Moonblood: The Wolfless Alpha

Chapter 4: The Order of Execution

POV: Nixie

The corridor melted—faces, torches, the glint of expensive pelts and harder eyes. The music had stopped beneath the weight of the moment, as if the sound had been polite enough to hold back until the judgment was made. Every eye was on me as if I was a lesson, a parable in the making in the golden light.

Trixie ruled the center like a queen crowned with silk. Her smile was leisurely and deliberate. Hunter was unfocused, his hand lying at his side where it had clung to the rim of a goblet an instant before. Behind him the Council elders stood as cliffs—ancient, immovable.

"You have no right," I said, my voice calm though aching like a shard in my throat. "You have no proof."

Trixie's laughter was a delicate, bitter thing. "Proof?" she cried, stepping forward so that the whole hall could hear her. "You nearly killed the Alpha heir in the forest. You were seen speaking to the vampire with traitors in his ranks. You exercised power that you have no way of accounting for." Her eyes flicked to the elders. "And we can't afford the threat to the pack.".

Murmurs grew like surf. I felt a hand on my shoulder and leaped—my brother, face set like stone, jaw tightening. I wanted to reach out with my hand but my hands were thin and useless now, like paper.

The head elder, Elder Corin, lifted his hands, and the hall fell silent. "Enough," he said. His voice was wintered from a lifetime of them. "This is not a place for drama. The council will meet immediately. Everyone will remain."

They did not congregate so much as consumed the room. The elders stepped back to the dais, robes rustling. Trixie and Hunter remained in the light, as players on a stage. I waited in the wings, held breath, as the trap snapped shut behind me.

"Luna Nixie," Elder Corin said finally, after the council members had settled into their chairs. "You are accused of taking measures which undermined pack security, consorting with our foes, and abuse of authority. This council has heard the testimony."

My heart was pounding. "Testimonies? Who testified?"

"The hunters who found the injured wolf," Corin continued. "The patrol that saw you near the vampire outpost. Even your own relatives testified." His eyes moved over to my brother; he held my gaze there only briefly. "The evidence is strong.".

You have no evidence of intent," I said, feeling my eyes burn with heat behind them. "There were no wards—no warning I unleashed violence. You can't judge me on suspicion."

Corin's face was a mask. "We do not judge on suspicion alone. But we do not turn our backs on the pack's stability. The council has spoken." He looked to the other elders. "We call upon the Execution Order.".

The words fell like frozen stones. I could feel the burden of each glance. Execution Order—that last warrant of law that cut short all chance of appeal, all space for mercy. If invoked, any coalition pack could exercise the right to end the branded life anywhere.

"No," I whispered. The word dissolved before it could leave my lips.

Elder Corin's voice softened, if such a thing were possible. "For the safety of the many, for the safety of the pack, this is the decree." He bowed his head. "By majority of the council, Nixie Hale, you are to be marked for death."

A gasping breath—shock, murmurs, stifled sobs. Food trays rattled, a dog yelped in some part of the cellblock and was instantly quiet. I looked for Hunter's eyes. He spat at the ground, jaw working as if the sentence was alive.

"Three nights," Elder Corin declared. "At sunrise on the third morning, the Execution will be carried out."

Three nights. Seventy-two hours. Time itself became a cage measured in heartbeats.

I should have dissolved. I should have pleaded, begged, done anything. But something in me—some obstinate spark which had kept me alive all this while—remained steadfast. I took the fear, its form, and transformed it into something else.

"How can you do this?" I whispered. "I am Luna. I swore under the moon."

Trixie leaned forward. "Sworn or not, the pack belongs to the council. A Luna who doesn't have a wolf is useless. The Moon only looks out for those who are worthy." She turned to me and gave me a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Maybe the Moon was wrong in its favor.".

This time there was harsh and thin laughter. My brother's shoulders did not tremble; his jaw creaked. He had been chosen, or had chosen, to make duty his master. The thought cut something hard in two in me.

The elders had spoken in ritual words then—rituals of consecrating the decree into law. Among them was a woman with tightly braided silver hair, and she advanced, sealing a strip of leather in ink and wax. She offered it to the head warden's face, all practiced neutrality. He uttered the administrative phrase that ignited the sentence: the Execution flag would rise, the hunter bands would be notified, alliances consulted.

I had been anticipating the whispers and brutality. I hadn't anticipated the silence of having been left vulnerable to the very beasts who once called themselves kin.

They bound my wrists with raw rope and marched me from the dais. The hall doorway opened onto the blackness and a slapping burst of cold hit my face. A pack member spat on me as I passed. I could feel the burn of shame sear my skin like acid.

They locked me in the lower holding, a cell carved out of old stone beneath the packhouse. There was a narrow slit for a window that let in a strand of moonlight. There was a thin cot waiting. A bucket. A chain. The accommodations of one to die.

Hunter did not come down with me in the stairs.

My brother did, though, maintain his distance. Passing by my cell, he gave me a brief look—a sort of sadness—but stiffened and proceeded on his way. I watched his back recede into the horizon and the world tilt again.

I stood alone with my wild thoughts. Alone with the absence of a wolf they alone could have changed everything for.

I leaned back on the chilly stone and shook my hands out of sight. I tried to bring back Grandfather—wisdom hands, stories by lamplight—but even those were salty. He had told me I was stubborn like the river. Stubborn enough to cut a path.

I would not be cut into the earth yet.

On the second night, a guard brought me a wafer-thin piece of bread and some water. His was a young, pinched face. He never glanced up at me when he slid the tray through the metal slot.

"You shouldn't be here," he said softly, to himself.

"Why?" I asked.

Because at first light we— "He paused, and I had the idea that his eyes moved toward the hall where the elders' door slumped. "Orders are orders."

I waited, the words writhing in my chest.

"Listen," he hissed. "There are always cracks. There are men who do not approve of this. A few. But they are afraid. They are choosing to live with their hands clean." He spoke quietly. "If you can—"

"Can what?" I asked.

"Depart early on the third day before dawn." His hands fought with the tray, leaving a trail of bread. "There is a loose stone next to the fourth pillar near the ancient granary. You press it three times at midnight. It slides. Old hollow. You move through if you can."

Need was an emptiness that cut close to desperation. "Why would you do that for me?"

He looked at me then, and something raw and human surfaced. "Because once we all believed there was something better. And because…you weren't meant to die like this."

He turned away, leaving the tray, and the sound of his boots echoed a small, broken benediction.

I lay on the narrow cot that night, looking up at the ceiling. Loose rock puffed possibility like a secret. I saw myself tearing loose and running through the fields into the Forbidden Forest which had sheltered me before. I saw myself lying in the shade beneath the trees where wolves and vampires had cared for wounds together. I saw the cool hand of the Moon on my brow.

But I also imagined the hunters—my brother among them—pursuing me. The Execution Order declared them judge, jury, and executioner. There was no hiding from the packs if the flag was raised.

I slept in fits. The dreams fragmented: one moment I was a small child learning to bake, the next I was larger, trembling as Trixie's giggles echoed down a corridor. I awoke once to the sound of footsteps outside my cell—soft, insistent. I braced against the bars and saw a white-robed figure move past.

It was Selene. My honest, steadfast friend. Her eyes were unbelievably wet as she slid the smallest scrap of paper under the door.

*Meet me at the old well. Midnight. Don't trust the guards.*

I crumpled the paper against my heart until the ink became warm. Selene had always been stone—someone who understood listening. If she told me midnight, I believed that small patch of the world.

Midnight came like a sighed breath.

I waited until the hall was empty, the last of the guards leaning against their stations with half-closed eyes like drooping leaves. I stepped off the cot, wrists numb but careful. The loose stone was where the guard had shown me—cold and unforgiving. I pressed, once. Twice. Three times.

It moved.

Cold air breathed into black hollow like a vow. I crawled in, scraping palms against the rough stones as I pulled myself into the hollow. Selene's face showed at the edge of the opening—fingers reaching down, and I took them with more strength than I realized I had.

"Go," she spat. "Run two ridges south and follow the old road. There will be a horse. Vlad will be waiting—no, not him, the one from the forbidden cabin—he's been in cahoots with them. You must get out."

Vlad. The vampire. My breath caught—danger doubled back into a question. Vlad had tended me once, patched me up. But crossing with a vampire during a werewolf crackdown would be treason piled on treason.

"Why do I have to trust you?" I caught my breath.

Her jaw quivered. "Because you're my friend. Because I can't live with what happens if I don't do this."

We crawled through the secret passage, the emptiness shoving us like a boot at our shoulders. Cold stone bashed my back raw.

At the tunnel entrance, a hand—an iron-fisted hand—closed around mine. I whirled around, and for a moment, time stumbled.

It was Hunter.

His visage was a topography of wars—and regret. For one moment I expected him to strike, or fling me back. Instead, his lips opened and the words that came out were a prayer mangled in their throat.

"Go. Run. Forget me."

All air melted into scramble of leather and boom of distant drums. Boots. A scream. The Flag of Execution—the warden-master's horn—brayed like a death knell.

Hands closed around me from behind. Selene screamed once, a sound that I would keep with me forever, as our small escape burst open like a vase.

And then everything—the tunnel, the moonlight, the promise of softness in the forest—substituted for running, for wild scatters of shadows.

I ran.

I ran till my lungs burned, till the ground before me shook. I could hear behind me cries breaking out—command yelled, the whip of hunting cords, the thudding step of men who had been commanded they might kill me as they pleased.

On the ridge, I dared one backward look.

A line of men trudged in the moonlight—hunters, old men, grim-faced men. And at their head, riding as if he had purchased the sky, was a man that I did not recognize.

He led his horse to the crest of the ridge and looked down at the pack—at me. The moon skimmed silver in his hair, and his eyes, when they found mine, were knives.

It was Lyall.

He was supposed to be alpha of the Moonrise pack—the feral, distant wolf who had been nothing but a legend in my world. And here he was, on my breaking point.

He raised a hand.

The hunters halted.

For one breath—two—time froze.

Lyall tilted his head back and howled.

One sound that shook through the trees and into the very heart of every wolf in sight. The cry tore the night asunder.

Then, when the echo faded away, Lyall uttered—his words carried on the wind, as pure as steel: "This execution will not stand."

Behind him, other shadows seethed—white figures cutting the ridge like surf.

And as the pack hesitated, while I gazed at this impossible rescue, a figure stepped from the line of hunters.

Trixie.

She smiled, and it was an animal's smile—starving, triumphant. And before anyone could move, she brought a small leather case from under her cloak and uttered a word of magic.