Love and power
Sherman’s face crumpled, for an instant, into hurt that might have been mistaken for something more noble. “So you’ll leave me? That’s your answer? You would leave me to do it by myself and then tell the story as if you were kind?”
“No.” Johnson’s voice softened, and for a heartbeat the two men stood with history between them—years of shared fields, shared winters, the long wiring of brotherhood. “I won’t leave you. But I won’t be the one pulling the match. If you’re set on this—and you clearly are—then you will have to accept the consequences on your own.”
Sherman’s shoulders shook, but not with sobs. The tremor was anger and fatigue and a long-stewed sense of injustice. He took a step forward, and the crowd’s murmur rose like a wind in dry grass. “You are hindering me,” he said again, low and steady, as if saying it enough would make it law. “You always have been. You are the brake on this family’s carriage. You chain us in the name of ‘planning’ and sell our time to others.”
Johnson’s patience snapped then—not loud, but like a rope finally going. He grabbed Sherman’s shoulder with a hand that might have been rough once and was now careful because he’d learned what force could do. “If hindering you means saving your life,” he said, “then I am happy to be a hindrance. You speak of chains, but you are the one who would have us all burned.”
Sherman wrenched his shoulder away, face inches from Johnson’s. His eyes were raw and desperate. “You always talk like that,” he said—tearing, pleading, furious. “As if I’m a child who must be coddled. As if my anger is a sickness to be cured. Do you know what it’s like to be stripped of everything? Do you know what it’s like to see your home—our home—given to strangers? To see your name erased?”
“Then do something other than tear down what’s left,” Johnson snapped back. “Prove it. Gather proof. Find allies. We can take strategy to Desmond—lawyers, witnesses, people who will stand in court with us. You don’t need a brawl. You need evidence.”
Sherman’s chest heaved. For a moment he seemed about to strike—hands balled, the muscle of his neck taut. The crowd tensed. It would have been a small, ugly thing: two men, once brothers, coming to blows behind the bakery. But Johnson stepped back—not out of fear, but deliberately, as if to avoid the spill of violence either might regret.
“You talk of evidence,” Sherman said, each word a stone. “Do you know who holds it? Who burns it? Isabella. You defend her because—because you like the way she looks at you? Because you owe her favors? Tell me.”
“No,” Johnson said, and the single word contained layers of refusal. “I defend nothing for favors. I defend reason. You want to walk into a hall bellowing accusations and expect the Alpha to hand things over because you shout loud enough? You’d be taken, Sherman. Your temper will cost you more than just words.”
Sherman laughed, but it was a wet sound. “You always had a way with words,” he said. “You could tidy a field of excuses into a neat heap and put flowers on it. But the sun doesn't care for flowers, Johnson. The sun burns, and things that are left in its path turn to ash.”
Something in Johnson’s face softened—maybe memory, maybe pity. He reached out then, not to grab but to signal truce. “I won’t stop you this time,” he said. “But I won’t run with you into a fight that will cost both of us everything. Go if you must. But take your pride in your pocket and keep your head. Find proof. Don’t make enemies you can’t beat.”
Sherman looked at the hand as if it were a foreign object. For a long moment he brushed his thumb against his own palm, fighting the part of him that wanted to strike, to shove, to prove—anything. Finally he shook his head, a small, savage motion. “You’ll regret this,” he said, but there was no threat left in it: only exhaustion.
Johnson’s reply was soft. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I’ll regret a lot of things. But I’d rather live with regret than lie in the ground wondering if I let anger bury us all.”
And somewhere between anger and loyalty, between the claim for property and the claim for life, the long, difficult business of brotherhood kept walking on—complicated, stubborn, and stubbornly unbroken.
Sherman got home, sat on his sofa and had his hat down, then followed Johnson who had come to pick his belongings.
“ Goodbye you coward.” Sherman said to Johnson. Johnson ignored and nodded his head.
“ The next time you come across my path, take you for a simple mess up, but destroy you.” Johnson foretold him, then left.
“ Bushit.” Sherman got angry at himself.
Back to Harrison and Desmond.
“ Don't you think Isabella will take over you.”
Desmond lifted his head slowly, his eyes gleaming with the quiet dominance of a man who had been tested too many times to be rattled by suspicion. “You speak as if power is a curse,” he said. “But you forget, Harrison, power is only dangerous in the hands of those who fear it.”
Harrison pushed off the table, pacing. “Fear it? No, Alpha, I respect it. But what I fear is blindness. You’ve been around long enough to know what happens when a wolf grows stronger than her Alpha. They start to think differently. They start to lead in their own way. They question the hierarchy.” He stopped, his gaze narrowing. “And if that wolf happens to be your mate—well, the bond becomes your cage.”
Desmond’s lips twitched, not into a smile but into something that looked like the ghost of one. “You speak as if I am the one in danger. You think Isabella will rise to overthrow me?”
“I think,” Harrison replied, stepping closer, “that she already has the heart of the pack. They whisper about her at night—the way she stood against Sherman, the way she faced her shifting without flinching. Even your warriors speak her name with awe. That kind of admiration…” He paused. “It can turn quickly into allegiance.”
Desmond stood, his full height and presence filling the space with a weight that pressed the air itself. “Let it,” he said simply. “If the pack sees greatness in her, then I will not dim it to soothe my pride. I chose her not because she was weak, Harrison, but because I saw in her a strength that mirrors my own. You mistake my trust for naivety.”
" So take that believe off from you, that Isabella might betray me." Desmond advised him. " I know you like me, you have supported more than Johnson and Sherman done, and your advice seems to grant me comfort and peace when exhibit, not this one, not even a day will I see Isabella as enemy."
For a brief second, Harrison’s expression flickered—he hadn’t expected that. He had hoped for doubt, for a moment of hesitation that he could exploit. But Desmond’s confidence was iron-clad.
“You speak of trust,” Harrison countered, his voice tightening. “But trust has undone stronger Alphas than you. What if she turns that strength against you? Against all of us? What if the power you’re nurturing becomes the power that destroys you?”
Desmond stepped closer, the air between them charged. “If that day ever comes,” he said quietly, “then it will not be because she betrayed me. It will be because I failed to stand beside her. I have seen her pain, Harrison—the scars that her bloodline carved into her spirit. I have seen her fight not for dominance, but for purpose. She carries something old within her, something that even the Elders cannot name. That is not treachery. That is destiny.”
“You’re staking everything on her,” Harrison said, almost a whisper. “Even the future of your bloodline.”
“I am,” Desmond replied without hesitation. “Because strength must evolve. The pack must evolve. And she is the evolution we’ve been waiting for.”
For a moment, silence filled the chamber. The torches flickered as if even the fire listened.
Harrison turned away, hiding the twitch of a smirk that curled at his mouth. “Then may your faith protect you, Alpha,” he said smoothly. “Because soon, you’ll see that even destiny comes with a price.”
"Did you by any means had a fight with Isabella.? Desmond asked Harrison, for a clarification.
" Not, really." Harrison answered.
" I see." Desmond nodded his head.
" What exactly.?" Harrison asked.
" Nothing." Desmond replied, yet, he has se
nse Harrison reasons.