by L. L. Raand
“Oh,” Francesca said, “they have. If you believe what you hear on the news.”
Veronica laughed. “Well, I won’t admit to being that naïve. All the same, Nicholas is a politician, not a terrorist.”
“Nicholas is a powerful man with a deeply ingrained hatred of the Weres. And I think we all know that.”
Veronica gathered all of her willpower and forced herself to concentrate. She couldn’t afford a misstep with Francesca. “You know that I work with Nicholas. I can’t actually call him my friend. It’s been advantageous for me to make use of his resources, but that doesn’t necessarily mean our goals are the same.”
“What are your goals, Veronica?” Francesca said, her voice a low purr. Her fingers strayed to the nape of Veronica’s neck, and Veronica quivered.
“I believe the Weres represent a threat to human society, and highly evolved Praeterns will be tainted by the backlash.”
“Highly evolved Praeterns,” Francesca murmured. “And who would they be?”
Veronica edged closer on the sofa until her bare thigh touched Francesca’s. “Vampires are not only immortal, but highly intelligent and adaptable. You control some of the most powerful institutions in the world. I would say that speaks for your superiority.”
“The Weres would make very powerful enemies.”
“Not if we could neutralize their ability to shift. Without that, they are powerless.”
“And you think you can do that?”
“Not yet. But with enough study and experimentation, yes, I think that’s possible.”
“And what would Nicholas do with this knowledge?”
“I’m afraid his goal is somewhat more…radical. I don’t think he will be happy until the Weres are exterminated.”
“Then you and I, my dear, will very likely end up on opposite sides of this confrontation.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Veronica said, the urgency building inside her for Francesca’s touch. The craving was physically painful. Her stomach knotted with need.
Francesca leaned closer and kissed Veronica gently on the mouth. “Well, of course, I’d much rather we be allies than adversaries.”
“So would I.” Veronica tilted her head, offering her pulse. “I very much want us to be on the same side.”
“Nicholas doesn’t need to know of our…friendship, does he, darling?” Francesca whispered. Silently she called for Michel, who slid onto the settee on Veronica’s other side.
“No. He doesn’t need to know.” Veronica shuddered. She was burning.
“That’s very good.” Francesca gently clasped Veronica’s chin and nodded to Michel. “I’m sure he has further plans for dealing with Sylvan and her wolves.”
“Yes. I’ll call him.”
“Wonderful.” Francesca smiled at Michel. “We’ll be so very grateful for anything you can tell us about Nicholas’s plans. Isn’t that right, darling?”
“Very grateful.” Michel kept her gaze on Francesca as she slid her incisors into Veronica Standish’s throat.
Chapter Fourteen
Raina steeled herself to be taken to a prison cell. So far, the wolves had treated her better than she had expected. They’d tended to her wounds and allowed her to care for her cubs, but she didn’t expect mercy now. Everything she’d heard about them suggested they were ruthless and brutal killers, and every skirmish she’d ever had with them along the rugged borders to the north had been a fierce fight. Neither side had taken prisoners.
The guards on either side of her did not touch her as they walked across the Compound, but they trained stun guns on her, and if she tried to break free and run, she would find herself writhing on the hard earth, her muscles locked into tetanic contractions, paralyzed and powerless, her vital essences draining from her. Lara walked just behind her, not blocking the guards’ access to her, but close enough that Raina could feel the heat pouring from her, scent the pheromones wrapping around her. Lara was sending off signals telling everyone Raina was hers.
She’d never belonged to anyone before, never been owned, never been claimed. She carried no marks—had made none of her own. A mate more often than not was just a body to assuage the agonies of heat and to bring food for the young, sometimes. A mate was not a protector, a lover, or a friend. Not a comfort or a support. She would not be owned for the convenience of an easy coupling, and she could hunt for her cubs on her own. She didn’t need anyone’s help to survive, or she hadn’t, before now. Now she accepted the unspoken claim because she had no choice and more than just her survival was at stake.
They entered another log building, this one the largest in the Compound—each level at least fifteen feet high, constructed of rough-hewn logs set on a stone foundation made of boulders as large as she was tall. Inside, slabs of stone formed the floor, and she scented the spoor of dozens of Weres as the guards led her across an enormous chamber and up a set of wide wood stairs to a landing that overlooked the great room below. Two wolves stood guard outside a pair of broad carved wooden doors with heavy cast-iron hinges and latch. Another dark-haired female, not a wolf, stood at the top of the stairs, her cool gaze moving over Raina to Lara.
“Warlord,” the dark-haired one said.
“Rafaela,” Lara said.
Raina stared at the female, whose insolent smile made her cat snarl irritably.
The blond wolf at the door she recognized as one who had taken her to the infirmary earlier. The craggy-faced older male with shaggy hair and a massive chest was new to her, but she recognized his dominance. She growled low in her chest when his eyes fell on her, dark and appraising.
From behind her, Lara murmured, “Raina. Keep your head down.”
To be asked to lower her eyes before any Were, dominant or not, was an insult, but she forced herself to do it. Dead, she could do nothing to help her cubs. The female wolf pushed the doors open, and the guards led Raina into another enormous space with a high ceiling, mammoth exposed rafters, and a huge stone fireplace at one end. Flames leapt from a stack of logs a foot in diameter piled five feet high. Huge leather sofas and chairs with broad wooden arms ringed a thick earth-toned rug in the center of the room. To the right, the wolf Alpha sat behind an oversized dark oak desk that commanded the space. Her general stood by her right hand, her Prima on her left. A fierce and powerful triumvirate.
A rapier-thin dark-haired female with intense dark eyes sat in a deep leather chair to one side of the desk, her legs casually crossed, arms resting loosely on the armrests. A second female, coffee-skinned and sharply beautiful, occupied another chair next to her. Another figure blended with the shadows near the windows—tall, slender, radiating strength that struck Raina as more refined than that of a Were, more powerful than a human.
Raina sorted the scents bombarding her. Wolf. Human. Vampire. The dark-haired Vampire occupying center stage by the Alpha’s desk radiated so much understated power Raina’s skin prickled. That must be Lara’s master. Raina disliked her immediately and she showed her teeth in defiant challenge.
Jody smiled softly, her gaze flickering to Lara. Her brows rose. What have you brought us, Warlord?
Instinctively, Lara slid a hand around the back of Raina’s neck. She’s mine, spoils of the victor.
That may very well be, but remember she is only safe as long as she has something to offer. The wolves have ultimate claim and they are our allies.
Lara curled her fingers, letting them rest over the bounding pulse in Raina’s throat. The cat’s life force was strong, her attitude unfazed by the number of dominants aligned against her. A brave if foolish cat.
Sylvan rose, dressed now in jeans and a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the middle of her powerful forearms. “I am Sylvan Mir, Alpha of the Timberwolf Pack, and I hold rights to all the territory west of our shared borders.”
Raina’s chin came up. “I am Raina Carras, Alpha of the Catamount Pride, and our territory is where we choose to roam.”
Sylvan smiled for a brief
second. “You may claim what lands you may hold, but you have no stake in Wolf territory. You violated our borders, and the punishment for that is death.”
Raina had expected the sentence, but still, the blow hit her hard. She kept her head up and her eyes on Sylvan’s. A challenge would do her no good and she kept her gaze unfocused, holding her status but offering no resistance. She was still weak, and she’d have to fight the Alpha as well as the Alpha’s second and probably her Prima. She would lose. Even Lara could not help her. “I petition for clemency for my young. Return them to cat lands.”
“And leave them?”
“They’ll have more of a chance there than here.”
Sylvan folded her arms over her chest. “You should have thought of the danger to them before you brought them into my territory.”
“I had no choice. I had to hide where I was least likely to be discovered.” Raina barely contained her fury, knowing everything she had risked was for nothing. She’d likely never see either of the cubs again. She fought the despair tearing through her. “Wolf land was the last place anyone would expect me to go.”
“Why did you flee your territory—desert your Pride?”
“I didn’t…” Raina hesitated. The truth might put the whole Pride at risk. These wolves might wipe out everyone in retaliation for the cats’ part in what had been done.
Lara’s hand was still on her neck, her grip warm and certain. Whatever you know, now is the time to reveal it. You will not get another chance.
Lara’s soft words whispering through her mind somehow gave her a flash of hope, no matter how foolish it might be. “A group of dominants planned to kill me and my cubs to take over the Pride.”
“Why should I care about a challenge? Every Alpha faces challenge. I hold my place by strength and might.”
“As did I,” Raina said. “But I was too close to birthing my cubs to risk a fight. If I’d lost, they would not have survived.”
“They mean more to you than your rule?”
“Yes,” Raina said instantly.
Sylvan’s eyes were hard chips of gold, penetrating and pitiless. “Not just one, but several sought your death?”
“Five.”
“Why?”
Raina hesitated. She had very little to bargain with, and once she gave up what she knew, she would have nothing left. Lara’s fingers stroked her throat. Her flesh heated and she felt Lara’s touch in her blood. She would have shrugged her off, but she couldn’t. She leaned into the touch even though she didn’t want to.
The humans are waging war on the Praeterns, although most Praeterns don’t know it yet. The Pack has been attacked more than once, and the cats will soon be targets. Do you want your Pride, your cubs, to be hunted down and massacred? You could do worse than to have a wolf ally. Especially this one.
Raina took a breath, heeding the truth in Lara’s counsel. Trust didn’t come easily, but she’d have to risk trusting her now. “Some members of the Pride feel that the humans should be our allies. They’ve been working with them. I was opposed.”
“Opposed to what?” Sylvan said very softly.
“Opposed to taking Weres prisoner and locking them away for months at a time.”
Sylvan was over the desk and towering over Raina before Raina even sensed her move. The Alpha’s rage washed over her, stifling and raw, and she gasped.
Lara pulled Raina back against her chest, one arm around her middle. “Hear her out, Alpha.”
Sylvan glared at Lara before turning to Raina again. Her fury scorched Raina’s skin. “You knew what they were doing to our young and you let it happen?”
“I was opposed,” Raina said, the words nearly strangling in her throat. Her cat struggled to be free—wanted to strike back. “But some of our young dominants believe enough human money will bring them the respect the wolves have in the human world.”
“So you let your cats become the jailers of our adolescents?”
“The Pride is large and scattered over a wide, wild range. We have always respected individual choice, allowing subgroups to govern themselves. I risked civil war if I tried to stop those who wanted to work with the humans.” She shrugged, wondering just how fair the wolf Alpha would really be when faced with the truth. “And they were wolves. Your responsibility, not mine.”
Sylvan snarled and her face grew heavy. The wolf Prima suddenly appeared at the Alpha’s side, reached out, and stroked the Alpha’s back. The Alpha shuddered and her face slowly settled. “Do you know who these humans are?”
“No—they did not contact me. They went after young dominants, males and females who were restless and eager to fight. Easily swayed by the promise of power.”
“If I let you live, what can you offer me?”
Raina thought of Lara’s request for her blood and knew that the Alpha would take nothing less than her blood as well, although offered in a very different way. The idea of turning over a cat to a wolf for any reason made her cat scream in rage. But at least two of her own had tried to kill her and her cubs. “I can lead you to some of those who worked with the humans. I can’t promise they’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“We’ll put together a raiding party. If you turn on us, you won’t live to see your cubs again.”
“I understand and accept your terms.”
Sylvan turned to Niki. “Take her to a cell.”
*
Niki led Raina and Lara away, and Sylvan turned to Jody. “What do you think?”
Jody flicked a long-fingered hand. “The story sounds plausible, but there’s no way to know if it’s true.”
Sylvan, restless and agitated, strode to the windows and pushed one open. After midnight. When she should be home curled up with her mate, or running, hunting, she was listening to tales of treachery and betrayal. Lara, her friend and trusted guard, was now a reluctant ally at best. Humans wanted to destroy her Pack, or control it. And Vampires, once their masters, were now variously friend and foe. “When did our world become so complicated?”
She spoke softly, but everyone in the room heard her. Becca glanced at Drake, her eyes concerned. Drake joined Sylvan at the window and rested her hand on Sylvan’s back above the top of her jeans. Sylvan’s pain and sadness made her heart ache. “These struggles reach back centuries, but since we’ve become visible, so have our battles. And it’s the way of humans to seek to control what threatens them. But you’re not alone.”
Sighing, Sylvan turned back to the others, looping her arm around Drake’s waist and holding her against her side. “We’ll have to catch these cats Raina told us about. Until we can put faces and names to our enemies, we will be constantly at risk for attack. We can’t defend ourselves against the faceless.”
Jody rose and her consort stood with her. “You are in a delicate situation, Sylvan. Your borders are vulnerable. If the cats are doing the bidding of humans, they may be massing to strike. What Raina said makes sense—the cats have always lived in the shadow of the wolves, and the young ones may see an alliance with the humans as their chance to claim the public acknowledgment you’ve gained as well as the private power the wolves have always held. Undoubtedly, the humans have a more sweeping agenda—that lab we destroyed is proof of that.”
“And the humans must have other allies among the Praeterns.” Becca twined her fingers with Jody’s. “Probably Vampires. And who knows about the Fae or the others.”
Drake said, “We know from what the Revniks reported that humans have been involved in Were experimentation for decades. We know Vampires are somehow involved, from what Katya and Gray told us. How deeply they’re involved, we can’t be certain. We need more information about the nature of those experiments and we need to know who’s behind them.”
“The human we are holding—Martin—can help us there if we can get him to talk,” Sylvan said.
“Let me talk to him,” Becca said quickly. “I’m the one he called, after all. And…I’m human.”
“All right,” Sylvan s
aid. “I’ll have a guard escort you to his cell.”
“Zahn, go with her.”
Zahn materialized form the shadows. “Yes, Liege.”
When they’d left, Sylvan said, “We need to send a cadre of soldiers into cat territory to round up the cats who worked with the humans, and we need to confront Francesca about her knowledge of the experimental labs.”
“If we divide our forces,” Jody said, “we may be opening ourselves to a two-front war.”
Drake said, “But we may also speed up our discovery of who we really need to fight.”
Jody nodded. “Sylvan?”
“Jody, you take Lara, Raina, and a cadre of your soldiers into cat territory. You can move faster and farther without detection than a group of my wolves,” Sylvan said. “I will pay the Viceregal a visit tonight.”
“Very well,” Jody said. “My Vampires and I will need to avail ourselves of your hospitality tomorrow.”
“We’ll ready quarters for you. Any Were who volunteers is welcome to feed you.”
“Very generous of you.” Jody smiled and her incisors glinted. “We should take at least two of your wolves to scout for us. We’ll use them as decoys to draw out the cats.”
Niki, Sylvan called.
The doors opened. “Yes, Alpha?”
“Send Jace and Dasha with Liege Gates. I want you, Max, Andrew, and Katya with me.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Jody took Becca’s hand and joined Niki. “Remember something about Vampires, Alpha.”
“What’s that?”
“A predator, especially one with a large appetite, sees everyone as potential prey.” Jody grinned at Niki, who snarled back.
“I’m not worried,” Sylvan said. “We hunt in Packs for a reason. A lone predator, no matter how strong, will fall prey to our strength in numbers.”