She raised another eyebrow at me. “And yes, people do, at times, lie about what a gathering is for so he doesn’t attend every single such meeting,” I admitted, “But in our case we’re trying to keep things as transparent and above board as we possibly can. It wouldn’t do for an Alpha candidate to be seen behaving in an underhanded manner.”
“Think that’s stopped either of the twins?”
“Touché.”
As I was cleaning up the dishes there was a loud pounding on the door downstairs and Chloe jumped in her seat.
“It’s just Markus,” I reassured her. “We need to talk before we head to the meeting.”
“I’ll go grab a shower and get dressed then.”
I nodded, distracted a bit, as she slipped across the living room, through the door that would lead back up to my bedroom. Footsteps on the stairs leading down to my workshop told me who was there. I distinctly recognized Markus’ heavy step followed by Nora and Sharon. I didn’t immediately recognize the fourth until they crested the top of the stairs and came out into the kitchen.
“Tell me again why it was that you insisted on setting up your house so your guests had to climb a flight of stairs to get to the living area?”
“Losing strength in your old age?” I asked Nora’s twin. Brent laughed as he flipped me off. “It was keep the workspace downstairs or be concerned about getting my sculptures out of the building without cutting a hole in the roof or floor.”
He shrugged and pulled the half gone case of beer from that early morning talk with Markus out of the fridge, he may look seventeen, but we all knew better. He tossed a can to everyone except Sharon who turned up her nose at it and they all cracked them open.
Markus was in the middle of telling me who we expected to see at that night’s meeting when Sharon suddenly let out a shrill shriek that had my ears ringing and caused Nora to drop her beer entirely in favor of wrapping her arms around her head in a vain effort to block out the sound.
We all looked to Sharon, took in the gob-smacked, horrified expression on her face and the direction her raised arm was pointing and turned to look at what had caused such an uncontrolled reaction from the normally reserved woman.
Chloe had just rounded the corner into the kitchen, she was wearing a spaghetti strapped baby doll camisole over a pair of snug fitting jeans, a hooded sweatshirt dangling from her fingers. The bite on her shoulder stood out sharply against her skin. Still healing faster than it should have by human standards. It was a dark scab that looked a day or two old on the smooth pale canvas of her skin and easily visible, even to those without supernaturally enhanced senses.
“Have you completely lost your fucking mind?” Sharon cried. I turned to her, a frown beginning to crease my brow. Just as I completed the turn, her hand struck. The slap landed solidly against my left cheek, so hard that I was thrown to the side and staggered to keep my feet under me.
“Hey!” Chloe barked but we ignored her for the time being.
“You’re looking to gain position as the Alpha of this Pack and you would go and claim a fucking
Hunter’s bitch
as your mate? Seriously? On the eve of the most
important
Pack meeting to get you there?” She pulled her arm back to slap me again and as she let fly a hand flashed into view and grabbed her upper arm, hooking her back like a performer on a vaudeville stage so hard, that she almost came off her feet entirely.
She growled, the inhuman growl that tells someone when a wolf-kind is really annoyed and turned, her teeth bared in a vicious snarl to find herself face to chest with Markus.
“You know exactly where you can shove that kind of bullshit Sharon. What happened to you is no excuse to take your anger out on a girl that hasn’t done nothing to deserve it. So if you can’t keep that in mind, then you are more than welcome to take your ass somewhere else. This Pack doesn’t need people like you in it if yer gonna harbor that kind of attitude. That’s a Hunter’s attitude, a different Pack’s attitude… not this one’s.”
I blinked as Markus concluded his speech and I realized that Chloe was standing next to me, her mouth pursed into a grim flat line, hands balled into fists at her side. Her back was straight, shoulders back, proudly baring the mark on her skin for everyone to see. It definitely gave me a strong sense of pride for a moment before I had to fight back the overwhelming sense of guilt that still lurked behind everything else.
“You have no idea how much trouble this is going to cause! You’re a fool William Reese. And I for one, don’t want a fool leading this Pack!” Sharon snarled. She glared at me for a moment before she yanked her arm out of Markus’ grip and stalked her way back down the stairs. Nora glanced up from where she was in the process of cleaning up the beer she had dropped and stuck her tongue out at the matronly woman’s retreating back.
“That’s not going to go over well,” Markus muttered quietly, even though he knew damned well that everyone in the room would be able to hear him.
“She’s got a lot of pull,” I agreed. “But we can’t worry too much about her. There are a lot of other, more important things, to worry about. She’s angry and bitter and I get it, I won’t take it personally. But if she tries that again
I will
drop her, I don’t care if she
is
one of our Betas.”
I could almost see Chloe’s ears perk up at that and I turned my head slightly toward her. “Yes, there are Pack Betas as well, male and female. I’ll explain their positions in the Pack structure a little later.”
She nodded and I turned my attention back to Markus. He was giving me a considering look and finally nodded, “Can’t drop her ‘til yer Alpha boy,” he reminded me.
“I don’t think she’ll do much,” Nora spoke up to fill the ensuing uneasy silence. She tossed the last of the paper towels into the small trash can I kept under the sink and pushed the door shut with her knee, before she turned and leaned against the counter with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. “Sharon’s bark is far worse than her bite, no pun intended. She’s surprised and upset.”
“And it’s none of her damned business who I choose as a mate,” I muttered darkly.
“It is when you remember what she went through.” Brent reminded us.
“What happened to her?” Chloe asked hesitantly, but curious enough for that to override her caution. We all exchanged looks and in the end they all ended up staring at me.
“It’s not my story to tell, Chloe,” I said gently, “It really isn’t. So if you really want details you’ll have to ask Sharon yourself. She’s one of the oldest members of the Pack, age wise, not as in actual membership. She’s been around the block a number of times. But of all the wolf-kind that I’ve met, she has, by far, the strongest hatred for Hunters…”
Most of the time the Hunters just hunt to kill us. But occasionally they decide that they need to study us and every now and again one of us will be taken captive. Sharon was held for six months by men that saw her at best as an animal, and at worst as a monster as they pulled ‘scientific’ experiments on her. Science experiments on level with the type of shit Joseph Mengele pulled during the holocaust. It really wasn’t my story to tell. It was Sharon’s own personal hell.
Markus sighed, “Don’t think too badly of her,” he urged Chloe, “She’s had a hard time of things and it’s just going to be difficult for her to accept you with our boy here.”
I glanced at my watch. The meeting was supposed to start at five. It would be dark right about that time as well. “Come on, guys. We’ve gotta get moving or we’re going to be late. It’ll be dark soon.”
I ran upstairs and changed while the others waited. When I returned, we filed down the stairs and out the front door as one. As far as meeting spaces went, there wasn’t anything spectacular about this one. The Olympic National Forest had plenty of space away from prying eyes and ears. Our meeting space was a large clearing that held nearly fifty members of the local Pack comfortably. It was about a mile and a half hike in off of one of the popular trailheads.
On the drive, Markus gave us a rundown of how the night’s event was supposed to go. It wasn’t a meeting of my supporters as we had originally thought. Because we had been so transparent in the meeting’s time, it had turned into a formal nomination of candidates for Alpha.
More than a majority, closer to seventy-five percent of the Pack, had to feel that a certain candidate was a better choice for Alpha over another. If enough of the Pack felt it, it would be communicated throughout the entire Pack. Almost like a psychic link amongst the members but more of a non-verbal language specific to wolf-kind.
“So this is your big chance to impress basically?” Chloe asked as we parked and climbed out of Markus’ Jeep.
“More or less. The Alpha won’t be
officially
announced until the next Full Moon but tonight will give us a very good idea of who that is going to be,” I explained.
“Things sure do move fast in your world.”
“Which is odd considering we live so long, eh?” I gave her a wink and led her across the parking lot to the mouth of the trailhead. It was packed with cars and my nerves started to jangle.
A mile and a half in, just off one of the trails, we reached the large clearing. Almost perfectly round, it’d been lined with torches. Two large bonfires burned in pits within the clearing, and it was filled with people that smelled strongly of wolf to my nose. I know that to Chloe it was just filled with people, many of whom were dressed in jeans and shirts even as the evening temperatures continued to drop.
“So is the entire Pack here?” Chloe asked. I was proud of her. She didn’t bother to whisper, my girl was too smart for that. She crossed her arms, rubbing them slightly through the light sweatshirt she had dug out of the bag I had packed back in New York. It had only been a handful of days, but it felt as if considerably more time had passed considering everything that had happened and the long road that was still ahead of us.
“Cold?” I asked her and she shrugged.
“Maybe a little. I’m mostly just nervous about the…” she trailed off and looked around at the assembled members of the Pack. She gave me a meaningful look and I nodded.
“Try not to worry about it. We’re here to meet people, so let’s get to it.”
She was amazing. I led Chloe from one group of people to another and every person she met she introduced herself as the Daughter of Mathias Young. Reactions ranged from shock, to curiosity, to fear, or hatred and she handled each with aplomb.
“I never knew anything about what my father has been doing, and I don’t agree with it in the slightest,” she was saying a few hours later. “I met Romulus and Remus though, about six to eight months ago in my father’s home. They were introduced to me as Roman and Remy Dulcet, as clients of my father’s accounting business.”
“Names that Remus made up years ago,” I pointed out for the twentieth time.
“And for good reason.”
I wish I had been paying closer attention. I wish I had considered what Markus had been saying in the Jeep. This meeting was to meet the candidates for Alpha. Rom had made it pretty clear that he and Remus wanted a shot, so of course they would be here as well.
Without thinking my arm went around Chloe’s waist, pulling her against me. She stiffened and let out a slight squeak as Remus rounded from behind us.
“Yeah,” I said, turning to face my brother. “You wouldn’t want Romulus’ unstable temper to cause trouble out amongst humans. He’s a danger that would just draw the Hunters’ attention to us.”
“Like you haven’t? Kidnapping the daughter of The Hangman? Mathias Young is by far one of the most ruthless members of an already ruthless organization that have spent centuries attempting to hunt our entire species to extinction!” He raised one hand, shoving one accusing finger into my face in a perfectly dramatic display. “You’re more of a danger to our Pack than anyone else and
least
fit to be the new Alpha.”
“So if anyone should be the Alpha it should be you, is that right Remus?” I asked. He grinned and shook his head.
“Not me,” he said. He turned to his right and pulled Romulus over to stand beside him. “Romulus. He’s the strongest and he loves this Pack and its members with more passion than anyone I have ever seen–”
“And he helped orchestrate the murder of your last Alpha!” Chloe interrupted him and Romulus let out a harsh growl for a moment before he could stop himself. “I’m just a human, and worse, the daughter of a Hunter. But you all know that already. I’ve been saying it all night. I’ve admitted where I came from and that I don’t know all the details around here. I don’t know your laws and your culture, but it seems to me that
patricide
is probably something that would be frowned on in any culture, don’t you think?” she arched one golden-red brow and stared my brother down.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about you little bitch!” Romulus growled and he reached out and grabbed hold of the front of her sweatshirt.
I saw his hand moving and in the same instant I responded. My arm cocked back and shot forward. His fingers closed on her zipper, just as my knuckles slammed into the side of his jaw with as much force as I could muster with being off balance like I was. All around us chaos erupted as people started yelling. Grasping hands reached for us and beneath all that a loud ripping sound echoed in my ear and I saw the manic grin that lit up Rom’s bloodied face as his eyes locked on the bite, now a newly healed scar, on Chloe’s’ shoulder.