by Aidy Award
Max’s wolf’s hackles rose and the muscles in his back and shoulders bunched. Gal wasn’t the only human woman targeted. What the hell was the alpha of the Grimm’s thinking? Unless he wasn’t calling the shots. Maybe some of the pack had gone lone. Unlikely as it was a rare wolf who could survive long without a pack. They simply weren’t built that way. Pack was everything. The alternative was unimaginable.
Several of the enforcers glanced at each other, nodded and one stepped forward. “Seven, including the three women here.”
Max interjected before his father could go even more ballistic. “How did we come by this intel? Did you engage with the Grimms?”
The enforcer looked Max directly in the eye, then cast his eyes down briefly in deference. “Yes, sir. We know, because we were there when the Grimm’s came for them.”
They were there. At midnight dark thirty, just as Max had been at Galyna’s. Because each of them were also involved with a human woman.
Shit.
His father growled. “Good job keeping the humans safe. This town had been under Troika protection for generations and never once has any of the townspeople been harmed by a wolf. We’re not going to let that happen now.”
Piotr hadn’t made the same connection Max had. That was probably for the best for now, since he would flip his shit if he found out a bunch of the pack were coming as close as Max had to crossing a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
Wolves mated wolves. Never humans.
It wasn’t fair to ask a wolf-shifter to keep a fundamental part of himself from his mate, and revealing his true nature was punishable by death.
Sure, they allowed teenagers with crushes to play and experiment with dating humans, but in the end, they all knew they would mate another wolf. The sacred clearing in the middle of the Reserve was used especially for the wolf mating ceremonies under the full-moon. Hard to ask your bride to be to have sex in front of a whole pack of wolves if she wasn't one herself.
The reminder was a painful slap upside Max’s head. He could fool around with Galyna, pretend they could have something more, but deep inside he knew they couldn’t. He would be alpha someday and an alpha needed a strong wolftress to rule by his side.
Something one of the Grimms had said kept nigging at his psyche. He’d called the women, little mates. He couldn’t figure out why they would do that. Hopefully Gal hadn’t heard it, or hadn’t understood it’s meaning. He really didn’t want to but he was going to have to ask someone with more understanding of pack politics about it.
The real question was whether he asked his father, or his mother.
Max had gotten distracted with that line of thought and the cracking and rending of bones and skin as those around him shifted into their wolves knocked him back to the reality of the situation. He needed to stop living in his head and start doing if he expected the Troika pack to follow him in the future.
He shed his clothes, dropping them amongst the other piles left by these loyal pack wolves and powered into his own shift. His bones broke and reshaped themselves, his fur burst through his skin, and Max took the pain of the transition and used it to fuel his drive to end this conflict. Peacefully or not.
The three lead enforcers ran toward the edge of the Reserve that backed up to the Troika land. They were waiting for him. They would protect him and the rest of the pack from any surprise attacks. His father and Kosta would protect the rest from behind.
Everyone knew the plan and the pack would move in complete stealth through the Reserve, across land owned by several pack members until they got into Grimm territory. Those assholes wanted a fight? The Troikas would not be sitting on their haunches waiting around for it. No they were bringing the fight to the Grimms.
They moved fast on fleet feet until twenty-some odd wolves surrounded the Bay County Sheriff’s Department brick building. Kosta and Max approached the front door and their father took up position so that any wolf trying to flee would meet their fate with him.
Kosta shifted and pulled the heavy metal door open. He sauntered in, naked as a the day is long, with Max at his side protecting his brother’s more fragile form with bared teeth and claws that clacked on the linoleum floor. The small foyer opened up to a reception area with a smattering of deputies and other personnel sitting at desks behind. The sheriff, who was the Grimm’s top enforcer had an office off to one side.
He leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed, one foot propped up on a nearby chair and a toothpick hanging from his mouth. “What are you boys doing here? I could arrest you for indecent exposure and put your puppy there in the pound.”
Max growled, but kept quiet waiting for Kosta to lay out the rules. “Tell your humans to leave. We’re not here to hurt them.”
The sheriff walked over to a young man in a uniform and put one hand on his shoulder, but without taking his eyes off Kosta and Max. “Reagan. You want to leave?”
“No sir. Not unless you tell me to, sir.” The young man looked at the floor while he spoke.
Max sniffed the air. Reagan was definitely human. He wasn’t scared. No, what Max smelled was subservience. Submission the man did not like giving. It was tainted with the wet earthy scent of resignation.
A young woman, mid twenties, wearing a floral dress stood next to a copy machine. The sheriff jerked his chin at her and she came running over and knelt down in front of the man. Her hands rested on her thighs and her eyes were facing down. The sheriff ran his hand over her hair.
“See boys, we’ve decided to do things differently here in Grimm. Our humans know we are the superior race and they submit to our rule like the good little pets they are. Isn't that right, little mate?” He lifted the girl's by her chin so she she had to stare at her own nose to avoid looking him in the eye. Then he spit in her face.
She didn’t even flinch. Her scent betrayed nothing of her feelings. All Max could smell on her was the sheriff. The fucktard had taken this human and turned her into some kind of damned Stockholm syndrome slave.
Max and Kosta shared a look that without words asked each other what the fuck?
Kosta shook his head and pointed at the sheriff. "You're breaking wolf law that has been in place for a long time, Grimm."
The sheriff laughed and stalked across the room. The irises of his eyes glowed with the wolf inside of him wanting to come out. "The Troikas are the reason we can. You high and mighty assholes assassinated the last thing standing in the way. There are a lot more of us that are tired of hiding who and what we are. The last Volkoff Tzar and his outdated rules can't stop us from taking what is rightfully ours now."
Max growled and stepped forward to meet the degenerate. Wolves had lived among humans peacefully for centuries and if he and his pack didn't stop this pack from exposing them all, peace would be destroyed. Both humans and wolves would be hunted once again.
Wolves were stronger, faster, and had the advantage of their canine senses even when in human form. But their numbers were dwindling. Each generation had to go farther afield to avoid inbreeding and some never found a mate. They would be hunted to extinction.
Any fool who thought their gift made them superior was wrong.
"Join us, Troikas. There's plenty of women for two young bloods like yourselves, human and wolftresses. We'll take over this town, then the next, and the next. Wolves across the country will join in our revolution and we'll no longer have to hide in the tiny tracks of forest and open space. Wolves will reign and the name Grimm will be feared and respected by them all."
Well, fuck a plucked duck. Not only did they have to defend their territory from these dickheads, they were going to have to do a crap ton of clean-up and find out exactly how many humans the Grimm's had revealed themselves too. What a shit show.
Max expected Kosta to refute this blathering idiot head on. He was oddly quiet. Max answered for them all with a series of gruff barks and a howl, which was the signal for the rest of the pack to attack.
"Join us, or die. Join us or your
women will be the first we take." Instead of shifting, the sheriff pulled out his gun and aimed it at Max. "Actually, we're going to take your human mates anyway."
The sheriff fired and Kosta jumped in front of Max. He shifted in mid-flight through the air and the bullets caught him square in the haunches. He barked out in pain and went skidding across the dingy floor, blood smearing the ground.
A few mere bullets couldn't hurt a shifter. Max's heart stuttered a bit for a second anyway at his brother's sacrifice for him. You didn't have to do that, little brother.
You're the heir now. I did in fact have to. Now get the bastard while I get these damn things out of me. Within seconds the bullets were pushed out of his body by his wolf's healing abilities and clattered to the ground.
A stream of Troika wolves poured into the building and the Grimm wolves, all six in the office area, burst through their clothes and shifted into their wolves too. The humans, all except the young lady, scattered or took cover. What was wrong with that girl?
Max jumped through the air toward the russet wolf that the sheriff had transformed into. His hulking body was bigger than Max's and he met the fight with teeth and claws bared. He snapped his jaw down on Max's shoulder, tearing at the muscles, trying to get him to fall to the ground.
Trying to get Max to submit.
A power deep inside of him, that he'd never needed to call on before, rose up and he kicked the other wolf away. It didn't take him long to jump on his enemy's back and take him down. A lust for blood and to protect what was his pulsed through him and Max tore the other wolf's throat out.
He howled, a new intense tone in his bay to the moon. The fighting around them stopped and the Grimm wolves ran, retreating from the fight. Another howl, matching his own sounded outside.
His father's voice filtered through the blood rage in him. The alpha power in you has scared the cowards away. Good job, son. We're going in pursuit.
Max sat and panted, cooling his body and gathering his thoughts back to normal. He couldn't. His father had never once given him any sort of praise. That was always reserved for Niko.
Kosta padded up to him, glanced down at the dead and mangled wolf at their feet, and sat too. Guess you're the golden child now, dickwad.
Kosta shifted again into human form, signaling to the others it was safe to do the same. The humans came out of hiding, and a few brought the enforcers blankets and bits of clothing to cover themselves. All except the girl. She hadn't moved throughout the entire fight.
Max didn't want to scare her so he too shifted, even though it meant losing communication with his father. He could switch back again later to find out what if anything else needed to be done.
The man who'd been questioned before rushed over with a pair of sweatpants in his hand. "We keep a whole stock of these around for, uh, shifting emergencies."
Max slipped the sweats on and carefully approached the young woman. He squatted down beside her and clasped his hands in front of him so she would know he wouldn't touch her without her permission. "You're safe now. He's dead and you're free from his rule over you. Do you understand?"
She breathed in, she breathed out, and nothing more or less.
Max glanced over at Reagan. 'What's her name?"
"Kiara, Kiara Cross. But before all this, I, I mean, we called her Key." Reagan was trying real hard not to look at the girl.
"Key." Max moved so he was in front of her. "Can you look at me?"
Nothing.
"He trained her not to respond to anyone but him." Reagan glared down at the body of the wolf bleeding on the floor and spit on it. "Fucker."
Kosta approached very slowly and came only close enough so he could speak in a normal voice to Max. "Use your alpha voice. It might snap out of it."
Shit. Max hadn't even realized he had an alpha voice now. His father had one, and Niko too. Someday Niko's first born would have had one too. No command given by an alpha could be ignored by a member of the pack. "I don't think it will do anything. She isn't pack. She isn't even a wolf."
Reagan moved closer too and for the first time looked at Key. There was a lot of pain in his gaze and scent. "She is. He mated her under the last full moon."
"Holy fuck. Did he mark her?"
"I don't know what that means."
"Key, I'm going to touch you, move your shirt to the side. Don't be afraid, I only need to see something." Max gently pushed the collar of her shirt, exposing the skin on her neck and shoulder. A crude black symbol of a wolf marred her skin. Both above and below it were the healed bite marks of a wolf.
Max's own wolf rose up inside, pushing to the surface, its instincts to keep one of its own protected too strong to hold down. His own teeth extended, his claws erupted from his fingers, and fur pushed through his skin. How could a wolf do this to a human?
Biting and marking a human was wolfkind's darkest, deepest taboo. There were legends and rumor about what happened to bitten humans. It's were the folklore of the werewolf had come from in the first place. No one alive today truly knew what happened because no human had been bitten by a wolf shifter in hundreds of years, maybe thousands. She might be a monster like the stories claimed.
Max sucked in a long, calming breath and got his wolf back under control. He pulled on the might the partial shift had given him and put the power of the alpha in his voice. "Rise, Kiana. I have defeated your mate and claim you for my pack. You are Troika now."
Key blinked and tipped her head to the side like she was awakening from a deep meditation. The blue glow of a Troika wolf shined in her eyes. She glanced over at the dead wolf, then at Max.
The blue light around her irises grew until the wolf inside of her overtook all the color, the pupils, and the whites of her eyes.
Max and Kosta surrounded her, in case she couldn't control the shift or the wolf. Kosta shook his head. "I've never seen any wolf's eyes do that. What the hell?"
Key tipped her head back and howled with the voice of a wolftress, but her bones did not break, her skin did not split. She remained human, except for those damn eerie glowing eyes. She growled low and then a haunting voice, only partially human said, "A Dragon, a Witch, and a Wolf walk into a bar."
Gal
Gal shifted from foot to foot standing on the grass in front of the house she shared with Heli and Zara. Max and Kosta were doing a check of the perimeter and then inside to make sure there weren't any surprises waiting. They both looked exhausted and Gal couldn't help but wonder if they'd gone out looking for a fight after they dropped her and the sisters off at their mother's house. Max didn't appear to have any visible injuries. Although Kosta had a barely noticeable limp. Did they take care of the problem?
Wondering how they might have done that gave her a shiver. She couldn't even blame it on the early morning air. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and the early summer day was nice and warm.
She hefted up the bag with her new pajamas, and the full set of high-end spa products Selena Troika had foisted onto each of them last night. It was really interesting that she had all these clothes and supplies all ready to go. Like she ran a women's shelter out of her living room.
Gal had taken a peek in the hall closet and it was filled with small packs of clothing, toiletries, and other sundries that someone who had to leave their home in a hurry might need. There had been packets of smaller clothing with coloring books and other toys for kids too. But none for men.
They hadn't slept on couches or the floor like she'd expected. Nope. Selena had fancy camping cots that were more comfortable than Gal's own bed at home, a mountain of pillows and blankets, and even sleep masks and earplugs ready for them. Selena had done everything she possibly could to make the three women who'd arrived freaked out feel welcome. They'd had drinks, snacks, movies, giggles, and girl talk until about three in the morning. The reception and the evening couldn't have been any better of a cure for the fear, uncertainties, and spikes of adrenaline.
The four of them laughed, they'd dra
nk a little too much, and they'd eaten an entire ice cream shop's worth of banana splits. When the sugar rush and adrenaline crashes came, they slept. Hard.
This morning when they'd woken up to the scent of cinnamon rolls, coffee and bloody marys. Selena had beautiful and expensive outfits picked out for each of them. Just the bra and panties, matching ones, were more expensive than pretty much the entirety of Gal's closet.
Standing in front of the house, out on the sidewalk with Heli and Zara, she was sure the neighbors were staring. At least one busy-body across the street had peeked through their blinds.
"Dude, you saw the inside of their house and these fricking expensive outfits she had ready for us." Heli held up her arm, waving the flowing sleeve of a designer shirt, and the jingle of a pretty little charm bracelet. That is mafia money. I'm telling you."
She wasn't wrong. This was mafia type money. But there was no way the Troikas were involved in organized crime. Max had honor, he believe in right and wrong. He wouldn't purposefully hurt people for money. No way. She wouldn't believe that of him.
Gal was still putting pieces of the Max puzzle together in her head. Something wasn't adding up with him and the rest of his family. She shrugged, not ready to commit to anything. Or sound too crazy. "Maybe the bar does really well."
Heli scoffed. "Kosta runs a strip club. Tell me that's not a mafia front."
Zara poked her sister in the arm. "I think you just like the thought of being a mafia wife."
Zara was the only one of them who'd been in the Troikas home before. She'd stayed reserved and quiet through the evening, but hadn't seemed uncomfortable. Selena had a way of making anyone feel welcome and like they were the most important thing to her in the world in that moment. If she'd ever had a problem with Zara dating her eldest son, no one would ever know.
Heli laughed and poked Zara right back. "No way. Leopard print, big hair, and big nails are not my style. Besides, I don't even have a Jersey or Italian accent."
