could hope for in their own packs at the same age. Other times, it meant making the tough decision to dissolve the pack by requesting integration with a bigger pack.
“Even if the ocelots had no one they could amalgamate with,” Lucas said, “they could’ve asked for recruits from other feline packs.” Fellow alphas like Lucas would’ve even authorized temporary transfers to support SkyElm until the faltering pack had enough permanent packmates. “Why didn’t they?”
“They did put out the call,” Dorian said, to Lucas’s surprise. “Catch was they only wanted ocelots, no other cats. That’s why we never got a request for help.” A tight shrug. “There aren’t many ocelots in the country and while the other packs are healthy, they’re also small, can’t afford to lose members. But”—Dorian’s clipped tone grew harsh—“they all, each and every one, offered to accept an amalgamation request if it was made. SkyElm said it wasn’t interested.”
That was flat-out arrogance, and it had led to the decimation of almost an entire pack. “The survivors, who’s left?”
“Two of them are children,” Dorian began. “Alive because a submissive grabbed them in the middle of the carnage, threw them in a room, then barricaded himself inside with them, hacking off the hands of anyone who tried to get through.”
Lucas growled in approval. That was exactly what a submissive packmate was meant to do in such circumstances—take any children in his or her vicinity and keep them safe. At least one member of SkyElm knew his duty.
“Only two soldiers,” Dorian continued. “Both were badly injured in the fighting but are now up and walking. The pack healer is alive; she was on the front line, but the alpha pulled her back before she was too badly wounded. One of the only good decisions he seems to have made.”
“The alpha’s alive?”
Expression flat, Dorian nodded. “I spoke to a friend in the area—he says according to a few humans who were trapped in buildings near the Psy enclave/SkyElm border and watched the fighting go down, the pack’s dominants protected the alpha above all others.”
That wasn’t necessarily the wrong move—a dead alpha could collapse a pack’s cohesion, especially if it was a weak pack to begin with. However, in a situation where cubs were being killed, protecting those vulnerable lives should’ve been the dominants’—and the alpha’s—only focus. In DarkRiver, should it ever come down to such a horrible situation, even the most frail elders would take up arms and form a line of defense.
Then Dorian said the most unbelievable thing. “He lost his own cub and mate.”
Blinking, Lucas stared at his sentinel. “How is that possible?” In a battle where Sascha and Naya were under threat, Lucas would fight to the death to protect them. No one would get through him except by tearing him to fucking pieces.
“I don’t think it was on purpose,” Dorian said, though anger vibrated in his voice. “Far as I can piece together, SkyElm left one side of their settlement unprotected, believing the danger to be only on the border.”
A crack of sound, coffee spilling to the forest floor.
“Shit.” Putting the cracked mug on the ground, Dorian shook off the coffee that had spilled on his fingers. “You can figure out the rest.”
Lucas could and it wasn’t pretty. “It doesn’t sound like SkyElm would have the capacity to organize a kidnapping of any kind, much less hire a mercenary group. And why the hell would they want to attack DarkRiver when they could’ve reached out to us for help?”
Lucas would’ve accepted the refugees without question, DarkRiver more than big and stable enough to integrate the seven survivors and provide them any help they needed. While leopard changelings formed the vast majority of DarkRiver, the pack included Psy, human, one jaguar, and several lynx packmates. It was, in fact, the best pack for SkyElm to have approached in the aftermath of the massacre.
Especially since, unlike the alphas of smaller packs, Lucas wouldn’t have worried about a dominance challenge from the SkyElm alpha. He was too strong, had held power too long, and his sentinels were loyal beyond any question.
“Here’s the thing.” Dorian ran his fingers through his hair. “SkyElm was small but they have a couple of patents, courtesy of two elderly packmates who’d invented things and signed over the patents to the pack as a whole. Bastien tracked the money generated by those patents and he says that a month ago, someone transferred two million dollars of it to an offshore bank where the trail goes cold.”
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