“Damn right, they’re not in the north. They wouldn’t dare settle in my territory. If there’s a brain cell between any of them, which is doubtful, they would be in the farthest reaches of the Southern Territories’ borders. My best guess would be somewhere in the swamplands of Florida or the high mountains of Mexico. If they attack, they’ll attack the south first, and try to amass wolves and move forward from there. They will need more than their ragtag group to go up against my wolves and they know it. Redman either sides with us, or he sides with them. He’s selfish to the core, but I’m guessing he will take the easy way out. Fighting me will be a fatal decision on his part.”
“He’s had a taste of power for too long,” I agreed. “He won’t fight you and risk his status and power. If Redman is not responsible for the fracture in the Packs, who is?” I’d been running it over in my mind since I’d left New Orleans and nothing made much sense. “Stuart Lauder acted like he was in charge that night in the clearing, but there was no way he could be behind the entire operation. He couldn’t have amassed such a large following on his own. He wasn’t smart enough.” My irises sparked remembering the fight. “But his father was.” Hank Lauder, one of my biggest opponents growing up, was still at large. I’d killed his only son and he would be after me to exact his retribution; it was just a matter of time.
“I have two of my best trackers on Hank. He’s still somewhere in the Ozarks, likely holed up mourning his loss. They haven’t found him yet, but he will answer for his son’s misdeeds; make no mistake. When they bring him in we will find out everything he knew, but I doubt it was much. Hank was loud and ornery, but he was loyal to this Pack. His biggest mistake was overindulgence. He gave that boy everything he ever asked for.” And it had made him nasty as hell. “Wolves get restless, which I understand,” my father continued, shaking his head, “but the fracture feels too organized. My guess is it’s coming from the outside.”
“Another Sect?”
“Yes.”
I bit my lip. It was highly unusual for any supernatural to pair with another. Each Sect was untrusting of the other, bordering on pathological mistrust. “From what the Vamp Queen indicated, the fracture wolves had already struck a deal with the vampires.” There was no way to know how binding it had been. Eudoxia, the powerful Vampire Queen—and current bane of my existence—certainly had something up her sleeve. Had she been orchestrating some kind of coup since my birth? It was a possibility. “If Eudoxia had prior knowledge of the Prophecy, she could’ve sown doubt over time, made the younger wolves wary with a few carefully placed spies. She said the wolves were willing and eager to swear fealty to her.”
“Wolves don’t swear oaths to vamps,” my father growled as he arched his eyebrow at me to punctuate the statement. “Before you, it’s never been done.”
I had indeed broken the golden rule about swearing oaths to vampires, but I’d done it to save my mate. And I’d do it again. But that little tidbit didn’t need to be announced out loud. “So where does all of this leave us?”
My father leaned forward. “I really don’t know, Jessica. I’m not going to pretend to know.”
Thinking about all the various implications of the Prophecy made my head spin. “I don’t feel Alpha inclined,” I said honestly. “I realize I’m strong, but my wolf has made it clear it’s not our job to run Pack. I have to believe that won’t change.”
“I don’t feel a threat from you. If anything, it’s the opposite, which is a blessed relief.”
My wolf yipped at me. We needed to get moving. I slid my chair back to stand. “Are you heading south now?”
“Yes, I’m leaving shortly and I’m taking a dozen wolves with me. We’ll be gone as long as it takes.” He placed both hands on the table in front of him. “Jessica, I want you to know if you encounter a severe emergency while you’re gone, I will find you.” I had no doubt he would. “I will also be in touch with you as often as I can.”
There was one more loose end I had to deal with before I left town.
It came in the form of one very angry police detective.
“What are we going to do about Ray?” I asked as I stood. Raymond Hart had unwittingly uncovered our secret and now presented a threat to our race. He’d been brought over from the Safe House early this morning so I could have a chat with him—meaning kill him if I had to—and was currently being held under guard down the hall.
My father gave me a hard look.
I didn’t want to kill him. “You know, there are other ways we can deal with this,” I said. “Exterminating every human being who finds out about us doesn’t have to be our normal moving forward. Plus, killing him after he’s been so intent on me, has my break-in case open on his desk, and was last seen at my apartment building—his car is still parked there—and with Jeff Arnold, my building super, dead and all the recent calls about noise and various disturbances, it will be easy for them to piece together the coincidences. If they haven’t already. I will be their prime suspect.”
“I cannot, in good conscience, leave a threat to our existence in the form of a police detective running around after what he’s seen. I know our ways are not easy for you, Jessica, but someone like Raymond Hart poses a serious problem. He is not someone who would assimilate as an Essential into our Pack, which is the only option left to him other than death.”
He was right. Ray would never assimilate willingly. But I still didn’t want to kill him. If I killed Ray, which would be relatively easy because he’d been a constant headache of mine for years, each human after him would be less of an issue.
I didn’t want killing to ever be easy.
If I didn’t try to change Ray’s mind, no other headstrong human would ever have a chance of escaping this fate. So why not start with Ray? “What if I can get him to assimilate? You have to admit he would be a great asset to Pack. He’s been a police detective for almost twenty years. We’d have someone on the inside, and as a bonus, he could make all the issues of my case vanish in one day.”
My father arched a critical eye at me. “He doesn’t leave this building unless I’m satisfied.”
Short of a lobotomy, there was no way I could change Ray’s mind that fast. “How about if…” I hemmed. “If I can’t get him to swear in the next half hour”—What in the hell was I going to do with him if he didn’t swear? He was so not going to swear—“I take him… with me?” Not a good plan, Jessica. My wolf growled and snapped her muzzle, telling me exactly what she thought of my ingenious idea.
“With you?” my father echoed.
Ray had a death sentence if I left him behind. “Yep. I’ll take the a**hole with me if I have to.”
3
“Hello, Ray.” I smiled pleasantly as I entered the small suite located across the hall from our offices. It didn’t technically belong to Hannon & Michaels, but since it hadn’t been leased in years we’d taken it over, using it mostly for storage. “Looks like you fared okay last night.” I nodded my head, acknowledging the two other guys in the room.
“Good morning.” Danny winked, his cheerful English accent bringing levity to a stressful situation. “Just so you know, your man and I are getting along splendidly. We had a real Hart-to-heart last night. Didn’t we, mate?”
Ray’s eyes narrowed. I was certain his night with Danny had been less than pleasant. For a police officer, very little would suck worse than being held hostage. After all the training, a cop would know the chances were slim to none of making it out alive. “Very funny, Danny,” I said. “No need to harass the prisoner any more than necessary.”