“You will literally have to go over my dead body to get to her,” Heather said, her tone deadly calm, and Knox was sure that she meant every word.
Margaret started to cry.
“I don’t want people to die because of me,” she sobbed, and her tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed into her stew. Every female in the room was looking at Knox was if he were a monster.
“We’re nowhere near there yet,” Knox said. But they might be soon, he couldn’t deny it. Fenris was outside on the front porch with several dozen of his men pacing around in front of the house, and he was losing patience.
“The Southeast Alpha could be our ally, but he needs to speak to Margaret,” Knox said. “He needs to hear her side of the story.”
“But you already told him what Margaret said,” Heather protested.
“I’m asking him to go up against another Territorial Alpha. He can’t just take my word for it.”
“No way,” Heather shook her head. “Margaret’s not going out there. How do we know he wouldn’t grab her and run off?”
Knox’s phone rang, and he answered it. It was as he’d suspected.
The men he’d stationed at the front gate were letting him know they had guests. There were two dozen cars there, and the drivers were demanding to be let in. Aloysius, his pack members, Kevin, Eugene, and Eugene’s pack members.
Since Knox’s men had refused to let them drive in, they’d climbed out of their cars and were walking onto the property.
“Wait here,” Knox growled, and he and Clarence hurried down to the living room, where Fenris and his men stood, watching the dozens of men walking towards the house.
“This is a declaration of war,” Knox said to Fenris. “I refused them entry.”
Fenris, a big, solid-looking man in his early fifties, hair close clipped in the same cut he’d had in the army, nodded solemnly. “I understand,” he said. “But from their perspective, you are holding a member of their pack here, and preventing them from administering pack justice. That is also a declaration of war.”
So Fenris would remain a neutral party. That meant that he and his men would potentially stand by while Knox and his men fought to the death.
Knox and his men were currently outnumbered. There were at least eighty wolves in Eugene’s group – coming from Eugene’s pack, and his son Kevin’s pack, and also the pack of Margaret’s father. Knox had forty-three adult wolves who could join the fight.
Fenris had thirty-five men with him, some in the living room with him, some standing outside. He’d bought Reid from the Redby Pack, and thirty of Reid’s men, but at the moment, the Redby pack was following Fenris’s lead and remaining on the sidelines.
The group of men marched up to the house, and then three men broke apart from the group and climbed the steps to the porch. Knox swung the door open to let them in. Eugene, Aloysius, Kevin. The air in the room felt thick with tension.
“Alphas,” Knox growled, inclining his head very slightly.
Aloysius scuttled fearfully behind Eugene and Kevin, keeping them between him and Knox.
Knox shook his head. “They don’t make Alphas like they used to,” he said to Clarence, with a look of scorn at Aloysius.
“You ready to hand her over? Or do you all want to die?” Kevin sneered. Clarence growled and bristled.
Kevin was handsome in a pretty-boy way, with gelled hair and waxed eyebrows. He had scars on his knuckles and his nose had been broken so many times that it hadn’t healed right. Knox had been asking around, and found that Kevin had a reputation as a bully. He’d been arrested for drunk driving multiple times, had gotten in bar fights on a near weekly basis. Most of the time he skated because of his daddy’s influence and money, but Kevin’s bad behavior had taken a toll on his father’s reputation. His father’s influence was diminishing, and he might not be Northeast Alpha too much longer.
But that didn’t help them right now.
“Watch yourself, boy,” Eugene growled at his son. “I’m the Alpha here.”
“I’ve interviewed her and determined that she has been abused,” Knox said. “I cannot hand her over to you.”
“Oh, good, I was hoping you’d say that,” Kevin gloated. He rubbed his hands together. “We’re going to have a fun time killing you.” He looked around. “First thing I’m going to do when I move in here is redecorate.”
“You’re going to have a fun time losing dozens of your men just because you’re butthurt that you got rejected by a girl?” Knox scoffed at him. “Pretty lousy Alpha, making life and death decisions with your dick.”