Kate, of course, was still sneering at him. “I’m the one who’s all talk? Go look in the mirror, Otto. I’ll give credit where credit is due: you did a great thing with building the tunnel over to Bear Hollow so that food can be taken across. But you’ve been resting on your laurels since then. Nothing is happening here. No progress is being made. I came to Gilt Hollow precisely because I’m tired of ‘all talk.’ I’m ready to take action, and I’m hoping that at least some of the other shifters in here are willing to take action, too.”
Otto rolled his eyes. “Right, whatever. So what, exactly, is this ‘action’ you want to take.”
“We raid the vaults of the noblemen’s families, starting with the Seversons.”
Otto’s mouth dropped, as did the mouths of the rest of the shifters in the room. Leo had never looked so uncomfortable or embarrassed in his life. It took Otto a moment to find his voice, but when he did, his words were fuller of disbelief than of anger. This girl was officially crazy.
“You really are out of your mind. Assuming it was even possible to raid the noblemen’s vaults—which it isn’t, because they are guarded heavily twenty-four-seven—what would you even accomplish by raiding them? If you want a bunch of money or jewels, there are easier places to rob. And what are you going to even do with all of that money, anyway? You can’t just hand it all over to Bear Hollow shifters and expect them to be able to use it. If a bunch of shifters suddenly start trying to spend a bunch of money in the city right after a robbery on a nobleman’s vault, it’s going to be obvious where all of that money came from.”
Kate still smiled at him with that maddening, all-knowing smile. How did she not understand what a dumb idea this was? She really must be quite a bit stupider than she looked.
“Oh, I quite agree with you, Otto. Stealing money or jewels from the vaults would be extraordinarily stupid. But it’s not the money or jewels I’m after. It’s the Council Meeting minutes.”
Otto frowned, not understanding. “Council Meeting minutes?”
Kate only nodded at him with a smug look on her face.
After a few beats, Leo spoke up. “That’s actually quite brilliant. The Council minutes are indeed stored in the vaults. Each nobleman keeps a copy in there, for reference. I doubt they actually look at them all that often, which is actually a good thing. If they went missing, it would be a while before anyone noticed.”
“But why do we want the minutes?” another of the shifters in the room asked. “What does it matter to us what those bastards talk about in their stupid Council meetings?”
Kate turned to look at the shifter who had spoken, regarding him with much kinder eyes than she’d been fixing on Otto. He found himself inexplicably jealous of the way she smiled sincerely at the other shifter. Why did he care who she smiled at? She was nothing but trouble.
Gorgeous trouble, I will admit. It was all I could do not to stare at her breasts in the medical wing earlier today. But still, she’s trouble, no matter how attractive her body.
“The Council meetings are held amongst the highest of the high nobles,” Kate explained. “Those meetings are where many decisions are made as to what sort of horrible things will be done to torture the shifters of Bear Hollow next. Remember the forest fire that the Emperor set last summer on purpose, to drive away the animals from the forests around Bear Hollow, making it impossible for the shifters to store up meat for the longer winter ahead? I guarantee you that the plans for that fire were discussed in a Council meeting. If we had known ahead of time, perhaps we could have done something to stop it.”
The shifter who had spoke up was nodding slowly. “I suppose that’s a possibility. It would have been nice to have been ready ahead of time to fight that fire. If it had been smaller, the shifters might have been able to stop it before it got too large and drove away so much wildlife.”
Kate was nodding enthusiastically. “Exactly. And it’s not just the plans to harm shifters that we would learn about. We would learn about the inner workings of the Gilt Hollow government. What if, for example, a big meeting was planned amongst many of the nobles in a place where we could easily set up an attack? What if we could take out several nobles at once? The balance of power would be upset, and everything would be thrown into chaos. What if we could discover information that would help us pit one noble family against another?”
Leo laughed out loud at that. “That shouldn’t be hard to do. Those noble families are all so petty. It wouldn’t take much to twist some truth a bit and get two families fighting with each other.”
Kate bobbed her head up and down in another enthusiastic nod, and then continued. “Or what if we could find a way to undermine the Shifter Games? If we could cause the people of Gilt Hollow to lose faith in the integrity of the Games, that would be a big blow to the nobles. It also might mean the end of the horrible dehumanization of shifters that goes on in the Arena. Who knows what other possibilities there are in the words of the meeting minutes? If we get those minutes, we will have so much information. And information is power.”
Much to Otto’s dismay, many of the shifters in the room seemed to be agreeing with her. They were nodding their heads, and one or two even gave a couple of appreciative claps. But the claps stopped when the shifters turned to look at Otto, their leader, and saw the scowl on his face.
“Knowledge is power, yes. But the minutes are all stored in vaults for a reason. The noblemen know that the information in those minutes is important. That’s also why the vaults are so heavily guarded. Of course it would be nice to have all of the information in the vault at our fingertips. But there is, believe it or not, an actual reason we haven’t already tried to raid the vaults: any attempt at breaking in has almost a zero chance of success. And any shifter caught trying to break in has a one hundred percent chance of being executed. I would say the odds aren’t exactly good.”
Otto watched as all eyes in the room turned to Kate, waiting to see what her response to this would be. She appeared unruffled, which should not have surprised Otto by now but somehow still did. Did nothing get under this girl’s skin? Her confidence would have almost been admirable, if it wasn’t so foolhardy. She smiled at him, and he felt a strange, fluttering sensation in his core when she did. Damn it, why was he so attracted to her?
“The odds aren’t exactly good, on a normal day. But on a Game Day, they improve significantly.”
Otto rolled his eyes. “How do you figure? And what do you know about Game Days? You’ve been in Gilt Hollow for a day, and you’ve never even witnessed a Game Day. I’ll give you a hint, though: as a competitor in the Games, you’ll be expected to—gasp—be at the Arena during the Games. As will all of the other Shifter Games competitors. Even Leo, who is only a guard and not a competitor, is usually called upon to attend the Games with the Seversons. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to raid the vault when we’re all at the Arena. Unless you’ve figured out how to be in two places at one time. If so, please enlighten me. I could really use a body double.”
Kate showed her first signs of anger. The flash of rage disappeared from her eyes almost as soon as it appeared, but Otto had definitely seen it. “For your information, Otto, I’ve done my homework. I talked to both Oskar and Zora at length about how the vaults are guarded, and about what is stored in the vaults. Oh, and about the Games. So, yes, I’ve never been to a Game Day. But don’t think that means I don’t have a clue about how things around here work.”
Otto rather liked the way Kate’s cheeks started to flush when she was angry. He liked it so much that he forgot to be annoyed with her for a moment. But only a brief moment. Then he crossed his arms and sat down in one of the empty chairs spread out across the small room they were in. “Oh, I didn’t realize you were such an expert on vaults and Shifter Games,” he said with a sneer that matched the ones she’d been throwing at him all day. “Please, by all means. Enlighten me.”
She glared at him, but then turned her attention to the other shifters in the room and
spoke in a calm, rational voice. “During a Games event, the nobles’ houses are all but deserted. Most of the guards accompany the noble families to the Arena, and, of course, as Otto has so helpfully noted, all of the shifter competitors are required to be at the Arena as well. Only a skeleton crew of staff remains behind, and do you think the household staff is hard at work while everyone is away? Doubtful. Most of them are probably enjoying the downtime, not worrying about the vaults.”
Otto couldn’t resist cutting in. “What does it matter what the household staff is doing? The vault will still have guards posted, I can guarantee you that.”
“Of course. But the rest of the house will be deserted, and the number of guards to be dealt with will be as low as one could ever hope to see it. So here’s my plan: During the Games, one pair of shifters will agree to take an extra long time finishing their match. They will draw the fight out as long as possible, acting like they are having a great deal of trouble actually subduing the wild animal they’ve been assigned to fight. Meanwhile, a few of the other shifter competitors who don’t have a match immediately before or after the ‘extra-long match’ will make an excuse to disappear. They’ll say they have to use the restroom, or want to lie down before their match, or something like that.”
“But they’ll actually sneak out and go raid a vault,” one of the other shifters piped in. Otto could have slapped the shifter. Why was he so excited about such a reckless plan?
“Exactly,” Kate said. “I know it will be risky, and there will still be guards. But the guards won’t be expecting anything, and we can probably overpower them before they even realize anyone is there. Once the guards are out of the way, we’ll take the key for the vault from them and quickly remove as many stacks of minutes as possible. We’ll replace the stacks with stacks of plain paper, so that it won’t immediately be noticeable that anything is missing. The shifters will drop the minutes off in one of the rooms in shifter quarters, and then rush back to the Arena, hopefully before they’re missed.”
For a few moments, silence hung heavy in the air. Then Leo nodded. “It could work,” he said. “It would have to be one of the houses that’s very close to the Arena, but that makes the Severson house a perfect target. It’s only a short walk from the Arena to here. And with everyone so distracted by the Games, it’s not likely that a few shifters will be missed if they leave the Arena for a few minutes.”
Otto couldn’t believe his ears. “Have you all gone crazy?” he asked. “This plan is way too risky. Everything has to go just right, or it won’t work. And if it doesn’t work, you’re not only going to end up with dead shifters, but you’re also going to end up with some very angry noblemen who know that there is, indeed, a resistance of some sort.”
“Better that than doing nothing,” Kate said. She pointed at the shifters in the room, sweeping her hand to include all of them. “All of you joined this resistance because you want to make a difference. And if we’re going to make a difference, we’re going to have to take bigger risks. We might die, but is that worse than living under the Gilt Hollow regime, which treats us like nothing more than animals? And we might expose the fact that there is a resistance, but even if we do, and they manage to kill us all, the spirit of the resistance will remain. Other shifters will see what we’ve done, and will pick up the mantle. I truly believe that. I have to believe that. I can no longer sit around being timid. I want to see change, and I want to see it in my lifetime. And sitting around hesitating is not going to get us there.”
Otto jumped to his feet. “There’s a difference between taking reasonable, calculated risks and just running headlong into the enemy’s grasp like an idiot!”
Kate fixed cold, determined eyes on him. “This is a reasonable, calculated risk. It’s a great risk. I acknowledge that. But the potential reward is great, too. We have a good chance of getting those minutes, and when we do, we’ll have a wealth of inside information. That will move this stagnant revolution forward.”
“I think she’s right,” Leo said, stepping forward as well. “Remember when we didn’t want to let Zora join the resistance, because we were afraid? But she turned out to be trustworthy, and a great ally. She saved Oskar’s life, and if we hadn’t trusted her that might never have happened. I know that if we take more risks, we might pay the price for it. But we also might end up with valuable information. We might end up with a way to finally kick start this revolution we’ve been ranting about.”
The other shifters in the room seemed to like this idea. They nodded and even started clapping their hands, and Otto felt his mood darkening even further.
“No,” he said, his voice booming over the others. They all fell silent and stared at him. Everyone looked a little bit shocked.
“But, Otto, we really have to start doing something,” one of the shifters protested.
“We built a tunnel and we’re taking food over to Bear Hollow every week. That’s something. And it puts our lives in enough danger. Leo and I almost died last night trying to get food over. I won’t put even more shifter lives at risk over a preposterous plan to raid the Seversons’ vault.”
“It’s not a preposterous plan,” Leo said. Otto knew he was in trouble as soon as he heard Leo say that. If even Leo wasn’t going to side with him, then Otto knew Kate had won. Sure enough, the other shifters in the room were nodding their agreement.
“Let’s vote on it,” one of the wolf shifters said. A chorus of agreement rose, and Otto already knew what the vote was going to be. Anger rolled over him in fresh waves. He had built this resistance up from zero, through his own blood, sweat, and tears. Kate said he didn’t take enough risks, but she was wrong. He had risked his own life countless times to get this resistance going, and now she was waltzing in here to take over things like it had been her who had taken all the risk. And what’s worse, all his shifters were following her. They were acting like he had done nothing, and knew nothing. Like his words didn’t matter.
“All in favor of raiding the Seversons’ vault during the next Games event say ‘aye,’” Leo said. As Otto had expected, everyone in the group spoke out their agreement. Kate gave Otto a victorious grin, and he had never wished so badly that he didn’t have a policy of not hitting women. He wanted to wipe that stupid grin off her face.
Instead, he rose, and made a show of brushing his hands against each other, as though ridding them of dirt or water.
“Fine. But I wash my hands of this. I think this raid on the vault is a mistake, and I want no part in it.”
Then he turned and headed toward the door, letting it slam as it closed behind him even though he knew the more prudent choice was to be as quiet as possible. He was too angry to be quiet right now. He was seeing red, and if there had been anyone around to punch right now, he probably would have.
But the halls were quiet, so he settled for clenching his fists, gritting his teeth, and vowing that he would make sure Kate paid for her insolence.
He wasn’t sure how he was going to make that happen yet, but he would. No one crossed a wolf and got away with it. No one. Not even a woman as gorgeous and feisty as Kate Strouse.
Chapter Seven
The clock on the wall displayed two o’clock exactly when he returned to his room, but he felt too wired to sleep. He tried, but all he ended up doing was tossing and turning for the better part of an hour. Finally, he gave up and went to look out the window.
When he drew back the heavy curtains, moonlight flooded his room. The moon wasn’t all that bright tonight, but his room had been so dark from the curtains that even this little bit of moonlight felt like a lot. Otto pressed his forehead against the cold glass and closed his eyes in frustration for a moment, before opening them again to look below.
Snow lay thick and heavy on almost every outdoor surface. The walking paths were kept clear, but everything else was covered in white. The winter had been exceptionally cold and snowy, and Otto wondered, as he had hundreds of times before, whether his friends in Bear Hollow
were staying warm in the freezing temperatures. He worried constantly about his friends in Bear Hollow, and about the shifters here in Gilt Hollow. His life had become one giant ball of worry.
Otto couldn’t help it. He was a protector by nature. He wanted to keep everyone he loved safe, but tonight he felt like he’d failed. Kate had waltzed into his resistance meeting, taken over, and convinced everyone to follow a plan that was sure to get someone killed. It would probably get multiple someones killed, in fact.
Otto had washed his hands of it, true. But he knew in his heart he wouldn’t be able to stay completely out of things. If this idiotic mission was going to happen, he wanted to do what he could to protect shifter lives. He would end up involved somehow, even though raiding the Seversons’ vault was the last thing he wanted to do.
With a heavy sigh, Otto turned away from the window and went to sit at the generously sized table in the middle of his generously sized room. Every morning and evening, the Seversons’ kitchen staff brought lavish spreads of food to this table, all for Otto. Even for a wolf like him, with his huge appetite, the food was more than he could ever possibly eat. Much of it he stored away for future transport, before ten p.m. when the kitchen staff would come and clean up whatever was left over. They always left him the wine, though, at his request. Otto found that his shattered nerves could often use a drink, and while he would have preferred beer, the wine here was good, at least. Now, he poured himself a huge glass and sipped at it, contemplating what to do next. He was having a hard time thinking clearly, though, with all of the anger seeping through his veins.
He couldn’t believe that Kate had so easily taken over the resistance. She didn’t have a clue what she was up against, and her crazy ideas were going to get people killed. She should have stayed back in Bear Hollow where she belonged. Now, she—
The Rebel and the Wolf (The Shifter Games Book 2) Page 5