by Laura Taylor
But in reality, he knew, his own sense of responsibility and desire for caution were moot points. He expected maybe one or two others to vote with him on the affirmative side, Skip, for example, or Alistair, who was known for his open mind, but the majority of the Den would be heading for the far side of the patio. He waited while the shifters moved, some quickly, others taking their time, and as the last vote was cast, he quickly counted each side… and his jaw dropped.
He counted the shifters again. And then, as the heavy silence lingered, he counted a third time.
“Fuck,” he swore softly to himself. Eight shifters stood on the negative side, scowls and folded arms declaring their disgust with the man who waited patiently in the centre of the patio. And on the affirmative side… nine shifters stood nervously, glancing at each other, seeming as surprised by the final count as Baron was. Holy hell, they’d voted to keep him.
As it was, the split seemed to have happened in the worst possible way. Baron was on one side of the patio, John on the other. Andre on the affirmative side, Caroline on the negative. Tank vs Silas. Kwan vs Aaron. Mark vs Dee. Every couple, every friendship, every close alliance seemed to have been split down the middle with this one vote. And that bode extremely poorly for the continued peace and stability of the Den.
But the vote was final, nine for, eight against, and Tank stood silently by, dutifully writing down the names of each shifter, and which way they had cast their vote.
“All decisions are final?” Baron asked, trepidation in his voice. No one moved, no last minute changing of minds, and he felt his gut churn as he announced the result. “The vote is called. Nine for, eight against. Jack Miller…” He hesitated, unable to bring himself to speak the words. “Fucking hell…” He turned away, stalked to the end of the patio. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Regardless of his own ambiguous feelings, he’d been fully expecting the Den to stand against Miller, particularly after the very vocal protests about this vote yesterday evening. And those on the negative side all had very solid reasons for rejecting him. Tank, Dee, John… What was this going to do to his Den?
“The vote is called,” Caroline said from behind him, clearly deciding to get on with things, her voice cool and emotionless. “Jack Miller, you have been accepted into the Lakes District Den. Welcome to Il Trosa.”
A moment more passed in silence… and then all hell broke loose. Those on the negative side voiced their angry denouncement of the vote. Those on the affirmative side began arguing for the validity of the result, demanding that the rest respect tradition and their democratic right to have their say. And Baron stared off into the darkness, feeling as if the earth had shifted beneath his feet. A Noturatii agent had just joined their ranks. Their world would never be the same again.
Taking a deep breath, he turned to face the arguing group. He’d done no preparation for this sort of outcome. Under normal circumstances, there should be a formal introduction of Miller and his wolf to each member of the Den, but Baron suspected that if he tried to enforce that part of the ritual now, there would be a small riot in protest.
More arguments broke out, of a more personal nature this time. Dee, on the negative side, was asking Mark how he could dare vote the way he had, when the Noturatii had imprisoned and tortured her. Where was his loyalty to his girlfriend? Raniesha was snarling at Simon, accusing him of being blind and putting them all at risk. Caroline was glaring at Andre, who had apparently taken Faeydir’s claims of Miller’s loyalty to heart. And John… Catching his gaze from across the patio, Baron felt cold inside as he saw the fiery rage in the young man’s eyes. With more reason to hate the Noturatii than most, there was no way he was going to take this one well…
“The Chant of Forests,” a voice called suddenly, breaking through the din, and Baron turned to see, to his utter shock, that it was Skip who had spoken. The Chant of Forests was a pledge of loyalty to the newly created wolf, a promise from the Den to honour and protect him for as long as he lived, and a sacred tradition within Il Trosa. It was usually performed at a shifter’s conversion, but since Miller had been converted in such an unusual way, there had been no occasion to perform it before now.
“I am not swearing my allegiance to that,” Raniesha screamed, flinging an arm towards Miller.
“The Chant of Forests!” Mark repeated, Alistair’s voice joining him.
“You shit on our ancestors!” Silas yelled, and a chorus of voices joined his protests.
“The vote is called,” Tank yelled back, trying to regain a measure of order. “The Den has spoken!”
“Get over here!” Baron snapped at Miller, grabbing his arm and dragging him off to the side, lest someone get any ideas about taking him out of the equation. He shoved him up against the wall, then placed himself bodily between Miller and the rest of the Den.
“What the fuck do we do now?” Caroline muttered to him, following him over to the edge of the patio. “This wasn’t anywhere in the plan.”
“Let them go for a minute,” Baron advised. “Let them get it out of their system.”
The chaos went on for a while, Baron watching carefully as even the most placid members of his Den joined in the argument, people getting in each other’s faces and yelling all manner of accusations. He was waiting for the moment when someone lost their temper entirely, and a fight broke out… but as the minutes wore on, he was relieved to see that everyone was somehow managing to maintain a level of self control, despite the heated tempers.
“I call for a revote,” someone yelled finally, and the chorus of support for the idea finally broke the deadlock.
Baron stepped forward, and the group fell silent. A revote went against general protocol, but given the anger rolling off the group, not to mention the most unconventional result the first time, Baron was prepared to indulge them.
“Let’s have a revote, then,” he said blandly. “The affirmative vote will be cast to my left, the negative vote to my right. Proceed.”
The Den split once more, and Baron was actually a little surprised when the vote came out exactly the same. Given the strong loyalties within the Den, he’d expected at least one person to change their mind.
“The vote is called,” he said, once everyone had moved. “Nine for, eight against. The tally stands.” No one spoke, the decision much harder to challenge the second time around, and Baron looked at the grim faces all around him. “And now, as dictated by honour and tradition… The Chant of Forests.”
“Well, that was a fucking disaster,” Baron muttered to Caroline, much later in the evening. After his announcement that they were to perform the Chant of Forests, there had been some muttering and resentment, but in the end, most of the Den had fallen into line, though the Chant had lacked its usual enthusiasm this time around. John had been the one exception, flatly refusing to join in, and with his patience wearing thin after the arguments that had been going on all evening, Baron was in no mood to try either coaxing him or bribing him into participating, as he might have done if he were in a better mood. In the end, he’d given the boy a clear order. “You can perform the fucking chant,” he’d snapped, “or you and I are going to be having serious words about this later.”
John had looked him straight in the eye and replied, “You’re right. We will be having words about it.” And then he’d boldly gone to stand at the edge of the patio, arms folded, glaring at Miller and Baron.
After that, there had been the normal round of formal introductions. Miller had been introduced to everyone by name, asked to shift, so they could all see his wolf, and then he’d met everyone else’s wolf in turn. John had managed to cooperate about that one, though his reasons had been far from peaceful. “If Miller manages to escape,” he’d said, a predatory look on his face, “then I want to know his scent, so I can track him down and kill him.” The statement had hardly improved the mood of the evening, but at least they’d got through the ritual without further incident.
Now, though, there were a thousand unintended r
epercussions from the unexpected result to the vote. “What are we going to do about security where Miller is concerned?” Baron asked Caroline. “Given that he’s now an official member of this Den, we can’t just keep him locked in a cage all the time.”
“Well, we can hardly just let him wander about on his own, either,” Caroline said. “Even Dee didn’t get that kind of trust, and she had far less weighing against her than Miller does.”
“Dee got Mark as a chaperone for a couple of months,” Baron pointed out. “But considering Miller’s skills, it would have to be someone like Tank or Andre guarding him, and fuck knows they’ve got enough to do already.”
“If I may make a suggestion,” Simon said suddenly, appearing at Baron’s elbow. “I was thinking about this very problem earlier, and I might have a solution. I have a couple of ankle monitors up in the IT office, the sort the police use when they want to put people under house arrest, or they have offenders on parole. It sends a radio signal to a receiver that keeps track of the wearer’s location at set intervals. We could strap one to Miller, and I could set it so that it’ll sound an alarm if he goes too close to the boundary wall.”
Baron felt a rush of relief at the easy solution to the problem. “Sound good enough?” he asked Caroline, and she immediately agreed. “Do it,” he told Simon. “Let me know when you’ve got it configured, and I’ll tell Miller what the deal is.”
But unfortunately, that was far from the last of the problems they needed to solve. “What about his training?” Caroline said next. “Normally a new recruit gets a couple of years of education about our culture, our rituals, our history. Are we seriously going to throw that much sensitive information at Miller? If he gets loose, he could wipe the lot of us out just by snapping his fingers.”
“For the time being, no,” Baron said firmly. “That’s too much of a risk to take. We can teach him about the magic, how to shift, how to relate to his wolf, whatever he needs to know for normal, day to day life, but the rest of it, the history, the old language, the Council… It’s too soon. Let’s give it a couple of months, and reassess how he’s doing, then we can look at the whole thing again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Over at the side of the patio, Miller was standing with a glass of red wine in his hand, feeling rather overwhelmed by the entire evening. It had been one shock after another – the vote on his right to stay, the very unexpected outcome, the arguments that had followed, then the chant, the introductions, the rude accusations thrown his way, and he was feeling entirely exhausted by the whole thing.
At the end of it all, Baron had announced that there was a party of sorts, and half a dozen people had rushed inside the manor, returning with beer, wine, a tray of cakes and slices and another with a selection of cheeses. Once the alcohol was flowing freely, a dozen conversations had sprung up around the patio and a young man – Alistair, if Miller remembered his name correctly – had appeared at Miller’s side and offered him two glasses. “Red or white?” he’d asked cheerfully, and Miller had taken the glass of red wine with a mumbled ‘thank you’. After that, he’d expected to be ignored for the rest of the evening. Even among those who had voted in his favour, none of them seemed particularly excited about having him stay.
But instead, there had been a steady stream of people wanting to talk to him. Some of the conversations had been decidedly awkward, people asking questions about the Noturatii, not out of polite curiosity about his past, but digging for information that might help them strike a blow against their enemies. Others had given him sharp warnings, words to the effect that the shifters were notoriously loyal, and anyone stepping out of line would be swiftly shown their place. Alistair had come back again, giving him a few useful words of advice. The Den operated under a strict pecking order, he’d said, with rank determined by status fights, always conducted in wolf form, always under supervision, and designed to display strength and courage, rather than do any actual damage. As the newest member of the pack, Miller would automatically be the lowest ranking member, which was important for a whole range of reasons. He would sit at the lowest end of the table during dinner. He would be given one of the least comfortable bedrooms. He could easily be kicked out of a dog bed or off a couch by one of the more senior wolves. There was nothing personal about the treatment, Alistair had emphasised, no intended bullying or intimidation. It was just the way things were. As the lowest in line, Miller was going to get pecked the most.
Once Alistair wandered off again, another man approached, with an odd symbol on his face. This was the man who was Melissa’s brother, Miller recalled, having run into him during the Den’s invasion of the Noturatii lab. The symbol hadn’t been there at that time, and he wondered what the significance of it was. It wasn’t quite a tattoo, Miller thought, trying to get a better look without being too obvious about it. It looked more like a… burn?
“It’s a brand,” the man said, though Miller couldn’t remember his name just at the moment. “I betrayed the Den last year, and this was part of my punishment. It’s the mark of a traitor, to remind everyone I’m not to be trusted.”
“You don’t sound all that unhappy about it,” Miller observed with curiosity. The man’s name was Mark, he suddenly remembered, grateful that he’d been spared the awkward need to ask again, given that they’d been introduced not even half an hour ago.
Mark laughed and shook his head. “It’s rather complicated, but the short version is that I came out of the whole thing rather well. Certainly far better than I had expected. The Council could have had me killed for what I did.” A sly smile crept over his face. “And there’s no shortage of irony in that, given that you’re standing here now.”
“What did you do?”
“You remember when Dee was converted and escaped the lab? The entire team of scientists was killed. Someone made a mess of your IT office, killed a bunch of guards.”
“I remember.”
“That was me.”
Miller’s jaw dropped. “You were the one who broke into our labs? Fucking hell… and your Council declared you a traitor for it? That’s ridiculous.”
“Like I said, it’s more complicated than that,” Mark said again. “But if you notice people generally giving me a hard time, then that’s why.”
“Dee doesn’t look particularly happy with you at the moment,” Miller said, noticing the woman across the patio, glaring daggers at Mark.
“Yup,” Mark said, looking slightly miffed. “I’d noticed.” He took a sip of his wine, and Miller wasn’t sure whether he was going to explain that one, though he didn’t want to pry…
“We’re dating,” Mark said finally. “And she’s not thrilled about me voting in your favour. Which is understandable, given what your mob did to her back in the lab, but then again, it would be fairly hypocritical of me to deny you a second chance, when I was given one of my own only a few short months ago. You know the story: no good deed goes unpunished.”
Miller laughed, the first time he’d felt like doing so in a long while. “True enough.” But then he hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. “After what happened back in the lab, it… well… I’m aware that Melissa is your sister. I was wondering if you’d…”
“No,” Mark said firmly, shadows appearing in his eyes. “For a whole pile of complicated reasons, I have no interest in hearing anything about her.”
“But she’s your sister. Even though she’s working for the other side, I thought you might-”
“I will say this only once,” Mark said, turning to Miller with a cold glare. “I have no sister. The woman you worked with chose a path of cruelty and destruction, and I want nothing more to do with her, save to put a bullet in her, should we ever meet again.”
It was said with such cold finality that Miller couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response. He let his gaze wander over the patio, trying to come up with a different topic of conversation, and noticed another man glaring at him, John, the one who had refused to pe
rform the Chant of Forests.
“What’s John’s story?” he asked cautiously. Mark was one of the few people who had neither tried to interrogate him about the Noturatii, nor threatened him in any way, and he seemed more sympathetic to Miller’s situation than most people, so he was hoping the man might be willing to share some information with him.
“I would stop staring at him if I was you,” Mark said sharply, and Miller wondered what he’d inadvertently done wrong now. The social rules of this place seemed complicated beyond all understanding. “You’ll figure out soon enough that everyone here has had something of a rough past, and joining the shifters has often been a form of salvation for a lot of people. We don’t talk about other people’s pasts, and asking the person directly is generally frowned upon. It’s one of the most personal things you can ask. So I can’t tell you much about John. But I can say that he had a difficult time before he came here, even by shifter standards. And he has more than enough reason to hate you. So if you want my advice? Stay away from him. The kid’s insane.” It was said so bluntly that Miller had to assume that Mark meant the description literally. “Don’t talk to him, don’t antagonise him, and if you ever find yourself in a room alone with him, leave as quickly as you possibly can. Given the opportunity, he’ll kill you, with absolutely no regard for any laws that forbid it.”
The grim news was rather startling. “Is there anyone else I should particularly watch out for?” Miller asked.
Mark shook his head. “Given your position, it’s generally a good idea not to go out of your way to piss people off. But no, there’s no one else likely to do you any serious damage. Now, I’m going to go get another glass of wine,” he said suddenly, draining the last of the liquid from his glass, “but don’t think I’m abandoning you. I’ve just noticed there’s someone else who’s been eyeing you up for the last five minutes, and the moment I’m gone, she’ll be over here like a shot.”