"If you were just in jail you must've been released to someone. You going to run off on them and cost them a hell of a lot of bond money?" I asked.
She continued to cry, but at least she tried to answer. "I can't do that to my uncle. He barely keeps the farm put together as it is. Llamas cost so much money and I mean, they're worth a lot but finding buyers? It's been a nightmare for him this year. And with Willem firing me-"
"This asshole's firing you?" I snapped. "What the fuck. You're one of the best workers I've ever seen."
"Can't have someone on the site with a criminal record," she said.
"Where is he?"
I wanted to pop his worthless little head off his shoulders and mow him under ten feet of dirt. He'd be the perfect investigation piece in the future for anyone who ended up having to dig this shithole up again. I stood, jerking my head at the door just to check with her. When she nodded, I left through the only door in the place and menaced across the dig site.
But I didn't see Doctor Sonnet anywhere. Usually, he wandered around the various holes in the ground and checked in with his overseers as they all worked in the abysmal heat. It wasn't the kind of job I'd have ever wanted, but you know what? If it made the diggers happy, that was what mattered. I knew we were paying a small fortune for the excavation, but I couldn't imagine much of it went to the people in those holes actually breaking their backs day in and day out.
Most of it probably went to the jackass trying to fire someone he'd left out to dry.
His car was still in the parking lot, meaning that he was around somewhere. I waved to one of the managers, a man in his late 40s who knew me on sight, Dylan. He patted his balding head dry with a hankie and walked over to meet me. "What can I do for you, Mr. Fontaine?"
"I need to find Sonnet," I said, leaning down to shake hands with him. Overweight, diabetic to the point that you could smell the sugar on him, and red-faced? I assumed Dylan didn't have long left in this world. That was fine. We'd take care of his family when he went.
Being rich is nice like that.
He frowned at me. "Willem's supposed to be in the office. He's not there?"
"Not last I knew. Nicole's being fired and I want to have a word with him about it."
"Oh, poor Doctor Pender," Dylan blinked. "It must be the probation. I know Willem was angry about it earlier. Maybe check the side lot?"
Ah. We'd purchased something of an L-shaped property from the dragons of the Nightflight. It was the perfect size for a new pet food factory with an attached parking lot, and let me tell you; some of our employees would kill for a place to put their cars in some of our city locations. It'd been an oversight in the past and one I desperately couldn't cope with in the future.
Yeah, I'd been the reason we'd purchased the Nightflight property. My mistake.
I saluted Dylan and headed back and around the various sites until I came to a chain link fence; the sort that you see strung up around construction areas. They're usually rented barriers to try to prevent trespassers from getting hurt. It works out a bit cheaper than a lawsuit and it makes the local city officials happy, so we'd brought in the fence panels and kept plenty of signs all over the place to try to keep innocents out.
The problem was that those panels hadn't been in this place in the past. And there were a hell of a lot of people out there in the future parking lot chanting and stomping their feet. It was just far enough away that I couldn't properly hear it all or see the signs they held. I opened the gate and walked through.
"Please," Willem whimpered, his voice exhausted. "You all have a right to protest across the street. This is private property and if any of you get hurt, the museum is liable for-"
"For every last bit of their medical expenses. My god, if one of the digging machines got out of control it might actually ruin the museum. Wouldn't that be terrible?" I chirped, smiling as wide as I could. Then I waved to the protesters. "Hello, everyone."
They fell silent, obviously falling in love with me more every second. Hell, they loved me so much that I expected someone was probably training a gun on my head at that very moment. Willem was like a bowstring, as tense and tight as a man could be. "What are you doing?"
"Saying hello?"
"Yes, but why?"
I shrugged. "It seemed like the polite thing to do. What's going on? Why does everyone hate our guts so much?"
"Dragons are in the skies, threatening their neighborhoods and their target was what we find here. They wanted the opals enough that they abducted one of our employees. They're blaming us, not you," Willem snapped.
There was a coarseness to his voice that suggested he'd been out there for a while. I tilted my head to the side and walked across the line, straight towards one of the protesters with a bullhorn. In most cases, those people were leaders or leadership roles within a group like this. "Howdy."
"Who're you?"
The speaker was a round, stern-faced woman in her middle to late 20s, maybe her early 30s. I was never very good with placing women's ages because they seemed to change every time you asked them. Not like we men were any better with our bank account numbers. Everybody lies to make themselves look better. It's not that big of a deal. "I'm Leo Fontaine. I don't mind you guys protesting bad shit going down, but can you get back away from the machinery a little more? You don't need to get hurt, either. I was kind of serious about those machines. I know they're behind the fence and you're probably thirty feet away, but if one hits a pocket of gas we don't know about or whatever, somebody could get injured." I paused, then grinned at her. "Who're you?"
What can I say? I love people with an attitude problem, because those people are me, and who wouldn't love me?
"Amanda Blanche. I used to work at the local bed and breakfast, then a bunch of dragons fucked it up," she said. "I'll be out of work for months while they fix it and it's all because of these idiots doing this dig."
I bobbed my head as I listened to her. "Totally understandable. You have every right to be mad, but you should be angry with us. The museum was hired to dig this place up for us when a fossil was found. We were just trying to build a pet food factory-"
"You're those Fontaines?" she interrupted. "My cat eats your food. Looks like I'm going cat food shopping when I get home."
She fluffed up like the angriest bird I'd ever met. I tried not to smile at her but I couldn't help it. I was going to make this woman a friend if it was the last thing I ever did. "Tell you what. We'll give you your cat food while you're off work. It's not like it's really our fault any more than anyone else's. Dragons aren't real, you know?"
Amanda gave me a look of murder but folded her arms across her chest. "I want the same for everyone here. I want recompense. I want people taken care of."
"Done," I said. "If you can organize this, can you organize who needs what and send it to our offices? I can't guarantee it'll be as soon as you submit it because it takes a little time to reach us for approval, but we're happy to take care of what happens because of our business proceedings, Miss Blanche. Pet food for everyone."
The wind taken out of their sails; the protesters glanced around at one another as if unsure what to do. It was the same strategy we usually used. You offer someone something as an apology, right? Then you up the ante a bit, further than they think they can go with the request. Taking care of Miss Blanche for the next few months, fixing up the b&b, working to restore the roads? Sure, it cost money.
Yet it was also an advertising opportunity. It was something that we could build with. If you put in a road, you could put up one of those Adopt-A-Mile signs that had your company name on it. We'd erect billboards and charge out the ass for advertising on our new road. We'd fix homes and do tv shoots with the local news, promoting us as the good guys trying to clean up the city after a terrible disaster.
It was sneaky, shitty, and everything you came to expect from corporate whores like us, but it worked. And it gave us an excuse to do good in the community without making our accountants
have a massive panic attack over nothing. The Moon knew that we had enough assets between the four of us that we could probably take over the world if we put our minds to it. None of us wanted to do that, but you know; it could happen. Especially with how fucked up everything was getting.
Maybe someone needed to walk in and really put their foot down.
As I thought it through, the crowd dispersed. I looked back at Willem and raised a brow at him. "I know I made that look easy, but I'm surprised you don't know how to do it. I thought you started with the museum as a tour guide. What kind of tour guide doesn't know how to work a crowd?"
"I was an attendant within the gallery, thank you very much, and I was 14," Willem snarled, marching over to me.
I put a hand up, simple authority behind it, and stopped him dead in his tracks. "I'd prefer if you didn't speak to me with that tone."
"You're at the mercy of my museum not putting this land in the national registry of protected artifacts and you want to-"
"There are many things I want to do right now. Most of them revolve around firing you. There was no reason to be out here screaming at people who have a legitimate bone to pick with us," I told him. "And so long as you're on our land, you're representing us. I want better."
"What you want doesn't matter," Willem snarled. He put his hand on my shoulder and shoved me.
It wasn't much, but it was disrespectful enough that my inner animal came to life. Before I really realized what I was doing, I decked him as hard as I could. The satisfying pop of his jaw, my fist connecting flesh, watching him spin to the ground? Amazing.
What wasn't amazing was how goddamned fast the cops arrived and shoved me in a car. I supposed that's what we got for building in such a good area. Sigh.
Chapter Seven
Sadie
Was this the beginning of the end? Was my pack always going to be stretched so thin, constantly flying from one disaster to another and trying to put out the flames?
Thank the Moon for Lillian. It was Her light that shone on me when I'd decided to save Lillian from the dragons, because without her? We'd have been stranded so many times over and I-
Without Lillian, we wouldn't have been a complete pack. Things had started off choppy, but that's how families are formed. Not everything is rainbows and kittens, and even when it is, it's usually concealing some other, difficult subject that needs to be talked about. I wrinkled my nose as I drove, trying not to bring up any of those aforementioned difficult subjects. Life was hard enough.
Hudson was still in the hospital.
Everything was a mess without him, but we were trying.
The drive took the better part of an hour. I didn't really slide into the driveway, spraying gravel across the landscape, so much as my brakes squeaked when I piled into the parking lot. Overhead, three massive bodies flew through the clouds and cast ever-moving shadows across the pavement. I ran inside, worried out of my mind.
If the dragons decided to attack, there was nothing we could do. The block-and-cement-style building was solid, but its roof was made of wood. The interior walls were made of drywall, all painted in neutral tones that were easily touched up if a pet tore through them. Howls, barks, and meows met my ears and comforted me. They were the sounds of home, of what I'd been doing for so many years; what I lived to do.
My family was important and yes, I'd choose them over the pet rescue gig if it were to ever come down to that. It never would, but one never knew what the future held. Still, the guys had gone whole hog in on it the second that we'd realized we were meant to be. With them on board and finances stable for the foreseeable future, I wasn't worried about my life changing all that much.
Listening to the animals ask for attention and cry out for their meals was a breath of fresh air. I zoned out, walked back toward the feeding area, and started to pull down bowls. It was feeding time and we needed to get a move on it so those critters would be happy, healthy, and adoptable.
"Miz Fontaine, what are you doing?"
I turned to look at a woman with enormous hanging earrings and a worried smile on her face. She was of Creek descent, but she had the same accent as me. Paulette was country born, country bred, and sweet on half of my pack. She knew where she stood with all that, but it didn't stop her from looking and I didn't mind. The boys deserved a little look now and then. It kept them on their toes.
"I'm so sorry," I said, shaking my head to clear it. "I don't know what I'm doing. Old habits, I suppose. I saw the dragons on the way in. What's going on? What's the plan?"
Paulette stared at me. "That's why we called you."
"Right." I gave my head another shake. "How many staff members are here right now? I didn't see anyone at the front desk."
"Seven."
I ran that over in my mind. That made nine of us, if she wasn't counting herself. The facility we stood in handled up to 40 of both small dogs and cats, with the occasional exotic pet showing up. One of the things we'd planned for was evacuation during fires and the dragons overhead were a threat of that. Some shelters lost pets to accidental ignitions. I didn't want to be one of them.
"Okay. Let's get the animals boxed up in their crates and start loading them back into people's cars. How many adoptees do we have right now?" I asked, heading for the door that led to the adoption center.
She followed me, offering me the key. "27 dogs, 14 cats, and a rabbit."
At least it wasn't a full house. I nodded, thankful that the Hummer held so many crates when the animals were this small. I hurried down the hallway as Paulette left me, probably to start radioing her staff and giving orders. I stopped by a supply closet, grabbed a rolling dolly, and loaded it with as many crates as it would hold. I'd still have to go back for more, but it was something.
Dragons shot past the windows, sending the animals into a frenzy of barking. A wide-eyed terrier with three legs danced around, his single foreleg slapping the kennel as he screamed with the rest. I crouched beside him and smiled, checking his chart. "Hi there, Tres. You need to come with me little buddy, okay?"
I opened a crate and sat it down before the kennel. The dog moved back and away from me, his tail tucked between his legs. Bless him, he was just a shy little man. I opened the kennel door and offered a hand out for him to sniff. Tres's hackles rose, his lip peeling back from his teeth.
Ah, right, the werewolf stuff. I crooned to him as I always had when I met scared animals, mixing a werewolf's growl-purr along with it. His little ears stood straight up, as if he were listening to me speak some language I didn't understand. Maybe we were better at animal communication than I was aware. I'd have to look into that later, because I couldn't bring myself to trust the dragons.
It wasn't just that my nerves were singing louder than any of the dogs around me. It was that the dragons had no purpose, no reason to be at the shelter unless it was to threaten me or try to force me into doing something. Maybe they were pissed off that I'd told them no. Some of the more feral species of shifters were the type that wanted to oppress omegas, put us in our place, and all that nonsense.
I didn't know if that was what it was or if she was merely trying to flex her muscles at me. After catching little Tres, I slid him into the crate and repeated the gesture with nine more dogs. I stacked them on the dolly, strapped them down as tightly as I dared, and passed it off to a volunteer that I didn't recognize.
Then I snuck back into an open office, closed the door, and dialed Jeremiah.
"What d'you need?"
"Help. A distraction, maybe. I'm here in High Branch with the dogs and the cats. The dragons are circling. Is anyone nearby?"
There was a sound of chuckling in the background. I frowned. What the hell made that so funny? Jeremiah popped his lips and hmmed at me. "I think we can do that for you. The pack will owe us a favor, but I don't see any reason why that'd be a problem. Would you?"
"Of course not. Hudson will be informed when he's back in action, and I'm happy to do whatever I can. Just, if you can
get these asshole lizards away from my place-"
"You'd appreciate it. You just go on and get those animals taken care of. We've got you taken care of."
A drawl had entered his voice on the last of it. Comforted by commonplace voices and a man I knew would help, I hung up and got back to work stuffing dogs in crates as fast as I could. I'd left the Hummer open and the entire staff knew that I was to be the first vehicle filled up. We had more room than most of our workers, for all we paid well and had plans with local veterinarians to help take in animals were anything to happen.
Better yet, as I'd said, we weren't at capacity. I had rabbit hutches at home with several open holes, so the rabbit would work out. The cats, though.
The kids loved to chase cats as pups. We were still working on it, but for the most part? We kept the cats away from everyone else and in comfortable house-sized runs outside. They were heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, though the past day or so had been perfect weather for our outdoor pals.
Puppy Problems: A Reverse Harem Werewolf Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 3) Page 6
