by SJ Himes
Being his offspring was not a bonus. Not in Black Pine. Their Clan was the strongest, and again the most revered, despite Gray Shadow’s loss almost fifteen years earlier, and it was all due to his Heir’s doing. Kane’s power was known far and wide, and the Voice he carried nearly made up for Gray Shadow’s loss. His Heir’s skill with human technology, weaponry, and his ease at navigating through the complex and contradictory human legal system made him an asset to Black Pine. All of this benefited the Clan, and Caius was thankful for it, yet all of the glory that garnered left him bitter.
If only his sons were stronger, more powerful, with even half the potential of Kane, then he would have been able to name one of them Heir, and kept the Clan’s succession in his direct bloodline.
Kane was powerful. Where his sons would only be able to take leadership of Black Pine from him by treachery, Kane could do it with the tiniest of inclinations. His sons would soon be dethroned, the Clans taken over by another, stronger alpha, unless they preemptively and simultaneously murdered every able-bodied alpha in New England. Kane could not only take Black Pine and all its sworn lesser clans and packs, but also keep it safe from all challengers. The young alpha was that strong, and it infuriated Caius to no end that Kane didn’t even act like he wanted to be Clan Alpha. He appeared content to be the dutiful Heir, respectful, followed orders, and offered wiser insights than he should have been able to at the tender age of forty-four. Every year that passed left Caius with the undefinable and horrid sensation that the world saw him for what he really was, a broken and bitter wolf belittled by the far-reaching glory of his mighty Heir.
He missed, in that moment, Gray Shadow’s ever-steady presence with a vicious ache that stole his breath and made his heart stumble. The shaman’s face floated in his thoughts, his lightning quick grin and sharp eyes glowing. Caius banished his friend’s visage, and found his center, prepared to do what he must.
“Has it to do with Kane’s mission to Worcester?” Roman asked eagerly, eyes glinting.
“It does.” Caius looked past Roman’s shoulder, and spoke to his younger son. “Gerald, go pack. Kane will be leaving soon, and you’re going with him. You have thirty minutes.”
Gerald gaped at him, shock plain on his features, clearly not expecting to even be included in the conversation, let alone on a cross-Clan mission. Something other than shock ran through his eyes, and Caius couldn’t get a grasp on whatever emotion it was before it was gone. If he didn’t know better, he might have called it relief.
“Don’t just stand there, whelp. Move it!” Caius snapped, and the lesser alpha jumped, and all but ran from the room in his haste.
Roman watched his brother leave, and he turned back to Caius, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. Caius smirked, and returned his attention to the manila folder in front of him, not opening it. He didn’t want to see the dead wolves in the photos, not yet.
“Father?”
“You, Roman, you will stay here until you’ve recovered sufficiently from your injuries. Then you will leave as well.”
“And where will I be going?” Roman demanded, growling.
“I don’t care.”
Roman took a step back, as if struck, and Caius remained impassive to the shock on his son’s face. Rumors of his desire to take over Black Pine through any means necessary would one day lead his son to making a foolish mistake, and it was better for him to leave. Leave before Caius was forced to kill him. If only Kane hadn’t spared him the night before, this situation would be resolved already. With Roman gone, and Gerald in a position to make an unforgivable transgression, the trouble his sons brought to the clan would be taken care of, and Caius could then focus on more important matters.
“Once you are healed, I suggest you go on a trip, perhaps to the Old World. We have distant kin remaining in the Greater Clans over there, and they may be swayed to sponsor your admittance to a new Clan.”
“What?” It was clear Roman wasn’t taking this seriously.
Caius stood, and Roman took another step back, an instinctive move on his part.
“You are no longer welcome here, in my territory. Your constant planning, your fruitless Challenges against Kane and his position as my Heir are an embarrassment to this Clan. Take the time while you recover to think about where you want to go. If not the Old World, then perhaps somewhere here in the States. Your other brothers may even petition to their own Alpha’s for you to find a place with them. Or maybe your nieces and nephews, Marla’s children, would welcome their uncle with open arms. Perhaps go and search out Ezekiel in Russia, I really don’t care.”
“You’re banishing me?” Roman snarled, fists clenched.
“Yes, I am. Don’t waste your time arguing with me, either. You need this time to consider where you’re going to go.”
Roman wore a look of total befuddlement, and past that, anger. Caius would have felt sympathy, even compassion, if he had seen anything in his son’s eyes besides rage under the confusion. There, that glow in his dark eyes, was evidence of guilt at thwarted plans to try and usurp his own father for his place as Clan Leader. He didn’t need actual proof, for as Clan Leader, he was judge, jury, and executioner all in one. His word was law, and final.
Caius bemoaned the lack of integrity and intelligence in his sons, and dismissed Roman with an idle wave of his hand. Roman looked like he was going to argue, but he snapped his mouth shut when Caius leveled a stony glare at him. Roman stormed from the room, and Caius could hear his snarls as he climbed the stairs to his room.
Wishing again for Gray Shadow, Caius put his hand on the folder containing the photos of slain wolfkin. He was so weary of seeing his people die and being unable to stop it.
“KANE!” Caius’ roar reached through the mansion, echoing off the walls, finding the ears of the two alphas who were loading the weapons and supplies into the back of Burke’s SUV. The garage doors were open, the February air biting and harsh, and the scent of fresh snow filling the concrete space. The lights were off overhead, the gray midday sun casting faint shadows, their breath frosting as they worked.
“Fuck, Kane. What the hell did you do now?” Burke asked, chuckling as Kane rolled his eyes, safely out of sight of the Clan Leader.
“I beat Alpha Caius’ son last night in a personal Challenge, remember? I don’t think he’ll be happy with me for a while.” Kane snorted, meeting Burke’s eyes over the rear seat of the SUV, where the other alpha was stacking duffel bags. Burke shook his head ruefully, smiling at Kane. “I don’t think Roman will be happy with me, either.” Roman was one of Caius’ sons, and not the first one Kane defeated in personal Challenge, just the most recent.
“Oh yeah. You’d think our fearless Clan Leader would be happy that you spared his worthless son instead of snapping his neck. He hasn’t that many sons left to be wasting them one by one, in Challenge after Challenge like this.” Burke shut his door, and Kane shut his, the booming echoes bouncing through the five car garage. The two alphas joined up at the rear hatch, moving in tandem to shut the door together. Burke flicked a finger over Kane’s cheek, the single faint line of a rapidly fading scar the only remainder of the fight with Roman the night before. Kane pushed him away, chuckling.
“I think he’s embarrassed that his sons keep losing, really. If he’d just step up and tell them to stop, I wouldn’t have to keep beating them down,” Kane shrugged, zipping his leather jacket up to his chin, and pulling on his driving gloves. It might be Burke’s SUV, but Kane drove. “Lemme see what he wants, I’ll be back. Warm it up.” He gave Burke a smile and a slap on the shoulder before he left the garage, his best friend shaking his head.
Kane’s long legs ate up the distance between the garage and the Clan Leader’s study on the first floor of the mansion. It was a great sprawling room that doubled as library and office, two massive fireplaces on either side of the room, with a wall of windows floor to ceiling behind Caius’ desk, ove
rlooking Augusta, the city covered in the snow that fell gently from the gray skies.
Caius was seated at his desk, the Alpha’s brow furrowed as he barely acknowledged Kane’s entrance to the room, despite having hollered for him across the grand house. Kane walked down the length of the room, over rugs as expensive as the house they sat in, past furniture as old as the city that the mansion sat above on the hill. Black Pine Clan’s seat was here, in Caius McLennan’s home, their territory vast and far-reaching.
Kane stopped in front of his Alpha’s desk, waiting patiently. The scent of bourbon, smoke from the merrily burning fires, and Caius’ own musk rose to meet Kane’s nose. There was a hint of sharp pain, but not the physical kind. It was a scent Kane was accustomed to sensing near his Clan Leader, ever present since the morning Gray Shadow died, and he knew better than to mention anything. One thing Caius would not tolerate was mentioning the late shaman.
Kane smelled the fading scents of both Gerald and Roman, and was glad they were gone. He had no desire to see either of his Alpha’s sons. He breathed deeply again, the combination of smells as delightful and comforting as they were when he was a young cub, fresh from his mother’s small home in Hartford, barely sixteen and yet fully in possession of his alpha abilities, and the coveted Voice. That was nearly thirty years ago now, and yet the memory was as immediate as if it happened that morning.
“Are you ready to leave?” Caius’ words snapped him out of his reverie, returning him to the present. Kane quirked a brow at his Alpha, but Caius had yet to lift his head from the file he was reading, one large hand smoothing over a picture with which Kane was all too familiar.
“We were just about to depart. We’ll be in Worcester by this evening. I’ll be meeting up with our team there, and the Ashland Alpha and his people as well.” Kane told Caius calmly, refusing to fidget, or show any impatience with his Alpha. Caius knew all this already. There was something else going on. “We plan on breaching the apartments tomorrow morning, just after dawn.”
“Good. I expect a report every afternoon until this….situation is handled. I want everything you can find on who is responsible, if not the traitors themselves. Do not fail me.” Caius ordered, at last lifting his steely gaze to Kane’s. He refused to show anything but calm indifference, his temper having not cooled over the years, just becoming easier to control. His casual, unruffled attitude continued to annoy his Alpha, and Kane suspected it was because Caius could no longer contain his own emotions. He acted in control, the archetypal leader, yet Kane saw the cracks in his armor. That bitter summer morning almost fifteen years before haunted Caius still. It haunted Kane too, yet he carried his pain quietly now, deep inside, where it was safe, a failed promise goading every action he took from that day forward. He would never fail a clan mate again.
“Understood. With your permission, Alpha, I’ll be on my way.” Kane waited to be dismissed, a small smile on his lips, voice sure and even.
“Not just yet. You’ll be taking Gerald with you.”
Shit. What the hell is he doing?
Gerald was one of the Alpha’s oldest surviving sons, a lesser alpha of unremarkable qualities, just barely counted as an alpha by virtue of his bulk and his meager ability to influence other, weaker-willed wolves. He was a bully and didn’t give two shits about how badly his behavior made Black Pine look. If not for Caius being his father, Kane would have been comfortable regulating Gerald to the lowest ranks of the betas, and away from any authority. He was two hundred years old, and no smarter than he was the day he sailed across the Atlantic to join his father in the New World. Mean, spoiled, and he carried a chip on his shoulder that Kane could drive through with Burke’s oversized gas guzzler.
“Sir?” Kane sincerely hoped Caius wasn’t serious. Gerald was not someone he wanted on this mission. He was quick to anger, didn’t take orders well, and violence was his answer to everything. Not to mention, he was still carrying a grudge being defeated by Kane in a Challenge the autumn after the tragedy at the summer gathering.
Not long after Kane made Caius blink the night of the funerals at the gathering, Gerald decided to Challenge him for his place as Heir. He lost. Kane spared him, not wishing to antagonize his Clan Leader further, yet Caius seemed to see Kane’s mercy as a weakness and an insult.
None of this history explained why Caius wanted Gerald to accompany Kane on a cross-Clan mission of this magnitude.
“No argument. Take him, use him. He’s yours. Just be gone.” Caius slapped the file shut, and leaned back in his leather chair. Kane bit back a retort, and nodded once, before turning and walking for the doors. He felt Caius’ hard gaze following him from the room, and Kane stood taller, shoulders back, confidence in every step. Technically he shouldn’t have given Caius his back as he left, but he wasn’t backing out of the huge room like some peon from medieval times.
Kane exited the study, and made his way back to the garage, mindful of the other clan members he met in the halls, some of them his distant cousins. He nodded, meeting their eyes briefly as he walked, not stopping to chat. The betas stepped aside and waited politely for him to go by; the lesser alphas merely nodded and kept on their way, moving over as a concession to his rank. There were no other greater alphas in the clan house other than himself, Caius and Burke. The remaining greater alphas of Black Pine lived nearby, since having them in the Clan house was an invitation for disaster. Too many greater alphas in one place led to fights and spilled blood. The clan house was busy today; his mission was on everyone’s lips and minds, no matter it was supposed to be a secret. The members of his team must have told their mates, and once they knew, everyone knew. His team had departed the night before to set up surveillance and a perimeter, and Sophia, Kane’s First Beta and team leader in his absence, was waiting on Kane and Burke to finalize details before they breached the building in the morning. It was at Caius’ insistence that they wait, the Alpha believing they stood a better chance at catching the traitors responsible if they left things alone at the target site, hoping one or more of the ringleaders would show.
“Ready, then?” Burke’s falsely cheerful voice broke him out of his thoughts, and Kane looked up to see his Speaker standing at the closed driver’s side door, leaning against it, as if guarding the vehicle. He saw why when he glimpsed Gerald prowling near the hood, a dark look marring his Neanderthal-heavy features as he growled to himself, a bag flung over his shoulders. He reasoned that a spoiled whelp like Gerald wanted to drive, and was trying his best to intimidate Burke into moving before Kane returned.
Not gonna happen, buddy. It may be my best friend’s car, but I drive.
“Ready. Gerald, you’ll be in the back, there’s a file on the mission I want you to read before we get to Worcester,” Kane stated, falsely cheerful, heading straight for the driver’s side door. Burke gave way with a snicker, opening it swiftly. The doors must all be locked but this one, as Burke darted inside, over the center console, and into the front passenger seat before Kane even finished closing the door. He hit the locks for the back, and the Alpha’s son glared at him as he rounded the hood and got in the back, slamming the door. He very annoyingly sat in the center, obscuring Kane’s view in the rearview mirror, and he even kicked the back of their seats a few times just to make his point.
“Comfortable?” Burke sniped, sounding way too cheerful, hiding his aggravation at the other alpha’s childish behavior. Burke was withholding his opinion on Gerald’s presence; not wanting to antagonize the Clan Leader’s son. Burke didn’t fear a fight, he just didn’t want one. Burke rarely did anything he didn’t want to do, which made him perfect as Kane’s lieutenant, he didn’t want a second in command who was nothing but a mindless grunt, blithely following orders. And having his second-in-command be a Speaker was just a bonus.
“Shut it, pansy,” Gerald growled, lips pulled back from his teeth, clearly put out with Kane’s lieutenant. Kane wondered what he missed while he wa
s talking to Caius and these two were alone in the garage. Kane caught Gerald’s eyes in the rearview; he made sure that the lesser alpha got a glimpse of how little patience Kane really had with him, his black eyes burning brighter for a second. Gerald grumbled something unintelligible and sat back with a sigh. It was better that way; Kane had no desire to use the Voice on so trifling a matter as bad manners, especially on a wolf who was centuries old and in need of a time out instead of exposure to a juggernaut mental coercion he could not withstand.
“The file is in the duffel bag to your right, on top. Please read it thoroughly; we have a few hours until we get to Worcester, so you’ll have time to be on par with the rest of the team,” Kane smiled cheerfully, and threw the SUV in gear, Burke smiling at him gleefully as the big vehicle roared out of the garage, eating up the snow on the mansion’s long driveway.
Burke sat back, clicking his seatbelt on as a concession to the Maine patrols looking for violators. He ignored the surly wolf in the backseat yanking at zippers and shoving at bags as Gerald grudgingly sought out the file Kane mentioned, making a great show out of being told what to do. Kane bit back his smirk, catching Burke’s eye briefly as he navigated the vehicle through the snow, heading south.
WORCESTER, MA, was the quintessential small New England city, full of historical landmarks, snarky East Coast accents, a coffee shop on each corner, book stores everywhere, and a crumbling warehouse district that hovered like an expanding blight on the landscape, courtesy of the recent economic downturn. Winter hugged the streets as Kane navigated the SUV through the businesses and warehouses that were closed down for the evening, eventually parking on a side street several blocks from their target. They were at the edge of the warehouse district where it abutted failed housing complexes, and their target building was in the nearby block of abandoned buildings. He double-checked the GPS, confirming the coordinates his team sent for the meeting with the Ashland Alpha, Heromindes, and Kane’s team.