Chapter 35 Chapter Thirty Five - Meet Aurelius
Chapter 35 Chapter Thirty Five - Meet Aurelius
DALLAS’S POV
“Do not open the front gates!” Dallas yelled in a loud angry voice, his command sweeping through the pack’s mind link as he took the stairs three at a time.
“Keep them closed! Do you hear me? Nobody opens those gates until I get there! That is a direct order.”
A response came back immediately from the gate guards, a chorus of “Yes Alpha” that did nothing to slow his racing heart.
He ran faster, straight up leaping over the bannister of the second-floor landing and dropping to the ground floor on all fours before standing up and breaking into a run.
His body was still recovering from the pain transfer, his muscles ached, his joints protested, his vision swam slightly at the edges, but none of that mattered right then.
His father could not be here. Not now. Not with the way things were.
It would be disastrous if he ever found out that Carter was locked in the basement and the mansion still reeked of his brother’s violence.
The same brother who Dallas was supposed to keep in check to prevent emergencies like his own near-death experience.
He rounded the corner into the grand entrance hall at full speed and suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
Too late.
The gates were already open, and so were the doors to the throne room.
And standing in the centre of the room, calmly scrutinizing his surroundings with obvious disapproval, was Alpha Aurelius Cross.
Dallas’ father was not a physically imposing man.
Age had worn him down, so his muscular werewolf physique was now tall, lean and angular.
His dark hair had long since turned silver, a stark contrast to the expensive midnight-black cloak that made him appear like a medieval king.
He carried a walking stick he didn’t actually need, because he was far too strong for that, and wore it instead like a sceptre.
He was old, very old, and only very few wolves ever survived that long. Every wrinkle in his face was carved by countless decades of disapproval and hatred.
He turned around when Dallas entered.
His sharp eyes, dark as Dallas’s own, travelled over his son from head to toe.
“Son,” he said coldly. “You are alive.”
He didn’t ask how are you, or say I was worried about you, nor did he have even the barest flicker of relief that his son wasn’t six feet under. He only looked unimpressed.
Dallas walked over to his father and went down on one knee, his head bowed. “Alpha Aurelius.”
“I was beginning to think that perhaps you have forgotten who your Alpha is.” His father mused, his deep scratchy voice rumbling through the hall.
“The Moon Festival is yet to be conducted, and despite what these insipid werewolves might think, the position of Alpha is not yours until I hand it over.” His father finished, staring coldly at the figure bowing in front of him.
“Now that you have almost gotten yourself killed so easily, I am beginning to doubt if you are worthy of that position.”
The entourage that had accompanied his father; six wolves total, all of them senior pack members who had served Aurelius for decades, fanned out silently behind their Alpha and fell on one knee as well.
Fuck off back to wherever you came from you evil old man, Dallas thought angrily.
“You are welcome to stay at the pack house for as long as you need,” Dallas said, keeping his voice level and refusing to rise to the bait, at least out loud.
He rose to his feet. “But I cannot remain here with you. There are urgent matters requiring my immediate attention.”
His father’s eyes sharpened. “You will not take a single step unless I command it.”
Dallas gritted his teeth, desperately summoning every ounce of self-restraint in his body so he wouldn’t deck the old man to the ground with his fists.
“You would dare dismiss your father the moment he arrives after travelling through the night out of concern for your life?”
“With respect, Alpha Aurelius, concern was not the impression I received from your greeting.”
A murmur rippled through the entourage and his father’s narrowed to slits.
“My twin brother attacked my mate and nearly killed him,” Dallas continued, pressing forward before his father could respond.
“I will not let that go unanswered. Marcus must pay for what he’s done, and every second wasted not searching for him will only bring greater danger to my mate.”
“You would move against your own brother?” Aurelius’s tone was cold with disbelief, “Your own blood.”
“My mate is a part of me. Marcus attacked him, and in doing so he has attacked me as well. He will answer for it, and I will not let you stop me.”
By now Dallas had unconsciously switched from his natural way of speaking to the snobby, aristocratic speech has father had drilled into him as a child.
His father was quiet for a long moment, then he clasped both hands over the head of his walking stick and said, “You addressed your mate as ‘him’. Twice. Instead of ‘her’. So the rumors are true...”
Dallas held his gaze warily. “What rumors?”
“I sat with the elder Alphas not three days ago,” Aurelius said, his voice piercing in the cavernous room.
Other pack members who were passing by the throne room had started drifting to the edges; servants, guards, wolves preparing for the festival—all of them going very still as they realized what they were witnessing.
They all dropped to their knees in front of Aurelius, bowing their heads down as custom demanded, waiting, unable to move until they were dismissed by the Alpha.
Aurelius didn’t even spare them a single glance, “We were discussing the future of the old bloodlines. I was just about to convince them to leave their self-exile in the forests and join forces with me under the Cross banner. I have spent a century working towards this.”
He paused, drawing out the silence.
“And then they laughed at me. Men who have feared the Cross name for generations, too cowardly to challenge our dominance. Those same men looked me in the eye and laughed. Then they told me they would never follow a homosexual into any future worth having.”
His voice remained perfectly composed throughout all of this, which was somehow more terrifying than if he’d shouted.
“I cannot help who I am bonded to,” Dallas said tightly. “The mate bond is not a choice. It is not something that I—”
“You insubordinate, insolent excuse of a son.” His father’s voice dropped, going cold as death. “You dare to argue with your Alpha?”