“They have Mama Moon.”
Rooster jerked up his head, his eyes flashing with something dangerous. “Are you kidding?”
I shook my head. “Her store is trashed and the bear was injured.”
“Barney?” Bonnie moved away from the sword she was eyeing. “Is he okay? Mama Moon loved that bear.”
“We don’t know that Mama Moon has been killed,” I cautioned. “In fact, it looked as if she put up a fight.”
“There was also no body,” Zoe offered. “If she’d been killed, they would’ve left the body behind as a message of sorts. I’m guessing they don’t really have a beef with her as much as they want to make sure we don’t use her.”
“What about Barney?” Rooster queried. “If he needs help—”
“I healed him.” Zoe offered up a wan smile. “He was bleeding, had clearly tried to protect his mistress, but he’s okay now. We left him out at the store.”
“He seems depressed,” Gunner said.
“He’s also fallen in love with Zoe,” I added. “She healed him and now he’s devoted to her.”
“I have a way with men.” Zoe moved to the assembled weapons. “This looks good. We need to talk about how we’re going to handle this, because the moment Emma calls, she’s going to expect us to move. She won’t give us time to react.”
“She’s going to make sure she has the upper hand.” Rooster picked up a sword. “She’ll pick the location.”
Zoe nodded. “She will. She’ll be expecting Gunner, Scout, Aric, and me. She also knows about the domes because we went in under one last night. That means she’ll adjust.”
“So you want to take her on without any subterfuge,” Rooster surmised. “That makes sense. She’ll spend all her time looking for the surprise you have planned and it will make her slow to react to a frontal assault.”
“I’m not going to give her time to react.” Zoe was matter-of-fact. “Sami is out there. She’s going to be under a dome and trying to get close to Rafael. They’ll have to keep him somewhere where the sun can’t get him until the eclipse hits. The same with the other vampires.”
“Once the eclipse starts, she’ll be able to harness the power of the shadow,” Bonnie pointed out. “She’ll be able to expand her army accordingly because of that.”
“She will, but that army is going to do her zero good.” Zoe folded her arms across her chest and studied the weapons. “I think the shifters are going to be our biggest concern. I doubt the female shifters have been taken as much as recruited.”
Gunner hiked an eyebrow. “How can you be certain? I mean, it’s not that I don’t believe you, but the kidnapped shifters would make good fodder. She could use them to keep us from attacking.”
“Oh, she plans on using them as shields to protect herself,” Zoe said. “I have no doubt about that. She’s wily. They’re going to fight for her, though. There’s a reason almost all the shifters in question are females.”
I was curious despite myself. “You clearly think you know what she’s doing.”
“It’s an uprising.” Zoe cast a worried look toward Aric and received a curt nod in response. “Two years ago, Aric and I were looking for protection for Sami. There’d been an attack at our home. A dangerous witch tried to lure Sami into a net so she could kill her and drain her powers. It didn’t work, we defeated the threat, but it was obvious that more factions would start appearing because Sami was turning twelve.”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with anything,” Bonnie said, biting her bottom lip. “I’m usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, but I have no idea what’s going on this time.”
“Wolves tend to mature at twelve,” Doc volunteered. He was the analytical sort so he presented the information in a bland manner. “They’re not technically adults but it’s a significant age.”
“And it’s what our enemies were waiting for,” Zoe explained. “Sami came into everything at once, although it didn’t happen overnight. It happened over the course of a few weeks and we felt vulnerable. We went to Aric’s pack because we thought they might be able to offer extra layers of protection. There was a fear that we would be overrun at some point and Sami would need someone to take care of her if we fell.”
Aric’s hand moved to Zoe’s shoulder and he gave her a light squeeze. “We didn’t need additional help,” he said. “In the end, Zoe did what she always does and fought off the threat. For a time, however, the pack thought they had us where they wanted us.”
“I still don’t understand what you’re getting at,” Bonnie pressed. “I mean, am I missing something?”
Aric heaved a heavy sigh. “Wolf packs put higher emphasis on the males. It’s a patriarchal society. I was supposed to marry a female wolf and have numerous children with her. I broke from what was expected and followed my heart.” He offered his wife a rueful smile. “Zoe was a curiosity from the start. People knew she was powerful, so I was never completely cut off from the pack. I refused to play the game the way they wanted, though, and there was a certain amount of bitterness associated with that decision. On their part, not mine. I never doubted my decision.”
Zoe cleared her throat to draw everybody’s attention to her. “In a nutshell, they wanted us to pledge our support to the pack. In exchange, they would’ve protected Sami, while using her and my powers whenever they wanted, and forced Aric to mate with another female in an effort to get a male heir.”
My mouth inadvertently dropped open. “You cannot be serious.”
She nodded. “It was an ugly conversation.”
“One Zoe took control of and won,” said Aric. “Just for the record, I was never going to have a child with another woman. That’s not really important to this story but she’s all I’ve ever wanted.
