Wandering around increases our chances of being found and makes it harder for Gabby to know where to watch. I say we pick someplace and change the location later if we need to.
I sighed. His wisdom was why we knew he would make a good Elder. His impetuousness and lack of humility were why we’d hesitated for so long.
I reached out to Sam and Grey at the same time.
We need to find a safe place to meet up with Jim. Grey, I’ll have Gabby text Michelle with Jim’s current location so you and Michelle can coordinate a place. Have Michelle continue working with Gabby via text messages so she knows where to watch.
Keeping conversation in your car quiet?Grey sent us.
Yes,I said, simply.
Don’t trust Olivia?Sam sent me.
No. Although her words were true about the deaths, there are too many lives at stake to trust blindly.
I focused my attention back to Olivia.
“Can you tell us more about the Urbat?” I asked.
“What would you like to know?”
Her soft, neutral tone carried no hint about her feelings regarding the Urbat.
“Tell me what they are like.”
“Hard. Motivated by the need to dominate everyone and everything.”
“Did you like living with them?”
Olivia’s lips twitched slightly, almost as if she wanted to smile. The sign of her humor when asking such a question increased my concern.
“Liking where I lived has never mattered. But, no, I did not like living with them.”
There was no animosity with the words. Just a calm delivery of truth. Why the almost smile, then?
“Did you have any friends where you were living? Michelle only saw Blake with you in her visions. But, when Blake’s complex was raided, the news reported signs of families,” I asked.
“Those females who lived there willingly were cruel and cold.”
“Willingly? They had women there who weren’t willing?”
“Yes. What do you think happened to your female cubs who went missing?” Again, her words were neither accusatory or sarcastic, just spoken as a simple question. But there was nothing simple about it.
“What do you mean?” I asked, a memory from long ago surfacing.
“I don’t know much about what happened before Blake found me. I’ve never been his confidant. Only his prize,” she said, her choice of words the first revealing piece of information about her relationship with the Urbat.
“But I do know that your shortage of females is because of the Urbat. They hunted the pregnant, Mated pairs and took any newborn females to raise as Urbat. The werewolf females weren’t treated as pureblood mates. Just breeders. And their half-breed male children, like Joshua, were only tolerated if they proved their loyalties to the Urbat. The half-breed female children were kept and allowed true Mates…if one came forward.”
The news stunned me. The deaths that had been reported during the early years of the Compound’s existence had caused everyone concern. Yet, we’d never attributed them to anything more than the males’ struggle to find Mates when females were so scarce. As the Elders, we’d created rules for the Introductions to ensure the males would feel they all had an equal chance at a female. When the reports of deaths had tapered off, we’d thought the problem solved.
“To keep the bloodlines from becoming too clouded, the half-breed males are only allowed pure Urbat mates. Any new female werewolf cubs are designated to pure Urbat males.”
“New?”
“Yes.”
My chest clenched painfully. I struggled to breathe. The Urbat had continued to murder our Mated pairs and kidnap our young right under my nose?
