Running with Rogues

Instead of throwing a proper meeting, we waited until supper, when half of the pack was gathered in the canteen anyway, and then all we had to do was offer an open invitation to the families who lived around the territory. There were nearly four hundred people in that room tonight - and the kitchen staff had not been very happy with us, but it had been necessary.

I was really, really glad that it was Liam's job to do the public speaking. It was hard enough for me to sit at the head table with so many damn faces staring at me, without having to actually talk to them.

Liam was next to me, and that was probably the only redeeming aspect of tonight. He'd cleared his plate for the first time in weeks - our healing could really work up an appetite. I'd fussed over him some more once we'd been reunited. It turned out Seth had put stitches in his shoulder and taped his hand up until the bones could heal. I'd had to help him cut his food more than once.

"You're really bloody brave," I told him. "I wouldn't do it. Not for anything."

Liam managed a smile that was more pained than amused. He wasn't shy like I was, but this was a room full of flockies, and I knew he'd rather be anywhere else. "Yeah, I hate it. But thanks."

And with that, he stood up and thumped his good hand against the table for silence. The whole meal, the pack had been gossiping away, casting not-so-discreet glances in our direction whenever they thought we weren't looking. Only a fraction of the pack had witnessed the fight, but I was sure that by now they all knew exactly who Liam was.

When he had all four hundred faces turned towards him expectantly, he cast one last unhappy look at me and then started talking.

"I'm in charge here now," he said. "I know you lot don't care who sits up here as long as you're fed and happy and safe. I know you've had six Alphas in the last seven years, and you're probably fed up with us by now. And I know it's been a rough couple of days ... but it's about to get a lot rougher. This pack has been led by my family since its founding, and we've come a long way in that time, but there has also been a lot of bullshit. A lot of lying. And countless abuses of power."

I could've sworn the audience's eyes collectively widened. Some of the people at the very back of the canteen began creeping forwards in order to hear better. Liam could be loud when he wanted to, but it was a big room.

"Most of it ... is best left in the past," Liam continued. He paused to take a careful breath before he managed the next part. It came slowly. "But there is something that you all deserve to know. My father and my brothers were in the habit of killing people who disagreed with them and then pretending that they'd left the pack. This has been going on for years now."

The uproar that followed that announcement was unparalleled. Because the second he stopped talking, the pack erupted into a racket loud enough to make me wince. Some of them were just exclaiming aloud, but most of them were engaging in animated conversations with whoever was closest to them.

It was perhaps a little tactical on our parts to reveal it like this - in a way that would cause maximum outrage. It would help to have them all shocked and reeling. The longer they spent coming to terms with all that, the less they'd notice when Liam and I started dismantling the entire pack. But at the same time, I knew a lot of these people didn't deserve the misery that would follow that announcement.

Liam waited for a relative dampening of the sound before he carried on. "To all the families who are missing loved ones - we will try and get you some closure tonight. And to those of you who are grieving for the fighters we lost today ... I can only promise that it won't happen again. Not ever. The incompetence ends now. The mistakes end now. The raids end now."