When he first ascended to the position of Alphar, Kerrick understood a Vrykolakas clan held the neighboring land. Contrary to human belief, Vryks—or vampires to those more horror movie inclined—and Weres were not naturally hostile toward one another. There was no primal instinct to kill once the scent of a Vrykolakas passed through a shifter’s nasal passages. The only hostilities the two species felt was on a person-by-person basis and usually involved massive egos. Kerrick could handle egos, what he couldn’t handle, no, what he wouldn’t stand for was a Vryk coming onto his people’s land and spying for their psychotic master. Mara, an ancient Vryk who from the second Kerrick had become North American Alphar had hounded and harassed him, making threats of war if he didn’t move the Were headquarters to a different location.
Mara claimed this land had originally been hers after she migrated from Greece, and that shifters had encroached on her territory. In response to Kerrick’s refusal to move, she had begun sending an emissary, a Vryk ambassador to the Weres, to attempt to negotiate the land issues. It was all very civil, and all for the public’s eye, a ploy to pacify the humans into thinking the two scary monster families weren’t going to war. Past the humans’ senses, and in the shade of night, he would hear them, smell them circling the property just beyond the boundary. What they were waiting or watching for, he didn’t know. But the tensions between Mara’s clan and his soldiers were mounting. Countless incidents had already occurred, but Kerrick couldn’t prove that any of them were at Mara’s command. The woman was devious and knew how to work an opponent.
But where Mara was devious, Kerrick was patient. He would wait for the perfect moment, for that one instance a Vryk stepped over the boundary line without permission, and then he would strike with the force of a thousand shifters. He scented war on the wind, an event he would wholeheartedly like to avoid. Nobody won in wars, not when sons and daughters were brought back in body bags.
He could sense Mara’s Vryks even now, waiting just beyond the boundary between their properties. They stood motionless, as still as the trees they hid behind, but he could hear the slow and sluggish beating of their preternatural hearts. Kerrick knew this was just an annoying plot to irk him into acting irrationally, not that it would ever work. He would not be the first to strike.
“Alphar.”
Kerrick crooked his head in the direction of his Captain’s voice. He’d heard Aaron exit The Mansion the second his booted foot touched the grass. Aaron’s approach had been quiet and steady, remarkably stealthy for a lumbering Bear shifter. But that was one of Aaron’s gifts. No matter how long Kerrick had known Aaron, and he’d known him for quite a while, as they were cousins, the man always knew how to surprise him. Next to Aaron was his other cousin and Lieutenant, Rhiannon, his third in command. Her sweet, honeysuckle scent often deceived shifters, convincing them her nature mirrored her fragrance, when in reality she was painfully sharp…like a hornet’s sting.
“Aaron,” Kerrick said, keeping his eyes shut, knowing what this was about. “A title is not something I care about. Nor should it be something you care about.”
“It is important to the other, Alphars,” Rhiannon said and he sensed her sit in the grass in front of him.
“So let the other Alphars have their antiquated titles.” He opened his eyes to a familiar disapproving frown and persimmon-colored eyes squinting at him in annoyance. “This is the North American Territory. I don’t need a title in addition to Alphar.”
“They’re calling you the hippy Alphar.” Aaron chuckled, pushing back his long black hair. “Although seeing you sitting out here with your legs crossed and eyes closed like you’re meditating is making me think they’re not too far off the mark.”
Kerrick growled, “Respect your Alphar.” Of course the growl only made Aaron laugh more, recognizing the empty threat. Aaron and Rhiannon were the only people he trusted enough to let go around, to joke with. In the years leading up to his takedown of the previous North American Alphar, Kerrick never allowed himself to completely relax when others were present. His position had always been too precariously balanced to fully trust any others besides the two chastising him now.
Aaron collapsed into the grass next to Rhiannon and his size nearly blocked out the sun. The man was almost seven feet tall and had hands the size of footballs. He was a giant. A Werebear to be precise and no one would second guess his nature after a single glance. But for all his size and ability to terrify an opponent with a simple snarl, the man was incapable of quelling Kerrick. Not only because Kerrick was naturally dominant to Aaron but mostly because they had been raised together. Kerrick remembered Aaron when he was so little he’d been shitting his diapers from his mother feeding him too much fruit. Once you have that image in your memories, it was hard to be intimidated by that person.
His cousin Rhiannon was a Werefox and she was the least foxlike Fox shifter he’d ever known. She sat stoically, her face stuck in her smartphone, digitally handling whatever crisis had arisen in The Mansion at that moment. And there was always a crisis to be handled with shifters in the mix. Rhiannon had grown to be a strong woman, tall with a willowy frame, hair so blonde it was the color of golden wheat and eyes a dark persimmon to match. Kerrick had watched in careful amusement as many a man became infatuated with his cousin during their formative years. Unfortunately for them she was just too smart for the general public as she liked to remind the men who approached her, the biting nature of her tongue scaring them away. And although she had a habit of telling him exactly what she thought precisely when he didn’t want to hear it, her intelligence and fierce loyalty made her perfect for the position of Lieutenant.
No, Kerrick didn’t trust anyone as much as he trusted Aaron and Rhiannon, and sometimes he felt as though he never would.
“Riddan always used titles when being announced,” Aaron said, referencing the former North American Alphar. The mere mention of the former Alphar moved Kerrick to anger.
“Do not put me in the same box as Riddan,” Kerrick stated with a grave look between his cousins, brooking no argument. “Riddan was a sadistic psychopath who spent the last of his days throwing balls of fire at squirrels and then naming what was left of their charbroiled bodies, keeping them as toys.”
“Before eating them,” Rhiannon added helpfully without looking up from her phone.
“Yes, let’s not forget the last Alphar ate charbroiled vermin. I have much to live up to where the esteemed Riddan is concerned.” Kerrick sighed, and tilted is head back to feel the warm sun painting his face with its rays, the heat helping to wash away the sick feeling that always came with memories of Riddan.
Those last days with Riddan were too disturbing to dwell on, the deceased Alphar’s insanity had stretched much farther than Aaron or Rhiannon would ever fully be aware of. Kerrick had vowed to keep the details of what he’d seen to himself. Only Jeremiah, Aaron’s youngest brother and Riddan’s personal soldier at the time, truly knew what Riddan’s illness had bred. The insanity brought on by the power of the Alphar wasn’t something entirely unfamiliar to the general shifter public, but there was no need to worry his cousins with something that was waiting for him centuries in the future. “No, I will not be following any of his examples in regards to leading this nation’s Weres.”
“But the other Alphars—”
“Enough.” Kerrick interrupted Aaron, closing his eyes once more to focus on the Vryks. The sun was approaching high noon, their weakest hour besides dawn. He could hear them retreating farther into their territory, snuggling in their hideaways to gain cover from the hot sun. It wouldn’t kill them, but it would hurt. After the sun peaked they would begin to tire and meander back to the Vryk complex.
“You’ve had a request to meet with a lone Wolf today.” Aaron held up his hands in surrender when Kerrick’s eyes flashed open at the interruption. “In all seriousness, Kerrick,” Aaron said, only using his name in private. “You need to h
ear this. We might have a transitioning rogue on hand with this one. She first called the general inquiries line and demanded to speak to me. When she refused to speak with anyone else and wouldn’t tell the operators the reason for the call, saying it was highly confidential, they told her to make an appointment. She refused and kept calling until someone finally handed me a damn phone.”
“Three days, Kerrick, the crazy bitch called for three days straight,” Rhiannon said, finally lifting her head from her phone to take part in a conversation she deemed worthy of her full attention. That alone would have made Kerrick take a deeper interest.
“She claimed she was—and this is why I’m saying potential rogue—the Incendiary!” Kerrick and Rhiannon looked at each other in shock, both sets of eyebrows ascending into their hairlines as Aaron continued. “These are her words. She was the Alphar’s Incendiary and she demanded an audience with the new Alphar, since, according to her, he had failed to do so upon his ascension. That’s you, cuz.” Aaron clapped his hand on Kerrick’s shoulder, his eyes glimmering in mirth while he attempted a false sympathy. “Your little assassin is mighty pissed.”
“What did you tell her?” Kerrick asked, unable to keep a chuckle from escaping. The whole situation was too preposterous not to laugh at.
“To crawl back to her hovel and continue her pleasant life as a delusional hermit, of course.”
“You didn’t!” Rhiannon snarled, smacking Aaron on his knee.
“No,” Aaron agreed. “But I wish I had. The woman was insane, Rhi. And not in the crazy, screaming kind of insane. She was calm and quiet throughout the entire conversation. All the other shifters who spoke to her over the three days had the same observation, eerily calm and quiet. There is something unnatural about that shifter. She reminded me of Riddan—when things had really gone to shit.”
“What did you actually tell her?” Kerrick asked, not worried about his cousin’s ability to be diplomatic. Aaron was only an ass around his cousins and brothers as well as some of the soldiers and residents of The Mansion. Then again, perhaps Kerrick should learn to be more worried about Aaron’s tact and diplomacy.
“I told her until she gave me her name, phone number and address so we could verify her story, then I couldn’t help her. I told her Incendiaries are a myth and that if she were the Incendiary, she wouldn’t be chatting about it over an open line.”
“Her response?” Kerrick asked, standing and motioning for them to walk towards the gate. He didn’t want any stray shifters who resided in The Mansion overhearing they had a crazy person thinking she was the equivalent of the Were boogeyman.
“She said she was coming here, invited or not and that—oh I loved this—that we better prepare for her arrival whether we believed she was the Incendiary or not.” Aaron finished the woman’s statement by forming quotation marks with his fingers and using a mockingly high-pitched female voice to imitate her. Rhiannon snorted at the impression.
“Then what?” Kerrick asked, not too worried about this particular situation. It was most likely some reporter using underhanded means to get an interview. The humans had a fascination with shifter lore, and aside from their origins, there was no myth more fun to ruminate on than that of the Incendiary. Supposedly a beast of a Were, the Incendiary was meant to be nearly as powerful and fearless as an Alphar. But where an Alphar was intended to temper his power with knowledge and leadership, the Incendiary was a solitary agent, craving blood and punishing those who defied the Alphar. Incendiaries were used as a means to make children behave, go to sleep or the Incendiary will come and get you, harmless things like that. Everyone knew there was no such thing, and yet a niggling feeling from Kerrick’s Beast began to poke and prod.
“She hung up. We tried to track the call but it was blocked.” Aaron sighed, leaning his massive girth against the metal fence and making it creak. Kerrick made a mental note to have Zach magically reinforce the fences. “The call was blocked surprisingly well now that I think of it. Zach couldn’t even crack it,” Aaron said, his tone turning contemplative, taking what should have been a funny story and regarding it with a slightly serious outlook.
“Oh please.” Rhiannon finally put her phone away and leaned on the other side of Aaron. She looked at them with her usual arched eyebrow. “The Incendiary? It’s just a scary story kids are told to keep them in line. They don’t exist. You were Riddan’s Captain for those last couple of years, Kerrick. You would have known if he was sending off kill assignments to some pet assassin.” She crossed her arms, smug in her explanation. But his Beast nudged at Kerrick’s mind again as he thought back on his days as Riddan’s Captain.
“You know…thinking back, there were a few times—”
“Enough!” Rhiannon huffed, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
“Lieutenant,” Kerrick warned gently, reminding her and Aaron that although they were cousins, and he allowed himself to relax around them, Kerrick was still their Alphar. His dominant nature would only take so much. It was something he missed about being just a potential Alphar, his friends and family were still able to tease and address him in whatever way they wanted. Now, the sheer voracity of his power would never allow anyone but a mate or a child treat him in such a familiar way.
She nodded her head, not apologizing but acknowledging the boundaries his power dictated. There was a learning curve for everyone where his new position was concerned. “We have an itemized list of issues that need your attention or approval. That is what we need to be focusing on. Not some make-believe shifter bogeyman.” She pulled out her phone, no doubt intending to check off each item on that list then and there. Rhiannon was nothing if not efficient.
Aaron and Kerrick exchanged dubious looks, not sharing Rhiannon’s conviction that the Incendiary was a thing of myth. “Rhiannon, while I agree that most likely this is just some crazy Riddan supporter attempting to spread panic, there were a few times that rogue or criminal Weres would mysteriously disappear during Riddan’s rule. As far as I knew, it was the Captain’s job to issue the order to hunt down a rogue. Sometimes those threats vanished without my issuing the order. And as the Captain, I should have been privy to any takedowns of rogues.”
Rhiannon shoved her phone into her back pocket once more. “If you must force me to consider the possibility of this ridiculous bedtime story being more than what it is, then why don’t you try following the rules of said bedtime story. According to the legend, the Alphar, the Captain and the Lieutenant should have known about this Incendiary. If this assassin existed, you would have known. Riddan wasn’t completely crazy when you first became Captain under his rule, Kerrick. He trusted you or he wouldn’t have promoted you. He would have—”
“Rhiannon, if you think Riddan ever fully trusted me, then you are highly underestimating his brilliance.”
“Brilliance? He was mad.”
“Yes, he was insane. But he had remained the Alphar of this territory for centuries for a reason.”
It dawned on Rhiannon. “Keep your enemies closer…”
“Riddan killed his last Captain and promoted me because he knew I was a potential, he wanted to keep a close eye on me. If the Incendiary is real, I could see Riddan keeping the assassin a secret from me, in case he ever needed to use him or her against me.” Kerrick thought back on all the times criminals had mysteriously stopped committing crimes, or rogues had vanished after laying waste to more than one pack. It fit. What if there was a highly trained assassin who was pissed he hadn’t issued a formal invitation to meet after his ascension?
Kerrick’s senses tugged as he heard a Vryk shift near the border, risking a third-degree burn to emerge from his hidey-hole and taunt him. Kerrick growled and his bones rolled and cracked, choosing a form to shift into, an intimidating one. He’d had enough of these leaches haunting his borders and tormenting young shifters as they ran free on his territory. The Incendiary would have to wait, there were real creatu
res stalking his doorstep. And right now, they provided a more formidable threat to his people than a bedtime story.
Kerrick jumped the fence and ran into the woods, the shifted forms of his Lieutenant and Captain hot on his heels. No matter their disagreements, Aaron and Rhiannon would always be there to support him. Something he would probably never be able to say of anyone else in the world.
Chapter Three
Cymbeline scrutinized the North American Were Headquarters from her concealed vantage point in the heavy-foliaged trees across the road. Traditionally Wolf shifters didn’t appreciate the finer aspects of climbing trees. It was just an instinctual oddity that the Wolf spirit carried over into the human. But Cymbeline had always enjoyed climbing when she was a child. It gave her a small sense of freedom within the rigidity of her upbringing, and the feeling translated into an adept climbing knack she utilized frequently after her Turn, and throughout her life as a preternatural. Before choosing the animal she would join with once Turned, her trainers considered a Werewolf’s natural avoidance of tree climbing possibly resulting in a tactical weakness. But due to her natural affinity for it, they relied on her human strength to carry that knack over into her new life as a shifter. Her trainers were pleasantly surprised to see her climbing skill carried over after the Turn. Cymbeline, in turn, had been surprised by their ability to express a sentiment other than a critical critique. Grumpy fuckers.
She chewed one of the remaining pieces of beef jerky packed in her provisions and counted off the guards as they passed on their rounds once more. After four days of spying she had the routine memorized. The property was fairly large, as she remembered from her singular visit, and there was a decent amount of security guarding all the exits. But even with the vast number of guards and all the security measures they had at their disposal, they had yet to detect her presence. She’d come expecting to be discovered within hours of her arrival, and challenged by some muscular warrior defending his or her Alphar’s honor. But these guards spent their days watching squirrels fighting and taking this general time of peace for granted. The whole experience had been somewhat underwhelming.
To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 Page 2
