by Eva Brandt
“I haven’t forgotten. I just miss the days when we didn’t have to ask for permission from the humans to do every single thing.”
I didn’t bother providing a reply. I’d heard enough stories about the ‘good old days’ to last me a lifetime. Before the PHP, we’d had our own way of cooperating and communicating with other packs. My father had often spoken about it when I’d been a child. He’d agreed that it had been more convenient than what we had now, this common body which we more or less shared with humans and other species. But he’d also said that in a way, this was safer. The method we’d used before was one of the things that had left us vulnerable to discovery in the early years after the revelation of our existence. At least having a clear legal system provided us with some structure.
When I’d been a pup, I hadn’t understood every single detail, but now, I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Under normal circumstances, I would have never turned to the Committee. I preferred to use my own forces in conflicts. But outside assistance could be useful and, as much as it grated on me, I still had to maintain a civil relationship with the humans.
I’d already notified the DC Committee HQ that I’d be flying in. Hopefully, they would work with me and wouldn’t make this more difficult than it had to be.
“Just let me handle it,” I told Deacon. “It’ll be fine. They don’t want the Eastern European undead to start flexing their muscles over here any more than we do. That’s how this whole mess started, remember? With some luck, we might be able to use this in our favor.”
Sylvia shot me a look of disbelief, but said nothing. Since her son’s recovery, she’d calmed down a bit and was no longer as aggressive with me as she had been in the days shortly after the fight at the compound. It was a good thing, since she would be the one who’d have to keep an eye on the agitated pups and females.
“I’m leaving in ten minutes. Byron will be in charge in my absence and he’ll answer any other questions you might have. Be careful and keep an eye on the pack.”
The elders got the message and didn’t question me further. “Yes, Alpha.”
“Of course, Alpha.”
“Good luck.”
Satisfied that I’d gotten this chore out of the way, I left the Alpha’s Hall and headed toward my quarters. By the time I got there, Imogen was already waiting for me, with our bags packed. Ulysses and Byron flanked her, still nervous and frustrated with the idea of letting her out of their sight.
“I’m going to be fine,” Imogen was telling them as I walked in. “Xander will be with me the whole time.”
“I know that,” Byron replied sulkily. “But we’d still like to be with you too.” Turning toward me, he greeted me with a nod. “Hey, Xander. How did it go?”
“Fine. Your dad’s still an asshole, but that’s nothing new. They’re worried, but they won’t be a problem. Still, we need to hurry.”
“We already knew that,” Imogen said, picking up her pack and hoisting it onto her shoulders. “I wish I’d thought to ask how much time we actually have at our disposal. I shouldn’t have lashed out at Daimon so quickly. He might have given us more information.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Ulysses mused. “He can’t be trusted. You know that, Genny. He would have said anything it took to get you to come with him. Besides, there’s no point in thinking about it now. It’s safer to not involve him at all and move forward with this plan.”
“Right.” Imogen shot him a quick smile and not for the first time, I thanked the moon for having such an amazing Omega. “We can do this, as long as we stick together.”
She sounded optimistic, like she truly believed it. It was such a huge change from the way she’d been when we’d first met. I’d feared that her clash with Daimon would send her spiraling into depression all over again, but the exact opposite had happened.
I prayed the change was here to stay, although I was hesitant to trust it. We couldn’t afford to drop our guard, not ever again, not when we’d failed her so badly already.
Together, we left my rooms and made our way to the exit of the lair. By now, rumor of my departure had spread and several werewolves watched us go with curious eyes. “I’ll be back before you know it,” I told them. “In my absence, listen to Byron and to the elders. They will keep you safe.”
“Yes, Alpha,” they all replied.
I knew they had questions and a part of me would have liked to address them, to reassure my pack. But I’d have to trust Ulysses to do that in my stead. With every passing second, the vampires might be getting closer. I had to secure reinforcements for us as soon as possible.
I led Imogen to the rarely used underground hangar. We kept several vehicles here, as well as a helicopter. We didn’t often leave pack lands, but we were realistic enough to realize that we did need cars and aircrafts to get us to wherever we needed to be. I might prefer running in my wolf form to flying, but that wouldn’t get me to DC.
“In you go,” I told Imogen.
“I didn’t know you could fly a chopper,” Imogen commented.
“I learned when I was younger, before I became the Alpha,” I replied as I took the pilot’s seat. “Hopefully, I remember enough.”
“Wait, what?”
I laughed as I started the aircraft and opened the bay doors. “Don’t worry. You’re safe with me, Genny.”
She must have believed me, because she just rolled her eyes, strapped herself into her chair and said nothing else. As we took off, her lips quirked into a tiny, barely there smile. It was beautiful, because it was so honest and, somehow, so fearless. I only hoped that I could protect it, because it was as precious to me as every member of my pack put together.
* * *
Imogen
A few hours later, Washington D.C.
As a huntress, I’d been a few times to the HQ of the Committee for Inter-Species Cooperation. Alan had brought me along and shown me around during some of his visits. But for the most part, he’d been the one to deal with this part of the job and I didn’t remember too many details about what it actually entailed.
Xander did. By the time we landed the helicopter on the roof of the building, we already had a coherent plan, something that would allow us to get rid of the threat Popovic posed while using the advantage of my huntress background.
He’d sent a message requesting an urgent committee meeting beforehand, so I was pretty sure I’d see my brother here. The last time we’d spoken, he’d tried to kill me, so I assumed he wouldn’t be very open to providing us with help. But Xander wasn’t relying on him and neither was I.
“I spoke to Harold Carlyle,” Xander had told me. “He’s one of the delegates in charge of shifter affairs here in the United States. He was a friend of my father’s and he trusts me. He’ll support us.”
“Do you think that will be enough?”
“Well, no,” Xander had admitted, “but it doesn’t have to be. Most people here will want to keep Popovic away. It’s just the cooperation part that will take some work.”
That was true and a little ironic considering the official name of the organization. But the CISC had survived and prospered in its own way, so we did have a chance.
Unfortunately for us, our flight to D.C. took a little longer than we’d have liked. My brother got there first. When we entered the meeting room, we were met with hostile glares and unfriendly grimaces.
Alan stood on the far right of the room, next to a woman I recognized as a witch envoy. “I’m glad you agree with me in this matter, Sister Ula,” he was saying. “As much as we want to eliminate the undead threat, we always have to prioritize taking care of our own people.”
Xander had planned a tactful approach, but seeing my brother made him throw that out the window. “And you know everything there is to know about that, don’t you, Lead Hunter Lee? Taking care of your own people. Permanently.”
Alan glared at Xander and clenched his hands into fists. “Believe it or not, I never wanted to hurt my sister.”
> “Could have fooled me,” Xander replied without missing a beat. “You were singing an entirely different tune when we met at the compound. If my Omega hadn’t stepped in, you’d have killed her on the spot.”
“We were only planning to cleanse her and that’s still what we want,” Alan argued.
“Cleanse her right off the face of the planet, you mean. Don’t play dutiful brother with me. I know what you are. If you even breathe in her direction, I’ll tear you apart.”
One of the other representatives cleared his throat, interrupting the angry exchange. Seated on a more isolated chair, he had the polished, ageless beauty of one of the immortal races. A fae, maybe? That was odd. The High Born weren’t part of the Committee and hadn’t signed the original PHP at all. What was he doing here?
“I can understand your agitation, Alpha Brooks, but if the message we received is correct, this meeting doesn’t concern the confrontation between the Lee Hunter Corps and your pack. You mentioned an imminent attack from the Popovic coven?”
“Yes, Lord Elian,” Xander offered. Apparently, he knew who this strange fae was, but based on the slight frown on his face, he wasn’t crazy about the immortal’s presence. “Vladimir Popovic’s brother, Roman, has taken over his coven in the wake of Vladimir’s death. I’m told he seeks to avenge his older sibling, even if he benefitted from what happened.”
“That’s unusual,” a human woman mused, tapping her finger against the table. “Vampires aren’t the vengeful type.”
“The Popovic coven has always been unusual, Marianne,” a muscular man with salt-and-pepper hair said. “You know that. Vladimir in particular was always unpredictable and his relationship with his brother unique. There was even speculation that they were engaged in a love affair.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to indulge in your incestuous vampire theories right now, Alpha Carlyle,” Marianne replied.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Elian mused. “I find them amusing, although I know for a fact that none of it is true. Vladimir had a long-time vampire lover, someone who was most definitely not his brother.”
That reminded me of what Daimon had said, his comment about Vladimir being different and having close relationships with several of his kind. If Daimon had been honest about that, he might have been telling the truth about everything else.
“If that’s the case, it’s all the more important to make haste and prepare for the imminent attack,” I said. “If Vladimir had a lover, there’s undoubtedly someone else who wants to attack us and who will stop at nothing to make us pay for his death.”
All eyes turned toward me. It was almost as if they hadn’t even realized I was there until I’d spoken. “I can’t argue with that, Huntress Imogen Lee,” Elian replied. “In fact, I find it very likely that they are indeed planning to retaliate. But even if that’s true, the question is… Why should we help you? Why shouldn’t we allow you to handle this on your own? After all, it is the Brooks pack the Popovic coven is after.”
“Maybe things work like that for the High Born, My Lord,” I replied with a tight smile, “but the Committee was created specifically to deal with situations that are too serious for one individual group to handle. If you don’t want to be involved, we will all understand, of course. But please be aware that your principles do not match those of this governing body.”
Elian stared at me like I’d sprouted a second head. Somewhere at the back of the room, another member of the Committee whistled. Alpha Carlyle burst into laughter. “Well said, Ms. Lee. Very well said.”
“Call me Imogen, please, Alpha Carlyle. I don’t use my original name anymore, since my brother has made his opinion of me clear.”
“Not Brooks?” Carlyle asked with a knowing grin.
“Not yet, but it’ll happen,” Xander said. “Now, if we can please return to the matter at hand… I believe we can all agree that the Popovic coven poses a great threat. That hasn’t changed just because Roman is now leading it and not Vladimir. Additionally, the mission during which Vladimir was killed was sanctioned by the Committee. We didn’t do anything of our own accord. We were actually providing support for Lead Hunter Lee’s team. Nobody could have guessed Roman would react this way, but now that he has, it’s our responsibility as a unit to handle it.”
“You’re right, of course, Alpha Brooks,” Sister Ula replied. “It would be most unfair to abandon you and your pack to the undead when you were only doing your duty to the paranormal world.”
“I agree,” Alan piped up. “And I would like to offer the assistance of the Lee Hunter Corps to deal with the threat.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. After all that, after he’d tried to kill me and called me a monster, he had suddenly decided to help my pack. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said.
Xander nodded. “What guarantee do we have that you won’t turn on us? You did so once before, at the compound. Instead of attacking the demons and the undead, you attacked us.”
“I made an error in judgment, I admit. I was… distraught because of what had happened to my sister and I wanted to take her to receive medical attention. You were in the way.”
Medical attention? For fuck’s sake, this was getting ridiculous. “You have a very loose definition of medical attention, Alan. What’s next? Stabbing a werewolf in the back and saying ‘oops, I was aiming for the undead three miles away’?”
“Now, Ms. Lee, your brother has admitted he made a mistake,” Sister Ula replied in Alan’s stead. “There’s no reason to begrudge him for it forever. In fact, this is a great opportunity, wouldn’t you agree? You can fight side by side once again and mend your broken bond that way. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Because of her hood, most of her face was in shadow and I couldn’t see her eyes. But I could see her smile and I wanted to smack it off. Condescending piece of shit. She was talking to me as if I was a child who didn’t understand what was going on around her. I didn’t know what Alan had told her, but she seemed to believe my IQ was somewhere around the range of an amoeba.
My power surged inside me, responding to my anger. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood, forcing myself to calm down. “Some bonds are meant to stay broken, Sister Ula. With respect, it’s not your place to share your opinion about my relationship with my brother.”
“Does that mean you’re refusing the aid of the Lee Hunter Corps?” Elian asked with a mellow smile.
There was only one thing we could say to that and I was grateful when Xander spoke, keeping me from having to do it. “No, of course not. We appreciate any help the Committee provides. But be advised that whoever decides to join us on this mission will have to work under my command. And I will not allow any human hunter within touching distance of my mate, whoever they might be. I think that’s fair, wouldn’t you agree?”
“More than fair,” Carlyle replied. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been very generous with the Lee Hunter Corps and we all appreciate your restraint. Another werewolf wouldn’t have been so kind if his mate had been threatened.”
Alan pressed his lips together so tightly they went white. “Fine. I’ll accept this, for now.”
“Wonderful. Then, let’s take a vote and see what other forces we have at our disposal. After all, we want to prepare an appropriate welcome party for Roman Popovic, don’t we?”
The wicked smile on Carlyle’s lips chased away the anger I felt over what Alan had said and done. I took Xander’s hand and squeezed it. “That was exactly what Xander and I had in mind, Alpha Carlyle. It’s time to wipe the Popovic coven off the map altogether.”
Roman Popovic might be coming to the United States to avenge his brother, but I had a score to settle too. Vladimir had been the one who’d signed Imogen Julius’s death warrant. He’d paid for it with his life, but his coven would suffer the consequences too.
Chapter Seven
Roman
I hated the Brooks pack lands. The forest smelled like wet dirt, magic, and werew
olf fur. The moon’s rays filtered through the leaves, weaving an almost ethereal pattern around us. The grass whispered ancient, barely understandable songs. And I hated it, because only a few miles away from here, my brother had lost his life. He’d been right when he’d warned me about what would happen.
Latarra and Yuli flanked me, with their soldiers walking behind me. “There were witches here,” Latarra said. “The pack lands are warded.”
“I know,” I replied. “Interesting, isn’t it? Witches don’t intervene in conflicts directly. I wonder… What could have possibly made them change their mind?”
“It had to be Daimon Rossi,” Yuli said, his eyes glowing threateningly. “He must have warned them.”
“Probably, yes. And I assume they went to the Committee for assistance.” I waved my hand dismissively. “No matter. We always knew this was a possibility. Their paltry efforts won’t make a difference.”
Yuli and Latarra smirked, dark magic rising around them in ominous clouds. The earth beneath our feet responded to our power, the energies of the dead answering our call as easily as they always did.
“Where there is life, there is also death,” I mused. “And the circle is always at its most powerful in a forest. Xander Brooks thinks we are weak because we’re on his turf. He’s about to be proven wrong.”
My people were unbeatable because no matter what happened, our ranks could always be replenished. Ancient vampires were difficult to kill. Vladimir’s case had been an anomaly. As a rule, we were hardy and even when we got hurt, it was possible to bring us back through necromancy. More importantly, the planet itself provided us with armies.