“You have a point,” Josh conceded. “But what brings you in our direction in the first place? I thought all the feral shifters lived much farther north.”
“That might be changing now,” Dina said darkly.
“What do you mean?” Josh demanded.
Dina hesitated. Sharing information with wolves definitely ran counter to her instincts. But on the other hand, it seemed clear that this pack had an unfavorable view of those they considered feral. Maybe they would recognize the danger inherent in what was happening up north.
Maybe the enemy of my enemy is my ally.
“I was run out of the Arctic,” she said. “So were the other bears I had been traveling with.”
“Your pack?” Eddie asked.
“Not my pack,” she said sharply. “We had grouped up for a few weeks, nothing more. That happens sometimes.”
Eddie opened his mouth, perhaps to question her further on that aspect of feral life, but Josh silenced him with a glare.
“Who ran you out?” he asked.
“Wolves,” Dina said bitterly. “And they were a pack.”
Josh and Eddie exchanged glances.
“I thought the north was all feral,” Josh said. “Was it invaded by a pack?”
“No,” Dina said. “It’s worse than that. This is a group that found each other and got together. The north is supposed to be reserved for ferals. It’s our natural territory. But these wolves are of the opinion that everything north of the sixty-sixth ought to belong to them.”
She left out the battle that had occurred between her group of bears and the pack of wolves. If she included that detail, if she revealed the fact that she had been involved in the kidnapping of an omega wolf and that that had been the catalyst for their conflict, she couldn’t be sure which side Josh and his pack would choose. Perhaps they would consider her a greater threat than the northern wolves.
Dina just wanted to be left alone to go on her way.
“I don’t understand,” Josh said. “What would bring a bunch of feral wolves together? Ferals aren’t supposed to be able to adapt to pack life. That’s why they live up north in the first place. They’re too wild to cooperate, too selfish to work together for the benefit of a group.”
Dina refused to get offended. Better to tell them what she knew so that she could get out of there. “They found an omega,” she said. “That brought them together.”
“A feral omega?” Eddie raised his eyebrows. “That’s pretty rare, isn’t it?”
“Fairly rare,” Dina said. “But they found one.”
“But that only explains two wolves getting together,” Josh said. “An omega and an alpha. But not the whole pack. How could that have happened?”
“I don’t know how to explain what I saw,” Dina said. “But it wasn’t just an omega and a single alpha. There were three of them.”
There was silence in the kitchen. Nobody seemed to know what to say for several moments.
“Do you mean three wolves?” Josh asked. “They had a beta with them?”
“No,” Dina said. “I mean they had three alphas. Three alphas, one omega, and a few betas besides.”
“That’s not possible,” Eddie said. “A pack can’t have three alphas. They’d kill each other.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Dina said. “But they weren’t killing each other. They were working together.”
“You must have made a mistake,” Eddie said. “That can’t happen.”
Dina looked at Josh. “Do you think I made a mistake?”
Josh shook his head. “It shouldn’t be possible,” he said. “But I saw you in bear form just now. No wolf could have taken you on by himself. Not even an alpha. There had to be a group of some kind.”
Dina nodded. “They united to protect their omega,” she said. “That was what brought them together.”
“That’s...unprecedented,” Josh said. “Who was this omega?”
“Nobody I knew,” Dina said. “Not that I keep company with wolves. Some girl called Sophie.”
The two men’s reaction was immediate and dramatic.
“Sophie?” Eddie spat. “Sophie?”
“Stop it, Eddie,” Josh said, but he looked deeply disturbed. “Are you sure, Dina?”
“You know her?” Dina asked.
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “Maybe it’s a different Sophie.”
“Like hell,” Eddie said. “How many feral omega Sophies do you think there are? It’s the same girl, all right.”
“She used to belong to our pack,” Josh explained. “Assuming it’s the same person, that is. We exiled her when we discovered that she was feral.”
“Maybe she wasn’t feral,” Eddie said. “If she was able to go up north and unite a whole pack around herself—”
“Shut up, Eddie,” Josh snapped. “We tried to tame her, remember? I tried to mate with her, and she resisted me. She was feral. That’s the only possible explanation.”
Dina couldn’t help feeling a spark of amusement. So the wolf bitch refused this alpha, and that’s why she was sent away. His ego must be incredibly bruised at the idea that she had submitted to three alphas up north.
Well, that wasn’t her problem. “Can I go?” she asked. “I’ve told you everything I know about what’s going on up north.”
“You’re going to leave our land?” Josh asked.
“Oh, right away,” she said. “I don’t have any interest in being on your land any longer than you force me to be.”
“Where are you going to go?” he asked. “Not back up north.”
“No,” she said. “There’s no life for me there now. I’m going overseas. I’ll try my luck in Scandinavia, or maybe Russia. I don’t know what life is like there for feral shifters, but this pack won’t follow me that far.” She fought to control her anger at the fact that the northern wolf pack had chased her off of her own continent. “I’ll just have to start a new life somewhere else. It’s the best I can do.”
Josh nodded. “All right,” he said. “You and I are natural enemies, but if you’re going so far away, we don’t pose a threat to each other. You’re free to go on your way, and I wish you well. Thank you for the information you’ve given us today.”
He held out his hand to shake hers.
Dina hesitated. The idea of shaking hands with a wolf was strange. But he was letting her go, and that was what mattered. She stood and returned his handshake.
“Best of luck to you and your pack as well,” she said. “I hope you destroy them.”
“Oh, believe me,” Josh said, “we’re going to try.”
“We are?” Eddie said. Dina could hear the barely suppressed glee in his voice.
“We are,” Josh confirmed. “If there’s a pack up north with three alphas, a pack that’s laying claim to all the northern territory, they’re too dangerous to be left intact. We have to do something about them.”