But even with my head clear, logic and rationality escaped me. I couldn’t explain what had just happened, other than the obvious, but this was far beyond mere jealousy.
I had never felt anything like this before.
I was so at a loss, confused by my own mind, that I was grateful when Lucien started speaking, drawing my attention to what was going on in front of me.
He put one leg over the other, hooking his heel on the knee, while leaning his arms on the armrests. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” he began in a clear, low voice that sounded unnaturally loud, since it echoed in the room as though he were speaking into an invisible microphone. “I also don’t believe any of you in the pack can take me down if you wish to.”
There was movement in the audience. It seemed his words made the pack members uncomfortable. I could understand; it was the way Lucien spoke, with a somehow dramatic matter-of-factness and a threatening undertone laced in the words he wasn’t saying.
“Some of you may have wondered where I disappeared to in the last week or so,” he continued now, and I could see his right index finger tapping steadily, rhythmically, on the armrest—the only movement he made, thus so emphatic. “Last week was the twentieth of April, a date that officially marked the end of my first six months as the Alpha of this pack.”
Silence still reigned, but it felt suffocating now, especially when Lucien’s voice transitioned from indifferent and flat to threatening and even cruel. His finger froze too. “On that very same day, I was attacked.”
The tension was so thick, I had to hug myself tight, as if to protect myself from violence that could erupt at any given second. Especially when Lucien stared at the audience with a savage look on his twisted face. “The attacker was neither a wolf nor a mere human. And they came prepared to kill an Alpha.”
He suddenly smiled, but it was so sinister, I felt a chill run down my spine, and I shuddered, wishing he would return to the Lucien I knew. Because this Lucien was even worse than the monster who spilled Mack Page’s guts or severed Oz’s vocal cords.
This Lucien felt ten times more dangerous, and he was barely even moving.
Charisma,I suddenly realized.An overwhelming amount of it.
“As you can see,” Lucien said with a chilling smirk, “I’m alive and well, so the attack failed. But many questions arose following the event.” He paused, straightening in his would-be throne. “Ambushing an Alpha werewolf requires very specific information that the majority of Otherborne are not privy to. I am not built like the rest of you, after all.”
His smirk fell, replaced by a deadly expression. “The only conclusion I could’ve reached was that someone in the pack colluded with said Otherborne attacker,” he said in a soft murmur that was still somehow loud enough to be heard throughout the entire hall. “Thus the main question I had was, which pack member assisted the attacker?”
Leaning back, Lucien let his words ring in the room for a few beats before he resumed. “As I told you, I don’t believe in coincidences,” hesaid quietly. “That on the same day that marked the end of my first six months I would be attacked like thatcannotbe a coincidence, after all.
“The pack member was a fool to think they could take me to begin with,” Lucien continued, back to his matter-of-fact voice. “But they were far more naive than I would’ve believed to think they could get away with it if I survived. They underestimated an Alpha’s true power, and they paid for that mistake with their life.”
His face, serious as it was, cooled over. “The perpetrator was Beta Mack Page.”
Despite everything, this time the audience couldn’t stay quiet. Yells, chatters, and gasps reverberated in the hall. I saw two women in the last row, right before me, break down in tears.
The moment Lucien raised his hand, though, silence spread across the room once more, though it wasn’t as deadly as before. Instead, I could hear barely muffled sobs from all corners of the hall. “I understand your sorrow,” he said, to my shock, and when I caught the look on his face, I saw it didn’t soften. He said the words, but I could tell he cared little for the pack’s collective grief. After he was betrayed by hisBeta, of all people, and his two assistants, who were seemingly regular pack members, I got it completely.
“But Beta Page chose that path, and unfortunately for him, it led to his demise,” he continued. He paused dramatically before adding in a snarl, “I strongly suggest you not be like Beta Page.”
Even the sobs hushed following that unveiled threat. It wasn’t an empty threat either; everyone, me included, could tell he was dead serious.
He would kill anyone who came after him.
Chapter 23
To Kill a Mocking Man
The rest of Lucien’s speech was about seemingly mundane pack matters, and the shift from his savage and intimidating beginning to a more civilized and indifferent rhetoric was so staggering, it took me a few minutes to snap out of my shock.
He then proceeded to talk about a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. Something about pack guilds and something called Velunor that I didn’t have the context to understand the meaning of.
At one point, tension rose when he said, “This week’s hearing will be postponed to next week, due to the upcoming full moon.”
That had caused many pack members to murmur among themselves.
I was a bundle of curiosity, especially about the full moon, by the time Lucien stood up and said, “Montrévère pack meeting is now adjourned,” in a tone that sounded far too formal, even for this formal setting. He added in a low growl, “Go back to work. I sincerely hope this is the last pack meeting I’ll have to hold for a while. Am I clear?”
The audience as one chanted tersely, “Yes, Alpha!”
With barely a nod to acknowledge their response, Lucien easily hopped off the stage and walked up the stairs. I realized everyone else was remaining seated, waiting for him to leave first before they would follow.