by Laura Taylor
“So I can honestly say you are everything I’ve been looking for in a woman. And more than I had ever hoped for. But the real question,” he added, surprised at his own sudden nervousness, “is will you have me? I get out of bed at ridiculous hours of the morning. Our bedroom will constantly be littered with weapons. On the plus side though, Baron doesn’t seem to like me. So I could annoy him with that for the next decade or so. Just in case you ever run out of things to argue with him about yourself.”
Caroline laughed, the first one he’d heard from her in a long time, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Of course I’ll have you,” she told him, trying to sound gruff, and failing. “Who the hell else would ever put up with me?”
Standing on the manor’s back patio, the evening still light, despite the late hour, Andre found himself facing a crowd of apprehensive shifters, and tried to remain calm. Having gained the approval of the two alphas, and finally set things right with Caroline, he had high hopes for a bright future with this Den.
The rest of its members, however, had yet to share his point of view.
“We’re not going to support you as alpha,” Raniesha called, the latest in a long list of questions and objections in response to his request.
Baron had announced this morning that Andre had requested to join the Den, giving everyone almost a full day to consider the idea. And they’d all gathered here about half an hour ago for the official vote.
However, in keeping with proper ritual and tradition, Baron had first asked whether anyone knew of any reason why Andre shouldn’t be allowed to join the Den.
And all hell had broken loose.
“I make no petition for alpha,” Andre answered plainly. “I have the utmost respect for Baron and the way he has led this Den through very trying times, and I fully intend to fall in under his leadership.”
“What about the status fights?” Alistair asked pragmatically. “You can hardly expect us all to fight him one by one. It would be a huge waste of time. Not to mention terrifying,” he added under his breath.
“I propose a different solution than usual for determining Andre’s status,” Baron replied. “It’s a foregone conclusion that he could defeat anyone here with little difficulty…” The only reply to that statement was a low growl from John, and having seen him fight the massive dogs in Scotland, Andre was prepared to tolerate his objections. While he was still confident that he would win against the boy, it would undoubtedly be a tough battle. “…so I suggest that instead of starting at the bottom, Andre starts at the top and works down. How far he falls is more a question of whether he can gather any social support for his position, than of whether he can hold it by force.”
“Here we go again,” someone muttered, and Andre cringed. A new member in the ranks tended to inspire numerous fights, not just surrounding his own status, but that of many other members of the pack, as everyone jostled for position within the sudden change in social dynamics. The Den was clearly not looking forward to that sort of upheaval.
“Are there any other objections?” Baron asked, and Andre braced himself.
But it seemed the Den had finally run out of steam, so it was time to move on to the final part of the ritual.
“Then I call the vote on Andre’s petition to join the Lakes District Den,” Baron announced, loud and clear. “The affirmative vote will be cast to my left, the negative vote to my right. Proceed.”
For a tense moment, nobody moved. There was a muttering through the crowd, and then Simon asked, “Can I make a conditional vote?” There was a murmur of agreement through the crowd. “I’ll accept Andre as a member of our Den, but only on condition that he doesn’t challenge you for alpha.”
Andre sighed. Apparently, his heartfelt words hadn’t been enough to quell that particular objection.
But Baron shook his head. “That’s not how it works. The vote is binding, regardless of what happens in the future. But I will say this: If you don’t trust him to keep his word, then I would suggest you shouldn’t be voting in his favour.”
It was a fair call, Andre knew, and one he should have expected. For all that Baron had given his approval for Andre to join them, he was too much of a fair and diligent leader to ever try and coerce his Den into making a decision against their better judgement. So he waited, the gathered shifters eyeing him cautiously, as they tried to make up their minds.
Finally, one of them moved. It was Dee, head held high, marching boldly to the left. An affirmative vote.
George moved next, to the right, a doubtful look on his face.
The rest of them followed, some deciding quickly, others lingering in the centre of the patio, and no one made any attempt to hurry them up. This was too important a decision to be taken lightly, one that could dramatically alter the social dynamics of the Den and impact all of their futures.
Finally, the last person moved, Caleb, who was still considered a member of this Den until he left with Eleanor in the morning, and Baron counted the heads to tally the vote. “The vote is called,” he announced. “Eleven for, six against. Andre Damasio… Welcome to Misty Hills.”
On the back lawn of the estate, Baron and Andre faced off against each other, the entire Den gathered around them. It was time for their much anticipated status fight, and while the result was supposed to be a foregone conclusion, that didn’t stop the shifters from being on edge, emotions running high, more than a few of them apprehensive about Andre keeping his word. Jeers and insults flowed freely, the shifters eager to show support for their alpha, for all that this fight was staged.
Andre had already moved into Caroline’s room, and if it hadn’t been so damned amusing, it would have been nauseating to watch them together, the way they stared at each other with love-struck eyes and snuck private kisses when they thought no one was watching. As Baron had said, he’d never seen Caroline in love before, and the result was both bizarre and fascinating.
And now they just had one last issue to resolve – the status fight, in which Baron was no doubt going to find out that Andre was indeed the superior wolf, but was going to win the battle anyway.
“Come on Baron,” someone called. “Show the princess who’s boss.”
“You fight like a poodle!” someone else yelled at Andre, who merely rolled his eyes.
“Don’t expect me to go easy on you,” Baron told Andre, just before they shifted. “You’re about to find out what this alpha’s really made of.”
“Oh, shut up,” Andre said with a grin. “Much more of this poncing about, and half the people here are going to fall asleep. I know you’re nervous about all this” he mocked Baron cheerfully, to be answered with a low growl, “but I wouldn’t want to bore our audience. So if you’re done with the speeches… let’s dance.”
Both men shifted, circled each other, teeth bared, hackles raised, growls filling the chilly evening air… and then they attacked.
EPILOGUE
Miller stared at the email he’d just received. He’d seen the news report a few days ago, the dead hiker now officially the victim of a tragic but entirely unintended hunting accident when she’d wandered onto a fenced and clearly marked private property. Nonetheless, it was a relief to see the official confirmation that the operation had been completed successfully. Less so to see that his superiors were praising him for his quick thinking and diligence in covering up this tragic secret. In Miller’s own mind, he’d done nothing remarkable, and in helping to create a bunch of lies to feed to a family that had lost an irreplaceable part of their lives, it was quite possible that he was actually a complete and utter bastard.
Whatever his personal reservations, he had to admit that the PR team had done their job well. The problem of a dead body lying around had officially gone away, swept under the rug with a chorus of official sympathy for the family and a sigh of relief as the cops they’d bribed had quickly fabricated a hunting permit, pardoned the hunters as having done nothing wrong and offered apologies and unlimited support for the family, s
hould they need any assistance in having the body transported, or fending off the media, or arranging a funeral.
A medical report had also appeared out of nowhere, not entirely a work of fiction as the cause of death had, in fact, been a single bullet wound to the head. The post mortem said that the girl was dehydrated at the time of her death, she had blisters on her feet, indicating she had been walking for some time, and there was debris in her hair and dirt on her clothes, making it a plausible suggestion that she’d climbed through a fence onto private property.
So as far as the Noturatii were concerned, it was problem solved, back to business as usual. Miller had submitted the required report on the attack at the shifter base in Scotland, but expected nothing more to come of it. As he’d pointed out in the report, the shifters would be long gone by the time a second team went to investigate, and with such a massive security breach, they were never likely to show up at that location again.
But as far as Miller was concerned, the whole incident was far from done and dusted. After seeing the actions of the shifters, their compassion for the death of a stranger, their rituals and beliefs in an afterlife, Miller was reassessing the Noturatii’s entire stance on the shifters’ existence.
They were a bizarre quirk of nature, that much was certain. But in a world where scientists worked every day to hybridise animals by crossing genes with other species, where genetically modified food was becoming more and more common, and where gene therapy for humans was rapidly gaining ground as a viable option for the future, it was hard to justify a mindset that said that just because something was weird, it was necessarily evil.
Terrorism was the usual catch cry of those in power, the need to prevent devastating attacks on targets impacting national security. But as far as Miller knew, such an attack had never actually been planned, threatened or carried out by the shifters. It was far more likely that terrorism threats would come from your regular, garden variety, human terrorist group, and he was seriously questioning whether it was worth throwing so much money, time and effort at a threat which had never actually materialised.
The moral questions of what they were doing were greater still. In Scotland, he’d seen that young woman, with the short hair and baggy shorts, playing and laughing with their former captive, and no matter how he tried, he couldn’t get the image out of his head. He still didn’t know if she had survived the battle, and when he’d started having nightmares about her, he’d actually welcomed the macabre scenes, the girl dying in his arms in some of them; in others, her wide, innocent eyes accusing him of horrific crimes. It was a harsh reminder of what they were actually doing. By capturing these people – people, not animals, Miller now steadfastly believed – and torturing them, separating them from their families and loved ones, experimenting on them and killing them in horrific ways, weren’t they just bringing to life the acts of terrorism that they purported to be trying to prevent?
But despite the easy conclusion that what they were doing was wrong, the question of what to do about it was a lot tougher. When he’d joined the Noturatii, he’d been told in no uncertain terms that the only way to leave the organisation was in a body bag. And it was a mark of his horror and guilt over the whole situation that he was actually starting to consider that a viable option. He could, of course, go public about their whole organisation, and wait for the outcry from the community to drown them all. But tempting as that was, he was also aware that the shifters had wanted to keep their existence a secret just as much as the Noturatii did. He wouldn’t be doing them any favours by outing them all. Hell, it was just as likely that the public would turn on them, naming them the abominations that the Noturatii believed them to be, and the last thing he wanted to do was inadvertently bring about the end of their species.
But what else could he do?
One thing was for certain, Miller knew, as he closed his laptop and prepared to go home, his work at an end for the day. There were changes in his life that were long overdue. And it was about time he started taking them seriously.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Taylor has been writing since she was a teenager, spending long hours lost in imaginary adventures as new worlds and characters spring to life. The House of Sirius is her first published work, a series of seven novels following the wolf shape shifters and their war with the Noturatii.
Laura lives on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia and has a passion for nature, animals, hiking, and of course, reading.
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