Chapter 101: Pride
Chapter 101
Elijah
Being the son of the elder of security means I’m no stranger to violence. I grew up with it—patrol scars, hushed stories of raids, and the quiet knowledge that most of us wouldn’t live long enough to grow gray.
But the more I follow the Alpha’s mate, her silver hair shining like a halo in the morning light, the more stunned I am.
The vampires have eluded us for months. I’ve lost two friends to rogue ambushes. In all that time, we’ve barely caught a handful. Ten, maybe, at most.
But the new Alpha?
He’s killed more in one night than we’ve managed in half a year. Double the number, maybe more.
I know I’m not the only one feeling it. I catch other wolves stealing glances, eyes widening, shoulders straightening. There’s pride in the air. Not fear. Not despair. Pride. For the first time in years, it feels like someone is actually fighting for us.
Alric was... well, Alric. A hollow man playing Alpha. The only surprise is why he’s still alive. I thought maybe the new Alpha—raised human, I heard—was just being sympathetic. But then I step on a mangled arm, and the truth sinks in.
He’s wolf through and through.
White Stone is changing. I feel it in my bones. My own spine straightens, and I walk taller, wanting to make a good impression if his eyes fall on me. For the first time in forever, the heavy weight on my shoulders ;my mate, my pups, the pups yet to come, feels lighter.
I used to plan escape. My father hates the Stellans, but I was ready to slip away with them if it meant survival. Many of us younger wolves don’t carry that same sense of loyalty the elders cling to. How could we? Our whole lives, Alric was Alpha. Our whole lives, the pack fractured and weakened.
But if this is what a pack alpha is supposed to be? I understand now why loyalty means something. I understand a fraction of the devotion the old wolves still talk about.
We keep walking. The silence is thick, broken only by the crunch of boots and the rustle of undergrowth. Then we hear it—growls. Snarls. A vicious scuffle in the distance.
Then silence.
We follow the Alpha’s mate, who doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t slow. She walks forward fearlessly, her back straight, as if the bond itself tells her exactly where he is.
And there we find him.
The Alpha.
He’s standing over a corpse, wiping his clawed hand with a torn strip of cloth, his raven hair falling wild across his brow. The vampire’s body is little more than a ruin at his feet.
He doesn’t look surprised to see us.
If anything, he looks bored.
"Lenora," the alpha says, exhaling as though this is nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
His hand wipes casually at a rag already streaked crimson, smearing fresh blood from his claws.
"I was planning to track the nest. I underestimated their loyalty."
The alpha mate strides forward without hesitation, silver hair flashing like molten moonlight in the morning sun. She cups his jaw with no regard for the blood still wet on him and kisses him, slow and certain. The wolves behind her—including me—snap our gazes away instantly, all of us suddenly very, very interested in tree bark and trampled grass.
When she pulls back, her voice is softer. "We were told you were lost."
"I suppose I am," the alpha admits, a half-smirk tugging at his mouth. "But I knew you’d come rescue me."
"You’re alright?" she asks.
"Yeah. Honestly... they were weak. Pathetically so." His brows furrow as he glances at the decapitated body at his feet. "Are they always this weak?"
A wolf beside me stumbles over his own feet at the question, and I nearly do the same. Weak? These thing killed two of my friends. They’ve hunted us for months, vanishing like smoke whenever we gave chase. Fast. Cunning. Deadly. Never weak.
The alpha mate, however, doesn’t flinch. Her hand slides down his arm, grounding him. "No, Cameron. You underestimate your strength."
He looks away, dissatisfied. "What led you here? And can we head back now?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "This is where they scattered from. No, my beloved, I can’t go back yet. I want them gone. All of them."
The alpha mate straightens, her gaze sharp as steel as she turns to us. "You heard him. Danny—run back to the pack, alert them. Bring every able wolf here. The rest of you—spread out. Find their trail. The sun is rising; they’ll have fewer places to hide. This is our chance to wipe them out."
Danny doesn’t hesitate. He shifts mid-run, his paws pounding the earth as he disappears into the trees, he is one of the fasted wolves in the pack. The rest of us scatter in different directions, ears perked, noses working, eyes scanning.
And me? My chest is tight, my heart pounding with something I haven’t felt since I was a pup: pride. Hope.
This is what it feels like to follow an Alpha. I won’t disappoint.
My years of tracking come into play, steady and useless-sounding until the moment they start to mean something.
The broken blades of grass are tiny as a whisper—one bent the wrong way, another crushed into the soil—but they map a direction. I move slowly, not wanting to spook whatever scent or shadow we’re following.
The trail is coy. It disappears into a tangle of brambles and returns farther on, smeared across tree roots and clinging to the soft earth near a dried creek bed.
I find the first real sign: blood on the underside of a stone, not old, bright as if it bled minutes ago.
I raise my hand, the signal we use to mark a trail. My throat is dry, but my eyes stay sharp, locked on the smear of red.
That’s when I feel it, his presence. The Alpha.
Suddenly he’s beside me, crouched low, his shoulder brushing mine as he leans in to inspect the stone. This close, the sheer intensity of him makes the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
He studies the mark, and his voice comes low, rough-edged but steady.
"Great work."
Then his hand—heavy, warm, grounding—lands on my shoulder in a single firm tap.
It’s nothing, just a gesture. But to me? It feels like the world shifts.
I feel like a pup again, being praised after his first kill. My chest swells so hard it almost hurts.
I straighten subtly, the stone still in my hand, and meet his eyes. Blue like frost, cold but certain. He’s not like the others. He’s not like Alric.
He’s Alpha.
