Chapter Six: Alpha Rauken the Hairless
828 Words
POV Rauken Ironroot
I knew an elder was near before I heard him.
Warriors arrive with certainty. Elders arrive with weight.
The young man finished his form without looking to me for approval. Good. I let the wooden sword rest at my side and watched the last echo of movement fade from his shoulders before I turned. Raith stood at the edge of the training ground, travel dust on his hem, breath shallow, eyes too sharp for peace. Fear does that. It hollows a man without emptying him.
“Elder Raith,” I said, naming him true.
He flinched anyway.
We did not greet as alphas and elders once might have. There was no ceremony left in him, and I have never had patience for false ritual. I inclined my head and motioned him closer, away from the ring where young blood learned discipline through repetition and pain.
“You walk like a man who turned his back on something sacred,” I said. “Tell me who threatened you.”
Raith swallowed. He did not protest the accusation. That told me enough already.
“His granddaughter,” he said at last. “May. All I have left.”
Travis Moonblood, then. I did not speak the name. Names give power, and I would not lend him mine.
Raith’s hands shook. “He said it as he passed me. Soft enough that no one else would hear. Don’t push it, old man. May might pay.”
The words sat between us like a drawn blade.
“You did not fail,” I said, because elders carry guilt like a second spine. “You were tested.”
He looked at me then, really looked. “Alpha Gregarious would have stood.”
“Yes,” I said. “And he is dead for it.”
Raith’s breath hitched. The pack had not said it aloud yet. Deaths wrapped in ceremony always pretend to be accidents until truth forces its way through the cracks.
I gestured for him to walk with me. We moved along the edge of the grounds where the frost never quite melted, even in warmer seasons. This land remembered blood. It respected honesty.
“You came to me,” I said, “because you remembered who Gregarious was before he was buried.”
Raith nodded. “He spoke of his daughter’s future. Often. Not as a father dreaming, but as an alpha preparing for war.”
I stopped walking.
“He spoke to me as well,” I said.
Raith’s eyes widened.
“Not in whispers. Not in hopes. We spoke plainly. Gregarious Moonblood and I stood beneath twin moons and bound our words with law older than either of our packs.”
I turned so he could see there was no doubt in my face.
“We agreed to the betrothal of Awen Moonblood and the boy I raised.”
Raith opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“He has no name to you,” I continued. “That was intentional. Names travel faster than truth. But understand this: Travis Moonblood may posture, may snarl, may invoke tradition until his throat bleeds, but he has no legal claim to her. None.”
Raith shook his head slowly. “The pack believes otherwise.”
“The pack believes what it has been allowed to believe,” I said. “Tradition is a loud lie when no one remembers the law beneath it.”
I stepped closer, lowering my voice.
“Gregarious did not promise his daughter to strength alone. He promised her to earned strength. To a man who bled for his pack, who was chosen by loyalty rather than birth.”
Raith’s shoulders sagged, relief and grief tangling until he could not tell them apart.
“Then Travis—”
“—has nothing,” I finished. “But hunger and fear. And those make men dangerous.”
We stood in silence. From the ring came the dull thud of practice strikes, steady as a heartbeat.
“What would Gregarious have done?” Raith asked quietly.
I looked back toward the training ground, where the young man moved again, relentless, controlled, unseen by the world that would soon demand him.
“He would have bought time,” I said. “For his daughter to stand. For the pack to remember itself. And for the truth to surface where it cannot be silenced.”
Raith straightened, spine finding itself at last. “Then what do I do?”
“You live,” I said. “You protect May. And when the moment comes, you speak. Not as a frightened elder. As a witness.”
He bowed then, not to me, but to the choice he would have to make.
As Raith turned to leave, I remained where I was, watching the rhythm of training resume.
The storm was coming. Gregarious had known it. I knew it now.
And this time, the law would not stand alone.
- Writer
