Blood on the Moon

Asher

I called a pack meeting. The first one in years. I used my mindlink to reach the entire pack to let them know it was happening so Gen wouldn’t fail to show.

So I wait in the pack house, the room that was once used for meetings coated in a layer of dust. Neglected and dirty, reflecting the lives of our pack members.

The room is crowded with people; citizens, and pack officials alike on the outskirts of the table while I sit at its head, where Margaery and Genevive’s father used to sit. I never met the man; he was dead when I met Gen. But, living in the pack and under his reign in my boyhood, I saw him speak. I saw kindness in his eyes despite the wrinkles growing on his face.

My parents told me stories of when he first took power, having succeeded his father before him. Sadly, this pack will no longer be reigned by their bloodline tonight. Margaery will take her position as Luna in River Run, and I, an outsider married into the position, will be Black Opal’s new Alpha.

I hope he approves. I hope he doesn’t look too harshly from Valhalla, Heaven, or wherever good men go when they die, especially since I am killing his eldest daughter. His firstborn. In many ways, the apple of his eye.

The cause of his demise. The polluter of his legacy. The woman who killed his mate in cold blood after tarnishing his mind, stealing his agency just as she did mine and his youngest daughter.

I hope I’ll be a good leader. I hope I can keep our pack together and save it from dissolution. I pray to You, Moon Goddess, that this challenge goes well. Protect the woman I love. Please, if You can, use Your hand to help her win. You stepped in for Caelynn when she was to be executed by Javier.

Do the same for my mate if she’s in the same position, even if she is a Night Child. Don’t take away what I believe in my heart, You gave me. Don’t deliver me to evil hands when you could save the ones who love me gently.

“What is the meaning of this?” Genevieve spits as she whips the doors open, stomping into the room. “What gives you the authority to call a meeting?”

“He is our Alpha,” Candice Blackwood says, standing. “He has a right to call meetings even if you abolished them.”

Gen’s eyes widen, a small gasp escaping her lips.

This is the first time she is being disobeyed by a pack member so publicly.

She glares at me. “Well, Alpha, what important matter do you wish to discuss? I’m sure we’d all love to hear your silly complaints.”

I rise slowly, my face stoic as Cato rises alongside me.

“You have attacked the River Run Pack unprovoked and unnecessarily. You are leading us to a war that none of us desire. This decision could result in the end of our race, these lands that were sacred to your lineage soaked with our blood. Blood you risk to spill needlessly.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snarls, her eyes glowing furiously. “You don’t know what Evander has done because you’re an absentee Alpha who sulks on a couch rather than doing anything for your pack! You’re incompetent and an unfit mate, let alone a leader!”

“Those words used to work on me,” I speak. “Just like your violence. When you tried to kill me with the extension cord and when you forced me to have sex with you despite my feelings of disgust whenever I’m around you.”

Gasp from the crowd, looks of horror as they regard Genevive.

“I tried to be a good mate to you. I really did. I loved you as the Moon Goddess asked despite your abuse. And despite how you treated your own sister, your flesh and blood, Margaery, who loved you. She took the black eyes and swollen cheeks in stride. And so did I. I admit to being idle while you abused our pack, using barbaric methods of torture and bribery to get what you wanted while instigating a pointless war until I had had enough. Until I snapped out of it.”

Margaery comes to my side, setting an envelope on the table. “These are interviews done with members of your military. Soldiers who saw their brothers and sisters disappear by your hands. Taken for experiments they wanted no part of. Experiments you ran on behalf of the Night God.”

The crowd erupts into cries of horror at the mere mention of Him.

“That is how you were able to attack Evander,” I continue. “That is also how you overthrew your parents years ago. You asked Him for help with that, didn’t you? Asked Him to make you a poison that would work slowly so nobody would suspect it. So they would look crazier and crazier, giving you more reason to oust them out of power and seize it for yourself. Then, once you had what you wanted while saving face, you got rid of Him. I bet He’s come back, asking you to pay the piper. Your debt is due, and that debt is attacking River Run, which isn’t such a high price for a war-mongering dictator like you.”

“These are baseless accusations at best, slander at worst,” she replies, her fists clenched, but she’s trying her best to stay calm. She knows that it'll prove my point if she flies off the handle. “I never poisoned my parents, and you have no proof. And I have no connection to the Night God; again, you have no proof. And I’ve never laid my hand on you or my sister. You are only making this up to make me look bad since you know it’s the only way you can get people to respect you again.”

“Oh, so have you forgotten when you lashed me in front of everyone? Was that not laying a violent hand on me? Are you telling all these people that they don’t know what they saw with their own eyes?”

She rolls her eyes, her face smug as she leans on her hip, taking a power stance of disregard. “That was not abuse; that was well-deserved punishment that you volunteered for because of your thieving family. That is what you’re trying to do now. Steal the pack from me. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess. That’s what I get for taking in a stray to be my Alpha!”

There are rumblings through the crowd, people whispering to each other as I growl, my fists clenched.

“Your family deserves to be rogues for what they’ve done, taking up resources for the large family they recklessly produced but can’t sustain.”

“My family works harder than you’ve ever worked in your life,” I spit.

“They steal what they have from our pack members! Our hard-working, honest citizens!” She cries, facing the group. “Is this the man you’re going to believe over me? Is he so credible?”

“He is,” a voice cries over the crowd, fighting her way through the masses.

She’s one of the shop owners who accused my brothers of stealing.

“His brothers never stole from my store!” She cries, glaring at Gen. “You threatened to…” She trails off, taking a deep breath as she closes her eyes. “You threatened to expose the affair I was having if I didn’t lie about them stealing! I know you bribed or threatened every other shopowner on that stage, too. Am I wrong?”

She looks to the other shopowners, who slowly nod their heads, averting their eyes from Genevieve.

“Alpha Asher’s family is innocent!” She cries. “You set them up! To punish our Alpha! Why?”

“Because I attempted to reject her that day,” I explain. “I couldn’t stand what she was doing to me and my pack any longer, and I didn’t want to be with her. But she refused to accept it.”

“I don’t know what you did to make these people go back on what they said before,” Genevive spits, her eyes raging. “But you didn’t try to reject me too hard because we’re still mates! Your only claim as Alpha of this pack is tied to your marriage to me. How can you be so disloyal to your mate? How can this pack expect you to be loyal to them when you so easily throw me under the bus with lies and deceit? Manipulation? How can they be sure you’re not working with the Night God? Perhaps you’re the source of all the evil in the pack, and you’re only trying to pin it on me so you can seize power once and for all! As I try to save us!”

“Don’t twist the truth to fit your narrative. We all see through it. We all know your actions, and the pack knows mine. I trust they’ll believe the truth now that they see it clearly, and I am grateful to those who have decided to be honest in the face of a dictator,” I reply, my voice booming through the room as I approach her. “As for you being my mate? I lost your mark a long time ago. And you never bore mine. The Moon Goddess removed our mate bond because you were never my true mate. It's simply a falsehood. But I do have a true mate.”

I gesture to the doors as they open, and Rose stands in the frame, clad in black leggings, sports bra, and training gloves. Her hair is already in a ponytail, and her lips are shining with red lipstick, dark as blood.

“She is my true mate,” I announce. “Rose Carver, Dame of the Crimson Night Clan.”

The room is silent, the breaths taken from everyone’s throats, including Genevieve’s. Her eyes are wild with fury; her face contorted in surprise and rage.

Rose licks her lips before they curl into a smirk. She steps directly in front of Genevive, their eyes level with one another. Rose is an intimating figure, not bowing down when a low growl resonates in Gen’s throat. She doesn’t even flinch.

She only speaks, her words holding a quiet power only she possesses.

“I challenge you for the title of Luna of Black Opal Pack.”