Chapter 43

"Ah, finally, the famous tribrid comes to see me!" River grinned from his perch on a fallen tree some feet away from the water of the lake. The other two male wolves from his pack were busy wrestling each other into the dirt – obviously practicing or blowing off some steam as their alpha looked on.

"Come on, it's getting late. Dr Saltzman wants you guys down in the basement soon." Hope approached the dominant male slowly, but not at all wearily. If anything, she could feel herself bristle just by the sight of him. It was irrational, she knew. He was not the bad guy of the story and she had no real reason to feel hostile towards him. However, her wolf would not be stilled deep within her chest.

"Like some wild animals, right?" River scoffed and stood up, tall and proud.

"Don't take it too personally. We have a lot going on." Hope rolled her eyes and smirked. "Not everything revolves around you, ya know." She then pointed to a small cut on his forehead whereas the day before it had been a major gash that she wasn't sure would stop bleeding. "I'm glad to see you're looking – and obviously feeling – better."

"Yeah, sure." He smirked and stepped closer to her. "Soon we'll be right as rain and we can get out of your hair."

"Where would you go? You can't go home." Hope asked, a little startled. Despite that the presence of the dominant male rubbed her wolf the wrong way, she still felt care and concern for the wolves. They were, after all, the only members – along with her – left of the once mighty Crescents.

"No, we can't." River sighed as he shoved his hands deep into his jean pockets and turned to watch the sun set through the reeds and over the water of the lake. "We'll seek a new one. We need to find a town we can settle close to, but still remain independent of."

"You mean like here?" Hope stated the obvious and smirked at the back of River's head.

River turned back around and matched Hope's smirk with a contrite expression. "I'll admit, we do like it here." He shrugged his shoulders and kicked at the ground with the toe of one shoe. "Nim is 18, so is Velles. Dolin is 17 and Quin 16. They could use a place like this."

"And what about you?" Hope arched a brow curiously.

"Nah, I'm done with school. But they'll always be my pack. I won't leave them." River looked at Hope with a certain steely expression.

"Well, we have a problem. If you want to stay, you have to integrate into the school's pack. This is their home, and it could be yours, but you have to at least respect the boundaries then. You know how important that is in wolf terms." Hope wanted to plead with him. She didn't want any more incidents between the Crescents and the Salvatores. She knew they all had bigger things to worry about and prepare for than wolf-politics and it was irritating her that she even needed to play mediator.

"Integrate…" River repeated after her and nodded, seemingly lost in thought as his brow creased in concentration, his dark eyes staring at an invisible point in space. "And submit to… what's his name… Rafael, right?" River bit his lip then as he looked at Hope for an answer.

Hope simply nodded. Darkness was starting to surround them and she was getting anxious about getting the males back to the transition cells. River seemed to have other ideas though as he stepped back from Hope and whistled to Velles and Dolin who had been play-wrestling off to the side. First River's eyes started glowing a bright golden hue, though within a second the other two males followed suite. The three started removing their clothes.

"I need to convene with my pack. We'll be back by midnight. I promise." By the time he had finished his sentence his subordinates had already taken off into the woods. Hope felt uneasy, her own wolf suddenly itching to be let loose. She could feel the golden glaze creep over her own vision as she watched River start to run but dive and shift before disappearing from sight amidst the trees. A minute or two later Hope could hear the alpha start to howl, calling his pack, and they answered one by one – even the females that had been at the school had bolted into the woods to join their packmates.

Hope could feel her skin crawl as her wolf struggled just below the surface, begging her to be let loose. The howling was driving her animal instincts wild and she felt her self-control falter. It took a few long moments of trying to maintain her control for the wolf to win, but eventually she did as Hope breathed heavily one second, and tore through her clothes the next. She shoved one paw after the other into the dirt beneath her as she listened to the howling, whining and whimpering as she itched to run towards it, to answer its call. But her wolf knew it wasn't for her, and that she was not part of it all. Yelping one final time, she turned and ran in the opposite direction as fast as she could, trying to ignore the call, trying to ignore her instincts, trying to ignore the strong pull of the pack.

She ran until she lost track of time and only knew that it was long past midnight by the time she could feel the ache in her legs. Stealthily she slipped into the school and up to her room where Josie was already sound asleep in her bed. Hope took a moment of watching the siphon, allowing the realization that she had Josie by her side to soothe her restless soul. Before long, Hope was freshly showered and had her mate curled up in her arms. She pressed a tired kiss to Josie's forehead before falling into a restless slumber, dreaming of wolves.

(…)

It was a Monday morning with everyone busy in their respective classes, Hope herself being stuck in Traditional Magic and Potions. It was only second period, and that's how long it took that morning before all semblance of peace and order went flying through the window – quite literally. Hope blinked in confusion as she could see through the window that she was seated next to, how a chair had gone crashing through one of the windows of the gym. Hope also knew that this time on a Monday morning was wolf phys-ed.

This was by no means a good sign.

Hope shoved her way through curious and restless students as she jumped from her seat and rushed for the door, quickly pushing her way through the corridors to get to the gym. By the time she broke into the large room, she couldn't believe what she saw. River was standing over a beaten half-unconscious Rafael with his eyes on fire, while the rest of the Salvatore pack was seated on their knees in front of him, as if submitting to him – which was exactly what they were doing.

"What did you do?" Hope yelled as she tried to rush over to Rafael to check if he was okay, but her movements were quickly halted by the two Crescent males and their illuminated eyes blocking her way.

"You said we had to integrate. So that's what we're doing." River breathed heavily from where he still stood steadfast over Rafael's body, staring down each member of the Salvatore pack individually, establishing a sort of connection with each one. They now belonged to him.

Hope was furious and her own eyes were set ablaze by the sight of her friend curled up and bloodied on the floor. "I didn't say challenge the established alpha!"

"Why not? He was weaker – of body, of mind, even of heart. He wasn't fit to lead any longer." River shrugged, though his stance and his gaze did not change from what he was still busy doing.

"You don't know anything about him or what he's been through recently!" Hope shouted heatedly at River, her incisors showing tell-tale signs of enlarging and protruding. "You had no right!"

River suddenly looked up at Hope, finally allowing gold to meet gold as the tension rode the wave of electricity shooting from one pair of eyes to another. All around them students clamored together and shoved past one another, wanting a better view of what everyone was saying was inevitable. Those wolves closest to the pair currently locked in a staring contest automatically started backing up to make space for the two, the furiously violent intent that both held now palpable in the air.

Josie and Lizzie watched from the inner circle of students that had formed around the aggressive pair, faces broken with both concern and excitement. Josie's eyes were illuminated in a bright copper and she couldn't give a crap about who saw it. The brightly glowing orbs were locked on her mate with pride.

"It wasn't even a fair fight. He can't access his wolf side like you can…" Hope growled under her breath as she squared off with River, starting to pull her sweater from her body, soon tossing it aside and then moving to unbutton her shirt.

"Perhaps. But you can. So, don't be a damn disappointment!" River pulled his shirt over his head and growled his last words loudly at Hope in return.

"Uhhhhh… Why are they getting naked?" Lizzie noted suddenly with wide eyes as both Hope and River continued to remove pieces of clothing.

"They don't even realise what they're doing because it hasn't happened in so long…" Nim uttered from the other side of Josie, her eyes still aglow along with the rest. "But it's a Crescent tradition, especially between two true alphas. They'll fight for dominance in wolf form."

Nim had barely finished her sentence when there were suddenly, through the crack of bones and roaring of animalistic human sounds, two massive wolves standing in the middle of the gym – one white as snow, the other with a black-streaked gray coat.

Every single vampire in the room disappeared within seconds, leaving the witches and wolves to rally around the pair as they got ready to face off against each other.

Hope finally dug her front paws into the floor beneath her and catapulted herself towards the darker River. Once the fight had started it was an utter mess from beginning to end. There was not a second that went by without the scent of venom or a spray of blood. Fur was ripped from the one body and then the next, the floor beneath their paws littered with lost clumps of hair and further blood smears. One loud growl and bark matched another, and scattered in between the growling and the barking and the snarling were all the little whimpering, whining and yelping sounds of pain as the two wolves just about destroyed one another. There was no point at which it seemed like the one or the other would be the victor – just as Hope stood tall over River, the male would use his powerful body to reverse the position again, before Hope could slip out from under him and pin him back down once more. The tug was continuously back and forth, pain being dealt in equal and equally violent measures. By the 8th minute of intense fighting, both wolves were panting for air.

They were too evenly matched.

No, they weren't.

It was Hope.

She could do more, be more…

River circled Hope so that they could rotate their positions within the ring of people watching them. Purposefully.

He reached Josie and simply rubbed his body up against her as if wanting to mark her.

Josie stood frozen and shocked.

Hope… well, Hope.

Hope became murderous. Launching herself at River had never been easier; wrestling his large and clumsy body to the ground was a piece of cake; Pinning him down with his back to the floor was a cinch; and once she had her jaws firmly wrapped around his throat, he was yelping and whining for mercy. Hope was almost tempted to not give it to him.

No. One. Touched. Her. Mate.

Ever.

Hope finally pulled away once she was satisfied that she had fully subdued River and allowed him to lick the blood from her chin and snarling mouth as a show of respect. All the other wolves in the room moved in around the large white wolf and sunk down to their knees in a show of submission; both the Salvatores and the Crescents.

Hope realized what she had done then – not only had she taken down the alpha of one pack, but two. In one swoop she pushed her way to the top of the wolf hierarchy and manifested herself as alpha of both packs – now combining into one under her rule. As she stood tall and made eye contact with each of her pack members, a sort of undercurrent ran through the room; a ripple that affected every single wolf kneeling down in the room. One by one, as the original Salvatore members looked up towards their new alpha, their eyes were aglow. In becoming alpha – and more importantly by earning it the way she had – she was able to share her capabilities with the whole pack. Hope Mikaelson, in all of her powerful and mystical glory, was able to create a new pack of evolved werewolves within the blink of a golden eye.