Chapter 178

SAINT.

I sent the summons over the pack link before I reached my car.

I had summoned all six of them to the hall immediately. I didn't attach any reason to the summons, because a reason allows them to rehearse meaningless arguments on the drive over.

An argument would mean wasting precious time Eve didn't fucking have. So I wanted them to arrive curious and unarmed.

Blake met me at the gate with his phone in his hand. "Elder Hoyt is at the west border. He's two hours out."

"Send him one of our cars with one of his own men driving it, so the old goat thinks I am being thoughtful. I don't want him sniffing anything at all." I pulled my lighter out and turned it over against my thumb, desperate for a smoke. "And Pratt. Has that snake left his house today?"

"Not that I know of." He replied.

"Then get eyes on his house. But be careful. Stay out of his line of sight so that his pride doesn't notice we're keeping an eye on him. I know damn well he'll make a stupid move tonight. So, if that man so much as walks to his mailbox, I want my phone ringing with that information."

Blake held my eyes for half a second longer than the order required. He had been with me long enough to tell the difference between an instruction and when I was meticulously building a cage around someone.

He knew something was wrong. But he didn't question it.

"Yes, Alpha," he said, and went to build it.

\---

Five of them were seated when I came through the hall doors, and the sixth chair sat empty at the end of the table where Pratt was supposed to be sitting, and the sight of that empty chair settled like a punch into my chest like a diagnosis I'd been expecting but was disappointed to see.

I didn't take my seat. I went to the east wall, where both doors were in my view, folded my arms, and let them stew in my silence for a moment, because five old men who don't know why they've been summoned will fill a silence with their own fears faster than I could ever fill it with mine.

So, I let the silence do my fucking job for me.

Cassian was the first to crack. Not that I expected anything less. He was always the one to crack first. He thinks it's a leadership trait. Fucking funny.

"Alpha. You pulled us from our busy afternoons without giving us a reason." He said.

"Where is Pratt?" I asked him, ignoring his concerns.

"He was sent for." He replied.

"I didn't ask what was done about him, Cassian. I asked where he is. Those are different questions, and a man your age should know the difference by now, I suppose."

Elder Bram cleared his throat so loud you'd think something was dying in it. "He said he would come when his business allowed."

I let that answer stand in the middle of the room where everyone could get a good look at it, so that when I reacted, they'd all see why I reacted.

When I was satisfied with how well they had looked at it, I proceeded.

"Bring out the covenant," I said.

Nobody moved. It was almost touching how much they didn't move.

"Cassian. The covenant. Today." I repeated slowly, holding the leash of my patience fucking tight.

"Alpha." He laid both palms flat on the table, his gavel-and-scripture voice coming on. "You can't just crack open the covenant because you woke up angry. There's a process. There are steps—"

"Then take the steps fast."

"You haven't even told us what this is about!" The old bastard had enough nerve to raise his voice at me.

But this wasn't the time to play Alpha over such trivial things. I had more important things to focus on right now.

So, his lucky day. I let it slide.

I pushed off the wall and slowly walked toward the table.

I had to walk slowly to keep my composure intact.

I couldn't show how much of a hurry I was in, because that would give them leverage. That was the kind of tell they needed to know how desperate I was, and I had no intention of showing them that. "I'm removing the mating clause. One woman, one wolf — it comes out of that document this afternoon, and all six of you are going to cut your fucking hands and let your blood drip over the new law I will write, before the sun goes down." I paused and let that sit. "Consider yourselves informed."

The sound that circled the table wasn't a fucking language. It was five sets of lungs forgetting their rhythm at slightly different moments, and I confess I enjoyed it more than I should have.

"That is a founding clause," Bram managed. "It has stood since—"

"I know precisely how long it has stood, Bram. Its age is not a virtue."

Cassian rose, and the way he rose told me he had been expecting this since the moment I walked out on them after making it clear that I wasn't rejecting my mate.

He had probably rehearsed this moment in his bathroom mirror — and had already decided what he was going to do when it came.

The covenant was kept in an iron box buried under the floor. It took both of them to lift the lid, and they weren't quick about it either.

What Cassian brought out wasn't a book. It was a stack of animal hides bound together, thicker than my forearm, with names written down the edges in dried blood. It was the blood of every elder who had ever sealed a law into it, going back to the first founding Alpha.

I'd only seen the thing twice in my life. Both times my father was the one holding it.

"Where does it go?" I asked.

Cassian pointed at the empty space under the last entry. "There. And it has to be written by hand."

Bram set an inkwell and a pen beside the bowl.

I sat down for the first time since I entered that hall, pulled the covenant toward me, and wrote it myself.

'The clause binding one woman to one wolf is struck from this covenant. A woman may carry more than one mate bond. No pack law will take her life for it, and no pack law will take the lives of the men bound to her.'

I signed my name under it, cut my own palm and pressed it down against my name.

That was the first procedure. The Alpha who makes the amendment signs with his own blood first, before the six elders.

Bram brought the knife and the salt bowl and set them down beside it with ceremony, almost like he was serving his own last meal.

"You understand the process," Cassian said. "It is not a vote. It does not pass by majority. Six seals or no law — one withheld hand ends it, and there is no appeal above that hand. Not even yours."

I tilted my head. "I understand it better than you'd like."

"Then understand this, too. You are asking us to unmake what the founders set down. Forty years I have sat at this table, and no one has ever touched that clause. Not even when your grandfather's aunt was cursed with two mates, they had to do the right thing."

I took out a cigarette I had no intention of lighting and ran my thumb around the filter's edge, slowly, watching him over it. "It's such a pity," I said. "Two men mated to one woman, and neither of them had the balls to sit where I'm sitting. That's not obedience to the law, Cassian. That's just what happens when a man is unwilling to bleed for his woman."

I changed my mind and lit the cigarette, took a long drag from it, and puffed out smoke into the air.

"Two days ago, at this table, I was told my Beta 'earned' my mate by being faster than me. Do you remember that, Cassian? You were sitting right there. You had a front-row seat and the moral fortitude of a coward."

In his defense, he tried to argue. "Elder Pratt said it. I did not—"

"You did not stop him. Yes. I'm familiar with your method." I tilted my head. "So let me return the favor and inform you of what's happened since your silence. That woman has been dying since the night he marked her, and she has until sundown for any chance of survival. The only thing standing between her and her grave is this table. Not the goddess. Not your fucking founders."

I took another long drag of my cigarette. "I'm not asking any of you to like it. I'm telling you what today is going to be. You can be the men who saved a life this afternoon, or you can be the men I hold responsible for her death. And I hold grudges for a very long time. Both doors are open. Choose the one you can live behind."

Nobody breathed for a moment.

Then Cassian picked up the knife, sliced his palm without ceremony, and pressed his hand to the hide.

"For the pack," he said. "Not for you."

"I'll take it in whatever wrapping sheet preserves your dignity, Cassian. Your blood is all I need."