by Laura Taylor
Leon looked genuinely surprised. “Me? Why would I do that?”
“I was working on the assumption that HQ had sent you to keep an eye on me.”
Leon snorted and shook his head. “They are curious to see how you work out, that much is true. But if I report this… Fuck, Melissa, I’m Head of Security. It’s my head on the chopping block if the powers that be find out we’ve lost a captive on my watch.”
It was a good point and one that made Melissa feel far better about her own position. Security, after all, was Leon’s responsibility, and she hadn’t been the one to choose him for her staff. If word did get out, then throwing him under the bus was a perfectly workable strategy.
“What about Miller?” she asked next, needing something else too keep her mind occupied besides the latest disaster in the lab. “Have you managed to dig up anything on his movements before he cut loose?”
“Yes, and no,” Leon replied. “Up until the raid on the lab, everything he did checks out. He was producing results, toeing the line, no suspicious patterns of behaviour. And even though he let the shifters escape from the lab, he was trying to save your life in the process, so I can’t really fault him on that one. But after that, there was the raid on the estate in Scotland. Every single one of his teammates ended up dead, yet Miller walked away with his life. That’s got ‘suspicious’ written all over it. So then he takes a couple of weeks off to ‘recover’, and then he’s back in the Lakes District, crashes his car, and both his teammates end up dead again. So there’s good news, and bad. The bad news is that he was likely planning his defection for a while. I can’t pin it down to an exact date, but midway between the lab explosion and the raid in Scotland would be a reasonable estimate. The good news, though, is that it’s extremely unlikely he was conspiring with anyone. Everyone he worked with simply ended up dead.”
That, at least, was a relief. And if she could just find a few scraps of evidence that the captive’s escape was an outside job, then she could stop worrying about having another traitor on her team.
“We should recheck every property that Miller was assigned to during his research in the Lakes District,” Leon suggested. “Given that we don’t know when he turned traitor, there’s a good chance he might have found something and covered it up.”
“Good idea,” Melissa said, wishing she’d thought of it herself. Then another idea occurred to her. She rushed over to her desk and pulled up a file on her computer, scanning quickly through the information. She reached into a drawer and pulled out the map of the Lakes District – a photocopy of the original one the informant had supplied. Most of the areas the map suggested they search were in the northern part of the region. But… “Just before the crash, one of Miller’s team sent a message saying they’d picked up a young shifter girl. And the car was found just south of Kendal. And now the field team has found some information saying our former captive was spotted in Lancaster. All of that puts the shifters in the south of the Lakes District, not the north.”
Leon glanced at the map, and a sly expression settled on his face. “Someone’s been leading us astray,” he mused. Was that a hint of murderous intent in his eyes? Melissa hoped so. It was thrilling to be working with someone who was on her own wavelength for once.
“Call in the field team,” she instructed, already planning her next move. “I want to know every scrap of information they’ve discovered. I’m going to dig out the reports on the raids ten years ago, the ones that killed Jacob’s predecessor. I want to know the locations of the attacks, the methods they used to kill our teams, who was targeted, and most of all, why the hell we kept falling for the same tricks. We’ve been chasing our tails for far too long. I want to understand how these animals think. And then we can figure out how to beat them at their own game.” She thrust the map at Leon and headed for the door. “Meet me back here in an hour, and we can see what gaps we need to fill in.”
Leon allowed himself a smile as Melissa headed out of the room. A smile, which turned into a quiet, though heartfelt laugh. She was turning out to be rather unexpected. When they’d first met, he’d taken her for an idealistic princess who wouldn’t last five minutes in the top job. And yet here she was, trying to get inside the shifters’ minds, analysing long term patterns, expecting the unexpected. Hell, if she kept this up, they were in with a real chance to take these bastards down.
He turned to his computer to issue a recall order for everyone on the field team… but paused with his fingers poised over the keyboard. It would be the work of a moment to write a few lines to HQ, to tell them that the shifter had escaped, rather than dying on the table…
But then he shook his head and got on with his assigned task. As things stood, there was nothing to be immediately gained from stabbing Melissa in the back. And one never knew when that sort of information might come in handy in the future. It never hurt to have a spare ace up your sleeve, after all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Three Months Later
Baron entered the code on the estate’s front gate, waving to Luna as she drove the Grey Watch’s van up the drive towards the manor. He followed on foot, shifting once he was out of sight of the gate and running the rest of the way on four paws.
Luna was already out of the van when he arrived, and he wasn’t surprised to see Kajus climbing out of the passenger seat. The man had been a most diligent overseer of the pack for the last few months, and Baron had seen vast improvements in the group’s morale and organisation as a result. Luna was a fast learner, with plenty of ideas on how to improve things, and Kajus seemed to have found a perfect balance between pushing her in the right direction and standing back to let her work things out for herself.
The rest of the Grey Watch pack had been regular visitors here over the weeks. Genna had been having history lessons with Heron in the library. Silas had been running hand-to-hand combat classes while Tank and Miller had been teaching firearms – years of neglect meant that the Grey Watch’s skills in defending themselves were currently well below par. And Baron and Caroline had spent long hours with Luna, discussing the responsibilities of being a good alpha, how to walk the line between authority and fairness, how to handle the stresses that the position created.
“The shipment arrived yesterday,” Baron told Luna by way of greeting, offering his hand for her to shake. “We checked it out and it’s all there: twenty pistols, four submachine guns, two rifles, and as Raniesha so fondly put it, ‘a big pile of things that go boom’.” After teaching the pack how to use a wide range of weapons, it had been a relatively simple thing to contact their usual arms dealer and arrange a supply of guns, explosives and ammunition for the Watch. Skip had also arranged fake documents for a number of the pack, driver’s licences, passports and the like, given that they were going to have to be interacting with humans more than they had been in the past, and Luna had seemed a little overwhelmed with the ease with which Il Trosa could put their hands on all manner of contraband.
“Thank you,” Luna said simply, holding onto Baron’s hand for a fraction longer than was strictly necessary. She had thanked him and his pack profusely and repeatedly over the past few months, for their help in all its various forms, until Baron had finally threatened to shoot her if she didn’t stop. Though from Baron’s perspective, it wasn’t all simple generosity. It was fairly likely that Il Trosa was going to have to call in a few of the favours in the not too distant future, depending on how their own plans to defend their estate played out.
“Load it up,” Luna said cheerfully, opening the back of the van. Baron gave Silas a nod, waiting nearby, and he headed inside, returning a moment later with Tank and Andre, each of them carrying a large box. A weapons storage room had been set up at the Scottish estate, with personalised passcodes for the senior wolves to open the door; while it was necessary to have a large supply of weapons handy in case of emergencies, it was also necessary to safeguard those weapons against falling into inexperienced or ill-intentioned hands.
/> “Genna and Lucia are nearly ready to go,” Tank told Baron, as he secured the last crate and closed the van’s door. Genna had been visiting again, for her latest round of lessons with Heron – soon to be continued in France with the Grey Watch pack there – and Lucia had been brushing up on her new role as 2IC to Luna. “How’s the estate looking?” he asked Luna, bending down to accept her hug. She’d turned out to be a rather affectionate woman, frequently hugging various members of her pack, and after some initial awkwardness, Tank had decided he found the whole thing to be rather endearing.
“All set,” Luna reported, bright glee at their success warring with apprehension over the weight of responsibility now sitting on her shoulders. “Three of the cottages are fitted out for human habitation. We’ve got beds, chairs, we cleared the drain in the third bathroom and now it’s all working fine, and the kitchens are up and running. The orchard has been planted, and we’ve got some seedlings in the greenhouse. Once the weather warms up a bit more, we’ll start planting out in the garden.” She grinned up at them both. “It’s everything we could have hoped for.”
“So what about you?” Baron asked Kajus, who was waiting patiently off to the side. “Will you be heading home soon?” Since their one brief interlude together, Kajus had made absolutely no further reference to what had occurred between them, and Baron was rather in two minds about that. He certainly didn’t need any romantic complications in his life right now, but there had been the odd night when Kajus had been staying at the manor when a little ‘stress relief’ would have been appreciated. Kajus, however, remained steadfastly silent on the topic, and Baron supposed that was for the best.
But Kajus was never one to do the expected. “I won’t be going back,” he said simply, glancing at Tank briefly before looking back at Baron. “Luna’s asked me to stay with their pack permanently. And I daresay my pack in Lithuania won’t miss me. Well, certainly not the alpha, at least,” he amended his own words. “The rest of them might make a fuss, but they’ll get used to it soon enough. Besides which, if Luna’s pack wants to recruit any more women, they’ll need a male of my bloodline to do it. We’ll look at recruiting more men, of course, but it might take a while to get things arranged.”
The front door of the manor opened then, and Genna and Lucia came out, Caroline close behind them. Baron wasn’t surprised to see that she’d come down to say goodbye. Though the two packs would be keeping in regular contact, this was the last scheduled visit for a while; with the delivery of their weapons, there was little else the Grey Watch needed now but time. Genna and Lucia each had a bag slung over their shoulder, the few personal possessions they travelled with, but Genna also had a much larger bag in her hand. Baron wondered what it was for… until she stepped over to Tank and handed it to him.
Oh, fuck.
Tank took the bag without comment, his eyes meeting Baron’s in a long, heartfelt stare. The two men had known each other for too long, worked together too closely for there to be any doubt about Tank’s intentions. To be honest, Baron had been expecting it ever since Tank’s feelings for Genna had become apparent, but even so…
“You’re really going,” Baron said, his voice already tight.
“I am,” Tank confirmed. “The Watch took a vote, and they’ve agreed to accept me.” He slid an arm around Genna’s shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Genna wants to stay with the Watch, and I…”
“I get it,” Baron said. It wasn’t the first time a shifter had left their pack to be with a lover, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“Aside from wanting to be with Genna, there’s a certain pragmatism to it, as well,” Tank pointed out. “With the Noturatii trying to track us down around here, I can hardly show my face outside the estate without worrying someone’s going to recognise me. But up in Scotland, the Noturatii have no reason to be looking for us. As far as they’re aware, the Grey Watch still live in the north east of England. We’ll still have to be careful, of course. But you know me; I like people too much to live my life holed up in one place all the time. I need to get out and mingle with the crowds.”
“Did you know about this?” Baron asked Caroline as she lingered nearby.
“I found out about five minutes ago.” She looked pissed off, which was her standard response to anything that was unexpected or displeasing or upsetting, so it was anyone’s guess as to how she really felt about this. But Baron would wager that she was feeling the loss as keenly as he was and was already imagining the trauma of trying to fill the hole that Tank would leave behind.
But not everyone was quite so on board with the idea. Kajus made a sound of sardonic disbelief. “I find this rather convenient,” he said shrewdly. “Here you are, languishing in your role as 2IC to an alpha who is never going to give you your day in the sun, unless he meets an untimely end courtesy of a well-timed bullet, and now there’s a poor, struggling pack who needs an alpha, and you just happen to be available. Oh, mercy me, how will we ever cope with your altruism?”
Tank laughed, a loud, hearty sound of genuine amusement. “Whereas you come from a pack that has no male alpha at all, and you’ve just happened to wheedle your way into the female alpha’s knickers, because you think it’ll prop up your own chances to lead the pack.”
Hang on, play that one again? Baron quickly looked at Luna, noting the sudden blush on her face. She and Kajus were…? How the hell had he missed that one?
But it certainly explained Kajus’s lack of interest in a repeat session with Baron, and if the man was interested in women as well as men, well, Baron could hardly argue with that, given where his own leanings lay.
“That’s bullshit,” Kajus retorted swiftly. “Or I could just as easily say the same thing about you and Genna. You’re using her as an excuse to move in with the Watch.”
“Now, now, boys,” Luna said, interrupting what could easily become a prolonged argument, her tone deliberately condescending. “What I think we should do is wait until we have everyone back home safely and all the lovely guns are put away, and then the two of you can beat each other up on the back lawn to your hearts’ content, until one of you is dead and the other one is alpha. Sound good?”
Both men scowled at her and then at each other, while Baron burst out laughing. He had nothing to worry about with this woman as alpha, he thought wryly. She led with charm, rather than force, she didn’t take offence easily, and she was showing a marked ability to see the big picture, rather than drowning in all the details. As far as Tank and Kajus were concerned, it was anyone’s guess as to who would come out the winner, but either way, Baron was sure the pack was going to be in good hands.
“We need to get going if we want to be home before dark,” Tank pointed out, and the rest of them set about getting themselves ready, stowing bags in the van, Luna hugging everyone goodbye.
“I’ll give you a call when we arrive,” Tank promised. He reached out to shake Baron’s hand, then changed his mind and hugged him instead. Baron returned the embrace, finding himself reluctant to let go.
“You’re going to be damn hard to replace,” he said, a light-hearted reprimand, but also a serious truth. If anything were to happen to Baron, they would need a capable leader to take control of the pack, and as things stood, there were few people who would be either willing or able to take on the role.
“Not so hard, I think,” Tank replied, a glint in his eye. “You have a young wolf who would be ideally suited to the job. With a little extra training, of course. And maybe a nudge to get him to start working on climbing the ranks.”
Baron looked at him quizzically. “Who…?”
“You’ll figure it out,” Tank said, climbing into the van. “Take care of yourselves,” he said seriously. “The Noturatii are still out there, looking for you. So if you ever need help, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Likewise,” Baron said, then the van door slid closed. Luna started the engine, and Baron waited while she turned the van around, then they were all waving and cal
ling goodbye as it rolled off down the drive and disappeared around the bend.
Baron stood there for a long time, staring down the empty drive, feeling like someone had just ripped a hole in his chest. Tank was gone. What the fuck were they supposed to do now?
“Come inside,” Caroline said eventually, putting a hand on his shoulder, and Baron jumped, not having realised she was still there.
But he shook his head, waving her away. “You go ahead,” he said softly. “I think I’ll stay a while.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Spring was well underway, and the Den was enjoying the milder weather. The trees had turned green again, the flowers in the gardens beginning to bud, and everyone seemed to be in a jovial mood, running in the forest or playing on the lawn, the younger wolves hunting rabbits, the older ones eyeing off some of the deer that ventured too close to the lawn. There was a slightly downcast feel to some of the more senior members of the Den, the hole left by Tank’s departure felt keenly, but the new arrangement with the Grey Watch meant that the two packs would be keeping in contact much more regularly than they had before. That provided not only a chance to see Tank on occasion, but also to make new friends in the other pack.
Mark had officially finished his year’s probation, though everyone knew he was going to have a long, slow climb if he wanted to regain any of his lost status. While there were no official rules banning him from climbing the ranks, much of the Den seemed in agreement that he should not be given the opportunity. While the ongoing antagonism angered Dee, Mark was taking the whole thing with patient resignation. Give it time, he kept telling her. One year was not long, when considering the trust he’d lost, and expecting creatures as loyal as wolves to forget a betrayal in that space of time was simply unrealistic. It was not a situation that either Dee or Faeydir felt completely comfortable with, but there was little to be done about it except endure it and hope for the best.