I hesitated, looking at Tate.
“I’ll bring her,” Alexei assured me, already beginning to unhook her with nimble fingers.
I gave him a hard look. “Both of her boyfriends are friends of mine. And they’re probably going crazy worrying about her right now.”
He barely blinked. “That’s good to know.”
“She’s not looking for another boyfriend,” I said, wanting to be clear since Tate couldn’t speak for herself.
Alexei grinned, a dimple flashing in his left cheek that made him look utterly charming. “Sometimes the best things in life find us when we’re not looking.”
Touché.
I turned and let Dimitri help me out of the helicopter. When I landed on my feet, I looked around and my jaw dropped.
The room was huge, cavernous, and housed several other helicopters and an assortment of trucks, snowmobiles, four wheelers, and anything else you could need to travel up and down a mountain. The entire room had an industrial vibe, all metal and stone. A few people milled around, but they had all stopped and were now staring at us.
Alexei jumped down from the helicopter, Tate cradled in his arms. He barely jostled her when he landed.
“Alexei’s going to take Tate to her room,” Dimitri told me, nodding to his friend who immediately started walking away from us.
I opened my mouth to argue and took a step after my friend, not wanting to be separated from her.
Dimitri grabbed my arm. “You’ll see her soon. Right now, let’s go see if Dad knows anything about what happened yesterday at the Summit.”
Panic swept through me.
I needed to talk to Remy, or at least know where he was. When we were in the air, I had convinced myself he was fine. Everything was fine, and Dimitri had overreacted by taking me to his home for my own safety.
But now that I was about to find out for sure, my confidence was waning, and I was a wreck of nerves and emotions.
Dimitri came around in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders, bending his knees so we were eye level. “Remy’s going to be fine.”
My teeth ground together. “I know.”
I didn’t. My whole world could come crashing to an end in the next few minutes.
I swallowed, my hands starting to shake.
He gave me a careful look. “You ready?”
Not even a little, but I nodded, almost numbly, needing to keep moving forward. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
“Is this entire place built into the mountain?” I asked, unable to keep the note of awe from my voice as we turned down another hallway. We had been walking for several minutes, even taking an elevator deeper into the mountain. I hadn’t seen a window, but the halls were well lit and painted soft shades of gray with white trim, the floors a beautiful marble with silver and black veins. Artwork even lined the halls, a mixture of nature scenes and people in a variety of mediums.
If I hadn’t noticed the sky wasn’t visible, I would never have realized we weren’t above ground.
“A couple mountains,” Dimitri conceded. “The pack settled here almost a thousand years ago. They lived in caves for warmth at first, then slowly started digging out and hollowing the mountains.”
“So, you guys never go outside?” That seemed really depressing. At least when things went shitty in Long Mesa, I could go outside and stare at the sky.
A smile curled his lips. “We go outside all the time, Skye, but this place provides safety. It houses over a thousand people.”
I pulled up short, my jaw dropping. “There’s a thousand shifters living here?”
He paused, turning to face me. “No, there’s two thousand people. We don’t just have shifters who live here. The Romani clan lives here, and believe me, they like their space. We also have a few humans here.”
“You guys live with normals?” I could feel my eyes getting bigger. “But humans can’t know about us. It’s like, rule one of shifters.”
He shook his head, almost amused. “Are you serious? Humans have been part of our community since the beginning. We’ve always had them here.”
“Huh.” I wasn’t really sure what else to say about that. “Can they, like, go outside? Or is this mountain fortress designed to keep people in just as much as out?”
He jerked his chin and started walking again. After a beat, I hurried to catch up.
We turned another corner, and I was officially lost. I would never find my way back to the surface or where the helicopters were.
“This isn’t a prison, but living in the mountains and around them provides us with more security,” he continued. “Like I said, people are free to go outside whenever they like.”
“How can you even exist like this?” I asked, glancing up at the high ceilings. “There’s no town, no food, no anything.”
Another smile. “We have a regular food and supply delivery system. Our medical unit is fully stocked. The closest town is also part of our pack. They’re only ten kilometers away from the base of the mountain. It’s more urban, and we have almost another two thousand people there. The Alpha house is in the center of town, but Dad said he would meet you here before we go there.”
Whoa.
“This pack has over three thousand members?”
“Actually closer to four,” Dimitri said with a grin, pulling open a door at the end of the hallway. It opened into yet another hallway and closed with an ominous click. “There’s a lot of outliers and lone wolves that also are part of the pack, but prefer a more solitary lifestyle. The town has a train station, which is how we get food and are able to travel around the country. But the closest metropolitan city is easily two hours away by rail, and we’re pretty self-sufficient here.”
My mouth gaped open in shock as I stopped walking and stared at him.
Dimitri stopped at another door and hesitated. “Do you need a second before we go in?”
My dad was on the other side of that door.
I knew it, felt it. I wanted to give the moment the gravity and seriousness it deserved, and under any other circumstance, I would need a minute or twenty to get myself ready for whatever came next, but my answers lay on that side of the door.
Remy lay on that side of the door.
“No,” I replied honestly, my mouth suddenly dry. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Okay.” Dimitri pushed open the door and held it for me as I stepped into the room.
Three people stood in the room, two men and one woman. The woman gave Dimitri a brilliantly wide smile and cut across the room to hug him.
My eyes zeroed in on the man casually sitting on the sofa, wordlessly watching. The other man stood behind him, his dark eyes curiously assessing me.
The man sitting lifted a massive arm and draped it along the back of the couch, his gaze practically black. His hair was a few shades darker than mine, and there was absolutely no missing this man was an Alpha.
And my father, Nikolai Dashkov.
His head tilted slightly, barely noticeable, as he watched me.
Dimitri stepped up beside me. “Dad, this is Skye.”
Pretty unnecessary introduction, but I had a feeling the gaping silence was grating on Dimitri as much as it was me.
My father still watched me quietly.
Fine, if he wasn’t going to start this, then I was.