The Rogue He Claimed

Chapter 71: The Rival Alpha Arrives

They put Ruben in the cellar next to his father, and Alban set two wolves on the door.

The yard was quiet by the time the sun came up. The snow had stopped and the sky was grey and the pack house was full of wolves who were too tired to sleep and too frightened to eat.

I sat on the steps with a cloth around my arm and watched the gate.

Maeve came out of the hall and sat down beside me.

"Let me see," she said.

I held out my arm. She unwound the cloth and looked at the cut and did not say anything.

"It is not deep," she said. "It will heal."

"Maeve," I said. "The locked room."

She did not look at me.

"I saw it," I said. "The pendants. The map. The names on the wall."

"I know."

"Why did you not tell me?"

Maeve was quiet for a long moment.

"Because I was afraid," she said. "Because if I told you what was in that room, you would have asked me how I got it, and I would have had to tell you that I took the pendants from the women after they died. I took them off their necks and I put them in a box and I kept them. And I have never been able to say that out loud to anyone."

I looked at her.

"You kept them because you could not bear to lose them," I said.

"I kept them because I could not bear to lose them." Maeve's voice was thin. "Every one of those women had a name and a family and a life. And when the stone took them there was nothing left but a little ash and a pendant. So I took the pendant. I put it in the box. I wrote the name on the map. And I told myself that if I kept them, they would not be forgotten."

I put my hand on hers.

"You are not the villain of this story," I said.

Maeve laughed, and it was a sad sound.

"I am not the hero of it either," she said.

The gate opened.

A rider came through it, and then another, and then a whole line of them. They were not Council wolves and they were not Cairn wolves. They were dressed in dark red and they carried silver at their belts.

At the front of the line there was a wolf on a grey horse.

He was tall and broad and he had dark auburn hair going grey at the temples and pale green eyes. He was wearing a dark red cloak with a silver clasp, and he was smiling.

Callum.

I was on my feet before the horse had stopped.

"Get back inside," I said to Maeve.

She did not move.

Callum swung down from the horse. He looked around the yard at the Cairn wolves and the Council wolves and the pack house, and his smile did not change.

"I heard there was trouble," he said. "I came to help."

"You are in chains," I said. "You are in the cellar."

Callum's smile did not move.

"I am not in the cellar," he said. "I have never been in the cellar. I have been at my own hall, three days' ride from here, and I have been receiving reports."

Finn came out of the pack house with his sword in his hand.

"What is this?" he said.

"This is Callum," I said. "The real Callum."

Finn looked at the wolf on the steps.

"The wolf in the cellar," he said slowly. "The one we took at the ford. That was not you."

"No." Callum's smile was polished and pleasant and it did not reach his eyes. "That was my steward. He has been wearing my cloak and speaking with my voice for twenty years. It is a useful arrangement. When there is unpleasant work to be done, my steward does it."

The yard was silent.

"And your son?" I said.

"My son is a fool." Callum's smile did not move. "He has always been a fool. He wanted to be like me and he did not have the stomach for it."

Alban came down the steps with his hand on his sword.

"Callum of the Council," he said. "You are under arrest."

"Am I?" Callum looked at him. "On what charge?"

"On the charge of murder. Of theft. Of the deaths of every woman on the wall of the Cairn cave."

Callum laughed.

"You have no proof," he said. "You have a ledger written by a healer who has already confessed to performing the ritual. You have a letter written by a dead rogue. You have a map drawn by a mad old woman. And you have a story told by a wolf who came over the border with a price on her head." He looked at me. "None of it will stand in front of the Council."

"It will stand," I said. "Because there are twelve names on the list and one of them is yours."

Callum's smile did not move, but something behind his eyes changed.

"The list," he said.

"The list of the twelve Alphas who signed the agreement. The list of the twelve who have known about the sacrifices for a hundred and forty years." I stepped forward. "Your father's name is on it. And your name is on it. And when the Council sees that list, they will know that you have been taking their money and their secrets and using them against them."

Callum looked at me for a long moment.

Then he smiled again.

"You are a clever wolf," he said. "Your mother was clever too. She was clever and she was brave and she was dead before she was thirty." He took a step toward me. "Do you know what happened to her? Do you know what happened when she ran?"

"She died in a fire."

"She died in a fire." Callum's pale green eyes did not move. "And do you know who set it?"

The yard was silent.

"You did," I said.

"I did." Callum's smile did not change. "And I will do it again. I will burn this glen to the ground and I will burn every wolf in it and I will walk away with the ledger in my hand. Unless you give me what I want."

"What do you want?"

"The boy," Callum said. "Your brother. The blood of the old ones. Give him to me and I will let the glen live."