Chapter 148 A KIND ALPHA'S HEART AND THE MEMBERS DEMAND

Chapter 148 A KIND ALPHA'S HEART AND THE MEMBERS DEMAND
CHAPTER 148

A KIND ALPHA'S HEART AND THE MEMBERS DEMAND

DORIAN

I loaded the gifts into the car before sunrise.

Three crates of good whiskey. I'd search around to know this was the kind Caleb's appreciated, a formal alliance token from Ironveil's records — a carved iron seal, old, the kind of thing that meant something between packs — and a package of the dried herbs Elder Cass used for trade that Moonfall had been interested in for years. Small things. The kind that said I respect your time without saying it directly.

Zade was not with me this time. This was not a meeting that needed a witness. This was the kind of conversation a man had alone.

The drive felt longer than forty minutes. The road was the same road, the same trees, the same early morning quiet, but something in my chest was heavier than it had been on the first drive and the miles did not pass easily.

Ryler was awake and watchful the whole way. Not agitated.

The warrior at the gate recognised me and his eyebrows went up fractionally… enough to tell me that unannounced visits from allied Alphas were not the standard procedure at Moonfall, which I already knew.

"Alpha Dorian." He recovered quickly. "Alpha Caleb is in the main house. I'll let him know you're here."

"Thank you."

I carried the crates myself. It felt wrong to have someone else carry them given the nature of what I was about to say.

Caleb came into the receiving room with his jacket half on and his hair not quite settled, which told me I had caught him between things. He finished fastening the jacket button and looked at me with the measured expression of a man assessing a situation before reacting to it.

"Dorian." He extended his hand. "I wasn't expecting you."

I shook it. "I know. I apologise for that. I should have called ahead."

He looked at the crates I had set down beside the door. His expression did not change but his eyes noted them. "Sit down."

We sat. A woman appeared with coffee — the same routine as before — and withdrew. Caleb wrapped his hands around his cup and looked at me and waited.

"I wanted to come by myself," I started letting the words roll out my mouth slowly. "Not send a letter or have Zade handle it. Myself."

"I appreciate that." His voice was careful. "Is everything alright?"

I set my cup down. "A situation arose in the pack since our last meeting. Something I could not have anticipated and that changes the position I was in when we spoke." I held his gaze. "I will not be able to continue with the arrangement regarding Dorothy."

Caleb was quiet, his expression doing exactly what I knew it's doing…processing what I've just said. He looked at his cup and then back at me

"These are for you," I said, nodding toward the crates. "And I want to say plainly — I am sorry for the disruption this causes. I am sorry for whatever hope or preparation was made on your end. That sits badly with me and I wanted to say it to your face."

Caleb looked at the crates. "What happened?"

I exhaled slowly. "A pack member came forward with a pregnancy. She is naming me as the father." I kept my voice level. "The Council of Wolf Elders is now involved. They are directing me to address the situation internally which in their language means taking the woman as Luna rather than bringing in an outside match."

Something moved through Caleb's face. Not pity exactly… something more practical than pity, the recognition of a situation he understood the mechanics of.

"That is a difficult position," he said.

"Yes."

He was quiet for a moment, turning his cup slowly in his hands. Then he looked at me directly. "This does not have to end the alliance conversation, Dorian. The arrangement regarding Dorothy is separate from what our packs could build together." He paused. "The territory access, the eastern border coverage, the trade agreements — those stand on their own. They do not require a mating to be valid."

Something loosened in my chest that I had not fully noticed was tight.

"I would like that," I agreed quickly. "If you are willing."

"I am willing." He set his cup down. "The circumstances of your pack's internal matters are yours to manage. What we discussed about our borders and our trade, that is still good business." He held out his hand across the table.

I shook it.

We talked for another hour. Territory maps, patrol coordination, the healer compound exchange and other things. The kind of conversation that had nothing to do with what was waiting for me back at Ironveil and everything to do with what packs were actually built on — work, trust, mutual need.

Caleb walked me out himself again. At the gate he stopped and looked at me with the same measuring expression he had used at our first meeting.

"Whatever is happening in your pack," he said, "sort it cleanly. A pack that watches its Alpha in a public mess loses confidence fast." He paused. "You know that."

"I know it," I agreed.

He nodded once and stepped back and I got in the car.

I was still on the Ironveil approach road when I felt it. I pulled through the gate and the compound told me immediately.

They were assembled outside the main hall. Not in it but outside, which meant it had started as something informal and built into something that had needed to come outside to hold all the people involved. Pack members in clusters, the specific body language of a group that had reached a position together and was waiting to present it.

I got out of the car.

The crowd parted. Kale was at the front, which surprised me. Kale was not a man who led complaints. The fact that he was standing at the front of this one told me it had reached a point where people who did not usually push had been pushed past something.

"Alpha." He held my gaze. "The people need to discuss Charlotte."

I kept my face steady as I glanced around the faces of the people. "Let them discuss."

Selina cleared her throat from the right hand side of the front gathering. "We are asking for Charlotte's removal from pack territory."

The murmuring behind him confirmed it — not everyone, not uniformly, but enough. Enough for a vote.

Here it is, I thought. Here is the thing that I've been fearing since the attack.

“I can't approve of this matter. Charlotte will remain in the pack but under strict guidance.” I said dismissively and made to bypass them when Elder Harkin blocked my path.

Elder Harkin stepped forward from the edge of the group with the air of a man who had been waiting for exactly this moment. He straightened his jacket and looked at me and then at the assembled pack.

"Charlotte Scott is an unauthorized wolf with a record of violent episodes inside this territory," he said, his voice carrying cleanly across the compound. "She has caused death. She has caused disruption. She is a danger to every member of this pack and we are calling for her formal removal."

The compound was very quiet.

I looked around at the faces. Some of them were the faces of people I had known for years; pack members who had been loyal through harder things than this. And they were standing here asking me to send her away and the Alpha instinct in me was screaming that this was wrong, that the charge was wrong, that the solution was wrong.

“Lets take a vote.” Someone yelled from behind. “The charge would be Charlotte is a danger to the pack.’

“There will be no vote or any discussion about this.” I snapped angrily.

This was wrong. I would never accept this. Murmurs grew immediately and the people began yelling at the top of their voices whilst their hands were folded into fists raised high above their head as they cheated in unison. “We call for a pack vote!”

“Fine.” I shouted. “We will take the vote.”

The vote was taken and nearly all the pack voted for her removal. The chants started up again in a louder voice: ”She must go!”

But underneath the screaming was something else.

Something quieter and more insidious that had been growing in the fog that lived in my head lately.

She is not stable, it said. She has already hurt people. She will hurt more. The pack's safety is the Alpha's first responsibility.

Sending her away is protecting her from a world she was not prepared for.

And protecting the pack from a power nobody can yet control.

I stood in the middle of the compound with my jaw tight and both of those things fighting in my chest… the instinct that said this was wrong and the fog-born reasoning that said it was necessary.

The compound gate opened behind me.

I turned.

Charlotte and Zade walked through it together.