Ascension by Kelley Armstrong

Instead, it seemed to give him something new to brag about, that his pupil had proven not only a vicious killer but a clever strategist. Although my original plan had only been to keep mutts away from Stonehaven, after hearing what I’d done, most mutts decided they’d better not take the chance of trespassing on any Pack wolf’s turf, just in case they’d misunderstood my message. So, by the time I was twenty, our sanctuary extended throughout Pack territory.
    As for the Alpha race, it was more of an Alpha crawl. Dominic had moved Jeremy into the role of advisor, and consulted him on every matter of Pack policy. This seemed a monumental step. An Alpha traditionally acted alone or, if he consulted anyone, he did it on the side, so no one knew—he certainly didn’t openly ask for opinions as Dominic now did with Jeremy. Yet it was all for show. Dominic might seek Jeremy’s advice, but certainly didn’t feel obligated to follow it, or even seriously consider it. As Malcolm had said years ago, Dominic was playing a game, slowly moving Jeremy into a leadership role, while holding fast to the reins of power. Jeremy knew this. He’d always known it. But he allowed it to happen because it put him into a position he might never attained otherwise—that of a serious Alpha contender.
     
    I finished my undergrad degree at twenty and, true to my word, went away to university for my graduate program. I went no farther than Columbia but, despite Dominic’s offer to come live with them, I stayed in residence, which satisfied Jeremy’s desire to have me experience life in the human world.
    The Pack changed little during those three years. Cliff Ward died. The summer before I went to Columbia, he was killed in a mutt fight. I mourned his passing even less than I had Gregory’s. He’d been a non-player, a sycophant of Malcolm’s with no power or position in the Pack. I knew I shouldn’t feel that way. Deep down, I wanted to see all my Pack brothers as just that— brothers . But the longer Dominic held power, the deeper the schism became between those who supported Jeremy and those who favored Malcolm, and I couldn’t help seeing Malcolm’s allies as future threats to Jeremy, which made them potential enemies.
    That fall, just after I’d started at Columbia, Dominic called a Pack meeting. It was just a regular meeting, and by now everyone knew better than to expect to him to announce that he was stepping down. Still, there was always hope. On Saturday afternoon, though, we held the meeting portion of the weekend, and he didn’t say a word about succession. In fact, he said very little of anything, just snapped a few instructions to Jeremy, then left him to supervise the meeting while he stormed off to nurse a headache.
    After the meeting, Nick raided the kitchen, and brought all the lunch leftovers into the sun-room, where Joey and I were basking in the heat of the September sun. As we ate, I talked about my newly discovered area of academic passion: anthropomorphic religion.
    "—then, if you move to Nubia, you have the god Arensnuphis, who’s depicted both as a lion and as a man wearing—."
    Nick yawned. "Is anyone else ready for a nap? I don’t know why, but suddenly, I’m just so tired."
    I lobbed a pillow at him. "Hey, this is important stuff. If you’d gone to college, you—"
    "Could be just as boring as you? Thanks, but no thanks."
    I grabbed an empty plate.
    Joey caught my hand. "Stick to pillows. Dominic’s in a bad enough mood as it is. As for lion-gods, as long as you find it interesting, Clay, that’s all that matters. So, are we going out tonight?"
    "Hunt," I said.
    "Bar," Nick said at the same time.
    Joey sighed. "Someone give me a quarter and we’ll flip for it."
    "Uh-uh," I said. "He can go to a bar and pick up girls any time. Hell, he does it every night of the week—"
    "Every night?" Nick said. "Like hell. I don’t need to pick up girls any night of the week. Just open my book and dial a number