“No, but I know someone who might be willing to help us, if she will.” Trey pulled his phone out of his pocket and stood up. “Give me a minute. If I had known what we were going to be discussing ahead of time I would have checked on the possibility sooner.” With that Trey walked outside.
While he was gone the others talked over various ways of increasing security, but without knowing exactly what they could be facing they found it difficult to plan. After about ten minutes they heard footsteps and voices just before the door opened. Marcus realized who was with Trey seconds before they entered the room, just in time to call out for him to stop.
Trey, confused, stuck his head in the door and looked at Marcus.
Marcus however had turned to Trevor and was explaining Casey and her place in their packs. Trevor did not seem to be accepting the situation well.
Trey stayed in the doorway until Trevor gave in to the inevitable. For some reason these men felt a responsibility to not only the hybrid in Marcus’ pack, but to a witch with no ties to the packs at all. Trevor had already made escape plans with the back door mapped out in his head. He might not know how he would get back to the airport but at the tiniest suspicious move from the witch waiting outside with Trey, he was determined to make tracks for home. Damn the bravery and fuck these crazy yanks. He had no desire to tangle with a witch again in this life or the next. Trevor had time to wish he had left days ago, when he first came in contact with the hybrid and found out what shit-can these people had opened up. But he chose to try to save them and in doing so possibly find mates for his females and he would stick it out. Unless shit hit the fan, at which time, well he warned them.
Chapter Ten
“That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. So you don’t know where you were, who was holding you, or anything? You won’t tell us your real name because Alice told you not to tell. You overheard someone say Gammon was a kill everyone don’t bother asking questions Alpha and suddenly you decided he should be the one you run to for safety? That is insane!” Stormie looked at the girl in disbelief.
“Are you saying Gammon is not to be trusted? Because I will tell you right now, I am going to his territory and you can’t talk me out of it.”
“Well, no, I will not try to talk you out of it. I spent most of my life in his compound. The Alpha we had before Trey was a nasty piece of work and my parents thought it better to send me away to Gammon’s for safety than keep me here. Being sent away sucks. I did not get to see my parents as often as I wanted. Gammon let them come visit but it wasn’t the same. He would not let my Alpha come up there. Well my former Alpha, you know, I don’t think he ever was my Alpha. I mean, think about it, I was not old enough to take the pack oath so I never gave him my oath and my parent’s oath didn’t bind me to him. He never, to my knowledge, even knew I existed. So I don’t think I can call him my former Alpha can I? Well, I must admit, I had not thought of that before. You know I have to say I am relieved to realize he was not my former Alpha. The only real Alpha I have every had was Trey. And he doesn’t really count because he is my brother so I would give him my loyalty even without the oath. I mean, I guess I would. Unless he was a bad Alpha, but he isn’t. Why don’t you want to stay in this pack? We have a few unmated females here already. You could stay with me and David. Well, you might not want to stay with us though, the house will be loud after the baby gets here. Did I tell you my due date is coming up soon? I am so excited. I hope I have a little girl.”
As Stormie rambled on Dawn’s eyes widened in disbelief. Holy hell did they keep the poor woman locked up with no one to talk to for days on end? It was like someone opened a floodgate. Dawn had attempted a couple of times to break into the conversation but Stormie never noticed. She was a bit hungry and was hoping Stormie would offer her some food or let her fix herself something, but she couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
Finally, when it was obvious Stormie was not going to stop talking Dawn held her hand up, “Food?”
“Oh my gosh, I am a terrible hostess. Oh god I hope I am better at taking care of a baby than taking care of company. And after David fed Alice I can’t believe I didn’t think about getting you something to eat. I am so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me. I have been having a rough time with the baby and I am feeling sick all the time and honestly I go from starving to hating the site of food and, oh wow, there I go again. I am sorry,” Stormie wailed before breaking into tears.
Dawn looked frantically around the room before reaching out and patting Stormie on the shoulder. If she had known the woman would cry just because she told her she was hungry she would have kept her mouth shut.
“Shhh it is okay. Just hormones going wonky on you. People expect pregnant females to forget things and get emotional. I am not mad, but if you lead me to the kitchen I can see about getting us some food. Maybe the baby will be willing to let you eat without getting sick.” Dawn, blissfully unaware Stormie was just being her normal self, was determined to get some food in both their stomachs. Hers because she was starving, and Stormie’s because, maybe if she had her mouth full Dawn would be able to question her about Gammon. In this Dawn was as wrong about Stormie as everyone else had always been and she would soon find out her mistake.
Chapter Eleven
“Wait wait hold on. You want me to what? No. Absolutely not. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. You don’t know what you are asking.”
“I do. I know exactly what we are asking. We are asking you, a witch, to help us, shifters against the clans. Now either you are clan in which case we are fucked already and these blokes don’t know it, or you are not clan. If you are not clan, which even you admit is an insult, then I don’t see why you aren’t willing to help us. Did you want to see my back again? Maybe you missed it the first time? That is what your precious clans do when someone goes against them. Now you tell me, are you on our side, or the clans? Because in case you weren’t paying attention the first time, you claim these packs as family which in my mind makes the clans just as much against you as they will be against these blokes here if Miranda comes calling. And you know she will if she finds out you people are mixing with our kind again. She forbade the clans to mate to shifters. I haven’t forgotten a single word from that day centuries ago. She cursed us into extinction and swore vengeance upon any shifter caught mating to a witch. She swore she would burn the territory to the ground and salt the earth from which we sprang if ever we thought to look upon her kind again, much less mate to one. Now, you need to tell us what you know, everything you know, about the clans and how we can keep Miranda and her hell born followers from coming after us and making good her threat.”
“You don’t understand. I am not clan. To you that only means I am not with Miranda and ones like her, but it means so much more. To not be clan is to be without family. To not be clan is to be banished from all family. To not be clan is to be, not powerless, but weakened. Clans draw power from each other. The larger the clan the more powerful each member. Miranda is the head of all the clans, not just one. I can’t give you information I don’t have. What knowledge I do have I am oath-bound to keep. My oath holds the secrets of the clans from all outsiders even as I myself am rejected from clan. To tell you what secrets I know is to cause unimaginable pain, possibly death. And to attempt to break the oath and still spill secrets of the clans would be the death of all I hold dear, which would by the way, be all most of you hold dear. You see, breaking the oath would send, it would, even this is skirting the edge of what I can say. You don’t want me to talk because my talk would bring the ones you seek to avoid.”
“Wait wait… back the fuck up. Repeat what you just said, the part about cursing us into extinction. You left that out before.” Gammon growled.
“I didn’t say anything of the sort Gammon, Do not put words in my,” Casey protested
“Not you, him. He said he has forgotten nothing Miranda said that day, but he never mentioned anything about being cursed into extinction. Is this the reason we have
so few females born? Did she actually put a curse on us to cause our extinction?” As Gammon growled out his questions to Trevor every head swung around to look at the man and everyone held their breath as they waited for his reply.
Trevor, eyes wide, sat down heavily in the chair he had just vacated. “Oh shit, I never connected the two.” He stared blindly ahead as he thought furiously to recall the exact words of Miranda from so long ago. While it was true he remembered every word, he had never realized a curse from one such as Miranda could be genuine. Cursing someone was common, but curses did not turn into reality. Except, it seemed in this case it had. He swallowed hard and looked over at Casey.
His voice was barely above a whisper as he repeated some of the words from so long ago, Your kind does not deserve females you can not keep safe, a curse upon you. Where safety is not to found your kind will wither and die. No one will mourn the loss of a race so devoid of honor and courage. And safety is this world will be hard to find for ones such as you.
No one spoke when Trevor was done. Casey was nodding her head, but if anyone was paying attention they didn’t say anything. Finally William looked over at Gammon and snorted, “The decades the council has spent trying to figure out why the only packs having females were the ones who were the most protective, the most territorial and we finally find out the entire race was cursed. Sounds like the only way to beat the curse is to keep doing what we have been doing, protecting the females with every resource we can muster.”
“I don’t know. If the curse if broken and we can remember witches then who is to say the curse on our race has not been broken. It may take a few years to find out if this is true but we should know in a decade at most right?” Trey looked around the room at the others.
Before anyone could comment Casey started singing in an off-key voice, “One of these things is not like the other,” While holding up two coasters, two entirely different colored coasters.
Trevor looked at Marcus with raised eyebrows, Marcus tilted his head to the side before turning back toward Trey with his eyebrows raised. Soon everyone was looking, not at Casey, who was picking up various items and singing the same phrase over and over, but at Trey who had brought the witch into the meeting. Trey knew Casey better than any other at the meeting but even he was at first confused.
“Well shit. Okay well that’s out.” Trey muttered.
“What is that and why is it out. Do you and Casey have some secret language we should have studied up on before coming into this meeting. Cause I gotta tell you bro, I did not get the memo.”
“Dammit Jaden, quit calling me bro.” Trey snarled. He looked at Casey who was still holding up two different objects but had, fortunately for the shifter hearing, quit singing. He nodded at her and she replaced the beer bottle and the coaster on the table in front of her with a slight smirk. “Casey said she can not tell us secrets right? But she had no problem telling us the beer bottle and the coaster she just replaced are not the same.”
“Oh for fucks sake mate, any fool can see they are not, oh shit, well hell.” Trevor leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He reached up and massaged the bridge of his nose. The other men in the room looked at him then back to Trey and again toward Trevor.
Gammon was the first of the others to catch on, “Well shit, one curse has nothing to do with the other curse. Kate broke the curse of remembrance by mating into a shifter pack but the mating does nothing to break the curse of extinction. I still want to know why her parents mating did not break the curse.”
“I wonder how long this beer has been in this bottle?” Casey’s idle question caused every head to turn her direction before all eyes turned to Trey again.
Trey shifted his eyes left and right before looking up at the ceiling. When he brought his head back down he looked around the room, with the exception of Trevor everyone’s eyes were on him. He shrugged his shoulders, “I got nothing.”
“Do you mean to tell me we have to sit here and play twenty-questions to get answers that may change the future of our fucking race?” Gammon looked at Marcus, “How much beer do you have cause I suck at games so we may be here awhile.”
Marcus rubbed his hand across his face before looking at Jaden who shrugged. “We don’t have much choice do we?”
“Not your pack here, if you have a plan you might want to let the rest of us know. What do we not have much choice about.” William demanded.
Jaden, after looking once more at his brother who nodded, said, “Craig is the best we have at figuring out cryptic shit. I don’t think we have much choice if we want to get to the bottom of the situation as quickly as we can. We need answers Casey can’t give us. Craig can figure out shit that people didn’t say.”
“Sometimes boxes should stay where they are.”
Trevor opened his eyes and looked at Casey before reaching for his beer. “Yeah mate, I vote on this Craig person and, do you happen to have anything stronger than beer?”
“Well shit, you may vote Craig, but Casey here just vetoed Craig. Jaden, who do we have almost as good as Craig at figuring out cryptic shit?”
“How the fuck did you get a veto for Craig from boxes staying put? What bloody farce have I walked into here? Where the hell is the whiskey?” Trevor stood up and headed for the kitchen opening and closing cabinets. Everyone could hear him muttering in the kitchen about witches being the curse of civilization and the lack of whiskey being the curse of Marcus’ pack.
William looked toward the kitchen before looking back at the others. “I am with Trevor, how did you get a veto from a statement about boxes?”
Gammon started laughing first, soon everyone but Trevor, William and Edward were holding their stomachs as they each tried to tell the story of Craig waking up beside his mate for the first time.
“If you pour the whiskey in the glass it will be the same whiskey you have in the bottle.” Casey pointed toward the bottle Trevor was holding.
“Well no shit, of course it will be the, no, Marcus mate, do something. I got not fucking clue what she is saying about the whiskey. But I am assuming she isn’t talking about whiskey.”
Marcus shrugged, “I got nothing.”
But Jules, who had listened quietly to the entire conversation, spoke up. “I think I understand.”
“Well don’t just sit there, I mean, well fuck, you know what I meant,” Trey broke off as he realized in his frustration he had just told his wheel-chair bound grandfather by mating not to sit. He scrubbed his hand over his face. His outburst said something about how aggravated he was, in all the years Jules had been a member of his pack he had never made such a callous statement to the man.
“Yeah son, I know, don’t worry about it. It would take more than a slip of the tongue to ruffle my feathers. Now pay attention and you may learn something. Gammon wondered why Kate’s parents mating did not break the curse and Casey wondered how long the beer had been in the bottle. So how long have the beer and the bottle been together? How long have Kate’s parents been mated? Would seem to me if they were mated before the curse.” Jules stopped as he saw realization on the faces of the others. He noticed Casey nodding her head.
“I don’t know. I never asked them. Didn’t seem to matter much how long they had been a couple when they applied to join my pack.” Marcus pointed out.
“Fine, but what the hell does any of that have to do with my whiskey?”
“It isn’t your whiskey, it is my whiskey. You could offer some to the rest of us. Looks like we might be needing it.”
“The hell you say mate, you can speak to any of your pack at any time and have them drop a bottle or two off on the steps outside. I on the other hand, have only the one bottle if you don’t call for more and no way to get more at this moment. You are going to have to forgive me if I don’t offer to share. I notice you didn’t offer to find me any earlier.”
“We could sit here till the cows come home and nothing would ever change.”
Gammon glared at Casey, looked at
Trevor then turned to Marcus, “I agree with the man, you are gonna need to get us some more whiskey. And you young lady, or old, shit, whichever, you need to let us figure out one clue before you move on to the next one.”
Casey shrugged, “The whiskey stays the same no matter what you put it in,”
Everyone turned to look at Jules. He shook his head, “Don’t look at me, to quote Marcus, ‘I got nothing’.”
Edward, who had not had much to say suddenly muttered something causing all eyes to turn toward him.
Trevor snorted, “You know we don’t speak Russian, English mate, English.”
“He said blood.” Gammon narrowed his eyes, and stared at his brother before a slow smile spread across his face, “of course, that makes sense, I think.”
He turned to look at the others and nodded in Casey’s direction. All eyes turned toward Casey before turning back to Gammon when he started to explain. Before he had gotten too far in his explanation all eyes were again on Casey, who was nodding her head with a smile on her face.
“Well shit. That explains so much. If that is what we are facing then for now I say we concentrate on something we can change. We have several females to rescue and I have an entire team ready to start once we nail down the details. We can get others working on ways we can stay off the clan’s radar. Trey, Jamie let me know your friends arrived a bit ago and are in the meeting hall waiting on us.
Gammon’s gaze narrowed on Trey. “What friends?”
Chapter Twelve
Dawn sat at the table eating her sandwich while she stared in fascination at Stormie. She had made exactly three attempts to ask a question about Gammon and his pack and failed three times to get the entire question out. No one could possibly talk as long and as much as the woman in front of her. The oddest part, in Dawn’s mind, wasn’t that the woman could talk so much. Dawn had ceased to believe the woman was real halfway through her sandwich, now she was trying to figure out how the robotics company the pack owned made such a life-like robot. The thing was even eating, or pretending to eat. The company had a winner with this thing, but the programming needed some work. The robot looked real, smelled like a shifter, and was eating actual food. As a decoy to stop someone from finding out any information about the pack or the shifter world in general this robot was top-notch. Dawn had a moment of worry about the disappearance of Alice, but only a moment. If Alice was with a robot also she had probably reprogrammed it by now, or shut it off. Dawn was betting on the reprogramming. Alice at this very moment had undoubtedly taken over the robot assigned to her and made it her personal servant.
Dawn Page 6