by Christa Wick
"Why do you have snacks on you? You didn't grab anything from the cabin other than the guns."
"Felt like a walk when I got up," he answered, his voice far away even though I could have leaned over and stretched out my arm to touch him.
He'd planned on escaping me this morning, if only for a few hours, probably to think things through after our argument the night before. The day had brought him yet another reason why he never should have hooked up with me in the first place.
I punched the straw into the juice pack, took a sip and leaned my head back against the concrete block, closing my eyes to keep from crying.
"How do you think this is going to go down?"
"How do you want it to go down?" he asked in reply.
"I don't want anyone getting hurt because they tried to help me."
He snorted at that. "How many shifters in my pack do you think would put themselves in harm's way to protect you? Way they see it, you brought your pack into their valley."
There was no accusation in his voice, just cold hard facts.
"A pack is only as strong as its smaller units," he went on. "The mated pairs, the stronger friendships. Each of those units will think about their own well-being first. Mojo will protect his family, Braeden will protect Clover..."
Taron trailed off, took a long sip on his juice pouch then stood up. "That should be enough time that they'll have their privacy ahead of us."
"Yeah," I croaked, unable to hide the emotions coursing through me. Some stupid part of me had been hoping that he was going to finish with the promise to protect me, not because I wanted my sorry ass to survive this ordeal, but I wanted him to care about me that way -- more deeply than anyone since my gran, who had loved me even after the accident, all the way up until her death.
Somehow I had bought into all the stupid fairytales, all the dumb romances I had read from the human world were love transcended biology. But this was fact, not fiction. Taron had wanted me because I was in estrus, but I hadn't conceived. Now I was some "other bitch" and I had a ton of baggage.
Twenty feet ahead of me already, he stopped and turned. "You're not following..."
"Sorry, boss," I mumbled and pushed off from the wall.
He waited until I was within about five feet of where he stood and then he started up again. He covered the silence by giving me the guided tour, telling me about the limestone cavern we were in, how many miles of underground trails there were and how the pack, over time, had bought up all the land known to have an entrance.
"The caverns have fallen out of memory for the humans in Night Falls," he continued as he drew to a stop ahead of me. "So much so that none of them know how the town got its name."
I was about to ask him the origin of the name when I realized the growing sound I had been hearing while I concentrated on keeping my footing on the uneven, slick ground was fast moving water -- a lot of it.
He moved forward into a large chamber, the volume of the rushing water growing louder. Again, he stopped, this time waiting for me to catch all the way up, his hand holding the chem light above his head to shine more light around.
"Night Falls," I whispered, looking at the underground waterfall. With no opening to the outside to let any light in, all I could see was what our two chem lights illuminated.
"Wait here," he said and moved off to our left.
He stopped, his light showing a heavy metal trunk. He threw the lid back to reveal more chem lights. With a hard chuck, he threw the one he already had toward the falls then snapped half a dozen more, throwing all but the last into a pool of water fed by the falls.
We could have crossed the chamber without stopping, he didn't have to show me its beauty, but he had.
Why?
"We should wait a little longer," he said, taking a seat close to the pool. "Clover's constant talking will have slowed them down."
"Sure," I agreed, my mind busy with analyzing the area he had chosen to sit. A few feet away was a wider swatch, one on which we both could have sat. But he had parked his ass on a spot that would accommodate just one body.
I chose to stay on my feet, moving around the edge of the pool and watching the play of water over the chem lights at the bottom.
"Your father said he wouldn't hurt you," Taron said after a few minutes had passed. "Do you believe him?"
"Yes," I answered. "For now, he's decided I'm his best chance at a proper legacy."
What I left out of my answer was that my father wouldn't necessarily protect me and that my brother's hate would most likely grow now that I was healed. I would survive the ride out of Night Falls, but every day after that would be one big question mark for me on whether it was the day Eric went totally off the deep end and tried to kill me.
I stopped my climbing and stared at Taron, my throat tightening around the words I wanted to release. I wished he had showed me the falls earlier, in those first few days. It would have made for a beautiful memory.
But he hadn't and I could guess why -- this was the sole domain of the Night Falls pack, their safe place in time of danger. And I wasn't one of them.
"They're probably far ahead of us again," I offered, wanting to leave this place of quiet beauty before my heart broke entirely.
Pushing onto his feet, he seemed to take a few seconds to get his bearings and then he headed in the direction of the chamber's south east quadrant. I followed, my footsteps falling slower and slower as the sound of water was replaced with the voices of more than just Braeden and Clover ahead of us.
********************
Entering a much larger chamber filled with portable lighting, I saw Braeden and Clover. They had a small cluster of shifters around them, all either female or their offspring. Mojo's wife was there with their little girl, her arms locked tight around a rag doll.
Everyone turned in my direction at once, their gazes bouncing between me and Taron.
Mojo's wife was the first to speak.
"Why are we waiting for after sunset for Church? We need to be discussing this now -- the whole pack."
"It looked like you were discussing it, Lara," Taron answered as he navigated me toward a small alcove. "If we all go down the rabbit hole at the same time, we can't hope to keep this place secret."
"You really think it's still a secret?" Lara asked, her eyes cutting sharply in my direction.
"I didn't know about it before today," I snarled. "You've got more to worry about from those in your pack who'll sell out the location to save their own skins."
"She's right," Clover said, leaving the group of women and coming over to the alcove Taron had corralled me into.
She took a seat next to me on the bench someone had carved out of the wall. I could see the trace of tears on her cheeks and smell their salt. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
We were almost the same age, but she was really years younger, having grown up without all the restrictions of a traditional pack and with a strong brother who cared deeply for her. She wasn't jaded and fear hadn't aged her.
Turning my head, I pressed a kiss against her temple. Sniffling, she wiped at her nose then spoke to me in a low whisper. "They aren't thinking straight right now. They're scared shitless."
So was I, but if the illusion that I wasn't helped her, I wouldn't take that away.
"They're right that my father and the other leaders wouldn't be here with their men if they hadn't come looking for me." I squeezed her shoulder and hugged her a little tighter to me.
"It's perfectly understandable that some of them want to...well, throw me to the wolves."
She looked up, her green eyes dark with worry. "What's your plan?"
"To buy you all as much time as possible."
It was a goal, really. I hadn't come up with a plan on how I was going to actually do that. Maybe I could undertake a one-wolf insurgency on the trip back. Would killing my father, or Marcus or Constantine, delay the attack on Night Falls or accelerate it? What if I managed to kill all three of them? Coul
d I make it look like they had taken each other out and start a war between the Champaign factions instead of them descending en masse on the families in Night Falls?
Was it wrong to want to send one set of children to their graves to save another, smaller set?
Air drained slowly from my lungs and past my lips. Clover threw her arms around my waist. After a few seconds, she laughed.
"I should have been less picky," she murmured.
Hearing the humor in her voice, I laughed and asked what she meant.
"I mean," she whispered, "I should have fucked a few more guys. I shouldn't have cared they weren't mate material. If they were hot and willing and not a walking train wreck, I should have jumped their bones."
"Yeah," I laughed back, my gaze searching the chamber for Taron.
He stood at the opposite side deep in conversation with Braeden. Two other shifters were with them, both males that had arrived without my noticing. I scanned the rest of the underground room and saw that Mojo was there and busy comforting his wife.
"They have an opening under their barn and built a tunnel to their house," Clover volunteered then pointed her chin at the two shifters with her brother and Taron. "Same for Rooster and Clark -- well, under where they live. They didn't have to tunnel or anything."
A few seconds passed and then she nudged me with her elbow. I looked at her, expecting her to direct my attention to some new arrival, but she hooked my gaze and held it.
"What can you tell me about these other shifters?"
********************
Between my arrival at the underground chamber and sunset, a dozen more shifters drifted in. The rest followed Taron's orders and waited until it was safe to enter the forests and find the entrances that weren't covered by everyday shelters.
I passed the time answering Clover's questions, my thoughts drifting occasionally as I searched the room for Taron's location. It was never in the same place. He moved from newcomer to newcomer and talked with each one at depth.
Not once did he come over to talk to me.
I'd fallen hard for someone who was more or less a replica of my father -- pack before family. It was weird, then, that Taron cynically expected everyone to put family before pack in deciding how to act.
"I suppose it's better for you that you haven't conceived," Clover said, catching the direction of my gaze.
I shrugged. It was hard to imagine my situation worse. But the lack of a cub in my womb probably made things easier on Taron and some stupid part of me was glad for that even if the reality of the situation was that he meant far more to me than I did to him.
"Fuck," Clover whispered under her breath, her hand discreetly gesturing off to the right of the alcove where five males had just emerged from the tunnels. "I was hoping that asshole had tucked tail and run. He's got no one keeping him here."
The asshole in question was Mallory. With him were Axel and what I guessed were the three little shits who had chased me through the woods.
One of the younger males glanced in my direction, the instant flushing of his cheeks confirming my suspicion.
"Well, that's one voting block that's not in our favor," Clover quipped.
I looked at her, a smile playing at my lips despite the sinking feeling in my stomach. My expression sobering, she looked away.
"Look," I said, leaning closer to her. "I want you to forget about me. Like I told Taron, I'll make it out of Night Falls alive. You have to think about how you and Braeden are going to escape."
She shook her head but didn't voice her disagreement.
"Looks like everyone is here," she said a few minutes later as a small band that appeared to be made up of two families came in. "Which probably means all hell is going to break loose until Taron can get them to shut up."
With the volume of noise already high enough to make the walls of the chamber vibrate, I didn't think shutting them up would be possible any time soon. Throughout my conversation with Clover, telling her about the different factions in Champaign and about city shifters in general, I had overheard snippets of the discord that permeated the room.
Only a few shifters had vocalized support of letting me stay with the pack instead of turning me over to my father if that was what I wanted. Mallory had suggested seeing how much time could be bought by parceling me over to my father limb-by-limb.
That kind of conversation was picking up now that we had a full house.
Taron gave everyone who wanted it a turn at saying their peace. A lot of fingers pointed at me, so many I felt Clover start to shrink.
"You don't have to sit over here," I whispered to her as a shoving match broke out between Mojo and Axel.
"I'll get up when it's my turn to talk -- once all these blowhards have exhausted themselves and people are ready to listen to a little reason."
I gave her a grateful shoulder bump. In the center of the room, Braeden had broken up Axel and Mojo and the latter was speaking about how the pack needed to stick together. He was also in favor of offering me protection. When the boos and howls broke out at the suggestion, he deflected it with reason. I knew the vulnerabilities of each side, he offered. Then he asked if they wanted an alpha of my strength sitting on the sidelines or fighting for Night Falls?
Heads swiveled in my direction again, a whisper surfing the crowd.
Will she fight for us?
If they had actually dared to ask me, I would have told them -- I was willing to fight and die for my friends.
The real question was, who beyond the young she-wolf sitting next to me was my friend?
"My turn, I think," Clover quietly said as she stood up.
Despite Church being held for the whole pack, Clover was the first woman to speak and another murmur of discontent went up as she stopped in the center of the room. Braeden came and stood beside her, his hand resting against her back.
She looked up at him and smiled.
"You've all been talking about turning Onyx -- which is her name for all of you assholes who've been avoiding using it," she started, her cheeks burning red. "Turning her over is just stupid. Giving them what they want only buys the promise of a little time. And that's all it is -- a promise. They gave it after first saying no harm would come to anyone if we turned her over, but Onyx exposed their lie."
The whispers in the room began to lose their harsh edge.
"You've wasted a lot of fucking time and suggested a lot of horrific things!" She really had her fire up and I could see the guilty looking down at the ground instead of glaring at me or staring at their spunky little accuser.
"Are you willing to die for your friend, she-wolf?"
I didn't need to look for the speaker -- I'd been choking on Mallory's voice all night.
"Fucking right, I am," Clover shot back before sweeping her arm at a now silent audience. "But I'm pretty sure we'd all rather live and do it without looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives, however short a time that might be."
Every head bobbed in agreement except for Mallory's -- and Taron's.
His gaze was locked on me, his expression as unreadable as always.
"Look," she said, jabbing her finger in the direction of those who had called the loudest for turning me over, whether it was in one piece or many. "We're all afraid of these assholes from Illinois, but there's something that we're afraid of even more -- and those fuckers out there, threatening us right now, they're just as afraid of it as we are!"
Every set of ears in the room was trained on Clover at that second, waiting for her to reveal the ultimate monster. She looked at them, prodded them to find the answer with a shake of her head. At last she turned to Taron.
"Humans," he said. "The Illinois packs don't want a clustered massacre. Too high profile. They'd rather pick us off in small groups, might even already have the roads around Night Falls watched by kill crews...but..."
He stopped, the trail of bread crumbs she had laid out for all of us ultimately leading him just a few steps beyond where
she had left off.
I stood up but didn't move beyond the alcove. Still, my voice carried loud across the room.
"We threaten the other packs and prides with exposure to the human world."
Clover nodded, a grin stretching her mouth almost up to her ears. "More than that, we threaten to expose the truth we've all discovered here to the members of their packs. Let shifters across the country, even across the world know all the lies they've been fed about cross-breeding. They'll have to fight a mutiny from within."
"We should do that last part anyway," Mojo broke in. "But how could we really expose anything if we had to?"
Clover rolled her eyes at the elk's question then threw her hands up in dismay as no one seemed to understand.
"Guys, there's a reason it's called the world wide web."
********************
Clover's idea got everyone to stop arguing and start working on her plan, but it didn't stop the stink eyes being thrown my way or the occasional whisper that reached my ears before the pack finally disbursed to carry out the feisty beta's orders.
"We're walking a fine line," Taron said, deigning at last to speak to me now that most of his pack was winding their way through the caverns and couldn't see him consorting with the enemy.
"I think her idea's brilliant," I replied. "Especially the body cams broadcasting over a private server with the threat of it going live. The small amount of video we post to the public will be taken as a viral movie campaign with great special effects. But any real shifters who see it will recognize it as real."
I only wished Clover didn't want me to be her star actress in showing the transition to a shifter's alpha state. I was pretty sure she had some secondary motive in picking me, maybe to avoid exposing anyone in the pack or maybe to make my own pack more eager to leave me behind in Night Falls.
"It's fucking genius, really," I said before realizing the plan's creator was making a beeline for us.
Her face lit up and she gave Taron's arm a gentle punch as she stepped into the alcove. "You, pooh bear, should demote Mallory from Secretary of the Woodsmen and install me."