by John Conroe
“Stacia, take Holly and stand over there,” Afina, female Alpha of the New York Pack, said, pointing.
With a nod at the Alphas and a quick glance at Declan, Stacia led Holly to one side, leaving Declan alone.
“Declan, you know why you’re here?” Brock asked. He was tall, taller than Declan, with wide shoulders and dark hair, his voice deep.
“To apologize for talking to your wolves without your permission,” Declan said, voice even, eyes aimed at the Alphas’ feet.
“And you think a simple apology sufficient?” Afina asked, head tilted.
“I never considered that it would be simple. It will take the form that you require,” Declan said.
“Will it? What if we demand more than an apology? What if blood is called for?” Afina asked.
“Then blood you shall have,” the young witch said, lifting his eyes to meet hers.
“That doesn’t sound like an apology—that sounds like a threat,” Brock said, voice even deeper.
“Listen, Brock, Afina, I am sorry that I offended you by questioning your wolves without your permission,” Declan said.
“Sorry you offended us? Or sorry you questioned our wolves?” Afina asked.
“Sorry for any offense. I’m not sorry to protect my mate. I’ll never apologize for protecting Stacia. It’s my right,” Declan said.
The watchers around the field tensed and Holly could smell anger.
“You are not a werewolf, Declan, to claim mate privilege,” Afina said.
“I don’t have to be. I just have to be her mate—which I am,” he said.
“You presume to know our laws?” Brock asked.
“Presume? Not sure about that. I do know the laws of weres as they pertain to me, the mate of one. As such, I have the right to protect my mate and any young we have, with every ability and resource at my disposal,” Declan said. “Or is that not the law?”
“You’re not were, boy,” a large man on Declan’s left said, leaning forward. Holly recognized the man as Brock’s second-in-command, Weston Brannon.
“I don’t have to be, Weston. Just have to be her mate, which you all know I am.”
“Yeah, and if you are her mate, than you’re open to Challenge,” Weston said.
“Really? Yet I hold no rank in the Pack, Weston. I’m just her mate. I have no other pack rights,” Declan said.
“You were named Friend of the Pack. That is status,” Weston said, eyes gleaming yellow.
“Is that a rank that can be won in a Challenge?” Declan asked the big were. When Weston didn’t answer, Declan turned to the Alphas. “Is Friend of the Pack a status that can be won in combat?”
The two were silent for a moment. “No. It is bestowed by Pack Alphas and can be removed at the whim of the Alphas,” Brock finally said.
“So please listen. I have no wish to offend you or even be involved in pack business. My only goal was to protect Stacia. I didn’t hurt any wolf nor damage their property, with the exception of a cursed chair. My actions, while solely my own, had the benefit of removing outside interference on Pack business,” the young witch said.
“We handle outside interference. We handle pack members to get the answers to pack problems,” Brock said.
Declan didn’t respond right away, instead turning to look over the werewolves surrounding him. Then he turned back to the Alphas. He studied them for a few seconds, then sighed, running one hand through his unruly hair.
“But you didn’t,” he finally said.
“What?” Brock asked, rocking forward on his feet.
“You didn’t. You did nothing to stop the challenges. As far as I know, you were not even aware that there was outside interference, so you were in no position to help your subordinates, any of them,” Declan said, his tone reluctant.
Brock growled and started to step forward but Afina touched his arm, transferring his attention to her instead of the young witch.
“You are calling us incompetent,” she said to Declan, her eyes a dangerous yellow.
“I’m not calling you anything. I’m explaining that whether you had the ability or not, you did not stop the challenges. You did not stop the witches. So I had to,” Declan said.
Weston lunged forward, big fist swinging at Declan’s head. Both Alphas started to yell, but the big second-in-command just suddenly froze in place, arm in mid-swing. Declan didn’t even look at him.
“Release him!” Brock ordered.
“All he has to do is step back and stop swinging. I’m not holding him in place, just stopping his forward motion,” Declan said. Holly heard real anger in his voice and felt Stacia twitch suddenly beside her.
“Weston, back off,” Brock growled, while Afina spun around and gave Stacia a warning glare.
With a curse, Weston pulled his arm back and then stepped to the rear.
“Your apology rings hollow and you insult us in front of our Pack,” Afina said, turning back to Declan.
Declan crossed his arms over his chest and Holly heard Stacia draw a little breath. “My apology for offending you is real. What I won’t apologize for is protecting my mate, which is a basic right in life, let alone a well-established law among weres. Doesn’t matter that I’m not a wolf or a were or a pack member. I am a mate. I’ll say it again. I will protect mine with every resource at my disposal,” he said.
Holly felt the air suddenly chill. It was a warm night, yet unbelievably the sand under their feet was now glittering with frost—all across the open clearing.
“You dare draw power, witch?” Brock demanded.
“You allowed your beta to attack me?” Declan asked back.
“Be very careful, young man. Your arrogance may be the end of you,” Afina said.
“Ah, there it is. I was beginning to wonder. You stage this in the Barrens, far from your normal territories, far from civilization. You use chemicals for light instead of the bonfires and torches you normally have. You have what? Thirty wolves here, surrounding us, all of them hostile from the moment we got here. This is less a come-to-Jesus and more about reinforcing your own positions,” Declan said. “You know, I came here with no intention of calling you out about your ineffectual leadership, but you had to push. Now you threaten. Honey, looks like the Friend of the Pack status is being rescinded and replaced with Enemy of the Pack. That about right, Brock—Afina? That what you want?”
“You think you would still be alive if we named you enemy?” Brock asked.
“I think most of you would be dead if you did,” Declan said, voice taking on a hard edge. Holly hardly recognized the placid young man who she had met a dozen times before and who had climbed into the car with them. Gone was the mild demeanor, the easygoing, self-deprecating young man who could do cool party tricks. Instead a force of nature stood there, straight and tall, staring into the eyes of the most dominant wolves on the East Coast, ignoring the growling pack of super predators, completely confident. His blue eyes almost seemed to glow and his unruly hair lifted and moved in a breeze that Holly couldn’t feel. The air itself seemed to crackle with electricity.
“Stacia, you are of this Pack, are you not?” Afina asked suddenly, not looking away from Declan’s stare-down with Brock.
“Yes,” Stacia answered.
“Advise us on the threat we face,” Afina commanded.
“He’s drawn power from the heat of the earth and can pull more from the surrounding land. Despite the location, the lack of fire or electricity, he’s confident, which means he feels he has sufficient power on hand to deal with the pack. Either his reserves have grown, which is likely, or he has stored magic with him, which is also likely. Also, I doubt that he is here alone,” Stacia said, her voice nervous for the first time Holly could remember.
“What do you mean alone? He has you and her,” Afina said, nodding at Holly. Her has a name, bitch, Holly thought.
“I don’t mean us. He would worry that my pack ties conflict me. He planned accordingly. I’m guessing one or both of his ele
mentals are nearby,” Stacia said.
“And your assessment of the threat he represents in the face of this pack?” Brock asked, eyes still locked onto Declan’s.
“He held off the full power of the Summer Queen of Fairie for over ten minutes, by himself. In ten minutes, he could level this part of the Barrens like a hurricane,” she said, turning from her Alpha to look at Declan. “If he brought backup, it will be a decidedly uneven contest.”
Declan broke off his stare and turned to meet Stacia’s eyes, giving her a short nod. From this angle, only Stacia and Holly could see his face fully, so Holly was pretty sure no one else saw the quick, tiny grin that quirked his lips at his nod.
“You trivialize the power of your own pack,” Brock said, voice almost a growl.
“No sir. I don’t,” she said, meeting her Alpha’s eyes without flinching.
Brock studied her for a moment before switching back to Declan.
“Declan, you are no longer a Friend of this Pack,” Brock said. “And Stacia, as you have taken him as your mate and no longer deem our leadership sufficient for your needs, I decree you split from this Pack, no longer to find surcease and protection in our strength. Holly, as you are tied to your mentor, and not because of any actions of your own, you too are cut from the protection of the New York Pack.”
Every wolf in the clearing, in either human or animal form, raised their heads and howled at the moon in a long cry that somehow spoke of simultaneous loss and anger.
“Declan, you have cost your mate her place and her pack, along with that of her foster. I hope you have the strength she thinks you have,” Afina said.
Suddenly, high in a tree at the far end of the clearing, a twenty-foot gout of flame shattered the darkness, flaring light and heat across the entire space. Holly saw the outline of a bat-winged dragon, the size of a hang glider, feet clutching the top of a tree, belching out a white-hot inferno of fire.
The flames died away but then the very ground under their feet shook, hard, and she would have sworn she felt the passage of something large and dense moving under the clearing, from just under their feet toward the back of the lot.
“Brock, Afina, I’m sorry for Stacia’s sake that you’ve decided on this, but I thank you for all the protection and support you’ve given her over the last years. Although I suspect she paid you back pretty well with competence and performance,” Declan said, ignoring the shaking ground and the shaken wolves. “It is my hope that this isn’t a complete burning of bridges, that someday in the not-too-distant future we can maybe reestablish a relationship. We’ll show ourselves out.”
He gave them a nod, caught Stacia’s eyes, then Holly’s, making a head tilt toward the little trail they had entered on. Holly saw her mentor turn toward the Alpha couple but those two were conferring, heads together, ignoring the witch and everyone else. Lips pressed together in a tight line, Stacia turned and, with a wave to Holly, started to follow her boyfriend. The blonde werewolf smelled briefly of sadness but then it rapidly changed to anger as she stared at Declan’s back.
The wolves, human and beast, crowding the field edged back a bit as Declan passed them, then deliberately, one by one, turned their eyes away from the two werewolves following him. Overhead, a huge set of wings swooped by as the dragon-thing flew ahead of them.
It was a quiet march to the car and then even quieter as they all belted in. Stacia started the Prius and pulled out.
“I’m sorry,” Declan said. “I didn’t think they’d go that far.”
“I’m tired of hearing those words: I didn’t think,” Stacia said, voice trembling.
“Okay, I’ll use different ones. It was not apparent that things were so far gone that they would feel backed into a corner,” he said.
“What did you expect them to do?” Stacia growled, clenching the wheel hard enough to make it groan.
“I expected that they would holler at me in private, not make a public spectacle, force me to reveal their lack of attention to their own pack. They’re distracted by their corporate woes and now it’s obvious to the whole pack,” Declan said, his tone sincere.
Stacia said nothing and the silence stretched out painfully long. Holly couldn’t stand it. “What woes?”
“The main economic engine of the pack is their sporting goods chain. Like most retail in this economy, it’s fighting a losing battle against online competitors. Their revenue numbers have fallen for four full quarters and the current period is even worse. They will end the quarter in the red. A normal business would start to lay off people and reduce costs. A big chunk of their employees are pack members. They’ve been totally distracted by the business, which, I believe, is a large part of why they didn’t address Stacia’s challenger problem.”
“But why did they force a showdown?”
“Any number of reasons. They know me, but they haven’t really ever really seen me do what I do. So it may have been poor judgement in the face of incomplete information. Or maybe it was a setup to fire Stacia and likely…” he paused to glance at Stacia before finishing, “… her mother, too. Maybe they saw it as a way to reinforce their leadership image.”
“How do you know all that stuff about their company?” Holly asked.
“The way he knows most things—Omega,” Stacia said.
“You’re pissed. I get it, but they pressed hard and I won’t back off from my right. You’re the one who told me to never show weakness,” he said.
“How were you protecting her if you caused a huge fight with the whole pack?” Holly asked.
“Did you feel something like static?” Stacia asked.
“Yeah, when it looked ugly, like it was all going to go sideways,” Holly said.
“That was him throwing up a shield around us. He would have taken on the Pack without us,” Stacia said.
“You had the dragon thingy and whatever was underground,” Holly said.
“Yes. My step-aunt is a cop. Law enforcement relies on overwhelming force to prevent violence,” he said. “If the odds are close, people make stupid choices. If it’s lopsided, they’re usually smarter. I made sure it was really lopsided.”
“Would you have won?” Holly asked, fascinated by the idea.
He didn’t answer. After a second, Stacia glanced at him, then back forward. Finally she spoke. “Yes, he would have.”
“Against the whole pack? The New York Pack?” Holly questioned.
“Against a single werewolf, one-on-one, without my magic, I’ll most likely lose,” he said.
“Most likely?” Stacia asked, brows raised.
“There’s always a chance I could pull it off,” he said with a shrug. “But with preparations and access to my magic, well, the advantages fall on my side.”
“Still chance though,” Holly said.
He nodded. “Yup, Lady Luck can be a mean bitch. If I’m laying out lightning bolts and earthquakes in front and some kid sneaks up from behind and knocks my head in with a rock, well, there ya go.”
Stacia snorted. “As if I’d let that happen.”
“Oh, so you’re the artillery and you’re the security,” Holly said, pointing at Declan and then Stacia.
“Exactly. What are you, a military brat?” Declan asked.
“No, just played a lot of first person shooters. That’s how I met my fiancé… ex-fiancé,” she said.
“Online?” Declan asked and when she nodded, he went on. “Really. Never heard of that one. Lots of people through dating sites and chat rooms, but not through gaming.”
“Happens more than you might think,” Holly said. “But just because your new love interest can run a solid team campaign on Call of Duty doesn’t mean they have balls in real life.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Declan said.
“It sucks, but then again, as my mom says, better to find out now that he was a weak bastard then when I was raising kids and feeding a mortgage,” Holly said. “By the way, where are we headed?”
“Well, I thought I
’d drop you at your parents’ house, then Declan and I would go break the news to my mom,” Stacia said. “And by we, I mean him.”
Declan gave Holly a grimace but ended it with a nod of acceptance. “Fair enough.”
Holly thought of the quiet house on the cul-de-sac, the neighbor’s cat and the full moon. “Actually, if it’s alright, I’d rather go with you? I never met your mother, Stacia, and it’s too early to go home.”
Declan looked surprised, but Stacia’s glance in the rearview mirror held understanding. “Sure. Moon’s still pretty high,” she said. Realization flooded Declan’s face and he too nodded at Holly.