small smile. “James and I worked out some of the logistics last night. The very beginnings of a plan to ensure we have a fighting chance once this news spreads. Defeating the threats against you will take every wolf we have. As much as the other Sects will present a problem to us in the future—and the stakes will be high—they are not my first priority. The wolves who recently broke apart from both U.S. Packs have tossed us all into chaos. We don’t stand a chance of defending you from any attack until we can pull ourselves together and unite once again. Infighting will thin us out, make us weak.” He paused, looking down at his hands for a moment. He glanced back up at me. “The short-term plan involves me doing something unprecedented.”
I stared at him, assessing. Being head of Pack wasn’t easy, but I knew whatever he had in mind would be a calculated move in the right direction. “I’m sure whatever it is, it’s the right step.”
“After we finish with this meeting,” he said, “I’m heading down into the Southern Territories to meet with Redman.”
“In person?” I asked, somewhat surprised. Visiting an Alpha you were feuding with was not the norm by any means. From all the stories I’d heard in my lifetime about Red Martin, Alpha of the U.S.
Southern Territories, he was a brutal sonofabitch who ruled his wolves with an iron fist. “How big is his Pack these days?”
“He leads fifty-nine wolves,” my father said, contempt lacing his voice. “Thirty-seven wolves thinner than it was twenty years ago. I don’t know where they’ve gone, since only a few have come to my Pack. They aren’t listed as rogue either. I’m assuming they have assimilated into new Packs around the world—either that, or they are the wolves who began the fracture and Red has kept it quiet on purpose. Whatever the reason, I’m about to find out.”
Two hundred years ago, Redman Martin was responsible for the breakup of the U.S. Pack,
becoming Alpha of the Southern Territories. As ruling Alpha, my father could’ve easily ended his life.
Instead he chose to let Red form a new Pack, because restless wolves were a hindrance to everyone.
Red’s nasty influence had already rent a hole in the existing Pack, so there had been no other choice.
The wolves who left to run under Red’s directive were of a particular
My father had not been sorry to see them go.
“Do you think Redman could be behind the whole fracture?” I said. “It’s something he’d be capable of doing, from what I’ve heard about him over the years.”
“I can’t rule that out, but the only reason he’s agreed to let me come down is to prove to me he’s not behind any of this,” my father answered. “He knows he has a war on his hands and once we start fighting, the north would wipe them out. His Pack has dwindled to almost nothing. He’s eager to prove he’s not harboring the traitors. But they have to be somewhere, and he has to answer for his missing wolves. The fracture group has to have a home base in the U.S. and it has to be close enough for them to act when they need to.”
“They can’t possibly be stationed in the north,” I said.
“Damn right, they’re not in the north. They wouldn’t dare settle in my territory. If there’s a brain cell between any of them, which is doubtful, they would be in the farthest reaches of the Southern
Territories’ borders. My best guess would be somewhere in the swamplands of Florida or the high mountains of Mexico. If they attack, they’ll attack the south first, and try to amass wolves and move forward from there. They will need more than their ragtag group to go up against my wolves and they know it. Redman either sides with us, or he sides with them. He’s selfish to the core, but I’m guessing he will take the easy way out. Fighting me will be a fatal decision on his part.”
“He’s had a taste of power for too long,” I agreed. “He won’t fight you and risk his status and power. If Redman is not responsible for the fracture in the Packs, who is?” I’d been running it over in my mind since I’d left New Orleans and nothing made much sense. “Stuart Lauder acted like he was in charge that night in the clearing, but there was no way he could be behind the entire operation. He couldn’t have amassed such a large following on his own. He wasn’t smart enough.” My irises sparked remembering the fight. “But his father was.” Hank Lauder, one of my biggest opponents growing up,
was still at large. I’d killed his only son and he would be after me to exact his retribution; it was just a matter of time.
“I have two of my best trackers on Hank. He’s still somewhere in the Ozarks, likely holed up mourning his loss. They haven’t found him yet, but he will answer for his son’s misdeeds; make no mistake. When they bring him in we will find out everything he knew, but I doubt it was much. Hank was loud and ornery, but he was loyal to this Pack. His biggest mistake was overindulgence. He gave that boy everything he ever asked for.” And it had made him nasty as hell. “Wolves get restless, which I understand,” my father continued, shaking his head, “but the fracture feels too organized. My guess is it’s coming from the outside.”
“Another Sect?”
“Yes.”
I bit my lip. It was highly unusual for any supernatural to pair with another. Each Sect was untrusting of the other, bordering on pathological mistrust. “From what the Vamp Queen indicated,
the fracture wolves had already struck a deal with the vampires.” There was no way to know how binding it had been. Eudoxia, the powerful Vampire Queen—and current bane of my existence—
certainly had something up her sleeve. Had she been orchestrating some kind of coup since my birth?
It was a possibility. “If Eudoxia had prior knowledge of the Prophecy, she could’ve sown doubt over time, made the younger wolves wary with a few carefully placed spies. She said the wolves were willing and eager to swear fealty to her.”
“Wolves don’t swear oaths to vamps,” my father growled as he arched his eyebrow at me to punctuate the statement. “Before you, it’s never been done.”
I had indeed broken the golden rule about swearing oaths to vampires, but I’d done it to save my mate. And I’d do it again. But that little tidbit didn’t need to be announced out loud. “So where does all of this leave us?”
My father leaned forward. “I really don’t know, Jessica. I’m not going to pretend to know.”
Thinking about all the various implications of the Prophecy made my head spin. “I don’t feel
Alpha inclined,” I said honestly. “I realize I’m strong, but my wolf has made it clear it’s not our job to run Pack. I have to believe that won’t change.”
“I don’t feel a threat from you. If anything, it’s the opposite, which is a blessed relief.”
My wolf yipped at me. We needed to get moving. I slid my chair back to stand. “Are you heading south now?”
“Yes, I’m leaving shortly and I’m taking a dozen wolves with me. We’ll be gone as long as it takes.” He placed both hands on the table in front of him. “Jessica, I want you to know if you encounter a severe emergency while you’re gone, I
There was one more loose end I had to deal with before I left town.
It came in the form of one very angry police detective.
“What are we going to do about Ray?” I asked as I stood. Raymond Hart had unwittingly uncovered our secret and now presented a threat to our race. He’d been brought over from the Safe House early this morning so I could have a chat with him—meaning kill him if I had to—and was currently being held under guard down the hall.
My father gave me a hard look.
I didn’t want to kill him. “You know, there are other ways we can deal with this,” I said.
“Exterminating every human being who finds out about us doesn’t have to be our normal moving forward. Plus, killing him after he’s been so intent on me, has my break-in case open on his desk, and was last seen at my apartment building—his car is
“I cannot, in good conscience, leave a threat to our existence in the form of a police detective running around after what he’s seen. I know our ways are not easy for you, Jessica, but someone like
Raymond Hart poses a serious problem. He is not someone who would assimilate as an Essential into our Pack, which is the only option left to him other than death.”
He was right. Ray would never assimilate willingly. But I still didn’t want to kill him. If I killed
Ray, which would be relatively easy because he’d been a constant headache of mine for years, each human
