THE WOLFLESS ALPHA

CHAPTER TWO NO KNIFE

The Pack dropped to its knees.

Every warrior.

Every Elder.

Every child.

His power filled the courtyard, cold and crushing.

Cole felt the command slam into his spine.

Kneel.

His legs shook.

His wounds burned.

His body began to bend.

Cole looked around.

Even Vance was on one knee.

Only Cole remained standing.

Shock moved through the Pack.

Alpha Alton stopped in front of him.

The pressure doubled.

Cole’s bones groaned.

Blood ran from his nose.

Kneel.

The command was inside his skull now.

Cole looked into his father’s eyes.

“No.”

A woman screamed.

Several wolves crawled backward.

The Elder stared at Cole as though a dead child had risen in front of him.

Vance’s face lost all color.

Mira closed her eyes.

She had known this could happen.

Cole understood that now.

His father released the command.

Everyone inhaled at once.

Cole nearly collapsed.

He forced himself upright.

Alton studied him.

Cole waited for pride.

He had resisted an Alpha command.

No child in Frost Fang could do that.

His father looked at the Elder.

“You found no wolf?”

The Elder lowered his head.

“No wolf, Alpha.”

Cole laughed once.

Both men looked at him.

“Then why does he keep backing away from me?”

The Elder said nothing.

Cole pointed at him.

“He touched me and ran.”

Then he looked at Mira.

“She tried to stop the second examination.”

Finally, he faced his father.

“And now none of you will tell me why.”

Mira stepped toward him.

“Cole, not here.”

“Then where?”

She opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Vance looked between them.

“What does he mean?”

No one answered him either.

The silence lasted too long.

Alton turned toward the Elder.

“What does the law require?”

Mira went still.

“No.”

The Elder swallowed.

“A child of Alpha blood who fails to awaken cannot inherit or hold rank.”

The wolves listened.

“He cannot remain inside Pack territory after sunset.”

Cole waited for someone to object.

No one did.

He looked at his father.

“I’m ten.”

Alton’s face did not move.

“The law does not recognize age.”

“You are the law.”

A murmur passed through the courtyard.

Cole stepped closer.

“You could stop this.”

“A Pack whose Alpha bends the law for his own son will not survive.”

Cole looked at the silver fang hanging from his father’s throat.

Then he looked up at him.

“I’m not asking the Alpha.”

Alton’s jaw tightened.

Cole’s voice broke.

“I’m asking my father.”

No one in the courtyard moved.

Alton held his son’s gaze.

Then he turned toward the guards.

“Open the southern gate.”

Something inside Cole broke.

The Pack reacted with gasps and excited whispers.

“He chose the law.”

“Even over his own son.”

“That is why Alton is Alpha.”

“He protects the Pack.”

They admired him.

They were praising Cole’s father for sending him to die.

Mira stepped between them.

“You will not take my child.”

Alton’s eyes turned black.

“Kneel.”

Mira hit the stone.

Her knees struck hard enough to make her cry out.

Cole lunged at his father.

“You bastard!”

Four guards seized him.

Cole fought until one of them twisted his injured arm behind his back.

The crowd shouted.

Some laughed again.

Vance watched without speaking.

Alton faced the Pack.

“Before sunset, Cole will leave Frost Fang territory.”

Cole thrashed against the guards.

“He will surrender all rank and inheritance.”

“You can keep them!”

“He will no longer use the name of this Pack.”

Cole stopped fighting.

Alton finally looked at him.

“And from this moment forward, he is no son of mine.”

Mira made a broken sound.

Cole stared at his father.

He wanted to cry.

He wanted to beg.

He wanted Alton to take it back.

Then Owen shouted from the crowd.

“Goodbye, human!”

The wolves laughed.

Cole looked at them.

These were the same wolves who had chanted his name.

The same wolves who had expected him to become their next great warrior.

Now they were smiling while guards dragged him toward death.

Cole stopped trying to free himself.

“I’ll come back.”

The laughter continued.

Vance wiped the blood beneath his nose.

“For what?”

Cole looked at his brother.

Then at his father.

Then at his mother, forced to kneel before them all.

“For everything.”

The laughter stopped.

They gave him an old coat.

Three days of dried meat.

No horse.

No weapon.

By sunset, the southern gate stood open.

Dark forest stretched beyond the walls.

Rogues lived before the river.

Human hunters lived beyond it.

A child without a wolf would never reach either.

Cole tightened the leather bag across his shoulder.

Garrick stood beside the gate.

The warrior had taught Cole to use a knife. Only last week, he had promised to take him hunting after his first shift.

Cole held out his hand.

“At least give me a blade.”

Garrick stared ahead.

“Pack weapons remain with the Pack.”

Cole lowered his hand.

“Right.”

He stepped toward the gate.

“Cole!”

Mira ran down the path.

She wore no coat. A bruise darkened one cheek, and red marks circled both wrists.

Cole looked at the bruise.

“Did he do that?”

Mira reached for him.

Cole stepped back.

Her hand stopped.

“You knew,” he said.

“I knew something could go wrong.”

“You watched me enter the Circle.”

“I hoped I was wrong.”

“And the Elder?”

Mira looked toward the guards.

“Leave us.”

When they moved away, she pulled a black cord from beneath her dress.

A large yellow tooth hung from it.

It was longer than Cole’s thumb, with a thin c***k down one side.

She pressed it into his palm.

Heat shot through his hand.

Cole almost dropped it.

Mira closed his fingers around the tooth.

“Keep it hidden.”

“What is it?”

“Something that belongs to you.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“You were too young.”

“What does that mean?”

Her fingers tightened around his.

“Your father must never know I gave it back.”

Cole looked toward the walls.

“What is it?”

“The reason you survived your first night.”

He waited.

Mira said nothing else.

A hard beat struck beneath Cole’s ribs.

The tooth pulsed in his fist.

Mira released him.

“That happened in the Circle,” Cole said.

Her face lost its color.

“The Elder felt it.”

“Keep it hidden,” she repeated. “Especially from your father.”

The gate chains began to move.

Cole slipped the cord around his neck.

“Come with me.”

Mira closed her eyes.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“If I leave, he will hunt us both.”

Cole looked at the bruise on her face.

“Then let him.”

Mira pushed the leather bag higher onto his shoulder.

“Go south. Don’t stop at the river.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll survive.”

The guards started closing the gate.

Mira caught his sleeve.

“No matter what you hear about me, don’t come back.”

Cole stared at her.

“You think I’d leave you here?”

“I think you’ll try to save me.”

“Of course I will.”

“That is what I’m afraid of.”

Cole looked at the tooth against his chest.

Then back at her.

“One day, I’m coming back.”

Mira’s hand went still.

“I’m coming back for you.”

She stepped backward.

Only half a step.

But she did it before she could stop herself.

Cole looked down at the space between them.

Mira reached for him again.

He stepped through the gate.

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“Cole—”

The guards caught her as the gates began to close.

Cole kept walking.

“Cole!”

The iron doors slammed shut.

He did not look back.

Night swallowed the forest.

Cole walked until his wounds soaked through his coat.

Until the Pack’s scent disappeared.

Cole walked until the scent of Frost Fang disappeared. Only then did he stop.

He braced one hand against a pine and pressed the other to his side. The cloth beneath his coat was warm and slick. When he pulled his hand away, his palm shone black in the moonlight.

Vance’s claws had opened him deeper than he had thought.

Cole set his leather bag between his boots and tried to tear a clean strip from the lining of his coat. His fingers shook too badly to start the rip, so he caught the cloth between his teeth and pulled until the seam gave way.

Garrick had taught him how to bind a wound before a hunt.

Garrick had also refused him a knife.

Cole wrapped the strip around his ribs and knotted it as tightly as he could. The pressure made his vision flash white, but the bleeding slowed.

A voice behind him said, “Frost Fang?”

Cole turned.

A man stood between the trees, thin enough that his cheekbones showed through his beard. His coat had once belonged to a Pack warrior. Someone had cut the crest from the shoulder, leaving a ragged square of darker cloth.

The man looked at Cole’s bag, then at the blood on the snow.

“Little far from the walls, aren’t you?”

Cole straightened. “My patrol is behind me.”

The man lifted his face and breathed in.

Cole knew at once that the lie had failed.

“No patrol.” The stranger smiled. “No horse, either.”

His eyes moved over Cole’s old coat, the dried meat, and the empty place at his belt where a weapon should have hung.

Then he smelled again.

The smile changed.

“Alpha blood.”

Cole took one step back.

The stranger’s gaze sharpened. “But no wolf.”

Cole reached into his bag as though he had a weapon hidden beneath the meat.

The rogue laughed.

“They threw you out.”

“Come closer and find out.”

The man did.

Bones shifted beneath his coat.

Cole dropped the bag and ran.

The rogue hit the ground on four paws before Cole reached the next tree. Gray fur covered a body starved narrow but still twice Cole’s weight. One ear was split, and an old trap scar circled its left foreleg.

Cole saw the weakness and changed direction.

The wolf expected him to run for the river. Instead, Cole cut behind a fallen pine, forced the rogue to turn on its bad leg, and drove both feet into the scarred joint.

The wolf crashed shoulder-first into the trunk.

Cole grabbed a broken branch and brought it down across the rogue’s muzzle.

Once.

Twice.

The third strike never landed.

The wolf caught the branch in its jaws and tore it from his hands.

Cole ran again, but pain ripped through his side. His stride broke. The rogue struck him from behind and drove him face-first into the snow.

Its teeth closed around the back of his coat.

Cole twisted before it could reach his neck. He jammed his forearm beneath its jaw and searched the ground with his free hand.

Stone. Root. Ice.

Nothing sharp.

He knew exactly where a blade should go—through the soft flesh under the jaw, angled toward the skull. Garrick had made him practice the motion until he could do it blind.

Cole’s hand found only snow.

The rogue’s weight settled over his chest. Its breath stank of old blood.

This was what the Pack had planned.

Not an execution in the courtyard. No blood on his father’s hands. Just a gate left open, three days of meat, and a child sent into rogue territory without a knife.

The wolf lowered its head.

Cole caught its throat with both hands and pushed. His arms shook. The jaws kept coming.

“I’m not dying here,” he said.

The rogue snapped inches from his face.

Heat flared beneath Cole’s coat.

The tooth struck his chest once, hard enough to hurt.

Something answered below his ribs.

Not a voice. Not a heartbeat.

A blow from the inside.

The rogue went rigid.

Cole felt the change before he understood it. The wolf’s throat stopped fighting his hands. Its ears flattened, and its body lowered until its belly touched the snow.

The pressure vanished from Cole’s chest.

The rogue backed away.

Cole stayed where he was, one hand clamped over his wound, the other closed around the tooth beneath his coat.

The wolf would not meet his eyes.

It had not looked away when he carried a branch.

It looked away now.

Cole pushed himself onto one knee.

The rogue lowered its head farther, exposing the scarred line of its neck.

Submission.

He had seen Frost Fang warriors do the same thing before his father.

Cole’s fingers tightened around the tooth.

The wolf trembled.

For one hot second, Cole wanted it to stay there.

He wanted Vance in its place. Owen. Garrick. Every wolf who had laughed while the southern gate opened.

A stone lay beside his knee. Heavy enough, if the rogue did not move.

Cole picked it up.

The wolf pressed closer to the ground.

Cole looked at the torn ear, the old trap scar, and the ribs beneath its fur.

Someone had thrown this wolf out, too.

He lowered the stone.

“Go.”

The rogue did not move.

Cole felt the thing beneath his ribs strike again. Smaller this time, but sharper.

“Go.”

The wolf turned and fled.

It did not stop until the trees swallowed it.

Miles away, Mira stumbled on the steps beneath Frost Fang’s council hall.

The guard holding her arm jerked her upright. “Keep moving.”

She tasted blood.

Mira touched two fingers to her mouth. Red stained them.

For a moment, she looked toward the southern wall.

Then she wiped her hand against the inside of her dress and climbed the next step before the guards could see.

Cole made it three paces before his knees failed.

He caught himself against the fallen pine. The forest tilted, righted itself, then tilted again.

He needed to move. The rogue had left, but its scent and his blood would bring others.

A branch cracked behind him.

Cole turned with the stone raised.

A broad-shouldered man stepped into the open. Soot darkened one sleeve of his coat, and a smith’s hammer hung at his hip. He looked past Cole first, following the rogue’s tracks.

“You watched,” Cole said.

The man crouched where the wolf had lowered itself. Deep claw marks cut through the snow. The rogue had fought the urge to run before Cole released it.

“I was about to kill it.”

“It had me on the ground.”

“And then it bowed.”

Cole backed away from him. “Stay there.”

The man stood. He smelled like iron smoke and wolf.

Cole raised the stone higher.

“If you’re from Frost Fang, tell my father he missed.”

“I’m not from Frost Fang.”

“Then leave.”

“You’ll bleed out before morning.”

“That isn’t your problem.”

The man’s eyes dropped to the cord at Cole’s throat. “Maybe not.”

He reached toward the tooth.

Cole struck his wrist with the stone.

The blow would have broken another man’s fingers. This one barely moved.

His eyes returned to Cole’s face.

“Touch it again,” Cole said, “and I’ll aim higher.”

The corner of the man’s mouth shifted, not quite a smile.

“Who gave it to you?”

Cole said nothing.

“Your mother?”

Cole’s grip tightened.

The man noticed. He did not reach for the tooth again.

“What’s your name?”

Cole nearly gave the Pack answer out of habit.

Cole of Frost Fang. Son of Alpha Alton.

The words no longer belonged to him.

“Cole.”

“Just Cole?”

“Yes.”

The man looked at the blood soaking through the fresh bandage. “I’m Adam.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“No. You threw a rock at me.”

Cole tried to step around him.

Adam caught his arm before he fell. Cole twisted, drove an elbow toward his ribs, and nearly got free.

Nearly.

Adam turned the movement and lowered him against the tree without putting pressure on his wounds.

“That was a good turn,” Adam said.

Cole shoved his hand away. “I don’t need you.”

“Probably not.” Adam glanced at the tracks again. “But you need a needle, a fire, and about twelve stitches.”

Cole’s vision darkened at the edges.

Adam held out a hand.

Cole looked at it, then at the hammer on his belt.

“You have a knife?”

Adam drew one from inside his coat.

The blade was plain, short, and sharp.

Cole stared at it.

Adam offered the handle.

Cole took it before he took the hand.

Something like approval passed through Adam’s face.

He pulled Cole to his feet. The effort nearly dropped him again, but Cole kept the knife.

As Adam took his weight and turned them south, Cole looked back at the place where the rogue had bowed.

“What happened to it?”

Adam did not answer immediately.

He studied the deep marks in the snow, the lowered belly print, the exposed throat.

“That wasn’t fear,” he said.

Cole’s hand closed around the knife. “Then what was it?”

“Submission.”

“To the tooth?”

Adam looked at him.

“No wolf bows to a piece of bone.”

The last of Cole’s strength went out of his legs. Adam caught him before he hit the ground.

Cole fought to keep his eyes open.

Adam lifted him as though he weighed nothing and started through the trees.

“What did it bow to?” Cole asked.

Adam’s gaze moved once toward the hidden walls of Frost Fang.

“An Alpha.”