TM [Complete ✔️]

6. Revenge?

Zane's P.O.V

"Furthermore, I wish to give the pack to my current Beta, Zane Brown!"

My heart stopped, then began to pound against my chest. The air seemed to get knocked out of my lungs and the room spun all in the span of three, shocking seconds.

I could only sit there, mouth agape as all eyes turned to me, their voices drowned out by my impending panic and anger.

The door snapped open, my gaze following the chained Alpha, perhaps soon to be fallen Alpha, Cedric, as he was led in by two of his warriors - chained up with silver cuffs around his wrists and ankles.

My head spun with how fast everything was happening but before I could even realise what I was doing, I was in front of Cedric, drawing punch after punch straight into his now bleeding nose.

"You're the reason I broke," I seethed, drawing another punch, this time at his jaw, "my promise to my nephew!" Someone was holding me back, another was screaming, yet I heard and saw nothing.

Stronger than I'd been for the entire past month, I pushed against whoever was holding me, jumping straight back at Cedric.

"Because of you," I jammed my knee into his no doubt broken nose, making him cry out in pain, "my mate is gone!"

"Zane, control yourself!" Knox jumped in front of the scumbag, shaking my shoulders. I slumped backward into the chest of the warriors who'd been trying to restrain me, my energy quickly slipping out of me and leaving me a vulnerable mess. "Fifteen-minute break!" Elder Theo shouted, wolves scattering out with harsh glares.

Once the ranked members had all left, I was pushed back into my chair, hearing only the faint sound of the door clicking closed again after the warriors too got out.

"You have fifteen minutes, sort yourselves out!" Another Elder snapped, my eyes tightly shut, head rolled back. "And I'd suggest finding another wolf suitable for the role of Alpha of this pack." Knox's growl was all my ears registered even after the Elders were long gone and silence stretched.

When I looked up, he and Dali were staring at me, gauging my reaction, wondering if I'd finally gone insane.

"Say something, damn it!" My Alpha demanded, the silence too thick, too suffocating for us to bear. I looked at him, then at his mate, wondering if they were punishing another for betraying them while simultaneously doing the same to me.

My hand squeezed the chair from underneath the table as the other balled into a fist. I closed my eyes again, wondering what exactly he was expecting me to say.

Did he honestly believe I'd go through with his games? That I'd become a pawn in a chess match for power amongst Alphas?

However, it seemed he really was expecting an answer as he continued lingering just above my seat, supporting his weight with his palms pressed against the table.

"This?" I rasped, unable to take his stare anymore. I felt as though if I didn't say anything, I would combust, blow into a pile of nothingness with only bitterness coating my tongue. "This was your idea of revenge?" I got up, right in his face, and tried to glare, tried to remember what the action felt like, and wondered if I could muster enough anger for it. "Revenge on who - me?"

He said nothing for a while, only stepped back and shook his head.

"Zane-"

"What?" I attempted to shout, my voice and energy betraying me already.

Mentally, I beat myself up for how weak I sounded in the one moment I needed to show resistance.

I'd always been content with just being a pack member, just being a Beta, a mate, a father. I never had ambitions to become more, wasn't born for it. I never thought there would come a time, in which I was forced to show resistance against my Alpha, and yet here I was, in a once-in-a-lifetime situation, my body refusing to be on my side even just this once.

"I believe you should take Cedric's place as Alpha of the Silver Claws pack," Knox repeated, slowly, as if he were explaining to a child, as if he hadn't turned my world around the first time he'd said the words. "You have suffered the most from his betrayal and it would do you good to get a distraction and a clean slate." The last part was quieter, the reminder of Rosalie, though not forgotten even for a second, hung in the air. "Zane, this will do you good. You're the best Beta an Alpha could hope for! You know the laws, know how to rule and you've done great during my absence in the past. I believe you taking the pack is the best thing for it, for you." My best friend explained, his thoughts perhaps sounding thought out. Maybe I'd know if I was listening.

"You don't get to tell me what's good for me!" I snarled, gripping the table as we both leaned over it. I was challenging him, forcing him to do something, to punish my behaviour. What was the most he could do? Take my life?

My soul has already gone, would losing the body really be such a big deal?

"Stand down!" He growled, Dali backing further away from us to observe from a safe distance.

"See!" I shouted. "You do this, you say something, and everyone, even those out of your command, obeys without a second thought! You wanted a meeting, you got a meeting! You wanted a fifteen-minute break, you got it! If you want another fifteen, no one would say anything! Take the dang pack and stop with the bullshit!"

I sat back in my seat, running my hands through my hair in frustration.

"It all comes down to practice. Besides, you have Blood Moon as an ally and always will. As long as I'm alive, no one will come after you or your pack!" He promised as if I'd already agreed.

As if I had the choice he'd already taken from me.

"I don't want a pack!" Was it truly so difficult to understand that not everyone was raised for the position and definitely not everyone wanted it? "I don't want to leave my home, I don't want to move! I've grown up in Blood Moon, I've known the territory like the back of my hand since I was a pup! I want my daughter to grow up near her mother, I want to show her the places where we fell in love..." My eyes could no longer hold his gaze as my voice trailed off painfully, my mind busy replaying images of happier times in my head and only making the ache in my empty chest worse.

I wanted my daughter to grow up next to the soil and see the places her dad and the mom she's never met fell in love with before they lost it all on her birthday...

"It won't take too long to get to know the other territory too if it's yours!" Knox argued back quietly, both of us trying to ignore what I'd said.

It was too late, however, as my wall was already shattering. I could no longer hide the reason I was this scared - this terrified - of leaving Blood Moon.

"I have memories here, Knox! Memories of my childhood with you, of our fights, of the times we made up, memories with my mom and aunt Aria! I have my father's voice echoing off the trees we climbed together on and fields we used to play in, I have Rose's memory on every bench, every crevice!" My voice cracked at one point and didn't stop revealing the pain I had tried to conceal. "I don't want to be alone." I finally whispered.

As pathetic as it made me, there was a time while I spoke, in which I wondered if he wanted me to leave. If it devastated him to see my face, if it reminded him of the little sister he'd give his life to protect, if every time he saw me, he couldn't get rid of the image of the smiling pup and laughing Beta he was friends with.

If I'd become too much of a burden...

Dali was looking at me, at the two of us, with unshed tears. She was speaking to her mate with her eyes rather than lips, though avoiding actually interfering. It hadn't been like her to stay quiet in matters such as this, to not go up to Knox and put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

I hated that now, out of all times, she chose to stay out of it.

"Their graves - my father's, my mate's - are all there. What will I have if not my memories, a place to lay flowers?" Knox put a hand on my shoulder and kept it there. The weight of it was both heavy and freeing and I fought the urge to shut my eyes closed and keep them that way.

"You won't lose that. You'll come visit often and Dali and I will come see you, too. You need to get away! Memories, at the moment, are your worst enemies!" I sighed, knowing deep down he might be right.

That he might have a point.

"And what if you're wrong? What if, after everything, a body alone isn't enough to lead the wolves?" He shook his head, watching me with an intensity he only used when he needed to get his point across.

"I wouldn't have recommended you had I not been sure you could do it. At least try, if it's too much I can always take over!" I looked back at his mate, my Luna, who had a small smile on her lips, nodding in agreement with what her mate was offering me.

With a heavy sigh and a million thoughts to consider, I ran out of the room and away from my problems.

I only stopped running after I'd somehow reached the garden.

It was huge and well tended to. Perhaps it was also loved, too. There were painted rocks around the flowers, little sticks with papers glued to them of different pups' handprints, and not one leaf out of place.

I panted, breathing in the scent of the flowers, the fresh air, shivered from the cold with no wolf to keep my body warm.

And I walked. I walked because each snap of a twig and each crunch of a rock beneath my feet was a reminder that no matter how much I didn't want to be, I was alive, and being alive meant making decisions I wasn't ready for.

But did I truly have a choice?

Did I have anything to ponder over when the decision was already announced before all the most powerful leaders?

My daughter's little face flashed through my mind as I looked around the giant forest-like back space of the pack house.

For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine a future. To imagine what she'd look like, running around and plucking flowers, her handprint glued to a stick and stuck in the dirt - perhaps an activity she did with a pup her age.

I imagined being able to protect her with an entire pack of my own, warriors, whose whole life cause was directed to making sure the heir was safe.

I imagined the possibility of my daughter having a pup, a future here in Silver Claws...

A future in the pack that more or less left her an orphan...

Footsteps came up from behind me, making me spin around to find Dali approaching.

"Do you mind if I walk with you?" She asked, making me shrug.

Silence stretched between us, uncomfortable like never before. Never before had we had everything to say to each other and yet nothing at all.

Never before had I felt alone in her presence, in the presence of one of my childhood best friends.

"Dali?" I finally found the courage to ask what had plagued my mind from the second I saw her looking at me and her mate in that dreaded conference room. "Did you have any idea what Knox had planned?"

AN

Hi, Treasures! Make sure you join my F-a-c-e-b-o-o-k group Teddy's Treasures for extra content and discussions! Did Dali know? Will Zane be mad at her if she did?