Episode 2

Chapter 2: The Elder's Demand

[ RONAN ]

Ronan Ashford entered his study and stared at the stack of documents on his desk like they'd personally wronged him.

As a kid, when he imagined his future as Alpha, he pictured battles and territory disputes and maybe the occasional dramatic speech in front of his warriors. Nobody warned him about the paperwork. Reports on border patrols, supply logistics, trade agreements with neighboring packs, budget projections — whoever came up with budget projections should be tried for crimes against the species.

He sat down, pushed the documents aside, and opened his laptop instead.

Three new emails from Elder Whitmore. Subject lines: "Re: Alliance Opportunity — Hargrave," "Re: Re: Alliance Opportunity — Hargrave," and "URGENT: Alliance Opportunity — Hargrave."

He deleted all three without reading them.

A little background on Ronan: he's twenty-seven, the Alpha of Ironhowl Pack — the largest pack in North America — and he's been running it since he was seventeen. That's ten years. In those ten years, he's fended off territory grabs, put down two challenges to his leadership, tripled the pack's land holdings, and built a reputation that makes other Alphas very polite in his presence.

He's also never taken a Luna. Not once. Not even close.

Women are not the problem. Women throw themselves at Ronan with a frequency that should be flattering but mostly just exhausts him. Daughters of allied Alphas show up for "diplomatic visits" wearing outfits that barely qualify as clothing. Elders send proposals. Mothers send photos. One Alpha from a pack up in Canada literally smuggled his wife into Ronan's bed while he was at a council meeting.

Ronan isn't interested. In any of them. And the more they push, the less interested he gets.

He used to think something was wrong with him. Then he stopped caring whether something was wrong with him.

The last time he'd touched a woman was Portia — an Alpha's daughter from the Ironjaw Pack, three months ago. She'd been at a dinner, cornered him in the hallway afterward, and his body wanted something his brain didn't bother arguing about. One night. She moaned "Alpha" against his neck and scratched lines into the headboard and he felt absolutely nothing. Not pleasure, not connection, not even basic satisfaction. He finished, showered, and had her escorted out before dawn.

The emptiness afterward was worse than the emptiness before.

He hadn't touched anyone since. Hadn't wanted to.

'You're brooding again,' his wolf said.

Ronan's wolf is... unusual. Most werewolves can sense their wolf — feel its emotions, its instincts, its moods. Ronan can hold full conversations with his. Nobody knows this except Ronan and the wolf itself.

The wolf first spoke to him on the night his father died.

Ronan was seventeen. His father, Alpha Jacob Ashford, was poisoned. A two-substance compound that bypassed his healing. Ronan knows who did it. He's always known, the way you know something that lives in your bones and never stops aching. He doesn't talk about it. Not to Brennan. Not to anyone.

His mother died eleven days later. The mate bond — when one mate dies, the other follows. Poetic, if you're into that sort of thing. Ronan isn't.

That night, lying in bed in a packhouse that suddenly belonged to him and felt nothing like home, a voice had spoken in the back of his mind: 'I'm sorry, kid. Your father asked me to take care of you.'

Since then, the wolf has been his advisor, his reality check, and — though Ronan would never admit this — the closest thing to a confidant he's ever had.

'I'm not brooding,' Ronan said. 'I'm working.'

'You're staring at a screen and clenching your jaw. That's brooding.'

A knock on the study door. Two knocks, actually — Brennan's signature.

"Come in."

Brennan entered first. Behind him, Harper appeared — bite mark on her neck still fresh, Brennan's scent all over her, not even a little embarrassed about any of it. She walked to the edge of Ronan's desk and sat on it, one leg tucked under her, like the desk was furniture she'd personally commissioned.

Brennan and Harper have been mated for three years. Watching them is like watching two people who are incapable of not touching each other. Even now, Brennan's hand found the back of her thigh as he stood beside the desk, and she leaned into it without thinking.

It should have been annoying. Most days, Ronan found it tolerable. Some days he found it something else, something he wouldn't name.

"Elder Whitmore," Brennan said. Not a question.

"I deleted his emails."

"I know. He called me. Twice. The second time he used the phrase 'consequences for the pack,' which is his way of saying he'll rally the other Elders."

Ronan leaned back in his chair. "Let him."

"You can't keep ignoring them, Ronan." Brennan ran a hand through his hair. "One Elder is a nuisance. Three Elders is a problem. Six Elders united against us is a war we don't need."

"So what's the pitch this time?"

"Ingrid Hargrave. Alpha Victor's daughter. Bloodthorn Pack."

Ronan knew the name. Second largest pack in North America. Old blood, old money, old politics. Victor Hargrave ran it like a family business with teeth.

"She's been in Europe for ten years," Brennan continued. "Languages, etiquette, management training. She's twenty-one, unmated, and apparently —" He glanced at Harper.

"Hot," Harper supplied. "I looked her up. Tall, blonde, the whole package."

"Whitmore wants you to visit Bloodthorn and consider her," Brennan said. "If you refuse, he's got enough backing from two other Elders to make it a formal council recommendation, and at that point you're not refusing an Elder — you're refusing the Council."

Ronan looked at the ceiling.

'What do you think?' he asked his wolf.

'I think you've done this three times already and you know how it ends. Go, find the girl boring, find some dirt, come home. At least you'll get intelligence on Hargrave's operation while you're there.'

'You're telling me to go.'

'I'm telling you it's easier than fighting the Council. Pick the smaller problem.'

Ronan rubbed his eyes. "Fine."

Brennan blinked. "Fine?"

"We leave in five days. Standard drill. You and Harper dig up whatever you can on the girl. I'll play nice for the visit, find a reason to decline, and we buy ourselves a few months of silence."

Brennan let out a breath he'd clearly been holding. "I'll set it up."

He turned to leave. Harper slid off the desk.

"For the record," Ronan said, "I'm not marrying anyone."

"Nobody asked you to marry anyone," Brennan said. "We're asking you to eat dinner with a girl and not be openly hostile for approximately forty-eight hours."

"That might be harder than the marriage."

"I know," Brennan said. "That's why we're going with you."

They left. Ronan turned back to his laptop.

Three more emails from Elder Whitmore. He deleted them all.

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