River shifted back to true form and met Lazarus at the edge of camp. “I’m sorry. Dante told me a thousand times about hunting. I can’t believe I almost screwed up like that.”
“No harm done. It’s hard to pull back instinct when all you’re used to is being home.”
She felt his eyes on her and smiled. Looking away, she started to pull a leaf from her hair, and Lazarus reached out very slowly. She watched him and didn’t move away as he gently tugged out another that had been caught in her curls.
He held it out to her, and she took it from his fingers, being very careful not to touch him.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, and River felt herself flush as she looked away. “We should probably get something to eat. Come on, let’s find where they hide the food around here. I’m starving.”
“We’re in France. It probably involves a thousand little meals just to prove they’re better at making food than us.”
“I’d love a couple rabbits freshly killed. Nothing quite like fresh, wild game.”
“Very true,” Lazarus agreed. “But I have a feeling that’s not going to happen. Probably be frogs and snails.”
River chuckled. She had never heard Lazarus speak so much. “Well, I suppose you could say that the key to a good chef would be the ability to make even the most unsavory thing taste good.”
“If you say so. I’d need to be a pretty starved beast to lower my standards to crunching on snails.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I’d have to agree there. The slime factor is enough to turn my stomach.”
The food turned out to be good and thankfully free of snails and frogs. Trevor joined them a few minutes later, and Lazarus wandered off to tend to whatever Angel might need.
Trevor grabbed a plate and plopped down on the bench beside her. “Go for a run?”
She nodded. “I was with Lazarus,” she said quickly so he didn’t get all brotherly and grumbly.
“Figured. He wouldn’t have let you run alone,” Trevor said. “What are you going to do while Dante’s in this meeting?”
“I don’t know. Is there something I should be doing?”
Trevor shrugged and smiled at her. “I don’t know, what do you think?”
She shot him a glare. “That is such a trick question. You know I should be doing something. What do you think it is?”
“Well, why are we here?”
“Because of the hybrids and the weird shit happening. But we’d be here anyway, wouldn’t we?”
“Yeah, we would.”
That wasn’t clearing things up any. She thought a long moment. “We’re here because Dante wants help from the clans to find the nest.”
“Yes.” Trevor studied her as if waiting for more.
“Ivory said I was supposed to look for a mate.”
Trevor chuckled. “I wouldn’t worry so much about that. You aren’t Ivory. And the last thing Dante wants you to be is Ivory.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you aren’t her. Dante wants you to be stronger and far more capable than Ivory will ever be because you are. I love our sister dearly, but she’s always been the type of alpha who is better as a second. There’s nothing wrong with that. Like Tristan could never be a heavy, Ivory could never lead a pack without a strong alpha as her mate. You don’t need that. Be an alpha, River.”
“How?”
Trevor smiled. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
She glared at him again. “I hate you.”
He chuckled, and she leaned into him as he planted a kiss on the top of her head. She could never really hate anyone in her pack. She loved them all.
“I love you too,” he said and finished his plate. “I gotta wake up Dante. He hates being up early, and you shouldn’t be running around without Evan somewhere close by.”
“You think I’ll be attacked at the pack gathering?”
Trevor’s face went very serious. “You never know. Remember what happened during the last one.”
She wasn’t there exactly, but she knew what happened. But the events at the clan meeting was clear enough in her memory.
Trevor kissed her cheek. “Go get Evan.”
She sighed heavily but got to her feet to do as he said. “You know, he’s going to hate me for waking him up.”
“If I can endure Dante before noon, you can endure Evan.” He smirked. “Unless you want to wake up our alpha.”
River cringed at the thought. Dante wouldn’t have time for his run, maybe not even his wake-up tea, and all before midday. Yeah, she didn’t envy Trevor at all. “Oh no, thanks anyway. I’ll let you handle that.”
Trevor chuckled. “Thought you might think that. Go on. If you hurry up, you can get Evan out of bed and the tent before I wake the sleeping beast.”
River rushed toward the tent to wake Evan and managed to pry him out of bed before Trevor returned with food and tea for Dante. It was definitely time to leave.
11. Speakers
DANTE SAT up and scrubbed his hands over his face. He really hated mornings. Anything that happened before noon was too damn early. Not even gatherings in the States insisted on alphas getting up before midday. Whoever the hell planned this gathering was doing a piss-poor job.
Trevor handed him a cup of tea. “People are starting to wake up and get ready.”
Dante grunted. “What the hell? What time do people go to bed around here, dusk?”
Trevor twitched a smile. “You agreed to a morning meeting.”
“Well, their idea of morning and mine are different. Eleven o’clock is still morning, right?”
Trevor chuckled. “Only to a male who doesn’t usually go to bed until dawn.” He shoved the tray of food at him. “Eat. You’ll be growling at alphas if you don’t eat before we go. It could take a while.”
Dante blinked a few times, trying to force himself to wake up.
“Want me to braid your hair while you eat?”
Dante grunted, still fighting to wake up. He knew Trevor was trying to push him along, but mornings. Ugh! He was not a morning person.
He sucked down his tea, and Trevor braided his hair back for him while he ate. The grooming felt good, but it was also Trevor’s way of gently getting him to move his ass.
He finished his food, and Trevor shoved another cup of tea into his hand. “Drink.”
By the time he was finished with his second cup, he was more awake but not especially happy about it. He threw on a pair of pants, not bothering with the rest, and stepped out into the morning light.
He winced and shaded his eyes as the sun hit him smack in the face. He growled and sat down on the bench outside his tent.
Angel appeared a second later, looking just as tired as he felt. “Not a morning person, I take it?”
Dante grunted. “This isn’t morning. This is bedtime.”
Angel chuckled and sat down on the bench outside his tent while Lazarus fed him a fresh cup of coffee. “True enough.”
Dante rubbed his eyes and tried to get his brain to start working. There was a lot to do today, and even if he really hated the hour, it was probably best to get a jump on things as early as possible.
He tapped the weave to find River and Evan, both awake and wandering around the mass of people as everyone began to wake up for the morning meeting. Glad to see she was being responsible enough to stay with her brother, he let them be and tried to get his mind working at a proper pace.
Trevor hovered at his elbow. “Need more tea?”
A gallon wouldn’t be enough, but his bladder wouldn’t like that much. “No,” he grumbled. “No time for a run. You should have got me up earlier.”
Trevor just stared at him and blinked. He didn’t need to tap the weave to read Trevor’s thoughts on that one. He shot Trevor a dark look. “I’m not in the mood,” he warned, and Trevor smirked and looked away.
“You should get dressed,” Angel said as he finished his coffee.
Dante shot him a hard look. “Why?”
Fucking politics. Politics and mornings should be banned. It should be against the law to even speak of politics before noon.
Getting to his feet, Dante went to the tent to dress, then met Angel outside again. They were both mostly awake now, so they put their heads together to discuss the meeting.
“Don’t panic them,” Dante warned.
“I know what I’m doing,” Angel said. “And alphas don’t panic.”
Dante snorted. “Sure they don’t, and the mass exodus from our gathering last year wasn’t a panic?”
Angel hesitated, suddenly uncertain. “Were you panicked?”
“I was in no shape to panic. I don’t think I’ve had time to panic since that day, to be honest.” Dante suddenly found himself holding another cup of tea. He shrugged and took a sip. “But several were and you can’t deny that. Remus, for one.”
Angel grunted. “Never cared much for him.”
“He’s a top alpha. No one has to like him but his pack.”
Angel smirked. “Even that’s debatable.”
“He’s been your ally on several issues,” Dante pointed out.
“I don’t have to like my allies. I just applaud their good sense at that particular moment.”
They headed to the main house where the crowd was getting thick. The room was large and opened up on two sides: one to the backyard and the other into the common room.
Dante snarled at jostling people as he worked his way to the middle of the room, where a small round stage had been set up to lift the speakers a foot or so off the ground so the crowd could see and hear them from all sides.
Angel bent to his ear. “Keep an eye on the crowd.”
Dante nodded and moved to Angel’s side. Trevor and Lazarus glared and snarled at the crowd to give them a bit of space every once in a while. Dante was glad. If he started feeling too closed in, he’d get edgy.
Master Gaston from the leading pack in France cleared his throat and waved at the crowd to quiet.
“Master Angel and Master Dante would like to update us on what happened at their meeting with the darklings—”
“Nephilim,” Dante corrected. “We aren’t at war anymore.”
Angel spoke up quickly before anyone could counter Dante’s remark and began to give a brief description of the attack on the clan meeting and why they were there. He confirmed the rumors many had heard about their pack gathering in the States being attacked by the new creatures the Sleeper of the clans made with her alpha. He described the creatures and their abilities, and Dante watched as the room buzzed with whispers and questions.
“This sounds like a problem you are having in the States and perhaps England, not most of our countries,” one of the alphas from Germany said.
Dante rolled his eyes. “And the German Packs are so much larger than the ones in the States that they can’t possibly be attacked?”
The States had some of the biggest packs, and more of them, second only to the Russian packs, who seemed to breed at a hyperaccelerated rate.
One of the Russian pack alphas spoke up, his voice so thick with his accent that Dante couldn’t understand him. He turned to Trevor, hoping for a translation.
“Master Patya agrees with you,” Trevor said. “He says if the packs in the States can be attacked, everyone is at risk.”
Well, at least someone was on the right page. More grumbles and whispers washed through the room, and Angel spoke up again.
“We need the help of the clans to find this Sleeper and the alpha,” Angel said. “They can’t be allowed to live, and even if we kill dozens of hybrids, they will just keep making more until we kill them.”
“How many can they make?” someone called out from the group.
“We aren’t sure,” Angel said. “But it has been suggested that numbers in the hundreds are possible.”
The room rippled again, and Dante tried to gauge the feeling in the crowd, but it was too mixed to say.
“How are they made?” another voice asked. It looked like the question came from Master Étienne.
“We aren’t certain,” Angel said.
“You don’t know much, do you?” another German shouted.
Angel spun to look at him. “No, we don’t. If we did, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you, now would I?” He held up his hands for quiet. “Packs deal with their own problems in their own territories, but this is different. This is a problem no one pack can handle. There are too many of these creatures, and without knowing where the nest is, the problem only grows.
“Both Master Dante and I have been speaking with as many alphas as possible over the past months. We’ve mentioned keeping an eye on your smaller and weaker packs, maybe forming new relationships with the strays to help keep an eye out for trouble before it strikes. This is the first time we’ve been able to address everyone. But we don’t have all the answers, and we all need to get together and fix that. That includes dealing with the Nephilim.”
A roar of anger whipped over the crowd. They expected this. Getting the packs to speak with the Nephilim was a tall order. There was still an ingrained fear of being shackled once again, and no one wanted that.
“The treaty expresses that they have a right to speak to the gathering, just as we can speak at their clan meeting,” Angel said, raising his voice over the crowd.
“Which was attacked while you were there!” someone shouted. Dante couldn’t make out who; they were too buried in the crowd. “What’s to say this isn’t some trick?”
Dante spoke up. “It was no trick. You don’t kill your own people for a trick. Many were young. No one kills their own young.”
“We don’t know that. We are speaking of the creatures who kept us in chains for centuries.” The speaker stepped forward. He was short and powerful, from one of the Middle Eastern packs, from the looks of him. “If we work with the darklings, we are asking to be their slaves again. I will not be a slave. My people will not be slaves. You Americans can be slaves, but we will not. Your people are weak when it comes to having darklings in your territory. You let them be, and now look what has happened. You come to us begging for help.”
Dante felt the growl forming in the back of his throat. “Weak? I’ll show you weak. I beg no one—!”
Angel caught his arm to calm him. Dante jerked his arm from Angel, and Trevor laid a hand on his shoulder as he fought to keep himself from jumping across the room.
“Let’s not shed blood here,” Angel said quickly and shot Dante a hard look.
Dante struggled to contain his anger, letting Trevor help calm him.
“No one is suggesting we roll over to the clans,” Angel continued. “We all know how dangerous they are. No one wants their people in chains. We can’t and won’t allow that to happen again. But they know more than we do about these hybrids. We need them to help us kill this Sleeper of theirs. She’s old. Very, very old. And we all know that the older the Nephilim, the more dangerous they become.”
“We should have just killed them all at the end of the war,” someone grumbled.
“Who taught you your history?” Angel snapped back. “Or did you somehow forget the part about being in a stalemate for twenty years? None of that matters now. That was then and this is now. Under the treaty the Nephilim are allowed to speak. We can use them. No one says we have to be friends with them. No one is saying we must trust everything they say, but this Sleeper we need help finding and killing before the numbers of hybrids she and the alpha make are too overwhelming to stop.”
“What do you want from us?” Master Nigel, the top alpha of the England packs, asked.
“We need to find them. We need the help of the Nephilim to locate their nest,” Angel said. “As skilled as we think we are in battle, no one alpha can take on this Ancient Sleeper. And why risk our own people if the Nephilim are willing to kill
her for us?”
Angel was starting to sway some of them, but Dante had a feeling it was going to take a while to convince enough alphas to be able to bring Odin and his people in safely. He ran his hand through his hair, searching the crowd for those who were sure to cause trouble tomorrow, and committed them to memory. He hoped Odin was having an easier time with things where he was.
12. No Sleep
AUGUST STARED out the window, watching the wind stir the tall grasses. The French countryside was beautiful and quiet, miles of rolling hills, hints of old-world charm, and abandoned farmhouses. The soft sounds of his sleeping army filled the building. Nearly every inch was covered with unconscious bodies piled on top of one another while they waited. He could keep them in their mock coma for a week or better before he needed to rouse them and have them tend to their needs. He would wake this group soon to feed, but for now, they slept, only the Primes and his pack alert and on guard.
Despite their numbers and the surprise and chaos they would cause soon, he was worried. It wasn’t his hybrids that he worried about most. It was the Primes. They had already had one run, and his control over them was shaky at best. He mentioned it to his mistress, but she had assured him the Primes were important. And they were. He couldn’t deny that. He didn’t have control over the hybrids like he did with pack, and having thinking Primes lead the hybrids was important. The problem was, some of them thought too much. More than once he had to kill one of the precious Primes for overstepping themselves. And of course the most recent problem with the runaway almost ruined their carefully laid plans.
He had taken action to try to fix the problem before it started, finding Primes early in a clutch and taking them away from the vicious group dynamic the hybrids had formed. But he couldn’t fix the problem if he wasn’t there to train them properly and figure out how best to correct early the issues he was seeing.
William picked his way over the bodies and moved to his side. “You look tired. You should get some sleep.”
August frowned and rubbed his temples. “I’m not tired. I don’t sleep much these days.”
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