“How much do you actually know about this Doc guy? Are you sure we can trust him?”
“No,” I say. “But he’s right about needing to know if this shifter represents some sort of threat.”
She makes a humming noise, lips pressed together. “Keir’s met him, right? Could you ask him about this so we have a better idea of what we might be walking into?”
“Good idea.” I do some quick mental math to calculate the time difference. “But it’s a little early yet. I’ll wait till we’re closer.”
“How nice for Keir,” she deadpans. “He gets to sleep in.”
I laugh and the two of us relax into a comfortable silence, the radio playing softly in the background as the GPS’s robotic voice directs her onto the highway. An hour into the five-hour or so drive, I pull out my phone and bring up my cousin’s number.
Keir answers on the second ring. “Hey, Luke,” he says, the sound of a baby babbling in the background. “How’s it going?”
“Eh, not too bad. How about you?”
“Really?” He snorts. “I’m sure you’re not calling at ass o’clock in the morning to make small talk. What’s going on?”
I sigh. “I got a weird phone call a couple hours ago and I wanted to run some stuff by you.”
“Of course,” he replies. “How can I help?”
“You interacted with Zachariah's brother, right? What were your impressions of him?”
“Interacted with?” Keir chuckles. “Don’t you mean kidnapped by?”
I huff out a soft laugh. “That sound accurate.”
Keir’s voice goes serious. “I guess I’d say Doc is… odd? Why?”
“Apparently, I'm the Alpha of another pack,” I say dryly. “The pack formerly run by Zachariah.”
“That's…” Keir's voice trails off and he makes a shushing noise, presumably at one of the twins. “Unexpected,” he finally adds with a hint of amusement.
“Yeah, that's what I said. He called me at four a.m. and I had no idea who he was.”
“Four a.m.? What did he want?”
“He came across some shifter stuck in wolf form and needs my help to force a shift so we can figure out who the shifter is and where he came from.”
“I see. Most of the time I spent with Doc, I was a little hungover so I don’t how helpful my observations would be, but I didn't get the same vibe from him as I got from Zachariah. He wasn’t cruel. It seemed like he wasn't happy about following some of his brother's orders, though he was a little intense about the science stuff. He designed the drug they put in that dart based on the research he did on male omegas.”
“Any idea what I might be walking into up there? Doc said the pack was practically non-existent at this point. Do you know anything about what the pack was like before?”
“Not much,” he replies.
“But you and Zachariah…”
He lets out a harsh chuckle. “He and I didn’t exactly talk about that kind of stuff.”
A pang of guilt hits me. “Sorry.” I sigh. “I forget that even if you have more life experience than me, you aren’t that much older.”
“No worries,” says Keir. “We’re all still figuring crap out.” He pauses. “The only thing I can say for sure is that the Smyrna pack had money. Well, more than Sweet Water, anyway. I still don’t know what kind of deal they were working with Randall, but since they’re your pack now, you could find out.”
I laugh. “Why am I the one who has to investigate everything?”
“Because I paid my dues,” says Keir in a joking tone. “After all the shit Julien and I went through, it’s definitely your turn. Hell, maybe you’ll even get a fated mate out of the deal like I did.”
“Yeah, I doubt that,” I say.
