by C. T. Adams
David nodded. “I could use some caffeine. It was a long night. Go ahead, bro. I know where you keep everything.”
Five minutes later, he was dressed and had brushed his teeth… twice. There was nothing quite like extra garlic pizza sauce to make his mouth feel like an army tramped through it the next morning.
Everybody was seated around the living room when he stepped back in and he noted David had fixed a cup for him. He sat down in his favorite recliner, took a sip of the sweet, creamy coffee and took a deep breath. “So, what’s the scoop this time?”
Tommy and David both turned to Lucas. He dipped his head and closed his eyes briefly, and the anger and frustration that rose from him was tinged with sorrow. “Josef is dead.”
Adam nearly spilled the coffee before it got to his lips. “What? But the healer said he’d be fine… ready to stand trial in a week or so. What happened?”
“Murder happened… while our backs were turned. We should have posted a guard at the clinic. You said it yourself—what if Josef was supposed to check in at a certain time? We worried about them scattering before we could arrest them, and didn’t think about the alternative—that they might take him out before he could wake up and spill the beans.”
“Shit. Did we lose anyone else… any of the staff, during the fight?”
Lucas started to tap one finger on his cup and his response both relieved and worried Adam. “No fight. Nobody remembers a damned thing. I talked with both healers and the nurses. It’s as though a ghost came in and injected the venom. We’re definitely dealing with a pro—no prints, nothing on the video monitors, not a single one of Josef’s hairs out of place. It was only the smell that gave it away at all.”
The word venom grabbed Adam’s attention, especially after what had just happened to Cara. “You said venom. Did someone smell a Sazi snake when they checked on Josef? Was it rattlesnake venom? Has anyone checked?”
Lucas shook his head, but David raised his brows. “Not rattler venom, but we’re not certain of the exact species yet. It is definitely in the viper family, though, possibly an asp. No, the scent that gave it away was concentrated cinnamon oil. Someone was trying to cover a scent, so I ordered the body not be moved until I could go through the room. I did a mind-link with my mate, Tatya, and she noticed an odd bruising in one of the wounds. The venom was injected in an existing wound. It’s similar to a method employed in another case recently. I’m checking into that angle with the snake councilman, Ahmad al-Narmer. Why did you think rattlesnake?”
He told them what happened to Cara yesterday and how the rattlesnake had been going to bite her to get information. “Of course, that brings up a rather uncomfortable subject to me.” He took a deep breath and looked at all three of them in turn. “The deputy with Cara managed to get the snake off her by using the sheriff’s truck to literally run them over.”
Tommy let out a short whistle. “Whoa. Brutal. But I’ll bet it worked.”
Adam took another sip of coffee and let out a nervous chuckle. “Oh yeah. It worked. Fer sure. But that happened at around one twenty yesterday—” He let the statement hang to see if anyone else would pick up on his reasoning. Tommy didn’t react, but then he hadn’t been with them at the time. David winced.
Lucas nodded slowly and let out a breath. “She pulled on your magic and you’re feeling the result. So, you’re thinking you’re mated then? That’s going to change a few things.”
Adam felt panic rush through him and his eyes widened enough that he could feel air cool under the lid. That thought had never occurred to him. I couldn’t possibly —“Mated? No! I’m thinking that I attached to her as my pack leader. I mean… yeah, she drew on me, but it was a crisis. Josef does that all the time. I mean, he used to.” That was going to take a little while to get used to. Minnesota’s Alpha was really dead, and the Second becomes the new Alpha.
David and Tommy both nodded, but his brother was the one who spoke. “True. He did that more than once. But we never felt his injuries, bro. You sure it’s not something… else?”
“Jill’s mated to me,” Tommy added with a thoughtful expression and scent. “She says she knows where I am all the time. All she has to do is think about me and she can almost see me.”
Adam shook his head. “See, nothing like that’s happening. No feeling her emotions or knowing where she is. No, I think I just got caught in a pack binding. But I don’t know what that means. Can it be severed from this side, or do I need to go back down there?”
“Except that Cara doesn’t bind her pack… or had you forgotten that?” Lucas’s voice was calm. He’d put down his coffee cup and now had his fingers interlaced behind his neck. “Have you slept together yet?”
“What? No! I mean, it’s none of your damned business!” He heard the outrage in his own voice and knew he was overreacting to the questions. But he couldn’t seem to help it. His heart was pumping so hard his temples were pulsing painfully.
Tommy looked at Lucas and they both smiled slightly, which pissed him off even more. He let out a harsh breath and held up his hands. “Okay, look. I only brought this up because I tossed out an offer to Cara yesterday. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but—”
Now Lucas’s expression grew more serious and he leaned forward until his forearms were resting on his legs. “Go on.”
“She’s having problems with her pack lately and if I bound to her that easily, then others might, too, and… well, I offered to bring her up here to be the Minnesota Alpha Female. That is, if you’re planning for me to take the pack.”
Eyes widened on all three men, and Lucas let out a vicious snarl. “Goddamn it, Mueller! You had no authority to offer that. We’re trying to shrink the size of this pack, not increase it! Look, the reason I brought David and Tommy with me today is that I wanted to talk to all three of the top alphas to decide what to do. Then you go off, making stupid fucking offers you have no right to, and—” He let out a harsh breath and stood up, his eyes glowing with golden intensity. He started to pace behind the couch and magic crackled in the air, stinging Adam’s skin like ants biting.
“David’s not one of the top people. He’s right in the middle of the pack.”
Lucas waved his hand at Adam’s younger brother and continued to pace. “I’m too pissed to talk right now. You tell him.”
David’s eyes had dropped to contemplate his fingernails. When he looked up, it was with an embarrassed expression that didn’t match the authoritative blue uniform. “Josef couldn’t hold me during the fight. Me and Tommy were the ones helping the two agents when the other guys attacked.”
Tommy spoke up with a nod. “I was busy trying to hold Jill back. I was afraid someone was going to shoot her. But she chewed up my neck pretty good and got away. I took a bullet for her in the hallway—you probably saw that, but if David hadn’t been strong enough, it could have been a lot worse.”
Adam took a second look at Tommy. His turtleneck covered the wounds, but Adam remembered them.
Tommy grinned. “Yeah. I mean, it’s fine with me, but she’s mated to me. Josef’s control must have been something to overcome that. Jill shouldn’t be able to hurt me, ever. She’s beating herself up pretty hard over that, but she just couldn’t stop even though she knew what she was doing. And I gotta tell ya—I’m not afraid to use that marker. It sure as hell is gonna wipe out my honey-do list on the weekends.”
He was trying to lighten the mood and, to an extent, he did. Adam would have laughed as the bright scent of citrus and cookie spices filled the air, nearly overcoming the boiling coffee anger scent from Lucas. But his main focus was on David. He’d never thought of his brother as an alpha of that level. He hadn’t seen him in the fray, but he was only seeing it through Jill’s eyes. “You couldn’t be held? Even when Josef was panicked? So why aren’t you higher in the pack?”
His brother let out a harsh breath and then shook his head with frustration. “I don’t want to fight, bro. I just don’t. I mean, I break up fucking gang wars
every day—watch how little kids jockey for position—believing the number of battle scars is the only way to prove they’re a man. I don’t need to prove myself, Adam. I don’t want to even now that Josef is dead. I know I’m supposed to want to, be challenging you and everything, but I just don’t”
“Which, of course, is a problem for this pack.” Lucas had finally calmed down enough to not bleed energy and his eyes had stopped glowing. He leaned his hands on the back of the couch and regarded the three of them. “David might be able to hold this pack, but he’d be challenged. Already people are getting wary of him, wondering why he’s been holding back and not climbing. An Alpha has to feel the need to rule—like you’re feeling. But he’d rather stay where he is, in the middle. Unfortunately, that might not be an option.”
“And I know I probably can’t hold the pack,” Tommy added. “Not like Josef did… and not like you could.”
Lucas nodded and finally sat down again. His expression when he stared at Adam was still annoyed, but was calming by the minute. “Frankly, I’d rather send you down to Texas like originally planned, along with people who can be trusted. There’s more going on up here than we know right now. I found a list in Josef’s things that I was sort of surprised to find. It might be a plant… intentional disinformation to throw us off. But I’m thinking not. I’m starting to think he was cocky enough after so long of not being noticed that he could afford to do something that stupid.”
“What sort of list did you find?”
Lucas raised his brows lightly and waited for a reaction. “An assassination list. You were the first name.”
He shouldn’t be surprised, but he was. “Was it a very long list? Who else was on it?”
David answered. “Anyone who was a danger to him. I was on the list and so was Tommy.”
Lucas nodded. “There were a dozen names, and it appears from the memo… to person or persons unknown… that they were all people who Josef couldn’t involve in the slaving business because of their magical ability, disposition, or employment. So, we’ve got a decision to make. As soon as Tony is done down in Mexico, I’m bringing him back here, and have already got a call in to our other seer with hindsight.” He snorted and burnt metal frustration rose into the air. “Actually, I’ve got several calls in for her, but she’s not answering. She’s like that, though. However, as soon as I can get her up here, we’re going to be having hindsight sessions with this whole pack to find out who knew about this. The council’s insisted on knowing the extent of the damage, since it could affect us all if the authorities caught wind of it. That’s going to be relatively traumatic, and I would prefer that people here not be bound during the process so we can limit the damage to the whole pack. I’d like to send any alphas who might be able to bind them down there.”
Adam was starting to follow the train of thought and it made him sick to his stomach. “But if you send all high level people to Texas—”
Lucas nodded. “You see the problem. There’s going to be a group of irritated, unbound alphas that will descend on Texas… on Cara’s pack of lesser wolves. Even if they’re honest, they’re going to be in some stage of pining depression or, at least, anxiety for awhile. That’s why you’re needed there. At least for a time. But, I want to send Tommy, too. His wife needs to get away from this before she has a mental collapse. Tony’s memory barrier didn’t hold, and their daughter might still be in danger. If we move quickly, and secretly, we might take those who are watching by surprise.”
He held up a finger to stop the Wolven chief. “But they’re quite possibly looking for both Jenny and Ziri. Aren’t we asking for trouble by putting them in the same place?”
Tommy answered, his voice and scent filled with angry determination. “That’s not going to happen. I won’t let anyone take my baby. Even if that means I have to keep watch twenty-four seven until we catch the bastards!”
Lucas tipped his head toward David. “I can make the pack believe it was a fluke Josef didn’t hold David. That he didn’t dare because he was a cop or some such. He’ll, in effect, be undercover up here—able to hold the pack if it comes to it, but without anyone knowing. And I’ll be here for awhile anyway. I can run the agency fine from here, and don’t have anywhere else to be for the moment. I doubt anyone will be stupid enough to challenge me.”
Fuck. Just what he needed. “So, that’s it then? I pick the people and Cara gets no say in what happens? She’s going to blame me, you know. She already promised civil war if only alphas show up.”
Lucas smiled, a baring of teeth that wasn’t pleasant. “She won’t blame you because you get no say, either. I got approval from the council for a no-death period and, actually, there won’t be any rank challenges at all for now. I’ll pick the people and you’ll both deal with the result. The existing pack will remain in the positions they’re in to avoid a war. The Minnesota wolves will be newcomers, unknowns… just regular pack until everything sorts out up here and you and Tommy will be responsible for keeping them from trying to climb. Of course, I’ll be the shared enemy. Everyone will hate me in both places, but really—” He shrugged and chuckled lightly. “What’s new about that? Everybody always hates the Wolven chief. It’s part and parcel of the job. Oh, and don’t bother asking the wolf rep, Nikoli, for a reprieve. It’ll be a waste of time, because he voted against the split to begin with. He doesn’t have the stroke in the job yet to change minds.”
Apparently, this was all new to Tommy, too, because he was staring with open mouthed shock. “So all of us are going to have to leave our homes and answer to a new alpha, with no say in the matter, and no ability to challenge her? I thought this was going to be a volunteer thing. I mean, I agree with Lucas that my family needs to go, but some of the people on that list didn’t want to move. And what if this new alpha decides to do the same thing as Josef did? Turn us against one another, I mean. I’m not feeling very trusting lately.”
Adam found himself shaking his head. “She won’t. Cara’s not like that.”
Tommy crossed his arms over his chest angrily. “Says the man who’s already bound to her. What if you’re already not thinking clearly? A week ago you were the first man to stand up to say this wasn’t a good idea and you were going to fight the move tooth and claw. What happened, huh? Answer me that.”
He stopped and thought about it… really thought, because Tommy was right. He’d been angry and frustrated about the split and, while he felt it was his own fault it happened, he still would have been against it even if Tyr hadn’t challenged him… and lost. Could Cara be buffaloing them all, like Josef had? Had she brainwashed him somehow into thinking she was perfect? Did the birds back down from attacking not because Will arrived, but because she was somehow involved? He met his best friend’s pained expression with one of confusion, suddenly not trusting his own actions. “I… I don’t know, Tom. I wish I did.”
Lucas shrugged. “Well, I know. Cara is the sheriff down there because Charles felt she was the best candidate and pulled some strings in the governor’s office.” He waved off Adam’s incredulous look. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. Most things, good and bad, that happen to Sazi get there with a little push from the seers or the council—even things you know nothing about for reasons you can’t comprehend. The Chief Justice has influence all over the globe, and he was quite impressed with her in Wolven academy. She’s strictly law and order and doesn’t cave in to popular opinion.” He looked around at them all, making sure he had their complete attention. “Charles Wingate has always had the best interests of the Sazi people first and foremost in his mind—often to his own detriment. He wouldn’t still be the Chief Justice otherwise. The combined council could take him down if it came to it. So if Charles says you can trust Carlotta Salinas to be a good pack leader for your people, then it’s the gold standard.”
All three men nodded, convinced, at least for now, by the conviction in Lucas’s voice. Adam felt a buzzing relief in his head. He hated to think he couldn’t trust his o
wn decisions and feelings. “So, what happens now? The moon is just in a couple of days. We can’t be having low-level alphas traveling on the moon.”
“What happens now is that you’re going back to Texas, and taking Tommy’s family with you.” Lucas stood up and stretched his back, opening his eyes wide enough that Adam realized he probably hadn’t slept at all the previous night. “I’m not unmindful of what Cara said about making waves down there. I’m not just going to pick people at total random. I do think the Kassners would be good picks, for the reasons you cited at the restaurant the other day. I’ve contacted a few of our better-known Sazi artists. Any gallery started there will be an exclusive outlet for some very desirable products. That will set it apart and help it thrive. I also liked your idea about a Target store down there, so I’m going to see what strings can be pulled. Cherise Michaels and I have also already talked. She might well be the next person to go down, at least temporarily, to scope out the area. I’ll let you know who else will be coming as soon as I decide.”
He pointed at Adam and his scent became all business, better than anger, but less than the warm scents of concern and pride when he spoke about the Chief Justice. “Oh, and you need to check in with your captain at the precinct. He should have just received a psychiatric report that said your retirement is based on burnout. That’ll free you up from your last two weeks on patrol, and the council will cover the lost money and emergency travel expense.”
Adam shook his head, tiny little movements that spoke his astonishment. Call after call, layer upon layer of planning, just in the space of a few hours. “You’ve done all that shit while I was out cold last night? Jesus, I feel like a slacker!”
