by Kimber White
“You could have called me on the fucking phone.” I wanted to threaten to call the cops, except this was Oodena. Beau was the cops. I probably should have been scared. I found I was too pissed off for that. Gerard punched a code into the keypad and the two of them pushed me along beside them. He punched another code into one of the conference room doors off the lobby next to the giant counter where people of Oodena came for their marriage and driver’s licenses and to register to vote. They needed to add a new sign for abductees. After hours now, the building was dark and quiet.
We went down a long hallway. Light spilled out of the crack at the bottom of one of the doors at the end of the hall. Gerard punched his code in again and they led me inside. There, filling all but two seats at a long, U-shaped conference table, was the entire Oodena city council -- the heads of all the Nine Families save for my grandfather. Gerard stepped to the other side and took his seat next to Rory Blackstone. Five of the men, including Rory and Randall Crow, had the decency to look embarrassed. But Gerard, Nathan Aken, and Bill Opego stared at me with hard, judgmental eyes. Beau stood behind me and placed a heavy hand on my shoulder, keeping me in my seat.
Randall cleared his throat. With my grandfather out of commission, he was the next oldest on the council. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” he said.
I put up a hand. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t agree to anything. Beau and Gerard literally dragged me from the hospital parking lot and threw me in their car. I’ll have bruises on my arm in about an hour.”
The color drained from Randall’s face. Rory buried his face in his hands and then stared murder at Gerard.
“Well, that wasn’t what we planned. You have my apologies on behalf of the council for that. But now that you’re here will you at least listen to what we have to say?”
“If Beau takes his hands off me and gets far the hell away from me, that would be a good start.”
Murmurs went through the men. To his credit, Gerard looked ashen and miserable. He nodded toward Beau, whose hand stiffened on my shoulder. But, he finally withdrew it and went to stand behind the council table.
“Is this a formal meeting of the council?” I asked.
“Well, in a way, yes.”
“Then Beau needs to step outside,” I said. “Unless he plans on offing his father in the next thirty seconds, Beau’s not the representative of the Karrow family. Gerard is.”
“I stay,” Beau said. “I’m here as a representative of law enforcement. This is a matter of town security.”
Randall ran a hand across his brow and gave me a sheepish look. “Tamryn. We’ll agree that Beau doesn’t come near you. One of us will escort you out of here when the meeting’s finished. We’re not keeping you here against your will. But, what we have to say is important and concerns your family.”
I probably should have gotten up and left then and there. But, Randall had my curiosity piqued and he knew it. Maybe it was naïve of me, but I didn’t truly believe Gerard or Beau could really hurt me. And I still trusted Randall and Rory, although less and less as the minutes ticked by.
“Go ahead,” I said, letting out a deep sigh. “But quickly. I understand the lot of you went to see my grandfather yesterday. I’d like to know what that was about.”
“How is he?” Randall’s face tore at my heart a little. I knew he loved my grandfather, and whatever else was going on, his concern was real.
“Good. He got his pacemaker, I might be able to take him home in a couple of days.”
Randall clapped his hands together and his eyes lit up. “Oh, thank the Lord. The Crows have been praying on it. Verna’s going to want to whip up something special for him for dinner when he’s good and ready to eat it.”
“Can we get on with this?” Gerard barked.
“I’d appreciate that,” I said. For once, Gerard Karrow and I agreed on something.
“We have some concerns about the element you’ve chosen to associate yourself with,” Bill Opego said. Bill was the third oldest member of the council behind my grandfather and Randall. He looked every bit of his Odawa ancestry save for his rotund frame and beefy fingers. He looked at me with fierce, dark eyes.
“That I’ve what?”
“Wendigo!” Nathan Aken pointed a crooked finger at me. “You’ve let wolves onto your property, and God knows what else you’ve done with them.”
My blood boiled and I was on my feet. The members of the council erupted. Gerard, Nathan, and Bill shouted at me while Randall and Rory tried to get them to stop. I turned to leave, but Beau blocked the door. Free to leave, my ass. I whirled back toward the council table and shook my own finger in Nathan’s direction.
“Explain to me how anything I do is the business of this council.” I looked to Rory and Randall, fully expecting them to be outraged at Bill’s question. But Randall looked weary instead. He motioned for me to take my seat again.
“Tamryn,” he started again when the din died down. “You’ve been away a long time. And you don’t know the history of this tribe and our town. Not the full color of it, anyway. No one’s blaming you for that ignorance. Your grandfather wanted to spare you from it. And actually, that’s not even it. He wanted to spare himself the pain of reliving any of it by telling you. But you have a right to know more than anyone.”
It was as if the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. I had trouble drawing breath. I had thought my grandfather’s words before he went in for his procedure were the product of his addled mind. But, he’d warned me. He told me to listen to what they had to say. God, it dawned on me. He knew these old farts were going to call me in front of the council. It’s probably why they’d gone to see him the other night. And, it meant he’d endorsed the plan. Before I gave it conscious thought, I found myself sinking back down into my chair. I folded my trembling hands into my lap. I didn’t want to hear another word. But, a promise was a promise and Grandpa had gotten one out of me when he thought he might not wake up again.
“The history of this tribe and this town are deeply intertwined with the were,” Rory took up the story. “It’s not just the children’s fable we tell on Founder’s Day. All of us here have reaped the benefits of the sacrifices our forefathers made when they settled here. But, you have to understand how deep those sacrifices were.”
“What sacrifices?”
Beau moved to the end of the table. He picked up a thick manila folder that had been lying there. Randall put up a hand and motioned for him to be still. I couldn’t take my eyes off that folder. On instinct, I knew it contained something awful. Instinct, and the satisfied look that came into Beau’s eyes as he held it.
“Things were dire for our people at the end of the Civil War. Odawa were forced onto reservations and worse. It took tremendous courage for each of the Nine Families to do what they did and form this town. But, they couldn’t do it alone. They faced the full force of the United States military, who had no intention of letting us carve out our own futures. We needed protection. Our people, your people, paid a price for that protection.”
“They paid nothing!” Gerard slammed his fist to the table. “And everyone at this table knows it. Why should the Redbirds be spared what the rest of us endured?”
“Keep your tongue!” Randall rose from his seat and came around the table. He knelt in front of me on creaky knees and took my hand. “You know full well how the Redbirds paid.”
“Tell me,” I said, challenging him. “What do you mean? What kind of sacrifice?”
“We made a pact with a powerful ally. A shifter pack from the south. For a hundred years they protected us from government threats and rival tribes. Without that alliance, Oodena wouldn’t be here today.”
Some of what Pat told me flooded my brain as well. She talked about a rival pack to Wild Lake and a pack war in this area fifty years ago. Were they related?
“Stop sugar coating it,” Gerard said. “Tell her the truth.”
Randall got off his knees and stood before me, but he didn’t let go
of my hands.
“A daughter,” he said. “That’s what they wanted. In each successive generation, one of the Nine Families would make the ultimate sacrifice. Over one hundred years, we lost eight favorite daughters to the pack.”
“What do you mean you lost them?”
“They were taken from here,” Nathan continued. “They went to live among the pack on their hunting grounds to the south. None of them ever returned.”
Cold sweat trickled down between my shoulder blades. I couldn’t breathe. Eight daughters. Nine Families.
“That’s right,” Beau came to the other side and leaned against it as he fingered the envelope. “You figured out the math. Eight daughters. Eight generations. I think you can guess who the ninth daughter was supposed to be.”
Ask your grandfather what happens to the women in your family when they don’t do what they’re told.
Oh, God. Spots swam in front of my eyes.
“She tried to run with her,” Beau said. “Tell her what happened, or I will.”
Randall closed his eyes when he spoke the rest. “Wyatt married an outsider. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t her fault even. Jesse enchanted all of us.”
“Not all of us,” Bill said. “He was a fool, and there were plenty of us around back then to remind him why.”
Randall’s eyes snapped open, and now they filled with tears. “He was in love with her. And it had been more than twenty years since the last daughter had been sacrificed to the werewolves. Things were peaceful. Or at least, we thought so. We were decades away from any real threat to our lands from anyone. We got careless. Complacent.”
“You got careless and complacent,” Bill said. “We tried to make Jesse understand. She sat in this very room just like you are. But she wasn’t one of us. She didn’t feel bound by any oath and she was foolish.”
Rage boiled my blood as I envisioned what that scene must have been like. My grandmother. Beautiful. Defiant. She sat in front of a row of old men just like I was as they told her she was supposed to sacrifice her . . . daughter. My mother.
“You killed her.” My words came out cold and bitter as Beau’s words replayed in my mind.
“No,” Gerard said, on his feet now. “We did not. We aren’t killers. It’s the wolves, the Wendigo, who are killers. Those girls never came back. You think they just lived happily ever after? No. I’ve heard the stories. I know the truth. They died, but not right away. You want to know what they did with them? There’s something wrong with werewolves. The females of their kind have been dying out for two hundred years. They believed a legend that said women with Native American blood could be turned. Odawa can’t. And they were ignorant and bigoted enough to think it didn’t matter. That all the tribes are the same. Our daughters were tortured and raped for years by that pack before they died. That’s the fate that awaited your mother. But, she was one life that we were willing to sacrifice for the good of all of us. Like the eight women that came before her. What’s nine lives when hundreds, thousands of others could be spared? We gave her a chance to prepare.”
Bile rose in my throat. He was insane. I didn’t know the pack he spoke about, but I knew Luke. I was getting to know Bas. They weren’t cold-blooded killers or rapists. “Of course she ran,” I said. “Jesse ran from all of you and your insanity.”
“She did,” Randall said. “She did what any mother would do if she didn’t understand the way things are. Your mother wasn’t more than five or six years old, and Jesse tried to run away with her. She was going to take her someplace far away where she thought the wolves would never find her. But, they were watching. They tracked her down.”
“The wolves killed her,” Beau said as he started to open the seal on the envelope. “Left her on the side of the road with your mother crying over her body.”
“You don’t need to be obscene, Beau,” Rory said.
“Oh, yes, I do. My father raised me on this story. Jesse didn’t understand what was at stake. You people weren’t obscene enough when you tried to warn her. If she had she’d probably still be alive. Liddy would have done her duty and the debt would be paid.”
What was he saying? My mother married my father. She was never part of any wolf pack. She died in a car accident.
“Wyatt was never the same after that,” Randall said, openly sobbing now. “It killed him as much as it did Jesse. He thought about trying to run with Liddy then too, but he knew they’d find her again. And they’d kill him. And then she’d have no one to look out for her.”
“What happened to my mother?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was cold and flat. My heart thundered against my ribcage.
“She didn’t listen either,” Gerard said. “She came of age. Your grandfather was too afraid to tell her what was supposed to happen. So I tried. I loved her too. Did you know that? Since we were kids. I wanted to marry her myself, but I couldn’t. I knew who she was. She was the last daughter. After her, the pact was supposed to be fulfilled. She was important. But, she was too much like your grandmother. She ran off and eloped with your father. It was bad enough he wasn’t from Oodena, but she laid with him. Defiled herself.”
“They were married, you asshole. You’re talking about her like she was just like some whore.”
“Like mother like daughter,” Beau muttered. I lunged at him, moving faster than Randall or anyone else expected. I slapped Beau Karrow’s smug face and raised my fist to strike again. He caught my wrist and crushed it between his fingers. Pain shot through me to my elbow as he forced me back into my chair.
“Enough!” Randall choked out his words.
“She got away from all your bullshit, didn’t she? That’s why you’re so pissed off. My mother was stronger than all of you. You wouldn’t fight for her. For any of them. You just let it happen.”
My words tasted bitter in my mouth, but I had to keep going. “You’ve been trying to control me since the minute I came back to town. I didn’t understand it at first. I thought it was just some stupid crush you had on me or your sick need to control everything. But, that’s not it, is it? You want something. Your marriage proposal. More like marriage bullying. You’re a vulture. You and your father. Does the council know about the note you took out on my grandfather’s property? That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”
Gerard took a step back. His face went ashen and I knew I had something. I wanted to hurt him and Beau, and I used the only weapon I had. Whatever tattered reputation they had left with the council, I wanted to destroy it.
“You wanted me to marry you so you could secure the claim you think you have on my grandfather’s land. The rest of this is all bullshit. I’ve seen the most recent surveys. Grandpa’s land is rich with copper deposits, isn’t it? That’s what you’re really after.”
By the looks on the rest of the council’s faces, I knew I’d struck gold. Now, Beau and Gerard were the ones squirming. My gamble paid off. Scorn came into even Bill and Nathan’s eyes as they looked at Beau.
I should have quit while I was ahead. Because, it turned out I had vastly underestimated Beau.
He ripped open the envelope and spilled its contents at my feet. Photographs fluttered over the ground, spreading out in a grisly collage. These were crime scene photos. First, I recognized my grandmother in them. Her red hair, just like mine, fanned out on the ground. Her beautiful face looked so peaceful. At first glance, I could have believed she was only sleeping. But, deep claw marks ravaged the skin above her collarbones. She was bitten, her flesh torn away, and she lay in a pool of dark blood.
And then, there were my parents. My father got the worst of it. He had deep wounds covering his hands and chest. Dread settled over my shoulders like a blanket. Defensive wounds. No one had to tell me that. He probably died trying to protect my mother. He lay in the woods behind my grandfather’s house. My mother’s body had been moved. She lay face down at the edge of the footbridge in the center of town.
Wolves did this. Werewolves did this.
Blood drained from my face, and my stomach rolled. My mouth filled with saliva, and I fought back the urge to vomit. I couldn’t let them see weakness in me. But, I had to get out of here.
“It wasn’t a car accident, Tamryn,” Gerard said. “Your mother was smart. And she was brave. But, she was too stubborn for her own good. She married your father. She sullied herself with another outsider. She was no good to the pack. They let her go. Or, we thought they did. But, they got their revenge.”
It was awful. Brutal. And yet, I felt detached somehow. This happened in another place, another time. This wasn’t Luke. It wasn’t Bas. It had nothing to do with me. Did it?
“Your new boyfriend did this, Tamryn,” Beau said.
“No.” I took two steps backward, trying to put some distance between myself and those horrible photos. I stumbled over the chair. “He’s not from some pack from the south. He’s from Wild Lake. These weren’t his people. You’re drawing the same bigoted conclusion you just accused the southern pack of doing. Not all were are the same.”
“Well, then he’s a recent transplant,” Beau said. “There was an investigation into their deaths. Witness statements. The wolves who did this weren’t strangers, Tamryn. Not to the people around here. A warrant was even issued for the leader of the pack responsible. Do you want to know his name?”
I shook my head. The room started to spin. Things Luke told me started to swirl in my head. If Beau or Gerard had uttered the name, I might not have believed it. Beau relished hurting me. I’d spurned him. I could almost understand why he hated me now. But, it was Randall who spoke the name that shattered my soul.
“Asher Tully,” he said. “Asher Tully carried out the hit on your mother and father. Honey, it’s true. He carried your mother’s body into the town square and laid her at your grandfather’s feet. Everyone here witnessed it. Even Beau.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chaos screamed inside my head. My heart tore in two. Asher Tully. Luke’s brother. Luke’s pack.
No one moved to stop me as I ran from the council hall. I don’t remember how I got from there to the edge of the hill leading to my grandfather’s house. For all I knew, I too had shifted into the red bird my family had been named after and taken flight over the snow-covered pine trees.
