by K. N. Banet
“Hasan said you all…wanted to help me last year.”
“Being called to Duty is awful, and I don’t wish it on any werecat. When he told me you were, I was furious. You should have been at home, safe from that particular part of our life. Too young to handle something like that, in my opinion. When I heard you survived but were in trouble with the Tribunal, I screamed at him. Asked him what he was going to do to help you. It wasn’t my best moment, but I only want you to know the truth.”
“But you didn’t talk to me for…years.”
“Did you want me to talk to you?”
“Not really.”
“There you go. Jabari and I once stopped talking for thirty years. Mischa and I regularly call each other only once a year if either of us remembers. The rest, I try to stop in and have dinner with every six months or so. Or we all meet at Hasan’s for a holiday, whatever is popular with the humans at the time. You’re young. I should have realized such silence would hurt you in ways it doesn’t bother us. I never…lived in a time where a few short years mattered. I was never human.”
“I forget that you’ve been a werecat since you were born,” I replied.
“Well, if that’s all, I’m going to let you go. There’s a very beautiful man standing in my doorway.”
“Male model or actor?” It was the only thing I remembered clearly about Zuri—her choices in men. She had great taste.
“Model. They talk less.”
I snorted as she hung up.
With that handled, I tried one more person—Lani.
It rang into her voicemail. I didn’t say anything, hanging up with a sigh. At least two of my four phone calls went all right. Carey wasn’t upset, and Zuri told me what I wanted to know. Now, I just hoped nothing was wrong with Jabari. Two werecats were already dead. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if it became three.
Lani sure wouldn’t.
8
Chapter Eight
I waited impatiently by the phone Monday and Tuesday morning. When Carey came over, she proved to be the only temporary distraction I would get, graciously not asking too many questions about what was bothering me. Once she understood it wasn’t her or her father, she wasn’t concerned, demanding I take her to a second movie next week with another dinner at a proper restaurant.
Kid knew how to bargain.
Work wasn’t a better distraction, mainly because the weeknights were always a little slower than weekends, and business was never what one would call booming. I was pacing behind my bar after my early opening with only two patrons inside when I received a text from Hasan. Zuri had told me Monday there was still no word. My heart started to race as my phone buzzed with the new message. For the first time, I was in a group text with Hasan and the rest of the family. Whatever he wanted to say, he wanted to make sure everyone saw it.
Hasan: Family meeting tonight. No contact from Jabari. Jacky, it will be at seven in the evening for you.
Hisao: I had a date, but fine.
Davor: Why can’t Jabari just use the satellite phone I got him? Did he forget it, then realized he was out of cell phone reception? He’s normally not so dumb.
Zuri: He didn’t forget the satellite phone, little brother. I watched him walk out the door with it.
Mischa: Should have sent me.
Zuri: We learned nine hundred years ago never to send you anywhere.
My eyes were wide, watching the texts continue as my siblings ribbed each other. Hasan never commented again, and Niko, the last of the males in the family, never commented at all. Gathering my courage, I started to ask what was probably a dumb question.
Jacky: Do I need to shut down the bar for the night?
The quick replies died off. I felt stupid. Of course, I should shut down the bar for a family meeting, and the full moon was Wednesday. I would be closed for two nights, which would kill my weekly revenue, but I could afford it.
Zuri: Ask a manager to watch the bar for a few hours.
Jacky: I don’t have a manager.
Mischa: Of course you don’t…
I groaned. Stupid, stupid question. There was no taking it back now, either.
Jacky: I’ll be fine. With the full moon soon, no one will notice.
Davor: Such faith in your customers. Do you even get business in that shithole area of Texas?
That one hit me in the chest. I looked up at my two customers, debating if I should snap a picture to tell him to fuck off. I took the picture, neither of them looking up from their drinks. I sent it into the chat, knowing it wouldn’t make too much of a difference.
Jacky: Look at that, jackass, I do!
Davor: You do us proud.
It didn’t take a genius to read the sarcasm there.
Zuri: Ask one of your dumb wolves to take over. I’m sure they know how to pour a beer. They’re male and canine.
Hisao: Yeah. If they’re going to live in your space, you might as well put them to work.
Niko: Leave her be.
Niko’s comment killed the entire conversation. My face was red with embarrassment as I put the phone down to find my ‘Full Moon - CLOSED’ sign. Part of the embarrassment was I felt like an idiot. The other part was Niko only spoke to defend me.
Niko was an anomaly. From what I could remember about my first four years as a werecat living with Hasan, he was even more standoffish than the rest of them and avoided everyone. He would come in, talk to Hasan, then leave, and I was never told where he would go or what he would do. He just disappeared. He was the youngest son, but for some reason, he garnered a lot of respect from the others, even if they weren’t always sure what to do with him. The longest conversation I ever had with him was a simple greeting and exchange of names. After that, nothing.
I’m an adult with a respectable business and once had an amazing, balanced life. How is it they make me feel like a child with all of ten words?
It was a frustration I’d dealt with since the morning I woke up to my new world of supernaturals. After nearly seven years not speaking to them, that hadn’t changed at all.
As my customers left, my phone buzzed again, and I checked it, frowning.
Niko: Are you okay?
Jacky: Fine.
Niko: Good. Remember, family meetings are video conference calls.
I didn’t remember that because I had never been in one. Well, that was about to change.
I was at my computer five minutes before the family meeting, setting up my headset and web camera. Since I never used a webcam for anything, I had to kick out my patrons due to a ‘family emergency,’ run to the store, buy it, and now I was fighting to set it up. I had no idea what the older werecats would be doing. From memory, they were pretty comfortable around technology, but I didn’t know what kind of setups they had or how this normally played out.
Or they just pay one of their staff to set it up. That’s a possibility.
I was told to download a program and install it, something I had also done earlier in the day. I opened it up to find I was instantly logged into a private server. I’d never seen or heard of the program before, and the file had been emailed to me. It wasn’t something I could find online.
Did one of them hire a programmer to make this? Probably Davor.
It logged me in as Jacqueline, of course. I couldn’t find a place to change it to Jacky, glaring at the name as I admitted defeat. Soon, other names were popping online. Zuri, Hasan, Davor, Mischa, Hisao, and Nikolaus. Once everyone was on, I winced as a ring came from my headphones and quickly turned the volume down before hitting Answer.
My thirty-two-inch monitor was suddenly covered with different video feeds. I could see a preview of mine on my second monitor and adjusted the webcam just a little.
“Don’t fiddle with it,” Davor grumbled. “There’s no fixing it now. Did you buy it from the discount section?”
“No, asshole,” I snapped, growling into my mic. “I just set it up and haven’t been able to test it.”
“D
avor, she doesn’t have staff, and this was short notice,” Zuri reminded him with a touch of boredom. “Leave her alone. I’m sure by the next time we have a meeting, she’ll have a nicer set up.”
That was the line being drawn. Zuri would only let me be a technological pauper in their eyes once. Hopefully, it also got Davor off my back for the night.
“Let’s get to business,” Hasan said softly, a command no one fought back about. Davor’s mouth shut before he could make another comment, and I watched as my siblings straightened up. Hasan tapped a pen on his desk, sighing. “Normally, these meetings are called when someone is out on assignment and hasn’t called in for a week. Tomorrow is a full moon, so we know Jabari won’t be reporting in, and none of us will be able to answer the call. I would like to discuss what we should do come Thursday when his week is up. If we can start the plans tonight, we can have a plan ready to go into action by then.”
“I can’t go this time,” Zuri said, sighing heavily. “He and I live so far away, it was already a pain to get him to America.”
“Where are you right now?” I asked, frowning.
“South Africa.”
That took me by surprise. Their numbers weren’t international. I didn’t comment, though, keeping my mouth shut after that.
“They also have homes in Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. There’s not a single werecat on the continent who doesn’t know them.” Hasan seemed focused on business by his tone. There wasn’t a lot of the honey or fatherly nature coming from him tonight. “And you’re right, Zuri. I would have to fly you out too soon after a full moon, and it would be a long trip. Did he take the private jet?”
“Of course, he did, which means I’m grounded unless I use commercial.” By the curl of her lip and scrunched face, commercial flying was downright unacceptable. So soon after a full moon and for so long? It was.
“I would have the same problem. I’m in Moscow right now,” Mischa said, shaking her head. “I do have a jet, but do you know how hard it is right now to fly into the United States from Russia?”
“I’m closer in Sweden,” Davor said quickly. “Less human issues to get around to get into the country.”
“I’m in Germany,” Niko threw out his positioning. I had already known they generally lived around the world. Niko’s territory included the Black Forest.
“I’m in Japan,” Hisao snorted, cutting off Niko. “It would be much easier for me.”
“I could fly to Washington state in an afternoon,” I said softly. “Two-hour drive to Dallas and a four-hour one way commercial. I can go and be there without any problems. I’m also American. I won’t seem like a foreigner.”
Davor was the first to start laughing, followed by Mischa, and Hisao. Hasan didn’t say anything as even Zuri snorted, covering her face.
“You? Oh, Jacky.” Davor slapped his hand on his desk as he bent over to laugh harder.
“Yeah, that’s what we need. The fucking American,” Mischa tried to say clearly, her fits of mad giggles making it nearly impossible to understand what she was going for.
“I can! I’m really close and…” I looked desperately at my camera. “I’m part of this family, aren’t I? I didn’t get invited to this meeting as the kid sitting with the adults, right?”
“That’s exactly what you are,” Hisao said, his laughter dying but the smile not leaving. “Sorry, Jacky, but there’s too much swirling around you to make this any better. If you show up outside your territory, you could very well start a damn war with your luck. Hopefully, you’ve heard everything that’s been going on since you decided to throw caution to the wind and risk it all to save some werewolf’s kid.”
“Carey is human,” I snarled with a viciousness no one was expecting. Some werewolf’s kid. She deserved better than that. “The consequence of her parentage doesn’t make her less human or less innocent, god damn it. And if you had a fucking feeling bone in your body, you would care too.”
There was silence on the call. I dared to glance at the video feeds. Hisao’s eyes were wide. Davor had leaned back from the camera, wary of something.
“Yes, she is,” Hasan agreed, the only one not shocked into silence. “But I’m not sure I’m comfortable sending you to Washington after Jabari. We don’t know what’s going on up there. If something is a risk to him, it’s very much a risk to you.”
I bit my lip hard, thinking of anything I could say. Then I remembered what Zuri had said on Sunday. “There was a cold shoulder from the werewolves up there when Jabari had tried to talk to them. I could—”
“The last place you need to be is in werewolf territory,” Zuri snapped. “You weren’t supposed to let everyone know what I’d told you.”
“When did you two talk?” Mischa asked, frowning. “Why didn’t you come to me, Jacky?”
“We’re not getting into this,” I said quickly. “I don’t have to go alone. I could ask Heath for a favor. He just needs to introduce me to—”
“You are not getting that wolf into our business,” Hasan snapped.
“She has a point,” Niko said softly. “Hasan, listen to her. Heath owes her for a lot. If that means we can use him to find out what happened to our werecats, we can use it.”
“You trust wolves too much sometimes,” Davor growled.
“You trust them too little,” Niko retorted. “Things have been changing. There’s no avoiding it. Werewolves aren’t ignoring us anymore, and we need to have one we know is our ally.”
“I can’t…promise that with Heath, but I’m pretty sure I can ask him to introduce me to the pack up there.”
“That’s all we would need him for this.”
“That’s it, then. You will go up, do some minor investigation to make sure the wolves aren’t involved. Stay in the area until Jabari contacts you and wait for him to leave.”
“She can use this as a vacation from that—”
“Don’t talk shit about my bar, jackass,” I snapped before Davor could finish. “Look, I know this could be retaliation from…whatever. I just want to help fix it, all right? I don’t want anyone else hurt because I—”
“I’m amazed you have a single ounce of personal responsibility.”
“You know what, Davor? Fuck you.” I couldn’t believe the kind of shit I was getting from this guy. He was like a thousand years old and was talking to me like a high school bully. “I’m not sure what the fuck I ever did to you, but I’m really damn tired of this.”
Someone clapped, and I rolled my eyes at Mischa, who had her hands right in front of her camera.
“Get him, girl. Father, when are you going to let me leash his misbehaving ass?”
“There’s a reason Davor keeps skipping holidays home,” Hasan said mildly, annoyance written plain on his face. “Davor, you’ll be nice to Jacky, or I’ll come get you and remind you who the biggest cat is in this family. Are we clear? She’s your sister and doesn’t deserve your abuse.”
“She—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hasan growled loudly. “Leave it.”
“Father—”
“Jacky, be ready to fly out of Dallas by noon on Friday, with or without your wolf. Let us know as soon as you can if he will be going with you.” Zuri shifted into the leadership role as Hasan and Davor both dropped out of the call.
“What’s Davor’s problem with me?” I asked before anyone else could hang up. “I mean, except the obvious problem that I had issues with Hasan.”
“To put it lightly?” Zuri sighed. “He considers you an abject failure and thinks Father Changing you was a waste of time, energy, and space. He thinks you have no drive, no real education, and no goals in life.”
“Oomph.” Once again, I was hit directly in the chest by my siblings’ words. “Waste of time, energy, and space. I got the entire trifecta of being wasteful.”
“Well, he missed resources. At least he feels you need money and food to survive,” Mischa said blandly. “That’s something. He thought we should let Niko starv
e or hunt for himself for a long time. He loved Liza…” Mischa trailed off. “He’s just cranky with you. He doesn’t know how to deal with you and believes we have expectations to live up to, and we do. We’re all college educated and work with werecats around the world to better our lives and theirs. We manage rogues when we see them, and if we can, get them to settle down.”
“And we kill anyone who breaks our rules,” Hisao added. “Then, you broke our rules.”
I winced. “Yeah, I know.”
“Obviously, we couldn’t kill you, so we’re adjusting.” Zuri tapped her nails on the coffee table in front of her. “This could go wrong if you screw up, Jacky.”
“Or it could go very right,” Niko retorted. “They’re all mad at her and us because of her. Western European werecats call me once a week to bitch about their werewolves, who have started this insane global effort to talk to us. The London vampire nest is also trying to talk to a werecat nearby, and that has me worried. We can’t change that, but…” He tilted his head, thinking. “If we show Jacky is just as invested in our safety and prosperity as a species, the others might not see her as such a problem child.”
“I’m not a problem child. I protected one little human girl!” I grumbled softly. “I did what any rational being would do, and that’s it.”
“And we need to show them you didn’t mean to cause as much trouble as you did,” Niko said softly. “This is a great opportunity, Zuri.”
“I know, and I know how you feel about the possibility of real, lasting peace with the wolves.” Zuri gave him a small smile. “Too bad you could never lead the cause.”
“I did what I could when I could.” He shrugged.
“There’s a chance this had nothing to do with the wolves,” Mischa reminded everyone. “But yes, Niko is right. Do you think Father considered that before he went to take one out of Davor’s hide?”
“Probably,” Hisao mumbled. “Keep in touch with us, Jacky.”
