Chapter 80 The Response
The fire in the hearth snapped, a sharp, violent sound in the tense silence of the room. Fennigan was vibrating with suppressed rage, his entire body rigid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Leela moved. She crossed the room and scooped up Briar, who was tucked against the side of the armchair, whimpering softly. She shifted Briar to her hip and reached out for Caspian, who was clinging to Elana’s leg.
With both twins in her arms—a heavy, grounding weight—Leela stepped directly into Fennigan’s space. She placed her forehead gently against his sternum, right over his thundering heart.
"Breathe," she commanded softly. "Ground yourself, Fenn. You are scaring the pups."
Fennigan shuddered. A long, ragged breath tore out of him. He looked down, finally seeing her—really seeing her. He saw Briar’s teary eyes. He saw Caspian’s hidden face. He saw Leela, holding their world in her arms.
His hands unclenched slowly. He brought them up, wrapping them around her and the children, burying his face in Leela’s hair.
"They won't get by with this," Fennigan whispered, the vibration rumbling against her forehead. "I swear to you, Leela. They aren't touching you. They aren't touching our pups."
He pulled back slightly, just enough to look into her eyes. The blind rage was gone, replaced by a cold, terrifying clarity. He looked over Leela’s shoulder, locking eyes with his brother across the room.
"Because if we let them take an inch here... what's next?" Fennigan asked, his voice rising, hard and sharp. "If they think they can audit my children because of their lineage... are they going to want Jax and Ginny’s baby next? Are they going to claim it’s 'guilty by association'? Or maybe 'guilty by blood' because it shares a grandfather with an Elemental?"
Jax went rigid by the door. His hand went instantly to his wife's stomach, his face hardening into stone.
"They'll claim the whole bloodline is tainted if it suits them," Fennigan snarled. "That is why we fight. But..."
Fennigan paused. He looked at his father, who was standing by the door with the keys to the armory, ready for war. Then he looked at the terrified faces of his family.
"But we don't fight on their terms," Fennigan corrected himself, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. "If we go to the City tonight, we walk into their courtroom. We play by their rules. We let them interrogate us."
He shook his head slowly. "No. We aren't going to the City."
Fennigan turned sharply, marching not to the door, but to the antique secretary desk in the corner. He slammed the heavy wood flap down, startling the dust motes in the air.
Fennigan reached into the drawer and pulled out a heavy, cream-colored sheet of official Alpha parchment. He didn't reach for a quill; he reached into his own breast pocket and pulled out his fountain pen—a heavy, black resin instrument with a solid gold nib that had signed treaties and death warrants alike.
"We are going to send a message that reminds them exactly who holds the leash."
Fennigan uncapped the pen with a sharp click. He didn't sit. He stood over the desk, leaning his weight on his left hand, writing with slashing, furious strokes with his right. The sound of the gold nib scratching against the textured parchment filled the room like the sharpening of a blade.
He spoke the words aloud as he wrote them, his voice echoing in the silent room like a gavel.
"To the High Council," Fennigan dictated, his voice dripping with ice. "Regarding your 'observations' of the Northern Territories and the summons of Case #899-B."
"First," Fennigan said, the ink flowing dark and wet onto the page. "The 'surges' you claim to detect are a fabrication of paranoid minds. My mate, the Elemental Leela, has absolute and total mastery over her gifts. There is no volatility here, only the power you fear because you cannot control it. Any atmospheric disturbances are the result of natural weather patterns, not 'untrained magic'."
He looked up at Leela, his eyes softening for a fraction of a second before hardening again. It was a lie—the flower boxes outside were still glowing—but it was a lie protected by Alpha Sovereign Law.
"Second," he continued, writing faster, the pen digging into the paper. "As for my children... let this serve as your only notification. There has been no sign that either Caspian or Briar carries anything from their mother's lineage as of yet. They are wolf pups. They are innocent. They eat, they sleep, and they play. Your 'evidence' to the contrary is nonexistent."
"Third," Fennigan growled, pressing the nib of the pen so hard it almost snapped. "You seem to have forgotten the Agreement of the Moon. The Goddess Herself blessed this union. She returned Leela to us from the brink of death. She sanctioned these children. By questioning their existence, you question Her divine will."
He stood up straight, the pen hovering over the paper. He turned to face the room, his eyes blazing.
"And if you question the Goddess," Fennigan said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper, "then it is you, the High Council, who stands on the grounds of Treason against the Faith. Not us."
He looked at Jax. "Add a postscript. I want it at the bottom, where they can't miss it."
The room went deadly silent.
"We still haven't went over what you did to the Whisper Wind land," Fennigan said, his voice trembling with a dark, ancient fury.
He leaned back over the desk, scratching the final lines with such force that the ink splattered slightly.
"Let's remind them," Fennigan snarled, "that we have still not settled the debt for what they did to that land. Remind them that their negligence, their bureaucracy, and their games almost killed my wife and my unborn children in that cursed place. Tell them that if they want to talk about 'safety of the collective,' we should start with their crimes against my family."
He signed his name at the bottom—Alpha Fennigan Blackwood—with a flourish that looked like a jagged scar.
He recapped the pen with a final, definitive snap.
"Jax," Fennigan said, holding the unsealed letter out without looking. "Send it. Send it now. And tell the courier to drive fast. I want Vane to be reading this before his morning coffee."