by Jade Allen
“We need to get the elementals involved in this,” Raul told Keira as he felt her hands come to a stop against his body.
“Those assholes? They’ll drag it out for ages,” Keira protested.
“They’re the only ones who can assert a judgment over both groups,” Raul pointed out. “I need you to help me get in touch with your Alpha, and then we both need to go to the rulers of Fire and Earth and get them to wade into this pile of bullshit. Otherwise…” Raul turned and looked at Keira. “All either of our clans are going to do is pick each other off.”
****
Keira watched from the passenger seat as Raul pulled into the driveway of Harold’s house. The animal part of her consciousness, coiled through the human pathways of her brain, insisted that this was a bad idea; that it could cause nothing but trouble. But she agreed with Raul that there wasn’t a better option on the table. The situation between the Pack and the panther clan had already erupted into one battle—if they didn’t do something about it, if nobody called a truce, then the two groups would go on fighting each other until the elementals got involved.
“You gave him notice we were coming, right?” Raul glanced at her as he shifted the car into park, and Keira nodded. As soon as they’d gotten into range, she had reached out mentally, telling Harold that she was safe, that she was coming to his house to brief him about the situation with the wolves—and that she was bringing a wolf with her.
“You better get any Alpha thoughts about taking charge of this conversation out of your head right now, Fido,” Keira said, knowing that she sounded more nervous than tough, and that Raul would hear it. “If you try and pretend like you’re doing Harold a favor bringing me back, then he’s going to stonewall you. Let me take the lead on this.”
“I’ll let you pretend you knocked me out and drove yourself here if you want,” Raul suggested, the playful tone of his voice belying the gunpowder scent of his apprehension. “But I don’t think even Harold would believe it.” Keira smiled slightly, her heart already beating faster in her chest, the animal consciousness in her mind gearing up to handle the situation. Harold was the Alpha of her clan; he was the only person she could truly trust to talk to about the situation. But she knew that she could only trust Harold so far. He might spare her because she was a mating-age female, but if he thought that she had violated the rules of the clan—and realistically, she had—then he could repudiate her, capture Raul, and kill them both.
“Let’s get this over with,” Keira said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes to push down the fear and apprehension she felt. She opened the passenger side door of the car and climbed out, immediately sniffing the air to catch any traces of scent-marks from members of the clan. She could smell familiar panther-marks, but none of them were fresh enough to suggest that they were still present, other than Harold’s own scent mark, leading from his truck in the driveway and towards the front door, a well-worn, often-refreshed marking. Keira glanced at Raul and saw that he was doing the same, sorting through the different, evanescent scents. “Hard to catch our smells, isn’t it?” Raul gave her a wry grin.
“Some of you are more obvious than others,” he said. “You must not be here all that often.”
“What makes you say that?” Keira frowned, looking around the property.
“If you were here often, even as faint as your trace is, I’d know it.” Keira felt her stomach lurch at the admission; if Raul knew her scent-mark that well, then he was starting to connect with her more seriously. Never should have given into the urge to blood him, she thought bitterly. At least Raul had had enough self-control to avoid blooding her; there would be hell to pay if she had the mark of a wolf’s love-bite on her neck, or if Harold could have scented her blood on Raul.
Keira dismissed the thought and started towards the front door of the Alpha’s house, telling herself that Harold was not nearly as hotheaded as Reginald had proven himself to be. “Remember,” she said sharply to Raul as they both stepped up onto the front porch.
“You’re in charge,” Raul said, assuming an appropriate subordinate position, just a step behind her. He smiled slightly and then wiped his face clean of the expression. Keira took another quick, deep breath and lifted her hand, willing the change to flow through her arm, transforming the fingers, the palm, into a paw. She scratched at the door, in the pattern that had been drilled into her mind ever since she had first begun transforming with the clan; it was the identifying “knock” of one member of the clan to another, something they all knew and recognized. If she hadn’t trusted Raul with her life, Keira would have simply knocked; she felt briefly nervous at what she was implying to her clan leader with the secret gesture, but he would scent Raul on her skin the moment he answered the door. There could be no hiding the attachment between them, tenuous as it was.
A moment later, Keira’s sharp ears picked up the sound of the lock’s tumblers turning over in the door, and then Harold appeared, looking from her to Raul distrustfully. “Come inside,” he said brusquely, his gaze settling once more on Raul, almost a scowl. “And you—wolf. Don’t think that just because I’m letting you into my home, you’re welcome to do as you please. I’ll enforce my right to rule my own property if I have to.”
“I understand,” Raul said, inclining his head ever so slightly in Harold’s direction. “I’m here to discuss issues between our groups—and Keira told me that the person to come to was you. I am a guest in your home.”
“You’re not a guest,” Harold said sharply. “You’re an associate.” Harold’s heavy gaze fell on Keira. “Why one of my own people would bring a damned wolf into my home is beyond me.”
“Let us in before someone sees,” Keira told the older man firmly. She kept her body language neutral, not quite submissive, and let her gaze fall away, telling him that she was not there to threaten. “We need to talk.”
****
The Alpha’s house reeked of panther as Raul stood in the living room, carefully maintaining his subordinate position. Even without Keira’s warning, Harold’s greeting would have given him enough notice to behave himself properly. Raul looked around, trying not to appear to be noticing details; the last thing he wanted was to come across as a spy.
“Raul was the one who helped me escape,” Keira told the Alpha, sitting down on the leather couch that hugged the wall. Raul remained standing, a few feet away from her, hands in front of him, in a sort of modified “parade rest” position. The old man looks like ex-military, Raul thought, feeling an almost unwilling sympathy with Harold. He didn’t want to like the man; the Alpha panther was everything that Raul had ever been taught to distrust. But he had already begun to question the dogma that living as a werewolf had bequeathed to him; Keira was unlike anything he had been taught to expect of a panther female.
“Lachlan and Gary are dead,” Harold said. “You got away. Explain that to me.”
“They were given the opportunity to leave, too,” Keira said, glancing at Raul. “He offered them assistance, but they wouldn’t take it.”
“Why did you?” Harold’s voice was tight, almost brittle with suppressed anger. Raul looked at the man more intently, taking in the details of his face; there were similarities to Lachlan, but that could simply be close breeding. He had more than a few cousins in the Pack himself.
“Lachlan and Gary insisted,” Keira said. “Because I am a female of mating age. They kept us in copper chains; I fought with this one to try and create enough of a diversion for all of us to get free, but the Alpha came in.” Harold looked at Raul sharply and Raul looked away, carefully keeping his gaze on the floor, expressing no dominance.
“The wolf Alpha overstepped his boundaries,” Harold said, his voice cut through with a throaty growl. “He has to be made to pay. I can smell that one’s mark all over you—why shouldn’t I call in the clan, have you both whipped and then put to your own deaths? You for a traitor, him for being part of the illegal execution?”
“If we don’t settle t
his,” Keira said firmly, “then our clan and their Pack are both just going to keep picking each other off bit by bit until either the elementals get involved or neither of us has enough members to survive.”
“The wolves have to pay for what they did,” Harold insisted. “I can’t let what they did slide.”
“What would you ask as a price?” Keira shot a scowl in his direction, but Raul disregarded it. “I will tell you now—the Pack itself is divided about the executions. Some of the members are glad it happened; the raids on our businesses were getting out of control. Some of the members are against Reginald now, because what he did isn’t our way.”
“It’s exactly your way, wolf,” Harold said, the growl in his voice intensifying. “It’s the coward’s way.”
“And raiding businesses in the dead of night is brave?” Raul head Keira’s warning hiss, saw the tension increase in Harold’s demeanor. “We didn’t even know your grievance with us—how is raiding our businesses, vandalizing our properties, without telling us what you want from us, a way to solve the situation?”
“You wolves know exactly what you’ve done,” Harold insisted. “I shouldn’t have to tell you.”
“I want to know what you think we’ve done,” Raul said, bringing his gaze up—briefly—to meet Harold’s. “We can’t broker a truce between our groups if nobody is willing to discuss their grievances. I’ve told you ours; you tell me yours.”
“Wolves have been poaching on our lands,” Harold said, scowling at him. “Some of your Pack have been stealing from our businesses in the middle of the day, pilfering things.”
“Young, or full Pack members?” Raul made a mental note of that—it was something he hadn’t known. Of course, if it were werewolf youths, their actions were likely to have been motivated by pure pettiness, or done as a way to “prove” their bravery to their friends.
“Full Pack members,” Harold said, almost spitting the words out. “And one of your asshole Pack buddies killed a panther of mating age last month.”
“What?” Keira was as shocked as Raul felt. “When did that happen?”
“I brought in a possible mate for Lachlan,” Harold said quietly. “Since Keira won’t mate him, I thought a panther from another place might be a better fit. She was here three days, and then I found her dead on the clan’s running territory, marked by the wolves.”
“I hadn’t heard about this,” Raul said. “Would you be able to identify who it was that killed the female, if they were brought before you?”
“Of course,” Harold said bitterly. “The only scents I know better than that pissy wolf smell are the scents of my own kin. I’ve locked it in my memory.”
“Why didn’t you go to Reginald for justice?” Raul could see on Keira’s face that she was appalled. “We started these petty raids on the wolves’ businesses because you wanted to stir up a war?”
“I wanted to force them to confront us,” Harold said. “All you wolves think you’re too good for the rest of the shifter community; the only way I’d get you to come talk to us was to get you good and mad.”
“Instead, you made us goad them into capturing us, and killing Lachlan and Gary!”
“That was Reginald’s decision,” Raul said firmly. “Our bylaws say that you three should have been put to trial, your Alpha contacted, some kind of agreement come to.”
“Excuse me if I’m not surprised that a wolf doesn’t even obey his own Pack’s bylaws when it stops being convenient,” Harold said bitterly.
“So how are we going to heal this breach?” Raul glanced at Keira. “You’ve lost kin, I’ve lost kin and friends, and Raul’s Pack is in chaos. Will you agree to meet with members of the Pack to bring the killers to justice?”
“I need revenge for Lachlan as well as for the female,” Harold said firmly. “And I know exactly who killed my boy. I want to see Reginald dead.” Raul pressed his lips together; he could understand the older man’s desire for vengeance, but he couldn’t think of how he could protect his own kin—the Pack—and also bring the peace that he and Keira desperately needed. Reginald had set him up; he had called members of the Pack, some of whom had attacked him in the melee.
“Let me see if I can help you track down the female’s killers,” Raul suggested. “And then we can talk about Reginald. The Pack itself might not give you the opportunity to kill him.” Harold laughed, the sound cut through with a throaty, purring growl.
“I’d accept whoever replaced him as Alpha,” Harold told him. “Provided he or she rose to the top spot by putting him to death.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Raul said wryly.
“Will you grant us safe passage to leave?” Keira’s voice was tight, but her pheromones were not as strongly marked with fear as they’d been when the two of them had arrived; Raul thought to himself that he might never plumb the depths of her personality—the way she interacted with her Alpha was different from the way she treated him, and he was sure that it was different from how she acted with outsiders. All of us here have different personalities, depending on who you talk to, Raul thought absently.
“I’m going to have to put the matter of you taking up with a damn wolf to the clan,” Harold said. “You can leave my house, I won’t detain you—but you’d best not show your face in any of our running lands.” Keira looked briefly shocked—shocked and hurt—but then she inclined her head, accepting the verdict.
“We’ll go,” she said, looking at him. She turned back to Harold. “If you send trackers after us when we’re staying away, though, I won’t hold back—not in protecting myself, and not in protecting him.”
“You’ve mated him?” Raul’s heart beat faster in his chest.
“No,” she said. “But if he’s willing, I fully intend to.”
****
“You intend to mate me?” Keira glanced at Raul, pressing her lips together.
“Shut up,” she said quietly. The words had come out of her almost without warning; she could sense Harold’s intentions to find a way to detain Raul, to keep him long enough for certain members of the panther clan to arrive at his home. “We’re not going to get much help from Harold,” Keira added. “He wants to spill wolf blood. Not that I can completely blame him.”
“We’re going to need to figure out what the story is on that female he imported,” Raul told her. “If he’s right…”
“Then we’ll have to figure out which wolves were behind it,” Keira said, nodding. “They’ll have to face justice.” She frowned. “I wasn’t aware of any panther female dying, though.” On the other hand, she hadn’t felt the telltale signs in the Alpha’s mind that he was lying. Of course, Harold had been so shielded mentally that it was difficult to get much more than the strongest impulses from his mind; certainly, she hadn’t been able to communicate with him the way she could have with another member of the clan.
“He may have brought her in secretly, not introduced her to the rest of the clan yet,” Raul pointed out. “He might have been waiting to see how she and Lachlan got along.”
“He wanted me for Lachlan,” Keira said. She glanced at Raul in the driver’s seat of the car again. “He’s not going to be inclined to help you. We need to be careful with him.” Raul sighed.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding slowly. “Neither of our Alphas are strictly speaking trustworthy at this point.” He glanced at her, smiling wryly. “Everyone seems to have ulterior motives.” Keira chuckled at the understatement. “So, you want to mate me. That’s news.”
“I told you, shut up about that,” Keira said, her cheeks burning as the blood rushed into her face. “I had to tell Harold that, because he would have grabbed you otherwise.”
“The day I can’t handle a panther…”
“You couldn’t handle me,” Keira countered.
“The day I can’t handle an old panther with a young panther at my side is the day I give up on being a wolf.” Keira rolled her eyes.
“I couldn’t have defended you without markin
g you as my mate, without coming out about it,” Keira said. “I’d be going against my own kind for a stranger.”
“So, you want to be my mate,” Raul said, his lips twitching with amusement.
“That’s not—ooh,” Keira took a slow breath, closing her eyes. “I don’t want you to end up being killed—or hurt more than you already are—because Harold’s out for revenge,” Keira said. “That’s all.”
“I didn’t know you cared,” Raul said, chuckling lowly. Keira heard the pleased, almost growling undertone in his voice. “I thought you wouldn’t ever mate someone who couldn’t best you in combat?”
“And I won’t,” Keira said tartly. “That’s why it was just a maneuver. I can’t believe you’re taking it seriously.”
“I could best you in combat,” Raul said. “Even now, as long as you fought fair, I could do it.” He pulled off of the surface street and onto the dirt road that led out to the safe house, and Keira opened the window a crack; she had the uncomfortable apprehension that Harold might have set someone to track them, that her Alpha might be more interested in getting what revenge he could for Lachlan than in waiting for full justice.
“You couldn’t best me in combat on your best day,” Keira told Raul tartly. She sniffed at the air coming in from outside of the car, sorting through the scents even as she reached out with her mind. There was no sign of panther—and more importantly, in Keira’s thoughts, no sign of wolves either.
“You want to test that theory?” Keira glanced at Raul. His hazel eyes glimmered with mischief.
