Chapter 118 Wake the Elders
The heavy, metallic adrenaline of the blood ritual began to drain the moment Leela and Fennigan left the study, leaving them hollow, bruised, and bone-tired. They climbed the stairs in heavy silence, the weight of the day pressing down on their shoulders so hard it felt physical.
They bypassed the nursery, pausing just long enough to listen to the soft, synchronized breathing of Caspian and Briar, before stepping into their own bedroom.
Leela sank onto the edge of the mattress, not even bothering to turn on the lamp. She stared blankly at the dark wall, cradling her bandaged hand against her chest. Fennigan knelt in front of her in the pale moonlight, gently untying her boots and pulling them off.
"Get some sleep, Sparky," Fennigan whispered, resting his forehead against her knee for a brief, exhausted moment. "I'll take the first watch."
Leela nodded slowly, leaning back against the pillows. She hadn't even pulled the heavy quilt up when urgent, heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway, vibrating through the floorboards.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Fenn," Jax's voice came through the door, tight, breathless, and clipped. "I'm coming in."
The door swung open before Fennigan could even stand up. Jax stood in the doorway, the hallway light casting his face in sharp, grim shadows. In his hand, he held a thick roll of parchment sealed with the heavy, black wax crest of the High Council.
"They didn't wait," Jax said, his voice flat and dead. He tossed the heavy scroll onto the bed next to Leela. "A courier just dropped it at the perimeter gate. Shoved it at the guards, shifted, and ran like hell."
Fennigan stood up, the exhaustion vanishing from his posture instantly, replaced by a coiled, lethal tension. He snatched the parchment off the quilt, his thumb breaking the red wax seal with a sharp crack that echoed in the quiet room. He unrolled it, his golden eyes darting across the archaic, sweeping script.
Leela pushed herself back up, her heart kicking into a frantic rhythm. "What does it say, Fenn?"
Fennigan’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked rapidly in his cheek.
"It’s from Vane," Fennigan growled, his voice vibrating with a dangerous, low hum. He read the words aloud, the venom dripping from every syllable. "'To Alpha Blackwood. Be advised that your current harboring of the Matriarch and her Council constitutes an unsanctioned gathering of the Elder Council.'"
Jax crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe. "He's making his play. He's declaring their authority void because they aren't at the citadel. He's calling them rogues."
"'There will be no more talking,'" Fennigan continued reading, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the parchment. "'The Elemental is too strong, too volatile to be left on the streets or contained by a single provincial pack. She must be brought to the High Council immediately.'"
Leela let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. It was what they expected. A summons. A demand for her surrender masked as a matter of public safety.
But Fennigan wasn't finished. He stared at the last lines of the letter, and the air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. The Alpha aura radiating off him was so suffocatingly intense that Jax instinctively took a half-step back into the hallway.
"Fenn?" Leela asked, her voice trembling as she clutched her stomach. "What else?"
Fennigan looked up at her, his eyes hollow with a terrifying, primal terror that he rarely let her see.
"'We are coming for the Elemental and her children come morning,'" Fennigan read, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper. "'There are no exceptions. The High Council has spoken, and it is Law.'"
The silence that followed was absolute.
He wasn't just coming for Leela. He was coming for Caspian. He was coming for Briar. He was coming for the unborn baby currently shielded by nothing but blood and clay in a jar in the cellar.
"We have to hide her," Jax blurted out, the Beta's instinct to protect the pack's most vulnerable kicking in. He looked at Fennigan, his eyes wide with panic. "Fenn, we need to get her out of here. There are old smuggling tunnels under the northern ridge. We can pack her and the kids up right now—"
"No," Fennigan snapped, though his eyes darted toward the door as if calculating the escape route.
"She hid the last time, Fenn!" Jax argued, stepping fully into the room. "When her powers first broke, she hid in the fog and they couldn't find her! She can do it again. She can take the babies and just vanish into the earth—Mom and Ginny took her to the grove the last time Vane darkened our door."
"He knows that, Jax!" Fennigan roared, the sound rattling the windowpanes. He crumpled the parchment in his fist. "Do you think Vane is sending a polite tracking party? He's bringing an army. If Leela isn't sitting in the parlor when he walks through those doors tomorrow, he will turn this place upside down."
"He won't just search," Fennigan said, his voice thick with dread. "He will rip the floorboards up. He will interrogate the Elders. He will slaughter the trainees on the pitch just to draw her out. He wants a reason to level this pack, Jax. If she runs, he burns our home to the ground with everyone in it."
Leela didn't cry. The fear that had been drowning her all day suddenly evaporated. Hearing the men discuss hiding her—discussing her like she was prey to be smuggled away in the dark—ignited a cold, green fire deep in her chest.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The air in the room snapped with static electricity, the small bedside lamp flickering wildly as the ambient magic in the room reacted to her shifting emotions.
"I am not hiding," Leela said.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the brothers' argument like a knife.
Fennigan stopped pacing. He looked at his mate. She looked exhausted, her hair messy, one hand bandaged and the other resting protectively over her pregnant belly. But she did not look afraid. She looked like the soil before an earthquake.
"Leela..." Jax started, his voice pleading. "He's coming for the twins."
"Let him come," Leela said, her green eyes burning in the dim light. She stepped forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her Alpha. "I hid in the fog because I was a terrified child who didn't know what she was. But I am not a child anymore, Jax. I am the Luna of this pack. I am the Mother of this territory."
"If Vane wants to claim the Law, he has to do it on my land," Leela vowed, her voice eerily calm. "I will not run from my own home. I will not let my children learn that we cower in the dark."
Fennigan looked at her, his chest heaving, the sheer awe of her strength grounding his panic. He nodded slowly, a dark, lethal promise settling over his features.
"Come morning," Fennigan repeated. He turned to his brother. "Jax. Wake the pack. Wake the Elders. Tell Veda to get her paint ready. We don't have three days. We have until sunrise."