Free Web NovelChapter 38: Chapter 38: The Price Of Order
One morning the bailey became a place of discipline. A thief caught stealing grain from the stores was dragged forward by Garrick, the new beta. The man was thin, eyes darting, hands bound behind his back. The pack gathered in a wide circle, silent, watching.
Garrick pushed the thief to his knees in front of the throne where I sat with Lila in the sling and Darius at my side. "He took three sacks. His family was hungry, he says. But hunger doesn’t excuse stealing from the pack."
I looked down at the man. Lila made a small sound and reached for my tunic. The twins kicked steadily in my belly, a constant reminder of what we were building for.
"You stole from everyone," I said. "Not just the stores. From the pups who need that grain to grow strong. From the women who train to protect them. From the men who ride the borders so we can sleep at night. You should be ashamed of yourself!"
The thief kept his head down, shoulders shaking. "I was desperate, my queen."
"Desperation doesn’t give you the right to weaken the keep," I replied. "Ten lashes. Then you work the stores for a month, unpaid, until you’ve replaced what you took twice over. If you steal again, the next punishment won’t be lashes."
Garrick nodded and dragged the man away. The pack watched the whipping without a sound. When it was done, the man was led off to the stores, blood on his back, his head bowed down in shame.
The message was clear. "Order had a price, and the queen was willing to collect it."
The same afternoon the training yard was full. Women, men, and older children drilled together. I stood at the edge with Lila in the sling, the twins kicking as I watched. Mara led the women through blade work, her movements sharp and confident.
A group of boys and girls practiced with wooden staffs under Kane’s watchful eye. Rylan moved among the men, showing them how to use their weight in close quarters.
I stepped in for a moment, handing Lila to Darius and taking a wooden blade. I showed a young girl how to turn her body into the strike, how to use the latent strength in her legs instead of swinging with her arms. The girl copied the move, her face lighting up when the strike landed clean. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
"The keep isn’t just walls," I told them. "It’s every one of you. Train like your family’s life depends on it. Because it does."
The session ended with sweat and tired smiles. The pack was changing. They were no longer just surviving. They were becoming something stronger.
That evening in the chambers the brothers were close beside me. Darius sat by the fire with Lila on his knee, letting her tug at his hair. Kane leaned against the wall, sharpening a blade with slow, deliberate strokes. Rylan paced near the window, but he stopped every few minutes to press his hand to my belly, feeling the twins move.
"They’re strong," Rylan said softly. "Two more little wolves running around this keep soon." frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
I smiled despite the tiredness. "They’re going to be trouble. I can already tell."
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The days turned into weeks. The pack trained harder in the yard. Women and older pups drilled with blades until their hands blistered.
I sat in council every morning, Lila in the sling, ruling on disputes and pushing the next law through. The keep felt like home now, the stone walls no longer a prison but a fortress we had earned.
One morning the bailey became a place of discipline again. Two men were dragged forward, accused of beating a woman in the lower halls. The woman stood beside Garrick, her face bruised but her eyes hard.
"They thought the old ways still applied," Garrick said. "They thought a woman’s word meant nothing."
I looked at the two men. Lila was in the sling, the twins kicking steadily. "The law is clear. No one raises a hand to another in this keep without cause. You will both work the outer fields for three months. No pay. And you will apologize to her in front of the pack."
The men lowered their heads. The pack watched as they knelt and spoke the words. The woman nodded once, and the matter was closed. The pack was learning that the laws applied to everyone.
The training continued every day. Men, women, and children drilled together. The yard echoed with the sound of blades and staffs and the shouts of instructors. I moved among them, Lila in the sling or in Darius’s arms, showing the younger ones how to use their size to their advantage. The twins grew heavier every week, the pregnancy making my steps slower, but the latent alpha blood kept me strong.
The keep developed in small ways. New storerooms were dug into the rock. The eastern wall was reinforced with fresh timber. The women’s training yard was expanded. The pack was building something that would last.
Then, on a quiet afternoon, the new traitors were caught. Garrick brought them into the bailey himself. Three men, caught passing messages to the outer packs, gold in their pockets. The pack gathered in a wide circle, silent.
I stood in the center with the brothers at my back. Lila was in the sling, the twins kicking as I spoke.
"You took gold from the outside. You tried to sell us out again. You are a disgrace to this pack. The punishment for this atrocity is death."
The traitors began crying and begging. "My queen, please forgive us, we were desperate and poor and we needed gold to buy medicine and food and that’s what resulted in our actions."
"Your desperation is what nearly caused this pack our safety and security. You betrayed us and went behind our back because of gold. That is unforgivable!" I roared.
"My queen please, have mercy. Do not kill us we beg you!" They wailed.
"Take them away and kill them while everyone watches so they know the price of betrayal against our pack!" I signalled to the guards.
" Let this be a warning to each and everyone of you here planning to betray this pack. If you are caught, you will be killed, there’s no two ways about that. There’s strength in unity and that is what I intend to uphold and live up to while I am still queen!" I added while looking at the pack that had gathered in the hall.
"That’s my girl doing the work of a queen as perfectly and cleanly as ever." Rylan grinned.
The traitors were hanged from the southern wall at dusk. The pack watched in silence. No one cheered. But no one looked away either. The message was clear. Betrayal had a price, and the queen was willing to collect it.
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Weeks slipped by in the quiet rhythm of the keep. Lila hit nine months like a spark catching dry grass. She no longer just crawled. She hauled herself up on anything that would hold her weight, chubby hands gripping chair legs, table edges, the side of my bed. Her legs wobbled but held longer each day, and she would stand there grinning at me with two new teeth flashing in the firelight before she plopped back down and scooted off again.
The pack started calling her the little climber behind my back, and I caught more than one guard leaving a low stool by the nursery door just so she could practice pulling herself higher.
The twins inside me answered every bit of her energy. Their kicks came harder now, sharp and sudden, like they were trying to match her pace.
One afternoon I was in the nursery sorting clean linens when a double thump hit low and hard enough to buckle my knees. I grabbed the edge of the crib and breathed through it while Lila crawled straight into my legs and patted my shin like she was telling them to settle down.
The pressure stayed, a rolling pressure that made my back ache and my breath catch. I pressed both palms to the tight curve of my belly and whispered, "Easy, you two. Your sister’s already running the place."
Morning sickness had turned vicious. It no longer waited for dawn. It woke me before first light with a sour rush that sent me bolting for the basin.
Darius would wake with me every time, one hand steady on my back, the other holding my hair while I emptied my stomach until there was nothing left but bile.
Kane brought cold water and a cloth, wiping my face without a word, his scarred fingers gentle.
Rylan paced the room afterward, muttering curses at the witch’s mark on my chest like he could scare the nausea away.
The tiredness followed me through the day, heavy in my limbs, but I still walked the corridors and checked the stores and listened to the pack’s small complaints because stopping wasn’t an option.
