Wolf's Cage

by Laura Taylor

  Caroline watched the proceedings with an odd sort of detachment. She had yet to officially accept the position, spending the day going over and over Baron’s words from last night, making a decision, only to find herself second guessing it five minutes later, and she must have changed her mind twenty times by now, each time thanks to a new reason that had suddenly popped into her head.

  The real problem, as far as Caroline saw it, was the question of what she would do if she turned the offer down.

  Last night, Baron had asked her what she really wanted in life. After nearly six years at the job, the role of alpha no longer scared her the way it once had. For all the pressure she placed on herself to do it well, she had become good at it. Not perfect – as Baron had said, they both still made mistakes – but good enough. Good enough to hold her Den together. Good enough to recruit new shifters and train them to be productive members of the team. Good enough to hold her own against Baron, to steer them through a crisis, to put up with the inevitable squabbling and in-fighting that popped up now and then.

  But the question of what she really wanted?

  That was a tough one, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because what she wanted had seemed for so long to be an unattainable goal. In her mind’s eye, the answer was clear. Herself. Andre. Her Den, all around her. A new family, to replace the old, hideous one that she’d abandoned all those years ago, the larger one that lived on the estate, and the private one that lived in her heart.

  But Andre had chosen another path. And that made all the rest of it seem hollow.

  Perhaps it was time she finally moved on from him, Caroline counselled herself gently. She’d wasted fifteen years longing for the impossible. She had a chance for a new start now. A boyfriend, maybe? It was a long time since she’d had one, but there were plenty of honest, respectable, reliable shifter males around. There was one in France whom she’d met on occasion, who had tried to flirt with her once or twice. One of the Ukrainians in Scotland had given her a smile and a wink, and if she’d been paying more attention, maybe it could have come to something.

  As either alpha or Councillor, a partner wasn’t out of the question. And going to Italy wasn’t abandoning her family here, Caroline reminded herself. It was just looking after them in a different way, a very important way that valued their lives just as much, even if she wasn’t here to see them every day.

  Eleanor’s voice cut through her musings, and she realised that the Den was ready to take the vote. “The affirmative vote will be to my left,” Eleanor announced loudly, holding out her hand to indicate the side of the patio, “and the negative vote will be to my right. Proceed.”

  There were seventeen shifters in the Den, sixteen who could place a vote, since Caroline didn’t get to vote for herself. Which meant she needed a majority of nine to seven to succeed. Anything less, even a draw of eight-eight, would be taken as a negative result. For all that it kept its democratic processes to a minimum, Il Trosa took its members seriously when it counted, and for a role as important as Councillor, no risks were going to be taken.

  She’d expected to be nervous about this. She expected her Den to vote honestly, not to place emphasis on personal loyalties or simper about for favours by giving their approval, but the prospect of being voted out by her own Den was a very real one, a terrifying denouncement of her skills as a leader. She’d led the Den to the best of her ability, not always being able to grant them what they would have desired, but always making decisions with their best interests in mind. And she’d expected to be standing here, shaking in her boots at this most definitive of judgements on her success or failure as an alpha.

  But instead, she felt only numb. She watched with no particular attention as the shifters moved, slowly, taking their time, giving the decision all the consideration it deserved. And when the last person had moved, had chosen a side and cast their vote… Caroline couldn’t help but stare in shock as her jaw dropped.

  It was unanimous. A unanimous vote in her favour. Caroline stared at the clustered group of people, unable to believe what she was seeing.

  “The vote is called,” Eleanor announced, a clear note of pride in her voice. “Sixteen for, none against. Caroline Saunders… Welcome to the Council.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Andre let himself into Eleanor’s room, having knocked on the door just moments ago, and he wasn’t surprised to see her hard at work, reviewing documents on her computer, typing notes next to some report or other.

  “Andre.” She smiled up at him, setting her work aside to give him her full attention. “What can I do for you?”

  Andre fingered the letter in his hand, typed clearly, folded neatly and nestled in a plain white envelope. “There’s something I need to discuss with you.” He handed her the envelope, noting the surprise on her face as she took it. “I’m formally seeking permission to resign from my service to the Council.”

  Eleanor stared at him, the sudden announcement completely unexpected. “Well. That’s certainly a surprise,” she said, glancing down at the envelope, but not opening it. “What brought this on?”

  Andre sighed and paced across the room. “It’s been a long time in coming,” he admitted. “The Council was surprised, right from the moment I made my choice to become an assassin. And rightly so. It’s not something I would have considered, but for the circumstances at the time. It’s been an honour to defend our species, but it’s not just shifters and the Noturatii being killed in the war. It’s innocent humans getting caught in the crossfire. Not just one or two, but dozens. Hundreds, if you add them all up over the years. And with things the way they stand, we currently run the risk of becoming the very thing we’ve always claimed to abhor – mindless killers willing to destroy anyone who puts us at risk. There may be honour in defending our species, but there is no honour in killing innocent bystanders to do it.”

  Eleanor nodded gravely. “This is a most serious request. I needn’t ask if you’ve thought it through – clearly you have – but it comes as quite a shock, nonetheless. I’ll speak to the Council about it. But if they approve your resignation… have you considered which Den you would like to join? Assuming one of them will accept you?”

  That was the next complication in Andre’s plan. He couldn’t join any Den without a vote being taken from its members, a majority needed to earn him a place in their ranks. And there were plenty of wolves out there who would be more than a little reluctant to have a former assassin living under their roof.

  “I thought perhaps the Den in France,” Andre replied, “if they’ll have me. I know some of the shifters there, and I speak French well enough.”

  “I had thought you might consider the Italian Den,” Eleanor suggested mildly.

  Andre shook his head. That was where he’d lived with his parents for so many years, and the memories, now soured by their deaths, made it an unpalatable option. At first, of course, he’d considered England. It had been his childhood home, after all, even if most of the shifters he’d known then were now dead. But the main draw card for England had been Caroline’s presence, and once she moved to Italy to join the Council, there was nothing left for him here.

  “I’ll put it to the Council tonight,” Eleanor promised. “I must say, though, I’ll miss you. And not just because we need every soldier we can get. You’re one of the best assassins in Il Trosa. But more than that… it has always been a pleasure working with you, Andre. You’re a true gentleman. I’m going to miss that.”

  Andre nodded, but didn’t return the sentiment. In truth, there was little about the nomadic life of killing and violence that he was going to miss.

  “There is one other issue I’d like to discuss with you,” he added, after a moment. “One that needs to be put to the Council, though I don’t expect they’re going to like it.”

  Eleanor raised one graceful eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “It concerns our strategies for fighting the Endless War.” Eleanor’s expression instantly turned gu
arded, and it was no surprise. It was a topic that had caused the Council no shortage of headaches in recent years, and Andre could only hope that his position as assassin would persuade them to take his suggestions seriously. “We’ve been fighting this war for centuries. And in the past, the tactics of keeping our heads down and staying as hidden as possible were sound. In the middle ages, the superstitions of the general public gave us little other choice, and since then, we’ve struggled to rebuild. We’ve grown our numbers to three thousand members, we’ve spread across Europe and into Russia, we’ve acquired land and significant wealth, and in this latest age of information, access to weapons and technology that we couldn’t have dreamed of in ages gone by.

  “But so have the Noturatii, and for the entire time I’ve been in your service, it’s been nothing but a tit-for-tat trade off. We kill one of them, they kill one of us. We buy new guns, they buy new grenades. They have more than three times the manpower that we do, and it is my fervent belief that if we continue fighting them on their terms, sooner or later, we are going to lose.”

  Eleanor was listening closely, but he could already see the counter-arguments gathering in her mind. She wasn’t liking this one bit.

  “There is only one way we’re going to win this war,” Andre went on, reciting the speech he’d spent the last two days rehearsing. “And before you dismiss it on purely conceptual grounds, I hope you’ll give me the chance to explain my perspective in full.”

  Another raised eyebrow, but Eleanor nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “We need to go public,” Andre said, seeing the instant denial in Eleanor’s eyes. But she’d promised to hear him out, so he continued. “It’s the one thing the Noturatii truly fears, and the only thing they are powerless to prevent. Whenever we’ve considered the idea in the past, it’s been on the basis of a sudden announcement to the world at large. And with that comes the extreme risk that public sentiment will turn against us.

  “But what we’ve never really considered is putting together a plan to tease out public opinion before they actually know about us. There are a dozen or more ways it could be done. We have PR agents in every Den, who monitor the news and kill any story that hits too close to the truth about us. What if we started letting a few of those stories slip through the net? Let social media start a few rumours, build a few conspiracy theories. There have been dozens of times in the past few years where we’ve wanted to enlist the aid of humans – police, doctors, veterinarians, biologists. Maybe we can start doing that, screen some likely candidates, reveal our secrets to a select, trusted few, and see how they react. It could take years to move all the way towards an official ‘coming out’, decades even, but we can make good use of that time by testing out public sentiment on the concept. Influencing the opinions of the public, even. Look at gay rights, for example. A few decades ago, homosexual acts were a crime. Now we’ve got gay marriage legislation in countries across the world, gay rights activist groups, government support. We can’t just sit around and wait for the world to like us. We need to give them a healthy nudge in the right direction.”

  Eleanor opened her mouth to reply, but Andre wasn’t done yet. “But more than just going public,” he went on, “if we’re to provide a strong defence against the Noturatii – because the instant they figure out what we’re doing, they’re going to be all over us – then we also need to boost our numbers. The Council has put limits on the size of each Den – again, a sound strategy in the past. We needed to stay small enough to avoid public attention. But if we’re going to match them in battle, we need to match their numbers, if not exceed them.”

  “New shifters means new territory,” Eleanor pointed out, not disagreeing with him, but rather pointing out pragmatic limitations to his plan. “Even if we let the Dens recruit as many people as they liked, they don’t have room to house them all. This manor, for example, is running close to capacity, and they couldn’t handle any more than twenty-five shifters at most.”

  “Exactly,” Andre agreed. “But there are other options, besides expanding the existing Dens.”

  “Humanity is slowly creeping over the entire world. There’s not much wilderness left in which to keep an extra six thousand wolves.”

  “Not in Europe, no, there’s not.” He let the statement hang… and the wary caution that grew in Eleanor’s eyes told him that she was following his train of thought perfectly.

  “North America is off limits,” she said flatly. “The possibility of expanding into Canada has been discussed in the past, and you and I both know the reasons why we can’t do that.”

  Andre shook his head. “No one has heard from the North American shifters in over three hundred years. For all we know, they could be extinct, just like the bears. I’m not saying we just pack our bags and move in – that could lead to a shifter war, as we’re both well aware. But isn’t it time we started putting out a few feelers? Try to find out if Canada is still occupied territory or not?” As a general rule, the shifters of each species were notoriously territorial. And Eleanor was right – they had more than enough reason to fear those who had once inhabited the North American continent. Their magic was deep and powerful, far more potent than anything the wolves could hope to fight. “That side of the equation is a way off, at any rate,” Andre said, not wanting to get caught up in the details of the argument right now. It was more the concept that he was trying to get across. “The first question to be answered is whether going public is a viable option – if we plan our tactics well, and take things slowly, that is.”

  Eleanor still didn’t like his plan, but he could see in her eyes that he’d struck a chord, that she would at least have to consider it.

  “You play dice with our very existence,” she said coldly, a far cry from her usual polite manners, and Andre nodded, aware of the enormity of what he was proposing.

  “Isn’t that what the Council has been doing for the last six hundred years?” he asked, though not without respect for her reservations.

  Eleanor sighed, and Andre knew he had won. “I’ll bring it up with the Council,” she said reluctantly.

  “I’ve detailed a proposal for how it could work,” Andre said immediately, handing her the second envelope in his hands, a far thicker one than the first. “And if they wish, I would be happy to attend a meeting in Italy to discuss the matter further.”

  Eleanor stared at the envelope for a moment… and then she burst out laughing. “It seems I have underestimated you, Andre. You are turning out to be quite the force to be reckoned with.”

  Caroline sat opposite Eleanor at the table in the library, staring at the sheet of paper she had just been given. It was a contract confirming her appointment to the Council, the letter detailing her duties, responsibilities, the training to come and the consequences for failing at any of the listed tasks.

  “Once you reach Italy, you’ll take a formal vow before the Council,” Eleanor was explaining, “but for now, it’s just a case of signing the paperwork. Are there any last questions you have before we wrap this up?”

  Caroline shook her head. She picked up the pen and fingered it restlessly, pretending to read through the document, though her mind was far away, her eyes not focusing on the words.

  Even now, she’d never formally agreed to join the Council, though Eleanor must have taken it that she had, after their long chats and Caroline’s questions on political protocol and living arrangements.

  She removed the cap from the pen – a beautiful calligraphy pen, engraved with Celtic-looking symbols. She stared at the line where she was to sign her name…

  And then she thought of Kendrick. The first day she’d met him, all the suspicions she’d harboured about his intentions. Meeting Silas, and being trained by him, until her muscles were screaming and she could hardly breathe. Trying to shoot her family, meeting up with the Grey Watch, her trip to Italy, and then all the years that had followed, making friends, fighting for status, battles with the Noturatii, recruiting new members.

&n
bsp; She felt like she’d lived three lifetimes in her thirty-five years.

  Baron’s words from the other night came back to her. She had been living in a cage for her entire life – first, the one created by her parents, a cage of grimy walls and yelling and violence. Then one of anger, as she struggled to let go of the hate she felt for them, for her old life. And then there was the one that was entirely of her own making. Her perfectionism, if she could put a simple label on it, a cage of expectations and regrets and doubts that had choked her for long enough.

  Caroline replaced the cap on the pen and set it gently on the desk.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Eleanor, heartfelt words, though they flowed from her more freely than she had imagined they would. “But I cannot accept this offer. I decline the position on the Council. I wish to stay with my Den.”

  As Eleanor stared at her in undisguised shock, Caroline felt lighter and freer than she had done in years.

  Melissa sat before her laptop in her flat, feeling a deep wave of satisfaction. After sending her letter to Headquarters, there had been no response for a long time, and she had almost given up on the hope of ever having her ideas taken seriously.

  But here it was, the reply she’d been waiting for. And it was everything she had hoped it would be.

  Professor Ivor Banks, the head scientist in Germany, had written a long and detailed reply. There was some effusive nonsense at the start about appreciating her dedication to their cause and praising her creativity in solving their ongoing problems with their research.

  Then there was a short paragraph that said the Professor had sent her suggestions about extra training to the defence department, who were now looking into the level of staffing needed to provide basic combat classes for all their employees and running budget projections for such a thing. It was as much as Melissa had hoped for, and more than she had expected. Of course, they couldn’t just rewrite their entire training plan overnight. That kind of investment took time and money of the sort that didn’t just fall out of the sky. But they were considering it, seeing it as a valuable strategy for their future success, and the validation gave her a warm glow.