Chapter 9 : CONSOLIDATION
One week changed everything.
My ribs healed completely by day three—the enhanced regeneration burning through damage that would have taken my old body weeks to repair. The shoulder wound closed by day four, leaving a pale scar that would fade but never disappear entirely. A reminder of what victory cost.
I used the time to explore my territory thoroughly. Every tunnel in the mine complex. Every hunting trail through the mountains. Every potential approach an enemy might use. Ruth proved useful here—thirty-two years under Cormac had given her detailed knowledge of the land's secrets.
Decker was less useful.
He followed orders. Did what was asked. But his scent carried something underneath the fear. Something that smelled like waiting. Like calculation.
[SUBORDINATE ASSESSMENT: DECKER] [STRESS HORMONES: ELEVATED] [BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS: DECEPTION INDICATORS 87%] [RECOMMENDATION: MONITORING OR PREEMPTIVE ELIMINATION]
The System confirmed what my instincts already knew.
By day seven, I was ready to test it.
"I'm leaving to scout the perimeter," I announced at the morning meeting. Both subordinates sat across from me in the main chamber, which I'd converted into a planning room. Maps covered one wall. Supply lists covered another. "Three days. Maybe four. Ruth, you're in charge of den security. Decker, I want you running patrol rotations."
Ruth nodded. Her eyes were calm, professional. Whatever she felt about the change in leadership, she'd committed to making it work.
Decker's reaction was different. A flash of something across his face—relief? Hope? His eyes darted to the cave entrance and back. "Understood."
"Good." I stood. "I'll check in via radio each night. Anything happens, you contact me immediately."
I left through the main entrance. Made a show of disappearing into the tree line. Let them watch me go.
Then I circled back.
The old hunter's trick—you learn more about people when they think you're gone. I'd read about surveillance techniques in my previous life, corporate espionage cases where executives were caught by simply letting them believe no one was watching. Same principle applied here.
A hawk's eyes saw everything.
I perched in a dead pine overlooking the den entrance, wings folded, patience infinite. Hours passed. Ruth emerged twice—once to check the perimeter, once to gather firewood. Competent. Careful. Nothing suspicious.
Decker stayed inside until nightfall.
Then he moved.
I tracked him from above as he slipped out the secondary exit—a tunnel that emerged behind a boulder field, hidden from the main approach. He carried a pack stuffed with supplies from Cormac's cache. He moved like someone who didn't want to be followed.
The System tracked his path.
[SUBORDINATE DEVIATION: DECKER] [TRAJECTORY: NORTHWEST — TOWARD TERRITORY BOUNDARY] [ASSESSMENT: DESERTION IN PROGRESS]
Desertion. Not the worst option—if he was just running, I could let him go. One less mouth to feed, one less traitor to watch.
But he wasn't just running.
I followed him to the boundary. Watched him stop at the exact spot where I'd killed Cormac's scouts. Watched him pull out a phone—one I hadn't known he had—and make a call.
The conversation drifted up to my hawk ears.
"...new Alpha. Killed Cormac. Took his power somehow." A pause. "I don't know how. I've never seen anything like it. But he's young. Inexperienced. If you want the territory, now's the time."
He was selling me out. Contacting someone—another Alpha, maybe, or a hunter network—and offering my location in exchange for whatever they'd promised him.
The phone call ended. Decker stood at the boundary, waiting for a response that would never come.
I descended.
The shift from hawk to humanoid Skinwalker took two seconds. Decker heard the rush of air behind him and spun, eyes wide.
"Going somewhere?"
He bolted.
I let him run for three seconds—long enough for hope to flicker—before I caught him. My new strength made it effortless. One hand on his collar, lifting him off his feet.
"Who did you call?"
"No one! I was just—"
I slammed him against a tree. "Lie to me again."
Fear broke through whatever courage he'd been clinging to. "Another pack. Skinwalkers, three days' travel from here. They were rivals of Cormac's. I thought—I thought if I brought them information—"
"You thought they'd kill me and reward you."
"You killed Cormac!" The words exploded out of him. "He was a bastard, but he was one of us. A born Skinwalker. You're—you're something else. Something wrong. I can smell it on you. The way you took his power, the way you just... absorbed him. That's not natural."
[INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: ABSORPTION METHOD — DETECTED BY SUBORDINATE] [RECOMMENDATION: ELIMINATE WITNESS]
I set him down. Kept my hand on his collar.
"You're right," I said quietly. "I am something else. Something new. The question is whether that scares you enough to betray me, or whether it scares you into being useful."
"I—"
"Think carefully before you answer."
Decker's mouth worked. His eyes darted to the tree line, calculating distance, measuring odds. He was faster than an average Skinwalker. He knew the territory.
But he'd seen what I did to Cormac.
"I was going to kill you in your sleep," he admitted. "Before. When you first took over. I thought about it every night."
"And now?"
"Now I've seen what you can do." His shoulders sagged. "I'm not stupid enough to try."
The System processed his words, analyzing stress patterns, micro-expressions, the chemical signature of his scent.
[DECEPTION ANALYSIS: 23%] [ASSESSMENT: PARTIAL TRUTH — SUBMISSION THROUGH FEAR, NOT LOYALTY]
Twenty-three percent chance he was still lying. Seventy-seven percent chance he'd genuinely been cowed.
Not good enough.
"I believe you," I said.
His relief was immediate. Visible. His whole body relaxed.
My hands found either side of his head.
"Wait—"
The crack echoed through the forest.
[SUBORDINATE ELIMINATED: DECKER] [CORRUPTION INDEX: 18 → 21] [UNITY INDEX ADJUSTMENT: -5 (INTERNAL CONFLICT) / +10 (DECISIVE LEADERSHIP)] [NET CHANGE: +5]
His body crumpled. I stared at it for a long moment.
When did murder become mundane?
The question had haunted me since the Skinwalker scouts. Now I had my answer: somewhere between the Wendigo and Cormac. Somewhere in the transition from surviving to ruling.
I didn't feel guilty. That scared me more than the killing itself.
I carried Decker's body back to the den. Ruth was waiting at the entrance—she'd heard something, or sensed something, or simply knew that nights like this ended in death.
She looked at the corpse. Looked at me.
"He talked about it," she said. "I knew he was planning something."
"And you didn't warn me?"
"Wasn't sure you'd win." Her gaze was steady. Unapologetic. "Had to see what kind of Alpha you are before I committed."
I dropped the body at her feet. "And now?"
"Now I know." She knelt and began checking Decker's pockets with professional efficiency. "He mentioned a pack to the northwest. Cormac's old rivals. They'll have gotten his call. They might come looking."
"Let them."
Ruth paused. Found the phone Decker had used. Handed it to me.
"You want me to dig the grave?" she asked.
"No." I pocketed the phone. "That's Alpha work."
The shovel was where Cormac had kept it. The ground was hard—frozen at the surface, requiring real effort to break through. Good. The work burned through the restless energy crawling under my skin.
An hour later, Decker was buried. Ruth had watched the entire process without comment.
"You're strange," she said finally. "Cormac would have left him for the coyotes. Made a display of it. You buried him like he mattered."
"He didn't matter. But the ritual does." I drove the shovel into the dirt one final time, marking the grave. "I'm not Cormac. I'm building something different."
"What?"
I pulled out the other burner phone. Jenny Blackwood's number glowed on the screen.
"A kingdom."
The phone rang twice before she answered.
"Who is this?"
"Silas." I watched the moon rise over my territory. "We met in a diner. You said you'd think about my offer."
Silence on the line. Then: "The hunters found us again. Two days ago. We lost Marcus."
Damn. Her packmate. The young one who'd barely touched his food.
"Where are you now?"
"Running." Her voice cracked. "We're always running."
"Not anymore." I gave her coordinates—a meeting point at the edge of my territory. "Come to these mountains. I have land now. Protection. A place where the hunters can't reach you."
"Why should I trust you?"
I looked at Ruth, standing silent by Decker's grave. At the mountains stretching dark and endless under the stars. At the kingdom I was building one body at a time.
"Because I'm the only one offering."
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