Oath Sworn - K.N. Banet Page 0,28
agreed. “How is she? Was she injured?”
“Fine and no. Do you know her? Would she feel comfortable talking to you? I want her to have some comfort, but I can’t trust any of the wolves in Dallas. The ringleader of the ones in my bar…he was one of her guards. She had told him she was safe with me and he came after her.”
“No. I only know Carey through her father and what he tells us. He would show us pictures every time the council had a meeting.”
“Damn it. He was a council member?” Not every Alpha was. Generally, there could be a few packs in a region, and the strongest pack was the region’s council representative, the Alpha who answered for all of them. Kind of. I pulled over and cut the engine, getting out of the hatchback and taking the call off speakerphone. “It fucking changes things if he’s a council Alpha, damn it.”
“He is…was. All of the packs in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana use him as their representative on the council. Be careful not to meddle, cat.”
I did the mental math. “That’s…that’s ten wolf packs,” I said quietly. “That’s probably a thousand wolves.” Maybe more.
“Yes. Why does this—”
“I’m protecting Carey from potentially a thousand wolves.” The realization sank in slowly. This could reach well out of his home city. I couldn’t take her to another werecat in the region because the wolves were now probably watching every werecat they could find, hoping I showed up with her.
I was well and truly on my own with an eleven-year-old girl, and I had to treat every wolf like the enemy. I was strong. I was a werecat, for fuck’s sake, but I couldn’t kill a thousand werewolves, especially if they were carrying around silver bullets.
“I wish you the best on your Duty. Thank you for the update. Good luck, Jacky Leon.”
My name rattled me out of my fear of impending doom and death. There was nothing more to say, then. “Thank you for the information and clean-up.” I hung up on him, leaning against my hatchback in the dark. I was out of my territory now, so I kept my nose up, hoping to pick up anything important on the wind. It wasn’t the safest thing to do, but I needed a moment to think instead of just driving.
There was nowhere safe for Carey, not if this was bigger than Heath’s home pack. If this reached further, it meant I would need to run her out of the entire southern half of the country, and even that might not be far enough.
I called Lani next, trying to collect my thoughts.
“Hey. I was hoping you would call. I have werewolves all around the borders of my territory,” she said immediately when she answered.
“Figured as much,” I replied. “I was attacked.” I ran through what happened to her, since repeating it seemed to make me feel better. Not really, but I liked to believe it might one day.
“Well, this is a right mess, isn’t it?” Lani snorted on the other end. “Yeah. They must be watching all of us in the region now. A council Alpha…That’s the sort of information that gets dangerously close to meddling in their politics, Jacky. You know that, right? That’s against the Law.”
“Yeah, but it’s information I needed to know to help keep Carey safe. I’m off my territory and every wolf could be a threat. It’s important.” I closed my eyes, suddenly exhausted. “I haven’t even had her in my care for twenty-four hours and they tried to take her. It took everything in me not to eat them after I killed them. I wanted to. If I have to break the Law to keep her safe, I’m going to. She’s so strong. Hell broke loose in her father’s pack and she still made it to me, dirty, tired, and alone. She’s so…she’s a good kid and she’s scared and now her life is a mess. I can’t let them have her.”
“Okay. If this goes sour and you end up breaking the Law about meddling to keep her safe, you’ll have my support. I’ll make some calls to my other allies, other werecats in the region. I know a couple in different areas of the country. I’ll see what kind of backup I can get to protect one of our own against the Law when Duty is involved. It’s not like you started the coup or anything, and your involvement only started