by J. L. Wilder
“And I’m saying we don’t start a war with the Hell’s Wolves,” Owen said. “Not until we know for sure that they’re behind what’s happening. This is their territory too. There’s been peace between their pack and ours for three generations. We’re not going to fuck that up in a single day”
“Owen,” Angus said gently. “They’re the ones who ruined the peace between us, if they’re attacking humans now. They’re the ones who started the violence.”
“What do you want me to do?” Owen asked. “Take us to war?”
“If the situation calls for it, that’s what you have to do.”
Owen sighed, got to his feet, and walked out of the kitchen.
“You can’t ignore this!” Damon called after him. “You wanted to be the alpha. This is part of that. You have to be willing to make the hard decisions that keep our pack alive. We are going to be run out of this state if you’re not willing to take us to battle, Owen!”
Owen did his best to ignore the shouts of his second in command as he climbed the staircase to his bedroom on the second floor of the house. He went in and threw the deadbolt, giving thanks that he’d thought to have the thing installed when he’d taken over as pack alpha. He had suspected then that he might need privacy someday, although he had never envisioned that need looking like this.
Was Damon right?
His instincts cried out against it. Damon was impulsive and hot-headed. Of course he would be eager to go to war. There was probably a part of him that had always wanted to test himself against the Hell’s Wolves. Knowing that they shared territory with a pack of wolf shifters was an uneasy thing, even for Owen himself. Wolves were difficult to trust.
But the peace between them had lasted so long. Was it really possible that, after all these years, the Hell’s Wolves had turned violent? It seemed unlikely—but then, anything was possible. The nature of packs tended to change when new leaders took over. If Damon were to take over the Wild Grizzlies today, Owen thought, his own pack would become much more aggressive in nature.
So maybe somebody new was in charge. Somebody who didn’t care about civility, about keeping quiet and letting the neighboring humans live their lives. And if that was the case, maybe that person wouldn’t care about maintaining peace between the Hell’s Wolves and the Wild Grizzlies.
If there was going to be war between the two packs, Owen thought, if war was inevitable, then he would prefer to strike first.
But if there was any way war could be avoided, he certainly didn’t want to provoke the wolves.
It was Angus’ words that troubled him, far more than anything Damon had said. They’re the ones who ruined the peace between us. He seemed not to question that that was the case. He seemed to believe, as Damon did, that the fragile peace had been shattered. That the Hell’s Wolves had gone bad.
Damon was impetuous and eager to jump at the most dramatic interpretation of any series of events. But Angus was calm and measured. If even he thought the worst, then perhaps it was worth taking seriously.
Owen sighed and sat down on his bed. What am I supposed to do? Of course he would have done anything to protect his pack, to guard their territory. But which course of action would best do that?
No one said being alpha would be easy.
No, no one had said that. But Owen had to admit that he had hoped it would be easier than this. He had hoped the necessary decisions would come more naturally to him, that when faced with a dilemma like this he would have some kind of instinct for what needed to be done.
That didn’t seem to be the case.
Or perhaps it was. Perhaps it was instinct that told him to do nothing, to wait and see. To hold off on the plan of attacking the Hell’s Wolves until he could be absolutely sure of their guilt.
He knew what Damon would say. That’s not instinct, that’s cowardice.
Owen searched his feelings. Was he afraid to face the wolves?
He certainly didn’t relish the idea. But he wasn’t worried about what would happen to him if there was a fight. He was far more worried about his packmates, especially Joel, Riley, and Nova. They were all so young. They had never been in a real fight before. And wolves fought very differently from bears. Wolves were fast.
So really, wasn’t it just sensible to fear a fight?
Owen didn’t know. He didn’t know if he was making good choices in his pack’s best interest or if he was just shying away from what needed to be done. Not for the first time, he wished that someone else could advise him, give him some idea of what he should do.
Shape it up, he told himself firmly. It’s like Damon said, isn’t it? You’re the alpha. It’s your job to make these choices for everyone. You can’t start wishing you had someone else to do the hard work for you every time a tough decision comes along.
He sighed. Bears were pack animals. Yes, there was an alpha, but part of the joy of belonging to a pack was being able to rely on your packmates for things. Being alpha set him apart in a way that had always been, and likely would always be, very uncomfortable.
But somebody had to do it. Somebody had to step to the plate. Owen was the one who had been born with the alpha gene, and he knew he was good at what he did. The Wild Grizzlies couldn’t have a better alpha.
It definitely wouldn’t be any better if Damon was in charge, he reassured himself. He’d be rushing in there, half cocked, without so much as a plan of attack. We’d be halfway to the Hell’s Wolves already right now if it was up to him.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Come in,” he said.
The door rattled in the frame, and Owen remembered the deadbolt. He got to his feet and crossed the room to open it.
Joel stood in the doorway, looking nervous. “Are you angry?” he asked.
“No,” Owen said. “Of course not. Just...thinking.”
“I don’t think Damon meant to upset you,” Joel said.
“I’m sure you’re right.” Owen wasn’t sure of that at all, but he didn’t want to sow divisiveness between Joel and Damon. He knew Joel looked up to Damon, and it was a good thing for him to have a role model.
Besides, he thought, if I make it clear that everyone has to choose a side, mine or Damon’s...people might start choosing Damon’s side. And a rivalry within our pack is the very last thing we need at a time like this.
“I came up to tell you that...” Joel swallowed. “We just got a phone call.”
“A phone call?” Owen frowned. “Who even has our number?” The Wild Grizzlies had two cell phones, which the pack shared between them. When everyone was home, as they were now, the phones lived on chargers in the kitchen. In the entire time since they had been purchased, neither phone had placed or received a call to any other. The only communication they were used for was between the two of them.
“The Hell’s Wolves,” Joel said.
“The Wolves?” Owen felt a surge of alarm. “How did they get our number?”
“I don’t know. But they called just now.”
“Who talked to them?” Please don’t say Damon.
“Dusty did. He talked to a guy called Wes. I guess Wes told him that the Wolves’ alpha is coming here to talk to you about the attacks that have been going on.”
“They’re going to say it isn’t them,” Owen said.
“Can we believe that?” Joel asked.
“I don’t know,” Owen said. “I’ll have to be convinced.”
“So you’re going to meet with their alpha?”
“If he’s coming all this way to talk to me, the least I can do is hear what he has to say,” Owen said. “Besides, it’ll be perfectly safe. He’s on our ground, in our house, surrounded by our people. He’s taking all the risk.”
Joel hesitated. “Why would he do that if the Hell’s Wolves were guilty?”
“I don’t know,” Owen said. “But we can’t assume anything about any of this, Joel. Do you know when the alpha is due to arrive?”
“It should be any minute, I
think,” Joel said. “According to Dusty, Wes said that he’d already been on the road for a while.”
Owen nodded. “Let’s get everyone in the living room and get ready,” he said. “We’ve got the numbers on our side, but I don’t want anybody going off on their own while there’s a wolf on the premises.”
“Right,” Joel agreed. “That makes sense.”
“Go and get the girls,” Owen said. “I don’t want the three of you to say a word while the wolf is here. Just stand in the living room and listen. I want you to get the information, so you’ll be equipped to help us discuss possibilities when he leaves.”
“Understood.” Joel nodded and loped off.
Owen took the stairs two at a time going down. Angus, Dusty, and Damon were in the kitchen, looking pale. Damon’s fists were clenched at his sides. “I can’t believe one of them is coming here,” he said, his voice a low growl. “I can’t believe he’d dare to set foot on our land. He must be insanely arrogant to think he’ll be safe here.”
“We aren’t going to hurt him.” Owen made his voice as firm as he could. “Do you hear me, Damon? He’s coming here to talk, and we’re going to honor that. No violence, except in self-defense.”
Angus and Dusty nodded. Damon’s jaw clenched.
“And I mean real self-defense,” Owen added, spotting a loophole and endeavoring to close it. “Not preemptive self-defense. No attacking him. No fighting unless he attacks one of us—physically—first. Is that understood?”
“Understood,” Angus said.
“Damon?”
“Understood,” Damon ground out.
“Good. Into the living room, then. Dusty, you stay here and greet him when he arrives. Make sure he isn’t armed, and then show him in.”
They made their way into the living room. Owen took his seat in his favorite armchair just as he heard the rumble of a motorcycle’s engine pulling up to the house. A moment later the front door opened, and he heard Dusty’s voice.
Dusty entered the living room. His eyes were wide. “Um,” he said. “Owen, the, uh, the alpha of the Hell’s Wolves is here.”
A young woman stepped around him and into the room.
“We need to talk,” she said.
Chapter Six
FIONA
She strode into the room, not waiting to be invited. No one asked her to take a seat, but perhaps that was for the best. Standing forced them all to look up at her, rather than down. It gave her an advantage.
“Why did you come here?” one of them asked.
“Wait a minute.” Another held up his hand. Fiona could tell by the way the others in the room turned their attention to him that he must be the alpha. When his hand went up, everyone fell silent.
That’s the way an alpha should rule his pack, she thought admiringly. He was good at what he did. A part of her wished she had time to stick around and study, learn from him the way she never had from her father.
“Who are you?” he asked now, narrowing his eyes.
“My name is Fiona,” she said. “I believe my packmate told you I was coming.”
“We were told that the alpha of the Hell’s Wolves was coming.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t going to spoon feed them the explanation. Let them put it together themselves.
“You’re the alpha?” the Wild Grizzlies’ alpha asked.
“Yes.”
“The Hell’s Wolves have a she-alpha.”
She felt heat rising from her skin. “You can just say alpha,” she informed him. “And you haven’t introduced yourself yet, or the rest of your pack.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “I’m Owen. I’m the alpha of the Wild Grizzlies.”
“It’s good to meet you.”
“This is my second, Damon...this is Angus, and Dusty...the twins there are Riley and Nova, and that over there is Joel.”
“I’m pleased to meet you all,” she said nodding around the room.
They didn’t look pleased to meet her. The expressions around her ranged from dubious to downright hostile. Clearly, they had been expecting a man.
And they were probably also displeased by the presence of a wolf in their home. Fiona knew she would be a fool to overlook that aspect of this meeting.
“Sit down,” Owen said.
“Thank you, I’ll stand,” she countered.
He frowned. She understood. As alpha, he was used to having his orders obeyed. And he had probably thought to test himself against the alpha wolf, to prove that in his own house he was the dominant force.
Be damned if she was going to let him order her around. It would be hard enough to earn the respect of these bears as a wolf, as a woman, without submitting to their alpha too.
“We need to talk about the Feral Fangs,” she said, steering the conversation in the direction it needed to go before Owen could try to push another order on her.
“What are the Feral Fangs?” he asked.
“You haven’t put it together?” she asked, surprised. Only as the words were leaving her mouth did she realize how judgmental she sounded. Well, so much the better. He should have put it together. “Haven’t you heard about the attacks in Butte? They’re closer to you than they are to us.”
“We know about them,” he said. “And I assume you’re here to tell us you’re not behind them?”
She threw him the most poisonous look she could muster. “The Hell’s Wolves have never harmed human populations or attacked cities in all our years as an organized pack.”
“Yeah, but I see you’re under new leadership,” Owen said.
“You think I would condone that sort of thing?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe not. Maybe you just don’t have your pack as tightly under control as you think you do.”
Fiona felt her blood begin to boil. “Listen, jackass,” she said. “Just because you’ve failed to do your research on this issue doesn’t mean you can blame the only wolves you happen to know. There is another pack in town, and five minutes of observation would have made it clear that they’re riding under different colors than ours. Another ten minutes, and you probably could have connected their colors with their history. The Feral Fangs don’t exactly operate in secret.”
“You act like everyone is just supposed to know this stuff,” Owen said.
“We figured it out. Why couldn’t you?”
“Forgive me. We don’t tend to pay a lot of attention to the subtle differences between wolf packs.”
“Well,” she said, “maybe if you did, you would be able to tell the difference between an enemy and a friend.”
He stared at her.
She stared right back, not breaking eye contact, not so much as blinking. She would not allow herself to be intimidated by this bear.
Finally, he spoke. “Perhaps it would be best if you and I discussed the issue privately,” he suggested.
At that, an uproar went up. Several members of the Wild Grizzlies raised their voices in protest. Fiona rolled her eyes as they argued. For God’s sake, she thought. I’m not going to kill the man. I’m here to ask for his help in confronting the Feral Fangs. Do they really think that if I meant to launch an attack I would come alone and walk into a den of bears?
She was the one who had reason to fear an attack, not any of them.
Owen held up a hand. “I’m going to speak to Fiona out in the yard,” he said firmly. She recognized that he was giving an order. It didn’t affect her, had no pull on her, yet she could sense it somehow. “The rest of you, wait in here. You may watch us from the windows if you want, but keep them closed. I don’t want anyone listening in.” He scanned the group, frowning, as if deciding something. “Angus,” he said finally. “Make sure of it.”
The one called Angus nodded.
Owen left the room and headed out to the yard, clearly expecting that Fiona would follow. She thought for half a second about staying where she was—he hadn’t asked her to follow him, after all, and she didn’t want him running away with t
he idea that he was in charge—but she did want to talk to him, and she couldn’t allow her pride to get in the way of that.
Once out in the yard, he turned to look at her. “I’ve never met a she-alpha before,” he said.
“Stop calling me that.”
“I mean, I don’t know how else to put it. I’ve never met a woman who was an alpha before.”
“My father was the alpha of the Hell’s Wolves before me,” she said. “I was his only child. I inherited the gene.”
“And the rest of your pack just accepted you as alpha?”
“No,” she said. “But once I overthrew the bastard who tried to take the position when my father died, they weren’t left with a lot of choice.”
“You won your position in addition to gaining it by birthright?”
She could tell he was surprised. “It’s hard for a woman to rise to power,” she told him sharply. “No one ever handed an alpha rank to a woman. We have to fight for it. Not like you.”
He glowered. “You don’t know anything about my pack, so don’t presume to act like you do.”
“I came here to ask for your help,” she said. “I came here because the Feral Fangs are terrorizing the town of Butte, and my pack can’t hope to run them out by ourselves.”
“And so you want the Wild Grizzlies to team up with a bunch of wolves.”
“You would also get to fight against wolves, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” he admitted. “It might be the most compelling argument you’ve got in your favor.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“So what did you have in mind?” he asked.
“I want your pack to come back down south with me,” she said. “I want us to get to know each other, and to learn how to fight together. Then, as soon as we possibly can, I want us to attack the Feral Fangs and run them out of Montana. I want to put the fear of God into them, so that they’ll never dare to come back. I think that seeing we’ve got bears on our side will be enough to do that.”
“It’s not our job to fight your battles for you,” Owen said.
