by random drawing, with one Alpha from each state.”

Ragnar and the Elders shouted and spluttered protests, but it was no use. We all were ruled by the

Covenant.

It took a little more than a week – it took ten days, to be exact. Those ten days were the longest of my life. I knew that Max’s parents and his whole pack, and all the packs we were allied with, stood with us, which made it even worse. We risked an all out pack war if the Elders weren’t voted out.

My Aunt Prudence flew out to Colorado to meet my new pack and to offer moral support. We were

waiting to find out not just if the Elders would be unseated and new Elders put in their place, but if we’d face the death penalty. If the current Elders kept their seats, their power would be reaffirmed, and they’d find a way to ensure that we were executed.

I was hopeful, but frightened. I knew that the majority of shifters wanted change. As human society and rules had changed, Shifters had followed suit in some ways, but in other ways we’d been far too slow to adapt. The Elders hadn’t helped their cause over the years, becoming more arrogant and imperious with

every passing year that they’d held power. Their attitude and behavior was obsolete.

Still, to get a vote of 90 percent of the Alphas…that was the challenge.

While we were waiting, Kray’s compound was raided by the Wardens, in an attempt to arrest the

scientist. Before he could be captured, he was shot to death by Kimball, who was in turn killed by the

Wardens. They found a laboratory hidden on Kray’s property, which was seized. Who was this human, and

where had he come from? How did he know how to create magic formulas that enhanced a werewolf’s

strength? Nobody knew, and that had shifters everywhere very worried.

We got the news on a Monday, as I sat with a circle of wolf cub girls teaching them origami. Max had

already arranged for me to start teaching third grade when the school year started up in September.

When I saw Max striding up to me with a huge smile on his face, I knew.

“Yes?” I called out to him.

“Yes,” he said. “Eleven of the thirteen elders have been replaced. The two remaining Elders are among

the more progressive ones, and now we will be able to propose an immediate change that allows shifters to leave their pack without fear of their Alpha coming after them.”

I leaped to my feet, ran over, and threw my arms around him.

“Are you going to take over the Iron Claw pack’s territory, then?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No need to. I never wanted it in the first place. I don’t want to disrupt the lives of a bunch of shifters who simply had the misfortune to be ruled by an abusive dictator. I’m drawing up

paperwork to ensure that the property is theirs, and they’re going to select their own Alpha, by a democratic vote. The Renker family, however, has been kicked off the property and they are now homeless.”

He picked me up and spun me around as if I were light as dandelion fluff, then set me down and kissed

me, hard.

“I’ve never been more proud of you,” he said. “The change you made will benefit all shifters. The

wolves from the Iron Claw Pack are safe from retaliation now.”

“Wow. Who ever thought that having a big mouth would finally pay off?” I said. I grinned at him

wickedly. “Speaking of my big mouth, I plan to put it to good use later.”

“I will hold you to that. And now, I have one little favor to ask of you,” he said.

“Anything for you. Wait. Let me rethink that.”

He went down on one knee, and I was shocked to see that he was holding up a diamond ring.

“Josephine Southpaw Battle, will you marry me all over again?” He winked at me. “I want to do it right

this time. By the way, I mean really marry me. All of it. The ceremony, the Running, the Claiming…”

“Why yes, Maxwell Battle,” I said, tears running down my face. “I will marry you again.”

THE END

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