by JJ King
“They missed it because they’re not Gods, Katherine. Canada is huge, the largest territory ever ruled by one Alpha. You know that. Those wolves could have been anywhere.”
He rubbed his temples, an unconscious move that pushed Katherine one step further towards panic. He never got headaches or at least he never used to. After a moment, he lowered his hands and looked her in the eye again.
“Ok, here it is. There’s a wolf named Jacob Little Foot who has been building a following of Native American members of our tribe from around Canada. He’s the son of the Alpha that ruled Canada before we came along and he wants my position. I know what you’re going to ask and no, he doesn’t want joint Alphaship of Canada, he wants sole leadership rights based on his claim of the first dominion.”
Katherine sat stunned in her chair, a half full cup of tea dangled from her fingers dropping oolong onto her mother’s carpet. No one spoke. Her brothers watched her with tired yet anxious eyes.
“The council can’t be considering this! What did they say? There is no way they would remove you from your position! Tell me they didn’t dad.”
“Calm down, ma fille. Calm down. No, the council determined, after hearing all sides of the claim, that it would be best for me to remain as Alpha, but for Little Foot to assume a position of second in command by my side so he can learn the ins and outs of pack law. After a suitable period of time has passed, they will appoint him a territory within Canada to begin ruling and our country will become a multiple Alpha ruled territory like the rest of the world.”
“What then? If this is as settled as you say it is then what’s so wrong that you sit here rubbing your temples? Oh, and why am I being followed by a stalker at the airport?”
A momentary silence filled the room as her words sunk into her father’s already agitated mind. Then his face turned a bright red and he exploded from his chair in fury. In the background, she could hear the muted near growls of her brothers as they too leaped up in alarm and anger. Her mother’s face was a pale version of its previous glow.
“What! You were followed?” He turned to Sylvie who was now standing with a hand on his back trying to steady her husband in a moment of what was so obviously a crisis. Katherine hadn’t seen her father fly off the handle like that in ages. She backpedaled as fast as she could, walking towards him with her hands up cautiously in front of her.
“No dad, I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s ok. It was nothing. I didn’t see anyone and I didn’t get confronted. I just smelled a wolf that’s all. Just one wolf who didn’t show himself and I got a little nervous. I’m sure it was just a fluke. Nothing really.”
Her father’s chest heaved as he forced himself to breath. He was holding her mother’s hands now and she was staring into his face with an expression filled with concern.
Katherine’s panic hit full throttle. What was this?
It was her mother who answered this time.
“No, Kat, my darling, it was far from nothing. What your father hasn’t told you yet is that this wolf, this Little Foot, has bypassed pack law and has been covertly attacking this family for the past two months. He began before the council was even convened, though, at the time, we thought the attacks were random. It seems as though he knew the council would turn down his request and that he is determined to gain control with or without their consent. He is staging a covert war against us, against your father and this family.”
Katherine felt staggered. A feather could have decimated her.
“What? Why isn’t the council doing anything about it? Surely he can’t get away with attacking a chosen Alpha.”
Now her father spoke up from where he was again sitting. His face was returning to normal and his breathing had been calmed.
“There’s no proof, Katherine. We can’t go to the council for assistance until there is proof that Little Foot is behind the attacks. We have our best men out there searching for proof but so far we’ve come up with nothing that connects him.”
“What attacks? You still haven’t told me what’s happening?”
Katherine’s voice was rising as the atmosphere in the room grew more and more intense. She heard herself and couldn’t seem to stop the spike in her volume any more than she could stop the spike in her heartbeat as she listened for the real story behind this crisis.
It was her brother Ronan who spoke this time. He was in charge of keeping the pack data and knowing if any rogues were in our territory.
“There have been twelve attacks against humans in the last five weeks; four fatal and eight critical. They’ve been spaced out and we didn’t see a pattern at first but it’s become painfully clear that they’re making Wild River a target. The first one was reported in Trois Riviere, the second in Sherbrook, the third just outside Granby. All of these sites are within hours of Wild River and, if the pattern continues, the police won’t take long to pinpoint what’s in the middle of all of these attacks; us.
That’s not all, either. We’ve had reports that several wolves have gone missing from this area as well. Most are unsubstantiated but we know for a fact that two of our scouts, Jason and Tyrone, have been missing for over two weeks. They were based out of Montreal to keep an eye on the more untrustworthy pack element in the city. They’ve just vanished Kat. All in all, we have a total of seven pack members missing with no trace of where they’ve gone.”
“Seven wolves?” Katherine tried to remember the last time there had been a situation like this, when wolves had been killed or taken hostage, and she came up empty.
“Is it Little Foot or a hunter? No, wait…” she thought furiously, jumping up to pace the floor closest to the window. She tried to recall everything she’d ever learned about the men and women who knew of her people’s existence and chose, however foolishly, to hunt and kill them, “if it were a hunter then humans wouldn’t be being attacked. Maybe a hunter was attracted by the attacks around Montreal.” She rounded on the group and stilled, “Do we think that the same person is responsible for both types of attack or am I on the right track?”
Ronan smiled at her and clapped his hand to her shoulder, turning his head to look at their father.
“Told you she needed to be here dad. She thinks faster than any of us. Kat, that’s exactly the questions we’ve been asking. We don’t know yet what’s true and what’s just conjecture but we could sure use your help on this.”
Katherine put her hand over her brother’s and squeezed gently, smiling back at him. She turned to her father.
“This still doesn’t explain why my being followed at the airport upset you so much. Why it upset all of you. Has anyone in the family been targeted? Followed?”
Her mother raised a hand like a little school girl and smiled sheepishly.
“I’m afraid that I’m part of the reason they’re all so afraid for you, chere. I was followed several days ago and there was a little accident. I’m all right, calm down, you’re all so jumpy!” She waved her hands at Katherine who had stepped forward. “It was just a small accident; I ended up in the ditch after a car ran me down. I wasn’t hurt badly and the car sped away. The driver had his window down and because my convertible top was down I got a good whiff of him. He was rank and 100% wolf. It was weird, as though he wanted me to know I was being stalked but he had no intention of actually harming me. It was a threat as far as we’re concerned.
Several other female members of the family have also reported being followed by an unidentified wolf. They all describe the same scent and the same pattern. Katherine, he’s even been stalking Bianca and she’s only five this year.”
“Why would he do that? The wolf in the airport did exactly the same to me. He let me smell him but then he bolted. He wanted me to know he was there but that was all. What is this? Why just the women? Scare tactics? Guerrilla warfare?”
“Probably a little of both.” Ronan stepped forward and spoke with authority. “We think that Little Foot has employed rogue wolves against us and it trying to tell us that he can get to our lo
ved ones anytime he wants to. Tell me, Kat, what did the wolf at the airport smell like?”
“Like mom said, rank. He smelled like a twelve-year-old boy who got into his father’s playboys and forgot to shower for a week; all hormones and filth. If I ever come across him again I’ll know.”
“Oh, me as well,” Sylvie agreed.
“Well then, we can presume that there is just one wolf stalking the family right now. That kind of distinctive smell can’t be normal and I doubt any other wolf would want to be around someone who smelled like that for very long. So he’s a loner. What we need now is proof that Little Foot sent him and a reason for his choosing only the women in the family.”
“Dad,” Katherine turned to face her father, “How do we know it’s Little Foot? I mean, I know he’s an obvious factor in all this but has he made any overt challenges? Is there any proof at all or are we just working on an assumption here?”
Pierre ran his long fingers through his hair, mussing it even worse than usual. “It’s a fair question and one I keep asking myself. The truth is that we don’t have any real reason to suspect Little Foot. During our time together at the conclave, he was a good man, a strong man and I found little fault with him. He was passionate about his claim and made many excellent arguments against my rule but he never attacked me in any way or made any insinuations that he would attack like this. We’re investigating him because we have no other leads, Katherine. If it isn’t him then we’re at a complete loss. I’ve arranged a summit meeting with him in three days. I think I’ll be able to know if he’s responsible or not. Until then we have no choice but to keep presuming he’s somehow involved. We need to protect our family first.”
All of her experience with court cases and her years of legal training ran swiftly through Katherine’s mind as she evaluated her father’s direction. She couldn’t fault him for wanting his family to be safe but his assumption that Little Foot was guilty was a faulty one at best. It would close off his eyes to any other possibilities and perhaps allow the real culprit to go free. She agreed that until the meeting with Little Foot the best thing for her father to do was remain on full alert so that the family could remain safe.
“I don’t think you’re wrong, Dad, I just think you might be a little too close to the situation to see all of it. The obvious action to take right now is seclusion of all female members of the family. I hate to admit it but if we’re being targeted then we need to be protected; not just for our own sake but so that the rest of the family can concentrate on what’s necessary without the added worry.”
She realized that this line of logic would doom her to sharing her fellow female’s familial protection but her logical mind understood that it was the right path to follow, even if it did piss her off. Of course, she was a defense lawyer and loopholes were her friend.
“As far as I can tell, the women that have already been targeted and dismissed by this stalker are off the hook. So, that takes both mom and I out of the equation. Mom, maybe you could gather the women and talk to them; explain what’s happening and get them to understand that this seclusion is for their own good?”
Sylvie nodded, “I can do that. This will cause a great deal of stress, however, especially for those like Natalie who are expecting. Perhaps I can organize this seclusion as more of a deluxe spa retreat for our beautiful ladies rather than an imprisonment for their own good.”
This idea and others like it made Katherine proud to call Sylvie her mother. She truly was a wonderful woman.
“Alright, then as far as I can see, our first priority should be tracking down this stalker. Have your trackers made any progress with that yet dad?”
Pierre tilted his head toward Teagan who stood up and stepped forward, his face blushing slightly. He was a quiet boy, a little shy even around his direct family, but he was the son of an Alpha and as such he was expected to help the family in matters like this. Their father had obviously assigned him this duty.
Teagan cleared his throat. “Well, like dad said, we’re at kind of a loss here with some of our best men MIA but we’ve sent out Jerome and his nose is amazing so we’re hoping that he brings us some good news. Other than that, we have Sarah, Roger, Thomas and Isaac working Montreal right now with Daniel and Sadie searching a 200 km area outside Wild River for any sign of the stalker. We could use your nose, Kat - could have used it from the start. You’re the best we have.”
She nodded, acknowledging the compliment as well as the underlying reprimand from her baby brother for taking so long to rejoin the family during this crisis.
Anthony was next to speak. “I think we have to start thinking about the possibility that we really do have a hunter in our city. Those human murders must have drawn the attention of a hunter, maybe more than one, and we need to take care of that as soon as possible if we’re going to contain this situation.”
Pierre nodded in agreement. “You’re absolutely right, Tony. The whole pack should be alerted immediately about the possibility and warned to keep out of the city if possible. We also need to allocate some of our best trackers to this search. Katherine, I think you would be a wise choice to lead the search for the hunter. If he’s out there then we’ll find him, but if he’s not then it won’t hurt to have another nose in Montreal. You might come across the rogue wolf. Either find would help ease this situation.”
The discussion of fine details lasted long into the night. By the time Katherine retired to her bedroom she was exhausted but exhilarated at the thought of leading a tracking party. She would find her man if he was out there and prove to her family that she really did believe in the family first, despite her time away. Over the last few hours, she had come to the conclusion that it was time to return home, to give her resignation at the firm and maybe rent out her home. Her one hundred years wasn’t up yet but she knew that her rebellion was over.
It was time that she stepped up and rejoined the pack.
Chapter Eight
The next two days were spent scouring the city for any sign or trace scent of the rogue wolf and the hunter. Katherine was on the verge of pulling out her own hair when she finally caught a brief whiff of a familiar overwhelming stench.
It was filtered somehow, as though the wolf to whom the smell belonged had showered, laundered his clothes, then put on one item of clothing that hadn’t been washed; a sock perhaps or maybe a pair of shoes that had been contaminated due to long-term exposure to filth.
The minute trail was worth following regardless of its impurity and the fact that she had been assigned to finding the hunter rather than the rogue.
She had expected her sense of smell to be somehow impaired after such a long term of dormancy. Since it seemed to work just as well as when she’d first left home, the practice she’d gotten from using her sense of smell during court cases must have been exercise enough. Tracking was like riding a bicycle; you never forgot how it was done. Like riding that proverbial bike, it was also extremely fun.
Despite the tedium of following ever decaying trails, Katherine found herself reveling in her first active urban hunt in over a hundred years. The last time she had searched a city for a wolf was back before they had left France. Anthony had dared her to find him in the sprawl of Paris, a city well known for its already pungent scent. It had taken her two days and a complete tour of the city to find him lounging in a gentleman’s club drinking whiskey from a fine crystal snifter. He had laughed at her aggrieved expression and told her that all was fair in love and war and, since he loved her, their chase had been fair game.
The search for the rogue wolf and the hunter wasn’t based on fanciful childhood games but the basic pleasure of the hunt still remained.
By the time she caught the scent of the rogue the sun was falling deep in the sky. She had been on her feet for at least ten hours and was starting to fantasize about the deep whirlpool tub and the thick bed covered with fine Egyptian sheets that she had reserved at the Waldorf-Astoria. The Golden Square Mile was on the other side of
the city but that distance would be nothing compared to the miles she had already walked.
The moment the distinctly rotten scent filled her nostrils Katherine forgot about soaking in the tub or falling asleep at a normal hour. Adrenaline rushed into her veins giving her the energy necessary to continue her hunt for hours.
The trail led her on a three-hour long wild goose chase around the city that quickly raised her ire and excitement level to fever pitch. The trail finally ended at the Place Ville Marie tower and the nightclub 737 Attitude.
She glanced down at her outfit and grimaced. She was dressed all in black, which was good, but she was as far from sexy as possible. It didn’t really matter that she wasn’t dressed for a night out on the town since that was the last thing she had expected to do, but it still would have been nice to not be sweaty, dirty, and without even a simple tube of lip gloss. She knew this place well from previous visits to the city and she knew that the place had a strict dress code. It wouldn’t take much to convince the bouncers to let her in but still, it would suck to look this crappy while surrounded by Montreal’s hottest singles.