7

Chapter 7

Jake’s bones were charred white, it was stark against the black of the burnt up floor. Jax picked up his bones and kept them in his backpack. There was no reason for that but she would not argue with the grief stricken boy. Her pack had reduced by one.

“We’re going to the temple of the goddess. We’ll use that place as a sanctuary and increase our strength and our numbers” she said addressing the two.

“We should avenge Jake”

“And who is going to do that, Jax? You? if you want to run to your death then by all means be my guest.”

The young wolf said nothing, he just clutched the bag tighter and clenched his teeth. She looked at Drake and wondered at how he was able to keep that playful expression on his face after all that had happened. “What was your rank in your former pack?” she asked Drake.

Not at all surprised by her question he said, “I was the former Alpha until I got dethroned by my brother”.

She shook her head. “Weakling” she thought. 

“Like I was saying, we’ll be going to the temple now. The goddess in charge is indisposed at the moment, I’m sure we won’t be turned away. From now till we are given entry we will stay in wolf form, the scent of Jake’s father is a stronger cloak on my wolf form. When we get there, do not address me as Alpha, but only for as long as we stay in the temple. Anyone have any questions?”

“No Alpha”

“Good.” She was taking a big risk going back to the scene of the crime that cost her the throne. But nobody saw her kill the goddess so there should be no problem. There will be no problem.

~

She stood at the gate of the temple and wondered how she was going to get in. As a human, she would have needed to get a letter of recommendation, but since she was now a wolf she didn’t think she would need one. So she waited for the black mist she met last time to appear in front of her. She didn’t know that the black mist had chosen to come to her as a man, as Drake. 

Jax and Drake paced impatiently behind her. She was getting impatient herself so she clawed at the big wooden doors of the temple and howled. Her pack howled after her continuously until she heard a lock click in the door. It creaked until it was wide enough for the three wolves to walk through. Masked with the scent of the beta, she expected not to be noticed but when she walked in she saw that all who lived in the temple had come to its courts to watch her walk in. 

“Alina. Daughter of Thomas. Former Alpha of the pack to the North. Judged by the gods. How can we help you?”

She sighed and transformed back to human form, as did the other two behind her.

“Who am I talking to? Show yourself”

A middle aged man stepped out of the crowd. In his flowing white pants and linen shirt, he was very oddly dressed. He looked at Alina with an amused expression like he was saying ‘you will not find help here’. But she refused to let it bother her. 

With a smug look, he said, “My name is Elijah, and I run this temple now. So I ask you again, how can we help you?” 

“I ask for myself and my pack to be given sanctuary in your temple”

“Your pack? You mean to tell me that you’re leading this little band of rogues?”

“Yes, I am leading them. I am a rogue myself and I am better experienced to give leadership”

“After the judgement of the gods one can argue that anyone else would have been better suited for that position”

Her eyes flashed in anger, but she took a deep breath and calmed herself.

“Is this not the temple built to be a safe space for troubled rogue wolves? I have been banished from my pack along with my two companions. They were not of high position as I was, so the trouble they have gone through is greater than mine. The burden of leadership fell on me because they judged that I was of a more stable mind than the both of them. But during the time we were in the forest on our own we have faced great danger, we have even lost one of ours. I would not want to lose another one of them and that is why I have come to seek sanctuary.” Her voice broke at the end of the speech and she could see the faces among the crowd change from caution to sympathy. That was exactly what she wanted. Now the nasty ‘priest’ had no choice but to let her in.

“Do you have a letter of recommendation?” Elijah asked

She raised her brows, “The circumstances around our coming here were quite urgent”

“You realise you can’t come in without a letter of recommendation”

“I thought that rule was put in place by the former goddess”

“Yes it was, and I intend to keep that rule”

“So you’re going to let –“

“I believe those are not the only requirements for safe entry” Drake cut in.

Elijah narrowed his eyes, “No it isn’t. Who are you to interrupt these proceedings?”

“Oh forgive me,” Drake’s eyes lit up with amusement. Elijah didn’t know him, but with all the time he spent in this temple as black fog, he knew Elijah well. The fool was no priest, he was just taking advantage of the lack of leadership in the temple. “My name is Drake, I’m a rogue wolf from a different pack. I joined the northern wolves when she was still Alpha, then I got myself banished again. Now about us getting in, isn’t there a task we can do to prove ourselves?”

Elijah’s eyes were practically slits now, and his face got all red. Alina smiled, she remembered the puzzle from last time. It was a walkover then, it will be now. 

“Yes there is a puzzle,” Elijah was saying “but with a pack like this, it has to be answered by the Alpha. The gods have decreed that a female cannot be an Alpha, so in my opinion you have no leader.”

“We have been marked by Alina as part of her pack. A marked wolf cannot be an Alpha. There is no other person to solve this puzzle except her” Jax said, surprising Alina when he came to her defence.

“So, temple priests. What do you say? We have a go at that puzzle?” 

~

Alpha Thomas was enraged. He lost his wizard and his dignity to a girl, in front of an audience of wolves! The girl has to die. He had to find a new wizard, and quickly. The child will pay for embarrassing him like that. 

“Thomas,” Oliver, his newly appointed beta, walked in. Alina killed his last beta, another thing she had to pay for, “how did it go, did you get her?”

“No! I did not get her. If I got her, I would have her here with me dead or alive.do you see Alina or her body anywhere? Get out!!” Thomas shouted.

The beta left quickly. No one could predict what Alpha Thomas would do whenever he got that angry. 

Thomas put his coat back on angrily. He needed a spell and a wizard to cast it. He wasn’t going to get any listening to these wolves.

~

Everyone who lived in the Temple of Leto, as she later found that it was called, was a werewolf, including Elijah, their so-called priest. They weren’t exactly a pack, they were just a group of friends who understood each other. She’d met people who were sent out of their pack on the selfish whim of their Alpha, wolves who were wrongly accused, wolves who didn’t learn how to fight early and were bullied out and wolves who deserved the banishing. It was this last group of wolves she mostly related with. 

She won’t have as part of her pack weak animals. She’s not going to put herself through trying to be nice to earn their trust. She wanted a pack that would understand brutality and respect it. But she was young, pretty, and fragile-looking. They weren’t going to take her seriously if she simply approached them with a smile. She needed to earn that pack. She began looking for opportunities to do that. 

She smiled, as the opportunity to prove herself walked past her in white linen pants. She was going to take over this temple. 

~

Drake had wrapped himself around her wrist as black fog again. Back in this temple, he found himself reverting to this form a lot more frequently. But it served him well nonetheless. Like now, hearing these thoughts in Alina he felt a sense of connection between them.

‘I will have this girl’ he thought ‘she will be my queen’