“Of course.”
“Good. Thank you, Robbie. You’re a good wolf. You may have a seat.”
I felt warm at the praise from my Alpha. I went back around the desk, shooting a glare at Ezra for opening his mouth when he shouldn’t have. He’d hear from me later. I couldn’t have Michelle doubting me.
Ezra ignored me, as was his way.
I sat down next to him, slumping in my chair. Ezra kicked my foot, and I sighed as I straightened my back, hands folded in my lap.
Michelle sat back down across from us. She lifted her tablet from the desk and started typing on the screen. “I have an assignment for you. Out of town.” She glanced at me before looking back down at the tablet. “Out of state, actually.”
That caught my attention. Normally if she sent me anywhere, it was within a few hours’ drive of Caswell. There were extensions of her pack throughout Maine, wolves who worked around the state, mostly in the bigger cities like Bangor and Portland. They lived in small groups, working with the humans who were unaware of what they were, especially those in positions of power in local government. When I first arrived I’d made the mistake of calling it her agenda, and she’d corrected me immediately. She didn’t have an agenda, she said. She merely wanted to expand the reach of the wolves. I didn’t understand why she needed to do this, given that no one was trying to fight against her. And why would they? She was the Alpha of all for a reason. And while her word was final, it wasn’t absolute. She listened to her pack, heard their worries and concerns. If she could help them, she did.
I thought at first the wolves were scared of her.
I thought at first I was scared of her.
But there’s a thin line between fear and awe.
I tried to tamp down my eagerness. “You’re serious?”
She nodded toward Ezra. “He thinks you’re ready.”
Maybe I wouldn’t have to yell at him after all. “I am.”
“Then consider this a test,” she said. “To see if he’s right.”
“I think you’ll find I usually am,” he said mildly.
The skin around her eyes tightened briefly. I wondered what they’d been talking about before I showed up. “We’ll see, then, won’t we? There’s a pack in Virginia. It’s small—an Alpha and three Betas. We haven’t heard from them in a few months.”
I frowned. “Hunters?”
She shook her head slowly. “Not that I’m aware of. More of a… disagreement in the way things should be run. I need you to impress upon them that open lines of communication are paramount to the survival of our species. It’s imperative, especially in these troubling times, that we have each other’s backs as much as possible. I’ve sent you the file.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and clicked on the Dropbox app to download the attachment. The first page was a picture. The Alpha stood in the center. She was smiling. She was younger than I expected her to be. She could have been in high school. She was holding a sign that said SOLD! in bright lettering. There was a run-down house behind her looked barely livable.
Standing with her were three men. Two were young. One was old enough to be her father, though they looked nothing alike. He was black. She was white. They were all smiling.
The rest of the file contained information on the pack. I was right. The Alpha was young, having just turned twenty. I couldn’t imagine having that kind of power at that age. I read that she’d gotten it from her mother when she’d passed on a year prior.
“No witch?” I asked, reading through the notes.
“No,” Michelle said. “They were never big enough to need one. Her mother was a friend of mine. Kind. Patient. Willing to work for the good of the pack. Her daughter is headstrong. I know that she’ll fall in line with proper motivation.”
I looked up at her. “How did her mother die?”
“A car accident, of all things. Her daughter was in the car with her but wasn’t seriously hurt. The power of the Alpha passed along to her. She’s been… difficult ever since. But when one is as young as she, one tends to get ideas about the way things should be run. She hasn’t been in touch, and it appears she has cut off communication with us.”
“She wants independence,” I said, going back to the picture. They looked happy. “You can’t fault her for that.”
“I don’t,” Michelle said sharply, and I felt the pull in her voice, the undercurrent of the Alpha. “But there is a difference between independence and outright defiance. This is the way things are done, Robbie. You know that. She has her own pack, yes, but all wolves are under my jurisdiction.”
I did know. There were outliers, sure, wolves who tried to remain hidden from the reach of the Alpha of all. And if they didn’t have an Alpha of their own, they ran the risk of turning Omega, losing their minds to the wolf, forgetting they had ever been human.
And if it got that far, there was only one thing that could be done.
It was always quick. Or so I was told. I’d never seen an Omega put down.
I never wanted to.
“Maybe they just forgot to check in,” I said. “You know how things get. They’re busy living their own lives. It happens.” I didn’t know why I was pushing this. Maybe it was because I understood the desire to be free, to not have anything hanging over your head.
“We’ll see,” Ezra said.
“We?”
He looked at me. “Of course, dear. You don’t think I’d let you go by yourself, do you?”
I’d hoped. And even though part of me was relieved at the idea of having him there, the other part of me wanted a little independence as well. “Alpha Hughes won’t need you here?” I asked innocently.
He grinned. “Oh, I’m sure she can do without me for a couple of days. Can’t you, Michelle?”
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose I can.”
“And it’s not like we’ll be gone long,” Ezra continued. “It’s a day’s drive to Fredericksburg, if we keep at it. We’ll be back before there’s any time to miss us at all.”
I groaned. I loved him, but the idea of being cooped up in a car with him for hours on end was going to drive me up the wall. He had terrible taste in music.
He laughed like he knew what I was thinking. “It won’t be so bad. Give us a chance to take a break. Meet some other wolves.” His eyes were sparkling. “Maybe even find yourself someone special.”
Fuck this. And him. “You are not going to pimp me out to another wolf. Not again.”
“Please. There was no pimping. It’s not my fault the last one was… well. Exuberant.”
“Exuberant?” I exclaimed incredulously. “She killed a goddamn bear and left it in front of the house!”
“It was a small bear,” Ezra told Michelle. “Probably only a couple of years old. Still, impressive, if you think about it. She certainly proved her worth. Anyone would be happy to have Sonari as a mate.”
“She snuck into the house and licked me while I was sleeping!”
“She wanted you to smell like her. Nothing wrong with that.”
I crossed my arms and sunk low in my chair. “You’ve got a seriously skewed view of right and wrong. You don’t lick people when they haven’t asked for it. And she’s a teacher. Who knows what she’s telling all those kids about courting?”