Freya's Founding: Book 2 of the Winging It Series

by Sonja Bair

  “But I have encouraged these people to cease their power plays and look deeper. Perhaps using our resources for others’ benefit, no strings attached, we could strengthen our power in other indirect ways, which are not immediately obvious. We, as Elders, must put aside our own agendas and truly help others, be it our species or another. This I firmly believe. And in the end, to use an idiom from your language, perhaps we can catch more flies with carrots than sticks.”

  My profound relief at his words obliterated the niggle-y little desire to correct his saying. He could slaughter the language all he wanted if he was willing to be open-minded. Trying not to be obvious, I scanned the faces of the werewolves. They were still tense, but the hostility seemed to have dissipated some.

  Viktor continued, his voice smooth and calm. “And perhaps this same attitude can be used with Freya herself. She is an outsider to your werewolf world, and yet has become part of it whether you like it or not. You could see her as a threat to your way of life or you could consider her an unexpected resource whose purpose may not be clear at first, but may work to your advantage, long-term.” He paused, looked me up and down, and then finished. “So this does not answer your question about the problems the werewolf packs are facing, but it is the best advice I could think when put on the spot. It also appears that there was a miscommunication about the timing of our arrival. We shall leave you to your business and will return for the dinner scheduled later tonight as originally planned.”

  A miscommunication about timing? I pondered as the Elders exited the room. How was that possible? I personally had delivered schedules to each Elder at the hotel, and nowhere on the schedule was this werewolf meeting listed. They shouldn’t have known about it. I shook my head slightly in confusion and glanced at David. Judging by the wrinkle between his eyebrows, he too was perplexed.

  Even before the Elders left the room, Amir and Julia returned to the podium up front. As the door shut, an almost inaudible sigh passed around the room and the stress in the air ratcheted down a few degrees. People started to shift in their seats and small conversations erupted. Amir tried in vain to regroup and gather everyone’s attention, but the energy of the room no longer matched the ability to sit quietly and listen. Amir gave up and announced a ten-minute break.

  Pushing my chair back, I told David that I wanted to grab the Elders before they left. Their comment about wrong timing still rattled around my brain—I needed to clear up what exactly had happened. Walking as fast as was possible while still maintaining a degree of decorum, I exited the meeting room, only to be greeted by red taillights disappearing down the road.

  Chapter 15

  “Great. Now the miscommunication lives on,” I said crossly into the still, hot afternoon air.

  “It didn’t go as badly as it could have,” a voice said softly behind me. “From what I hear, your species doesn’t discuss as much as demand.”

  Jerry stood behind me, cigarette between his fingers. He watched me intently, one eyebrow cocked up.

  “Our Elders have gotten a reputation for sticking their nose in other people’s business and pretending to know what is best for everyone.” I shrugged. “Some of that reputation is earned, some of it is only reputation. When you are the strongest power around, it’s easy to forget that strong doesn’t always equal wisest.”

  “And sometimes it’s good to have a police force around to clean up people’s problems whether they like it or not. Being the police isn’t always a fun job. It’s easy to call foul on them, but in the end, someone has to do the dirty work.” Jerry drew deep from the cigarette.

  “You realize that most people would consider you to be the problem that needed to be cleaned up.”

  Jerry didn’t reply at first. He just continued smoking, exhaling long, thin streams of smoke. When the cigarette had burned half away, he replied, “I never used to smoke. Nasty habit. But when things started going downhill, I needed some sort of outlet. Cigarettes calmed me down. And I figured that I was going to die long before lung cancer would get me, so what the hell. Do you smoke?”

  I shook my head.

  “Didn’t think so; figured you were a good girl. Always trying to get people to behave and like each other. Always trying to fix other people’s problems. And I’ll bet it probably works most of the time, too. But I’ll let you in on a little secret, Freya. Sometimes the problem can’t be solved. Sometimes it simply needs to be wiped away.” Jerry dropped his cigarette and crushed it out under his foot. “Sounds like the meeting is starting again. Shall we go in?”

  I didn’t answer him. A fleck of motion way down the road caught my eye. Sunlight glinted off metal, making it hard to see, but like a mother can pick out her kid all the way across a crowded room, I could spot my car from miles away. And seeing as I was the sole owner and driver of the Eagle, it was concerning that it was out and headed our way.

  “Go on in without me,” I said absently. Jerry shrugged and left.

  The glare off the windshield made it impossible to see inside, but I had a strong suspicion about who was driving. The guess was confirmed as Gina swung open the door and jumped out.

  “I know I’m not supposed to be around right now,” she said in a rush. “But I felt I had to be here. Something deep in my gut told me that I had to show up. I tried ignoring it, but the feeling only got stronger. Please, Freya, I need to be in the meeting.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “Absolutely not. Your parents were going to kill you before you came to SLO and when I saw them in Colorado, they hadn’t changed their mind.”

  “My brother is here, isn’t he?” Her eyes were wide and she was shaking with emotion.

  “I talked with your brother and I think I convinced him to meet with you privately. You need to leave now, before anyone sees you.”

  Gina took two deep breaths and squeezed her eyes closed. I stepped forward to guide her back to the car, but before I could get there, her eyes flew open and she jumped into a sprint toward the entrance. Her shirt slid through my reaching hands and she slipped past me. She reached the entrance well before I did, but then stopped abruptly and turned back to me.

  “I’m sorry, Freya. I know you are trying to help me, but I need to help the werewolves.” And she dashed through the partially opened door.

  Images of Gina being torn apart by a pack of angry werewolves flooded my head. I grabbed the handle and jerked the door back open, ready to fight off any attackers. But I didn’t need to. David had already sprang into action. Gina was against a wall, tucked behind his back. Amir and Julia were poised in front of him, ready to ambush their own daughter. No one said a word, but the air was so thick, it was hard to breathe.

  The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Somewhere far away, a car honked. But no other noise invaded the stillness.

  Muscles still tensed and eyes never leaving Gina’s parents, David was the first to break the silence. “She will leave and you will let her go.” His voice was heavy with authority.

  “She was already given that chance. She didn’t listen.”

  “I won’t leave. I need to be here.”

  Julia and Gina’s simultaneous shouts clashed violently against each other.

  I stepped next to David to address the Denver Alphas. “You gave Gina to us. She is part of our pack now and is under our protection. She will go, and you will let her go.”

  “She needs to be destroyed or she will destroy us all,” Julia hissed.

  “I haven’t heard good reasons for that yet,” I said.

  “Enough of this,” growled Amir and swung his fist at David.

  David dodged the attack, but his attention was divided between avoiding Amir and holding back Gina, who was struggling to break free. I pushed behind David and grabbed Gina’s arm. Gina tried to wrench out of my grip, but I was holding with all my strength. Instead of shaking herself loose, she just managed to spin us around so she was facing the room. While I was restraining her, she shouted past me to the rest of the werewolves, who were wat
ching the spectacle wide-eyed.

  “Our problems won’t be solved by wringing our hands and crying. We need to act. We need to reach down inside of ourselves, find the corruption, and rip it out. And I need to be here. I don’t know why, but I know that my brother and I are part of the solution. Don’t listen to the lies Amir and Julia are telling you.”

  Julia jumped at her daughter, and there was murder in her eyes. I panicked for a moment. I didn’t know how to fight and I didn’t want to fight, but Julia was coming at us whether I liked it or not. I pivoted and braced for impact, hoping to take the brunt of her attack at my back and protect Gina from the first assault. My twist threw off Julia’s plan to grab Gina, and instead she tripped into me. All three of us fell to the floor, Julia on top of me and Gina a few feet away. I came down hard on the side of my head and my vision blackened for a second.

  Lying motionless on the floor, I drew in a deep breath, trying to focus, but cobwebs had grown in my brain. I didn’t get any more time to recover because Julia reached out and grabbed a chunk of my hair and pulled. The wrenching pain in my scalp caused my head to jerk back awkwardly, but it also ripped away the cobwebs in my brain. I pushed myself up and onto my butt, causing Julia to fall off my back and let go of my hair. Pivoting to face Julia, I readied myself to start fighting back, but she was quicker.

  Almost in slow motion, I saw her fist plowing straight toward my face. I reeled back but couldn’t get away fast enough. Her fist landed on the side of my eye socket, causing the tears that had been lingering to instantly burst free. Shockingly, I felt no pain at the moment of contact, so I leaned forward and swung back at her, using the only trick that would come to mind—which, embarrassingly enough, was learned from Victorian-themed romance novels. I cupped both hands and smacked them over her ears. Julia collapsed to the floor, clutching the sides of her head and moaning. Crap—it worked.

  Fearing that I actually had damaged her hearing, I knelt down to help her up but then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a gray blur heading my way. In the next half-second, the blur crossed the entire room and leapt at me, opening its wide mouth to aim shiny white, pointy teeth at my neck. Instinctually, my hands flew to my face to protect myself and braced for impact.

  It never came.

  David, appearing out of nowhere, grabbed the werewolf midair around the torso and tackled him to the floor. In less than ten seconds, David had secured the werewolf’s legs and pinned him to the ground, placing his knee over the wolf’s neck. The wolf struggled to free his legs and raise his head, but after only a few violent efforts, quieted down. His lips, however, were still curled back and twitching, each twitch revealing his very long, very sharp canine teeth.

  I took a deep breath and glanced up and around the room. A tuft of gray fur lingered in the air where the werewolf had been a second ago, then gently started to drift to the ground. Julia was still clutching her ears, but was gradually sitting up. Gina wasn’t around. I turned back to David.

  “What are you going to do with Amir now?” I asked, motioning to the softly growling werewolf beneath his knee.

  He looked up at me and shook his head. “This isn’t Amir. Amir is lying in the corner over there, knocked out cold. This is Jerry.”

  “Jerry? But why would Jerry attack me?”

  “Because this isn’t our Jerry,” said a harsh female voice behind me. “This is what has been destroying Jerry over the last few weeks.”

  Carole, Jerry’s Alpha, knelt next to David. The restrained werewolf started to tremble, then broke out in full shakes. His eye jerked in Carole’s direction and then rolled slightly toward the back of his head. Carole leaned over and spoke softly into his ear. I couldn’t hear what she said, but the effect of her words was immediate. Jerry’s eye rolled further back until the large canine iris nearly disappeared and only white was showing. His body went limp.

  David cautiously lifted his knee off the now-unconscious wolf’s neck and stood. Carole’s shoulders stiffened and she turned her back so she faced away from the rest of the room. I could only barely hear what she murmured under her breath to David.

  “Thank you. It would have been in your rights to have reacted differently. Your action is appreciated.”

  David acknowledged her comment with a nearly imperceptible nod and then turned to me.

  “Where’s Gina?”

  I turned to face the room, scanning each table. She was nowhere to be seen, and the room was much emptier now than before she entered. My stomach dropped. David must have come to the same conclusion at the same time and hearing a loud voice outside, we both raced to the door opposite where we stood, and threw it open. But instead of seeing Gina being crushed under an angry mob, I spotted her standing on a metal chair, addressing a highly attentive crowd gathered around her.

  “...and these flames burned within the people, unseen by those closest to them.” Her voice was deeper and more compelling than I had ever heard before. It swept far out over the silent vineyard.

  “The flames would grow until they would consume the people and burn them to the ground. These visions started right before we started to have werewolves lose it, and they have haunted me ever since. I may not have the answer to our problem right now, but I have had the dreams predicting them. My former Alphas, my parents, would not listen to me, would not listen to my visions. But I believe the time has come for us to take a new path and I, for one, am willing to explore any path that may lead us to overcome our problems.”

  Gina spread her arms wide to include all the werewolves standing around her.

  “Is there anyone else here who would join me to try anything, something even as crazy as listening to a dream, to save our kind?”

  The crowd remained silent and no one moved. I was starting to think that Gina hadn’t convinced anyone to listen to her when there was a movement in the crowd. Rex pushed to the front and stood before her chair, facing the crowd.

  “My sister has always had a heart for our species. Of any werewolf I have ever known, she is the most loyal. I allowed my parents to push her out of our house and disown her for her visions, but I was mistaken. I stand by my twin and support her. If these visions mean something, we will discover it. We ask for your help as well.”

  This time, the silence didn’t last long. Throughout the small crowd, people started to add their support. Not many sounded convinced that this was the solution to the problem, but they sounded willing to give Gina and Rex a chance.

  Gina jumped down from her chair and hugged her brother long and hard. She then walked into the crowd, talking with individual werewolves. I exhaled raggedly. Having secured the help and support of many of the Alphas and other werewolves, Gina had saved herself from the vendetta that her parents had against her. Amir and Julia were going to have a fit about Gina being involved in this meeting, but they didn’t have a choice now.

  David’s arm fell around my shoulder. I looked up at him.

  “Are werewolf meetings always this chaotic?” I asked.

  “Always. And you should see when we get together for a party—it’s worse.”

  “Then leave me off the guest list. This was enough crazy to last me for a few years. And we haven’t even gotten to dinner yet. That’s the part I’m worried about.”

  “I’m not worried about it anymore. Viktor did a convincing job of both saying he had no intention of messing around too much with the werewolves and that your presence here might be a good thing.”

  “Yes, but that was only Viktor and only what he said. I’m worried about what the rest of the Elders will say and what they’ll actually do.”

  He dropped a quick kiss on the top of my head. “You are a worrier. Have faith.”

  “Faith in what?” I asked.

  “Faith that everything works out. Because it does and it will.”

  Gina interrupted me before I could point out the flaws in his logic. Her face was lit up in a smile which stretched from ear to ear, and her eyes were twinkling. I had never s
een her look this positive before.

  “Sorry about busting in on the meeting like I did—I probably gave you guys a heart attack. But the good news is that I have been invited to stay for the meetings.”

  “I know. But that was a pretty risky way to get an invite,” I replied.

  “It worked, didn’t it? And my brother is talking to me again. Hey, Freya, did my mom punch you in the eye?” She leaned in closer and surveyed my face. “It looks like the right side of your head is about four times as big as the left.”

  I groaned and gently touched my face. Yup, it was imitating a water balloon about to explode.

  “We have enough time for you to go home and ice your eye before dinner. It’ll feel a lot better if we do,” David said.

  I groaned again. “It wasn’t hurting until you mentioned it. Now my face is throbbing.”

  “Adrenaline keeps it from hurting at first, but it’s probably going to ache pretty bad for a while.”

  “You say that like someone who has had a lot of punches in the face.”

  “I have. Most of them by overly amorous women I have had to defend myself from.”

  I groaned for a third time and allowed him to guide me to the car.

  Chapter 16

  Tomorrow I was signing up for fighting lessons. Never once before I moved to SLO had I ever gotten into a physical fight with someone, but over the last few months, I had gotten in more brawls than I thought possible. The bag of frozen peas over my eye numbed some of the pain, but my whole face still throbbed and I was positive that even with the quick healing that came from being a supernatural, I would have a big black eye tomorrow. Wallowing alone in pity had lasted only a few minutes before David slipped into my room.

  “I’ve heard steaks do a great job in treating black eyes,” he said.

  “Ugghh, a big piece of raw meat on my face sounds like one of the world’s worst ideas.”

  “I never did it myself—grilling the steak and eating it always sounded better.” I felt the mattress sink down as he sat next to me. “I hope that this is obvious, but I feel horrible that you got hurt.”