Greykin Valley

| 73 | Wolf's Rite

⥐ ⋞ ☽ ⋟ ⥐

| Jackson |

Everyone filed into the war room. Jackson stood beside Damon, who leaned against the wall, and the pack waited on his right. Raphael was across the room with Sebastien and Lumi, and Cyrus was standing in front of the table with his hands resting on it, staring at the map.

Jackson felt nervous enough already—they were about to head out to face Kane in what was supposed to be a final battle that would end in Kane's surrender and the addition of his pack to Cyrus'—but when Wilson was escorted into the room by one of Cyrus' men, his anxiety and dread skyrocketed. He felt Damon tense up and heard him growl quietly under his breath, and he watched as the Alpha's hostile glare locked with Wilson's frustrated glower.

They eyed each other closely as Wilson was led across the room towards the pack; it didn't take long for Damon's wolves to pick up on their Alpha's anger, and they all watched Wilson closely and glared cautiously when he stopped and stood a few feet away from them.

Jackson shuffled around uncomfortably. After what happened between him and Wilson, he didn't feel ready to face him. But he could feel Wilson's eyes on him, and the longer he stood there trying to fight the urge to glance over there to see if he'd looked away yet, the more unsettled he felt. And he could also feel the anger seething from Damon's body; he knew that his mate wanted to beat the shit out of Wilson for kissing him—he knew that Damon wanted to kill him—and he sorely hoped that the Alpha would stick to his word and refrain from doing so.

"Listen up," Cyrus bellowed through the packed room. There must be at least a hundred people inside. "Alucard's sentries located Kane and his pack fifteen klicks from here. They're set up in an abandoned mining town—"

"The tunnels," Lumi said worriedly.

"You know this place?" Raphael asked her.

The shy, icy-haired girl nodded as she glanced at him. "Hear rumours," he said quietly. "Kane...clear out the village years ago."

"That's right," Julian said with a nod. "I heard about it. Kane wiped out that entire town after one game hunter's trap broke the paw of one of his wolves."

Irritated, disgusted murmurs travelled around the room.

"Lots of narrow paths underground...dangerous," Lumi said.

"Here's what we do," Cyrus said loudly, silencing everyone. "If Kane plans to lure us into the mines, he's likely already got wolves setting up down there. So, we smoke them out. We fill those tunnels with wolfsbane smoke—a low dose so the worse they'll get is a cough for a day or two—and then I challenge Kane."

Jackson frowned and asked Damon, "Why do we need to smoke the other wolves out?"

"Because every wolf has to be present when a challenge for power commences," Cyrus called.

With a startled flinch, Jackson sharply turned his head and set his eyes on him. "R-right," he mumbled.

"Sebastien and Maleki, you'll be handling the wolfsbane," Cyrus said as he glanced at the elf-vampire and the white-haired demon. Then, he looked at Raphael, Elias, and Amos. "You three will take your teams and work on rounding up all the stragglers." He set his sights on Damon. "And Damon, you're with me. We'll need to contain Kane until I'm ready to challenge him."

Damon nodded.

"Everyone else is on cadejo duty. You watch the perimeter and make sure that no cadejo get past. That's the last thing we need," Cyrus ordered. "We're going with formation A. All of you who aren't mine, find one of my guys and stick with them."