Chapter 155

Zane POV

Part of me very much did not want to return to the Luna Temple, especially alone and without definable questions, but Travis and Wetmore hadn’t been able to give me answers even to the vaguest of inquiries.

It’s something almost impossible to explain to someone other than another Pack Alpha, but territories die from the head first. Sure, every day a territory of any real size faced protests, crime, economic and logistical challenges, domestic violence, and a host of other troubles. But as long as the leadership at the top was good, the territory would be all right.

The problems really came when the responses to those everyday issues faltered, when the Pack Alpha and their legislative or advisory boards no longer heard the voices of the people and no longer provided proper care and guidance.

Though personally, privately, I had known tragedy in Olivia’s death and near despair when Chloe was taken, publically and politically my time as Pack Alpha had been blessedly smooth. I had people in place I could count on, a strong economy, and a relatively happy populace. I had only been challenged three times for my position, and twice it had been like the challenge from Alpha Marin Grofts, outsiders who might have been looking to expand their territory but were more likely to have been seeking the stability of joining their territory to Cavendish.

I remembered my single territorial challenger, the grandson of a previous Pack Alpha who’d seen a young, naïve male new to the position. That fight had been vicious and damn near killed me before I’d even gotten used to the job.

I’d had to kill Alpha Thornton Cassaday, and sometimes I could still smell his blood on my muzzle. I remembered his sister, a beta named Fran, staring at me in horror as I transformed back into a man, covered in the gore from my body and her brother’s.

I could not show weakness, or I’d be back there again, killing or being killed by some other power-hungry alpha who didn’t realize the job brought little satisfaction and less joy.

But how could I show strength to my enemy when my enemy was so well hidden? I didn’t even know how many enemies I was confronting. I found myself making and re-making mental lists of the names and faces and scents of those who’d suddenly appeared to threaten my family: Marshall Kim, the rogue werewolf who’d run head-on into a truck rather than be captured, and, perhaps how Miss Liesel?

Was Sarah right? Was even the housekeeper’s accident part of this?

Liesel had been no advocate for the cause of human equality, so who would want to target her? I could easily recall my rage when I’d found her assaulting Sarah, the pure hatred in the woman’s eyes, the way Sarah had been standing up to her although she knew she was no match for even a beta’s strength.

I left Ollie with the car and walked through the iron gate, nodding to the two temple priests, and then on up to the temple. Already, I could feel the classic beauty of the place starting to soothe my nerves. The lawn, as much as the temple that sat on it, always impressed me. Regardless of the season, it was always a dark, lush green as though the mere idea of weeds or crabgrass was ridiculous.

People often talk about a “carpet of grass,” but this was truly the epitome of an immaculate parkland. In fact, the first time I’d seen it, when I was eleven years old and already certain I would be Pack Alpha, I’d thought it was fake, like Astroturf, or perhaps painted.

Someone had cut the grass recently, and that uniquely sweet aroma filled my nose and mouth as I walked the pavement worn down by centuries of visitors. I felt like I had back then as a child, awed but eager and desperately needing wisdom beyond my own.

The temple doors opened, and I walked into the little antechamber as I had now done so many times to be met by the usual pair of hooded Oracles, led to the bath and the robe I was to wear, and into the main chamber.

The head Oracle was sitting on a cushion on the floor with a small, low table holding a teapot and two cups. I could smell the herbs in the brew and felt relief that there was no hint of anything other than black tea with cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon, which I had drunk at the temple before.

No drugs or nudie show this time, I couldn’t help thinking. I’d have to let Sarah know.

I sat on the other floor pillow and waited as my tea was poured. We both sipped.

“What brings you to us today, Pack Alpha Cavendish?” she asked.

“Uncertainty,” I said.

“A vexing condition for any leader.”

“Very.”

“You confront enemies who work in the shadows and strike at your ankles like snakes. They attack your daughter, your children’s goddess-mother, and perhaps others.”

“Perhaps many others.”

The Oracle nodded. I heard soft music from a room deeper inside the temple, a flute of some sort.

It was a sign of weakness to speak without a prompt, but I was getting a little impatient.

“I realize you don’t have a list of people with their phone numbers, but I do not know even if what is happening is connected. Are my family and I being targeted by many or few? Are they strangers or friends?”

“You include Sarah Astor in your family?”

“Yes, I do.” I wasn’t going to worry about what the Oracle knew about me and Sarah.

“There is darkness around you and your family. We see a deep hatred and a deeper jealousy, a powerful unrest that has led to a mad need for revenge.”

“Revenge?” I thought about that. Whom had I wronged? The sister of the alpha I had to kill, Fran, she was mated with pups and living a good life, as far as I could know, in a territory far to the east.

Was it Scott? Did he blame me for the death of his mother or the disdain of our father? I didn’t see how. Our father had loved both his sons, but the shame he felt over Scott had to do with his conception, nothing to do with me.

I had only learned of Scott’s mother’s death days after the fact, and I ran into a great deal of opposition by attending her funeral. It was something of a scandal in its day, and Scott had thanked me, with evident sincerity, at the time.

No, Scott and I did not really begin to have problems until Olivia, whom Scott believed should have been his, as though a person were something to claim like a lost hat at the theatre. But considering the sorrow over Olivia’s death, would he really be jealous of me?

Was it a political rival, one who had not yet made themselves known? Was it a member of my legislative board?

No, it wouldn’t be someone looking to take over my position in the pack, not that directly. Simply arranging for me to have my own accident would open the Pack Alpha title to any number of people, well, alphas. And I had done nothing personally to an alpha in my pack.

“I need more than that,” I said.

“Then you must walk,” she said, and I stifled a sigh.

I had been afraid of that.