“I have a question,” I interrupted. Heath turned to me and waved a hand, beckoning me to say more. “When does the Alpha Council step in?”
He froze, letting his hand drop. “You’re worried about the Tribunal, and which one of the Alphas here in North America sits on it.”
“I didn’t know that, but yeah, I’m worried about the Tribunal,” I conceded. “Who sits?”
“The Los Angeles Alpha. He’s incredibly old. You know, we could try to minimize your involvement in this—”
“I was already in contact with the Alpha Council before arriving in Dallas. He will have told someone with the Tribunal that I’ve broken the Law, if I’m still alive when this is all over,” I said, rubbing my face. “Too late, Heath. It’s too late.”
“I’ll speak on your behalf,” he said carefully.
“Just answer my question. When is the Council going to step in? It’s going to be their responsibility to take me into custody.”
“You could run,” he offered, then shook his head, dismissing it before I could. Running was psychotic. “I was going to call one of my trusted friends on the Council after this. They should be ready to come in at dawn, to help rebuild the pack and to help me finish transitioning into retirement—which I’m going to make effective as soon as the traitors are dealt with and I have Tywin back.”
“I’ll stick around then, until they show up. No reason to make this hard.”
“I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I’m grateful for you coming here.”
“You’ve made that clear.” I huffed. “I’ll quit interrupting,” I promised, waving at the wolves who were standing ready for him.
“Cats,” he mumbled to them. “Everything is on their good graces.”
“My niece wants a cat,” one of them replied. “I’m trying my best to convince her it’s a terrible idea.”
“Good luck,” the Alpha said, chuckling sadly. “Get her the cat, though. You never know when she might be gone and you’ve lost the opportunity.”
Oomph. My chest tightened.
“Ranger, Keith, and Sheila. You’ll all be with Jacky and me tonight.” Heath made the decision quickly, pointing to the wolves he named. “Sheila, you’ll be the driver. Keith, passenger’s seat. Ranger, you’ll be in the back with us.” He looked over me next. “Tonight we’re getting Carey back.”
“I know.” There was really nothing else to be done.
21
Chapter Twenty-one
We left to no cheering or acclaim. I was patted on the shoulder a couple of times, which was nice, I guess. Maybe they were trying to offer some reassurance that this would end just fine.
For Carey’s sake, I hoped it did.
I sat on Ranger’s left in the Explorer, with Heath on his other side. I didn’t know Ranger or Keith, and my interactions with Sheila were minimal. I hadn’t spent much time since they were chosen to get to know them, and maybe I should have. I didn’t want to get too attached to any of the wolves. I had to remember how this was going to end for me.
The drive started silent, until Sheila spoke up. “Think this is going to work, boss?” she asked softly.
“Yes.” Heath was stoic. I had a feeling he was focused on all the parts of the plan that didn’t have to do with those of us in the Explorer.
I knew the rest of the plan now, and it worried me just as much as my own part. While we were starting the meeting, half of Heath’s loyal wolves were Changing and going on hunts of their own. They were making their way to us, and handling any wolves they saw along the way. The rest of his wolves were staying at the warehouse, just in case it was attacked. It held the children of several pack members, and as everyone had learned with Carey, children were the most vulnerable group. They had to be protected at all costs.
So while we played pretend, trying to secure Carey’s safety and take out the leaders of the traitors, the rest of the pack was going to be fighting a war, hopefully out of the human eye. The last thing any of us needed was more videos of wolves killing each other to get onto the internet.
“Now’s the worst time to start questioning the plan,” I said quietly, rubbing my face. “Or so I think.”
“You’re right,” Ranger agreed, nodding in my direction. “We have to stay focused, believe in our backup, the wolves watching the kids, and hope we’ve judged the situation correctly.”
“Fingers crossed,” I said, even holding up a hand doing just that.
“Jacky, you just need to worry about Carey. I don’t care what happens to me, but I need you to make sure Carey is safe,” Heath said, his voice rough. “Okay?”
“It’s what I’m sworn to do,” I replied. “I don’t back out of promises.”
“Thank—”
“Stop saying thank you,” I demanded, covering my face. “Stop. I’m just…this is what good people do, right? We show up, even when we’re not ready and we’re totally out of our depth. I made a promise to her and I’m going to see it through. Stop…thanking me for that.”
Silence fell on them again. Eventually, Sheila stopped the Explorer down the street from a construction site about twenty minutes north of Dallas.
“This is still pack land, right?” I asked, forgetting if one of them had answered earlier.
“Yes and no. Many of the pack don’t live directly in the city, preferring the quieter fringes of the city,” Heath answered as the doors unlocked. I stepped out, continuing to listen while he continued to talk. “So, we claim that any place our pack owns is part of the territory, even if it might not be in the city. This is near a few homes, actually.”
“Cool,” I said softly, swallowing my fear. Ranger, Heath, Keith, and Sheila circled me as I pulled my shirt off. I wasn’t used to stripping and shifting with an audience, but it was security. This had already been planned. They didn’t want me wandering off and possibly shot. I didn’t want that either.
I handed my clothing to Ranger and nodded to Heath. “If I need to tell you something, you’ll know,” I told him one last time. Then I triggered the Change.
It burned through me. None of the wolves around me seemed disturbed by the crunching and breaking of bones. They were shocked by how fast it ended, though. I extended my claws, letting them scratch the asphalt, then retracted them. I stretched my new legs and flicked my tail around.
“She wasn’t kidding about her measurements, was she?” Keith said lightly, nodding down at me. “I didn’t know they had saber fangs like that. No modern cats have those.”
“I think werecats are reminiscent of cats that don’t walk the earth anymore,” Heath said. “Built like a lioness, but more muscular—and those teeth. You’re like a blend of the ancient and the current. Completely unique. Will Carey recognize you?”
I nodded.
“Good. Let’s go. You three, stay here. If someone starts shooting at you, shoot back. Leave when Jacky and Carey are secure.”
I growled. I made my opinion very clear in that moment. Him too. Carey needed her damn father after all of this.
“She’ll have her brothers if I fall,” he reminded me. “They’ll come for her when the heat settles, I bet.”
“They’d better, or I’m going to hunt them down and eat their dumb asses.”
His eyes went wide. Only for a second, because then they shifted to calculating. In the dark, I watched his grey-blue eyes shift into a piercing, cold ice blue. The eyes of his wolf.
“Oh shit. You weren’t supposed to get that. Don’t react. Don’t tell the other wolves. They’ll kill me.” God damn, I needed more practice with that. “The fae wanted to even the playing field for me to help protect Carey and any future humans I might help.”
“We’re going to head out,” Heath announced. He turned and started walking. I walked after him, keeping low. Once we were out of earshot of the other wolves, he started talking again. “I won’t expose your secret gift from the fae,” he whispered. “Only because of this. You’re breaking the Law to protect my daughter and help me. For that, I’ll leav
e you with this secret. Wolves do this to kill your kind. To hunt better. It’s the one thing we have on you, our pack magic. And this fae gave it to you.” He sounded pretty pissed off. “You didn’t ask?”
“He offered it purely as a gift. I know he’ll come collecting the debt eventually. He tried telling me it wasn’t like that, but he’s fae. They always collect.”
“They always stick their noses in places they don’t belong,” he muttered.
“I said the very same thing. I think he’s worried about his wife’s safety, now that I think about it. And then he learned there’s a werecat that lives nearby and…well, yeah.”
“Makes sense,” Heath said, sighing. We stopped across the street, able to stare right at the front of the construction site. “Are you ready for this?”
“There’s no such thing as being ready for this,” I replied.
“Fair point again, werecat.”
We walked closer and I took a good sniff. Metal. Lots of metal. This wasn’t a house being built, but something that was bigger, that needed the steel support. I saw the walls were nearly finished and the windows were in. A new office building being built? I didn’t know, but it wasn’t a wooden house. I could have done some structural damage to one of those, maybe in a desperation move.
This was like a fortress, and we were walking directly into it.
Heath grabbed the door and held it for me. I obliged, going first and sniffing around.
“Magic. I smell magic,” I told him. I couldn’t get a response from him, leading him through the building to a large center room.
I froze midstep as I saw what and who was in the room.
Two cages, both holding adult male werewolves in their human forms. One I didn’t recognize, but the other…
“Landon,” Heath breathed out behind me.
“This isn’t good,” I said quickly. “Richard contacted Carey and said they were okay. I swear it. I don’t know how he ended up here.”
He touched my back lightly, walking around me. It was reassuring. I could feel a pulse of that feeling run through me, which confused me more, but also pleased me. Its source wasn’t from me, that was certain. He’d given me that emotion.
“Father?” Landon looked up, his eyes going wide. “Father! It’s Richard. He’s working with Emma and Dean.”
“What?” Heath stopped. “No. They’ve…they’ve…”
“The magic we smell,” I reminded him. “There’s only one real magic user in play.”
“I’m surprised, Heath,” a woman called out, stepping through a door in the back. “You’re a smart man. You have to be, to live as long as you have, and yet you didn’t figure it out when you walked through the door...”
Heath stiffened. “Let them go. And where’s my daughter, Emma?”
“You’re not going to ask why?” Emma stopped where the light could hit her. Behind her entered two more men and Carey.
I made some sort of noise. I was unable to resist it. I lowered to my belly, inching closer, and did it again, hoping to catch Carey’s attention.
She was scared. So scared. The scent of her fear washed the room and turned my vision red, fueling a deep, unsettling rage.
“Daddy?” she said softly. “Daddy!” She tried to run for him, but Richard held her back, no matter how hard she struggled.
“Carey. Darling.” Heath sounded a little broken there for a second too. “I brought someone to take you away from this.” He gestured to me as I continued to inch closer.
“Jacky? Jacky, I thought you were dead! I thought they killed you!” She started to cry.
My heart broke a bit.
Yeah, kid. Me too. I didn’t use my new ability to communicate, though. As much as I wanted to talk to her, I didn’t want her to accidentally give it away.
“Stop, little sis,” one of the wolves snapped. “We don’t cry in front of our father.”
“She can cry if she wants,” Heath growled. “Maybe you should just let her and Jacky go. Then we can finish this.”
“I’m amazed you refuse to ask why,” Emma said, curious and unalarmed by anything going on. She was confident she was leaving this building with the win. “Heath.”
“I can ask why after my daughter has left,” he answered. “Tywin and Landon with her.”
“You always did love them more than me,” Richard snarled.
“That’s a lie, and we both know it. How dare you accuse me of that? You’re my oldest son. My closest friend—”
“And yet I’ve been passed over at every opportunity when you need someone! Every position of power in the pack has been given to everyone else. You couldn’t even make me your replacement. I’m your son, and yet have gotten nothing but a middle-pack position and your errands.” He held up Carey’s arm. “And then I became your babysitter when Carey showed up.”
I snarled, drawing his attention.
“You even got a werecat for that now,” he sneered. “You want her, kitty? Take her.” He shoved Carey, who cried out as she fell.
I jumped forward, but I couldn’t catch her. She landed wrong and my sensitive ears heard her wrist break. She cried out louder, holding her hand close to her. When I was within range, I gingerly grabbed her pants and pulled her back towards Heath, my eyes never leaving the wolves or the half-witch. I stood over her, protecting her with my body as she sobbed over her broken wrist.
“I’ll kill you for that,” Heath whispered. “How dare you? You never got a position of power because you couldn’t earn it. If you weren’t happy, you could have come and spoken to me. I would have given you more. There’s no reason to take this out on your younger siblings.”
“My treasured younger siblings. Landon, born a werewolf and strong, stronger than most. Carey, born a perfect, precious little human. Daddy’s girl.”
I had a twin sister. I could seriously relate to Richard’s pain. There had been a lot of moments in my life where I was convinced my parents loved her more than me. But I never took it out on her. She was who she was, and I loved her for it. I could never imagine turning against her.
“You’re dead to me,” he told his oldest son, then turned on Emma and Dean. “Do you two have some sort of accusation against my character before you release my wolves? They don’t need to die for this. I’m willing to accept my fate to keep them safe.” He glared at Emma. “You know the Tribunal will never let this stand, right? Cross-breeds aren’t allowed to hold power.”
“The Law isn’t strong enough to stop me,” she hissed, leaning against one of the cages. “You would know that if you ever listened to me. I told you that if you ever wanted to give me a real place in this pack, I would be able to defend it. But no, you hold tight to your little Laws. So tight, in fact, that it was easy to think you would send Carey to the werecat over there. You thought no one would ever dare go against a werecat’s protection. Fuck the Law. I’m taking control. I have the strength for it.” She tapped the cage holding Tywin. “I had people go to you and tell you that Dean and I would be better than Tywin. I gave you chances. Didn’t I, Dean?”
“You did,” he agreed softly. “We tried, so that we wouldn’t have to escalate this, but you were moving fast towards retirement and leaving in the next six months. We had to act.”
“I was never going to go against the Laws, Emma. You should have been wise enough not to either.” Heath leaned on Landon’s cage, and the younger wolf moved closer to his father. Not much. They didn’t touch, but I could see it was a simple proclamation of loyalty. Landon, even caged and beaten, would fight for his father to the bitter fucking end.
“This is why I didn’t challenge Tywin. Because you, of all people, deserve to die. Not go happily into retirement. You say the pack should fight for each other, but you never fought for me.” Emma’s voice cracked. “You never fought for me!”
“This is why everything has been so ridiculous. So un-wolflike. Emma is a half-witch, and that makes her more human than the rest of us.” I hoped Heath heard me and understoo
d, but I continued, just trying to get through to him. “She could try something dangerous and underhanded.”
“Dean didn’t earn his position in my inner circle,” Heath said softly. “Oh, he’s a strong wolf, but others could have taken it if I allowed them. He was there by my choice, which was frowned upon by some. He had it because I knew the pair of you were worthy of the position. I did what I thought was right, Emma.” Heath spread his hands. “Please. I tried. Let my son and Tywin leave with the werecat and Carey. We can fix this.”
“It doesn’t need fixing,” she snarled. “They can go after you die.”
“Love! That wasn’t our plan. Carey doesn’t need to watch her father die,” Dean said, jumping between Emma and Heath. “We had a plan. Don’t…”
“Get out of my way, Dean.” Emma glared at him. “Don’t betray me. I’m the most powerful being in this state, probably this country! I want him to die now, on his own accord. Then I’ll release his precious wolves.”
“Emma—”
Dean flew, hitting a wall and staying there. Emma had a hand outstretched, as if she was pinning him with an invisible force.
“Don’t make me take Carey back,” she hissed. “I will. The cat won’t stop me.”
That caused Carey to cry louder and I snarled, snapping over in the bitch’s direction.
“Look at her, so well trained.” Emma flicked her other wrist and it sent me flying, leaving Carey on the floor and undefended. I slid across the floor into the back wall, then jumped to my feet, running back to Carey. The half-witch was just trying to prove her point, laughing as I huddled over the human girl again. This time, Carey used her unbroken hand to grab me.
“Emma, this is madness,” Heath beseeched. “Look at what you’ve done to your husband. Your mate.” He pointed towards Dean, who was still pinned to the wall.
“Leave it, father,” Richard said, humor lacing his words. “Emma is going to get what she wants.”
“No, she won’t,” the Alpha countered. “At dawn, the Alpha Council is riding into town to help clean up this mess. That’ll either be to help me rebuild and get into retirement or put down whoever started this mess. If they can’t beat you, Emma, the Tribunal will come. That won’t end well for any of the wolves in the city, including you.”
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