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That seemed too good to be true. “He can transfer the moon’s blessing?”
She laughed, like I’d said something hilarious. “No. He just had to get permission to execute your Alpha. Don’t worry—it’ll happen, and soon. After the battle, we thought the other Southern Enforcers might try to stage a coup, but for some reason, they didn’t. I think they were too shocked Luke won, especially as he was already visibly wounded.”
“Huh,” I said, equally shocked. “I knew Alpha Callaway was an assho—a jerk, but I didn’t know he was that weak.”
She hummed in agreement.“Luke will be the Alpha by tomorrow, after he heals enough to regain consciousness.”
“Wait, he’s still out? How hurt is he?”
For some reason, my heart started pounding. I needed to see him. Crap, is this that mate bond thing everyone kept going on about? I stuffed the feeling down. “Is he safe? Van or one of the other Enforcers will definitely try something. They’re a bunch of rat bastard, trash panda fuc—I mean, uh, they have no honor.”
“Well, he’s not Alpha yet, so it wouldn’t do any good. We sent a Council guard to surveil the armory, just in case anyone gets ideas. I can ask Bradley to place another guard outside Luke’s room until Calvin is dead.”
“Great. So is anyone planning to kill me right now? I mean, you should know they probably are.” I was wanted for killing Del. It wouldn’t be the regular Hunt; my whole pack would be after me. “Wait, what about Trevor? Is he… He’s alive?”
“Not for long, if my boys find him,” she muttered.
I knew better than to depend on a possibility. If Trevor was alive and free, so were his buddies. And those shifters would never stop hunting me.
Never.
The whole pack could be hunting me right now.
My pulse raced, knowing the clock was probably already ticking. “Listen, thanks for the help, but I have to get to a safe place. Can you put me down?” I wasn’t sure I could walk, but I had to go.
My mind spun with the possibilities. The storm drain was out. I was too weak to climb a tree. Maybe the potato cellar behind Mary Quick’s old place…
But the woman was talking. “Even if someone is looking for you, they won’t get through me.” I gave her what must have been a what the fuck look, because she stopped walking.
“Lady, I hate to say this, but you and me against my whole pack? I don’t hate those odds; you seem pretty fit. But I think we might want to run.” I wriggled. “Please let me go. You don’t understand. I have to run, now.”
Gently, she set me down. “No more running, Flor. And it’s not me and you. It’s us. You, me, and our pack. You’re my foster daughter now,” she said softly, helping me to balance on my own feet. “My name is Margarette Hillier. I am the mate of our Alpha, and I adopted you into our pack.”
“I’m… I’m not Southern anymore?” I asked, my breath coming fast, I clutched her arm, sure I would fall over if I couldn’t stop gasping for air.
“No,” she said slowly. “Not if you don’t want to be. We had to make a decision after Callaway was defeated. I know we didn’t ask you, but you were, well, mostly dead all day.”
I giggled. “Say it again.”
“You were mostly dead?”
“No, the other part.”
“Ah.” Her smile was fierce as she raised a hand and stroked my short hair back from my face. “You’re not a member of the Southern pack anymore, and you’ve been granted probationary status at my pack, Northern. You’re free. You can leave. If you don’t want to stay at Northern—” She kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her over my sobs.
I crumpled on the ground and felt myself lifted into her arms again. “Thank you, thank you,” I chanted, holding onto her as tight as I could. “I’m free. Del, it worked.”
It might have meant almost dying, and I may not have won the fight against Trevor, but I was going to get out of this hellhole and run free. Free of fear, free of pain, and free of the males who’d chased me and tried to chain me to them.
Free.
27
Obligations to the Pack
FLOR
It took me a while to stop crying, but by then the woman—no, Margarette, she’d told me to call her—was crying, too, so it didn’t matter. It had surprised me when she stopped walking right in the middle of the gravel road and just rocked me for a while, like a mom, her own soft sobs moving her chest under my head.
