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won’t set aside the retribution I’m owed. I’ll use this opportunity to find those responsible for Charron’s death. When I act on that information, I won’t be held liable for the consequences. If that’s not acceptable to you, I’ll present your offer of an alliance, then I’ll go my own way.”
    “You will not.” Syre’s low tone held a wealth of warning. “I’ll support you, Vashti. You know that. But at this moment, the exigency of the vampire nation must come first.”
    “Fair enough.”
    He nodded. “The revolt began at the Navajo Lake outpost. Start in Utah. They can’t have gone far.”

C HAPTER 2
     
    “W e need to find out whether or not there are other Alphas.” Elijah glanced at the lycan who walked beside him, wondering at how easily Stephan had stepped into the role of his Beta.
    Instinct weighed heavily on everything they did as a fledgling pack, a truth that unsettled Elijah more than it soothed. He would prefer that their destinies be shaped by their own hands and not by the demon blood that flowed through their veins.
    But as he traversed the long stone hallway, the number of verdant gazes staring back at him was irrefutable proof of how dominant a lycan’s baser nature was. Every one of them had the luminous green irises of a mixed-bloodline creature. They lined the walls by the hundreds, staring as he passed them, forming a gauntlet through the red rock caves in southern Utah that he’d selected as his headquarters. They thought he was a damn messiah, the one lycan who could lead theminto a new age of independence. They didn’t realize that their expectations and hopes for freedom imprisoned him.
    “I’ve made it a top priority,” Stephan assured. “But half the lycans we send out don’t return.”
    “Perhaps they’re returning to the Sentinel fold. As far as quality of life goes, we had it better working for the angels.”
    “Is any price too high to pay for liberty?” Stephan asked. “We all know the Sentinels don’t stand a chance if we take the offensive. There are less than two hundred of them in existence. Our numbers are in the thousands.”
    The gentle prodding for Elijah to be proactive instead of reactive wasn’t lost on him. He could feel it in the air around him, the crackling energy of lycans ready and willing to hunt. “Not yet,” he said. “It’s not time.”
    An arm shot out and grabbed him. “What the fuck are you waiting for?”
    Elijah paused and turned, facing the brawny male whose eyes glowed in the shadows of the cave. The lycan was bristling and half shifted, his arms and neck covered in a grayish pelt.
    The beast in Elijah growled a warning, but he held it in check, a control that made him Alpha.
    “Are you challenging me, Nicodemus?” he asked with dangerous softness. He’d been waiting for this, had known it was coming. It would be only the first of many challenges until he established his dominance through physical prowess in addition to a lycan’s instinctive need to follow a leader.
    The lycan’s nostrils flared, his chest heaving as he fought against his beast. Lacking Elijah’s control, Nic would lose.
    Prying the man’s grip from his arm, Elijah said, “You know where to find me.”
    Then he turned his back to the challenge and walked away, deliberately baiting Nic’s beast. The sooner they got this over with the better.
    Nic had asked him what he was waiting for. He was waiting for cohesion, trust, loyalty—the cementing framework that would hold all the packs together. Greater numbers or not, there was no way they’d win against a tightly commanded elite military unit like the Sentinels if they didn’t work together.
    A female approached him at a near run, agitation radiating from her tense frame. “Alpha,” she greeted him, quickly introducing herself as Sarah. “You have a visitor. A vampire.”
    His brows rose. “
A
vampire? As in one?”
    “Yes. She asked for the Alpha.”
    Elijah’s curiosity was more than