6 Years Ago
The Den was in an uproar.
Anna, the current alpha female, sat at the long table in the library, watching the chaos around her with calm composure. Beside her, Baron looked like he wanted to throw up. All around them, the members of the Den were expressing their displeasure at Anna’s latest announcement, shouting, swearing, some gesturing wildly to punctuate their angry pronouncements while others paced, hit things, overturned chairs.
And in the midst of it all, Caroline sat silently, mind racing, her safe and stable world suddenly on shaky ground.
Anna was resigning as alpha. And she was moving to Italy, abandoning her Den, her duties, her family. The Den was reeling in shock.
It was five years since the death of Kendrick, her husband, who had been alpha up until his death, when Baron had taken over. And though no one was quite willing to admit it, since that time Anna had hardly been exemplary in her fulfilment of her duties. She’d taken frequent trips to Italy, shown little interest in rebuilding their Den, left the vast majority of responsibilities up to Baron, and while more than a handful of their members had petitioned for a leadership change, the problem then remained the same as the problem now – there was no other female in the Den both willing and able to take control.
Heron would have been the first choice, the most senior and most experienced of the females, but for reasons that few among their number understood, she had steadfastly refused to challenge Anna for rank.
Raniesha fancied herself another good bet, but Caroline knew for certain that she would never gather sufficient social support to hold the rank. And Skip, of course, was far too young, and had neither the skills nor the desire to hold such a position of responsibility.
Which left Caroline.
Privately, she scoffed at the idea, sure that the Den would never support her, convinced that she was too hot tempered, too brusque and lacking important social skills to ever make a real play for the role.
The real problem was that, in the absence of a willing and able female, the Council would be forced to send in a new female selected from another Den, a strong, experienced wolf with the skills and personality to become alpha. While this was a sound plan in the long run, a strong female needed to keep the Den stable and functioning well, in the short term it was a nightmare. No one liked having new wolves of high rank brought in. It would create resentment among the females and dissention among the males. It sparked weeks, if not months of status fights, as everyone jostled for rank and with Baron as their alpha male, a powerful personality and formidable opponent, the new female would be up against serious opposition to ever get a say in anything. Feuding between the alphas made everyone tense and anxious, which led to more squabbling down the ranks. And though it was ultimately a sign of the Council taking care of its people, the need to bring in a new alpha was also taken as something of an insult, a declaration of shame and failure in the Den, as they had been unable to recruit and train a suitable female of their own.
But as Caroline sat there, running over all the possibilities in her mind, she happened to glance at Silas.
He was watching her, a grim, calculating look on his face. He seemed to weigh her carefully, unhurried in his assessment… and then, totally ignoring the ongoing chaos around them, he gave her the slightest of nods.
Caroline’s eyes opened wide in surprise. It wasn’t a totally new idea, Silas having brought it up several years ago in far different circumstances than this, but Caroline had assumed that it had been merely a bait, designed to get her to focus more on her training and strengthen the Den. She’d never imagined that he could actually mean for her to…
Bloody hell. She glanced at Baron, who was busy cursing under his breath. A new alpha meant one hell of a headache for him as well, and he caught her gaze, rolled his eyes and looked away, before seeming to do something of a mental double-take. He glanced back at her, then quickly over to Silas, the highest ranking male after Baron… and a strange calm seemed to come over him.
Across the room, Caleb, the next in rank after Silas, was pacing the room. Not one for displays of temper, he was nonetheless agitated about Anna’s announced retirement, lost in dark thoughts – their Den had been through enough chaos and trauma in recent years, nearly having been shut down at one point before Baron had stepped in and taken control, and this did not bode well for their continued future stability. It took a long moment for Baron to catch his eye, and then he nodded clearly, but subtly at Caroline. Half a dozen arguments were still going on around the room, and no one else was paying them any mind.
Caleb glanced over at her and rolled his eyes, but then he paused, as Baron quirked one eyebrow upward and added a faint hint of desperation to his expression. It was fascinating, as Caroline watched. So many conversations going on around the room, and the most serious of them were being conducted without a single word. Such was the way of it, when half their lives were spent in a form that could not speak, when they were dependent on body language to convey a wealth of meaning in situations from the most mundane to the most drastic of emergencies.
Caleb gave her another look, long, lingering… and then he nodded, a grim, resolute expression on his face.
Baron turned back to Caroline and nodded once, and with that single gesture, she knew she had, by some bizarre quirk of fate, just secured the most senior female rank in the Den. With the three top ranking males on her side, and no other female a serious contender, her victory was all but assured.
The idea was terrifying.
Not that it meant she wasn’t going to have to fight to get there. The rest of the Den might not get on board with the plan quite so quickly, and if she was entirely honest with herself, Caroline had absolutely no idea how to be alpha anyway. It was a role chock full of responsibility and ritual, fraught with danger, with Caroline expected to lay down her life for her Den, should they come under attack.
But now that the decision was made, there was nothing to be gained from delaying her move.
She stood up, feeling her heart racing, and announced, “I petition for the role of alpha.”
It took a few moments for everyone to pay attention, looks of confusion, disbelief and even anger shot her way. “What?” someone asked, so she repeated herself.
“I petition for the role of alpha.” She turned to Heron, the one female who ranked above her, and stated simply, “I challenge you to a status fight.”
It broke the rules of status challenges, as she would be skipping several males in rank for the fight, but with things the way they were, no one seemed to care about the paltry details at this stage.
Heron stood up, normally a calm, genteel sort of woman, but in this instance, she was livid, face red, having just broken off a long verbal tirade at Anna about her abandonment of duty, so this latest challenge just seemed to infuriate her more.
“You have neither the experience nor the social pull to hold the rank of alpha,” Heron declared flatly, the rudest thing she had ever said to Caroline, and there were several gasps across the room as the Den looked on.
“Baron?” Caroline asked, ignoring the insult. “Do we have leave to fight?” Perhaps technically she should have asked Anna, as the ranking female, but after years of neglect and her impending departure, it wasn’t likely anyone would take her seriously anyway.
“You have leave,” Baron said calmly, standing up to lead the way out onto the back lawn.
Caroline followed, Heron glaring at her all the way, and as they faced off across the damp grass, the Den forming a wide circle around them, Heron drew herself up with dignity and announced, “I will not be throwing this fight.” It put voice to the thoughts a lot of the Den must be having. It wasn’t unknown for a higher ranking wolf to deliberately lose a fight to allow another to climb the ranks. There were a number of reasons why someone might do so, but in the end all of them came down to the same point – rank in the Den was not just based on physical strength and skill. There were also complex social structures in place, which meant that a wolf with significant social support, perhaps because of clear leadership qualities, or niche skills, like hacking, for example, could climb the ranks even if his or her fighting skills were not up to scratch. But in this case, that was clearly not going to cut it. “I will not see this Den weakened and be put at risk by an inferior alpha just because we have a seat to fill.”
“Understood,” Caroline said simply. In truth, she preferred it that way. At least if the fight was real, then she’d know one way or another whether she was worthy of leading the Den. And if not? Well, then, she’d done her best to hold them all together, and whatever fallout happened after that was not her fault.
She and Heron both shifted, the older wolf strong and experienced, giving her the edge despite her age, and they locked eyes, each trying to stare the other down.
“Begin,” Baron said from the sidelines, and then it was on, no hesitation, no spare moments to plan or strategise. Just two lithe, furry bodies flinging themselves at each other, snarls and growls filling the air as they tumbled over each other, neither one pulling any punches.
It took upwards of twenty minutes for the fight to end. And when the conclusion came, it was with Heron lying on her side on the blood-splattered grass, her sides heaving as she gasped for breath, Caroline standing over her, teeth bared, tail high, the clear winner.
“Caroline now outranks Heron,” Baron announced, amid a host of jeers and shouts of victory from all around them. “But don’t go thinking that means you’re alpha,” he warned her firmly. “You have two more males standing between you and the top spot. So take a day or two to recover, if you need it. But then it’s back to business.”
Panting harshly and dripping blood all over the grass, Caroline nodded. This was the first, but most certainly not the last fight she would need to win to claim her place as alpha.
Three days later, Caroline was once more striding across the lawn, the Den gathering around her. Silas was her opponent this time. Two days ago she’d fought Caleb, and won, which had come as a surprise more to herself than to anyone else. Now Silas was the last wolf standing between her and the rank of alpha, and the quiet words he’d spoken to her this morning echoed in her mind.
He’d pulled her aside, out of the kitchen at breakfast, and murmured, “You know you have to challenge me soon. And understand me clearly, Caroline…” He’d glanced around, to check they were alone, and then muttered, “You cannot beat me in a fair fight. You and I both know that.” It was true – Silas had taught Caroline almost everything she knew about fighting, and while the student could sometimes grow to outshine the teacher, that was certainly not the case in this instance. “And if you want to hold rank for any length of time,” he went on, “then this fight needs to look good.” He looked her in the eye. “So I need you to hit hard, move fast, and leave the rest up to me. If the Den doesn’t believe this is real, they’ll never pull in behind you.”
Caroline was too much of a pragmatist to be offended by his declaration that he could win the fight, and she was not nearly clever enough to know how to stage one effectively. So she had to trust Silas to hold to his word. He’d been the one to get her into this situation, after all. Not much sense in setting her up as alpha if he was just going to kick it out from under her now.
The fight was hard and vigorous – by Caroline’s standards, it was as real as they came, Silas a tough opponent, a very even match that she was genuinely struggling to beat at times. Which was probably just as well, she thought in hindsight, when she’d finally pinned him to the ground, both of them bleeding, and secured his surrender by choking the air out of him whilst simultaneously sitting on him with her full weight and digging her claws into his belly. If the fight was good enough to almost convince her that it was real, then the rest of the Den should be no problem.
As Silas climbed to his feet and offered his hand for her to shake, Caroline looked around at the silent crowd, feeling more nervous than ever about the situation.
The last few days had been fraught with tension, as firstly, Anna had left, not even sparing them the courtesy of waiting until a new alpha was found, and then there had been endless discussions on the possibility of Caroline taking over the role. Baron had been an absolute rock, standing firmly beside Caroline the whole way – a surprise to her, given that their relationship had often been on shaky ground. Some of the Den had legitimate concerns, a number of which Baron had answered by stating that there was a mandatory period of extra training from the Council for any new alpha, to get them up to speed with all their various duties and responsibilities.
“In the absence of further challenges, I claim the rank of alpha,” Caroline announced. “How does the Den answer?”
A full public veto would see her booted from the role, regardless of her rank. She waited, holding her breath as the Den considered their answer.
“You run fast and true,” Silas said finally, the first to answer the question. “And I will follow.”
“I will follow,” Caleb said next, and then Heron, Raniesha, Skip, until every voice was repeating the sentiment.
But if Caroline should have felt any kind of pride or satisfaction at her latest achievement, it was strangely absent. Instead, all she felt was the heavy weight of responsibility. These wolves had chosen to support her, despite many of them having very real doubts about her ability to fill the role, and gaining the title of alpha was just the first step in proving to them all that she had what it took to lead.
She was not going to let them down. She had much to learn, many adjustments to make to her life, and after the mess that Anna had left for her, there was no way in the world she was going to take a backseat position where Baron was concerned. If he thought he could get away with continuing to run the Den singlehandedly, with no one to check his more outlandish ideas, he had another thing coming. He was her closest and most loyal ally, Caroline knew already, but he was also going to be her toughest opposition.