“Are you going to tell my brothers about this?” Dewi asked, still processing her stunned shock over the revelation. “Because they should know.”
“I don’t see why not,” Duncan wistfully said. “My first instinct had been to hunt Endquist down and kill him back then, once Chelsea told us about the incident. But he’d already left for parts unknown long before she did. In the past, Charlie and I would have killed Endquist for cause without a moment of lost sleep. But we grew up in the old ways, and Chelsea was fully a child of America, all bright hope and high spirits. She’d never had to deal with a hungry belly or rogue wolves hunting her. In that way, I wish I’d instilled more… More understanding of the potential darkness in others. Maybe if I had, she’d still be alive.”
“She wasn’t vengeful, Duncan,” Badger gently said. “Ye know that. None of us knew what he was capable of. In that vein, I can blame myself for never telling Peyton and Trent the story, because maybe they would’ve immediately looked to Endquist as a suspect, whereas I didn’t give him a second thought since he went away without a peep. I mean, how many dozens of wolves—and humans—did we send away over the years because they weren’t a good fit for our pack? Not a single one of them ever caused another bit of trouble.”
“Exactly,” Duncan said. He reached over and squeezed Badger’s shoulder. “That’s why you shouldn’t feel guilty.”
“So who, and what, was that woman?” Dewi asked. “The one from the pub who predicted all that stuff? What happened with her?”
When Duncan finished retelling the story of that night so long ago, he walked over to the wet bar and poured himself and Badger glasses of bourbon.
Stunned, Dewi stared at Duncan, needing a moment to find her voice.
This day is going to drive me over the edge, I swear it is.
“The whole humane assisted suicide thing aside,” she started, “because I agree that back then there were no other options and it really was the kindest thing you could have done for her—you’re telling me this woman not only saw what you three were and accurately foretold the future from nearly 150 years back, but she also appeared to Tully while she was dying?”
Duncan slowly nodded. “Aye.” He took a long swallow from his glass.
“Hoooo, boy.” Dewi sank onto the sofa, staring at him. “So the whole reason the Targhee Pack is as successful as we are is because you happened to follow and talk to a dying woman everyone else wrote off as a mad drunk?”
He nodded again, heavily sighing. “Aye.”
“She weren’t wrong,” Badger pointed out. “About Charlie an’ yer mum, about Endquist—about everything. Ye can hand-wave away the business stuff, but how’s a poor washerwoman 150 years ago gonna know all those things about America without a second sight of some sort?”
“Not like you had Google,” Dewi snarked.
“Exactly,” Badger said. “And even amongst our kind, if ye told this story back then, people would look at ye like yer a mad bastard, and rightfully so.”
Ken finally spoke up after mostly listening in silence. “It’d be nice if we could figure out what she was, even if not specifically who she was.” Everyone looked at him. “There’s a long history of stone rings and all sorts of legends surrounding that region. What’s that saying about advanced science being almost indistinguishable from magick? Quantum physics, the multi-verse theories—there’s a gaping hole in our scientific knowledge from not even knowing what we don’t know yet.”
He held out his hands, indicating the three of them. “Case in point—shifters. You’re impossible, and yet you’re here and you’re obviously not figments of my imagination. You all exist. But science can’t explain you yet.”
“Not letting them explain me, either,” Dewi grumbled. “They can do that shit without any of us being dissected.”
“How do we know that’s what would happen?” Ken asked. “We’re all assuming, but do we know for sure?”
Badger snorted. “Yer not up on yer history, are ye, boyo? Tuskegee Experiment? Ever hear of it? Smallpox blankets? James Marion Sims butcherin’ enslaved Black women? Operation Sea-Spray? Holmesburg Prison? Feckin’ Nazi doctors? Those are just off the top of my head. I’m certain of very few things in this world, but one thing I am certain of is that I do not trust any government not to weaponize what we are if they learn about us. The only way we could ever be safely exposed to the world is if we’re already in power and can protect our kind. And even then, I’m not sure we should ever willingly reveal ourselves. I don’t think that will ever happen in my lifetime, and I plan on bein’ around for quite a while yet.”
“Money is power,” Duncan quietly said. “You don’t need to be a politician if you’re rich enough to buy or bribe them, or a Supreme Court judge. Money is protection. People might not respect who a person is or what they believe, but if you flash enough cash, those same people will respect that. Unfortunately, that’s one human constant throughout history. Those with more get more, and not necessarily because they earned or deserved it.”
“But you worked hard to build the pack, Da,” Dewi said. “Okay, granted, you had insider info, but you and Badger and Dad still put in the effort.”
“We did,” Duncan said. “But who’s to say our pack would be as large and powerful as it is now if I didn’t have those tips? And I made some morally questionable business choices I might not otherwise have because she specifically encouraged me to. We profited from war efforts. ‘Blood money.’ It still spent.”
“And you used it to protect and grow our pack,” she said.
Duncan shrugged. “Not saying I’d do things differently, but I also won’t lie and say I’m proud of every decision I’ve made. Unfortunately, with the world the way it is, even with a fire hose of information available at our fingertips, those decisions haven’t become easier, only more morally grey. Different industries are so enmeshed with each other and political regimes and, hell, even huge religious organizations, that it’s difficult to invest in something completely moral and green and ethical. Not if you want to make money. It was complex before I went away, and in all those decades it’s grown infinitely more so.”
He studied his glass. “I agonized over selectively timbering some of our land. Louisa strongly lobbied in favor of it, saying a well-managed forestry program would bring us income as well as reduce fire risks around the compound. Carefully timber, replant, and lather-rinse-repeat.” He took another drink. “She spent time researching it, spoke to forestry experts, and even tribal representatives from nearby reservations about traditional practices. I finally gave in to her, and it was one of those same lumber trucks that lost its load and killed her. That’s a guilt no one will ever convince me I don’t bear.”
Chapter Nine
Ken
When Aisling emerged from her room in the pool house over an hour later, Ken breathed a sigh of relief. Despite knowing it would make him look like a real shit if one of the Primes caught wind of his thoughts, the unexpected Aisling/Tamsin distraction relieved him, and he rooted for it to be an ongoing issue that would take up the inner circle’s excess attention that wasn’t already directed elsewhere.
He already had far more on his plate than he was comfortable juggling. So much so that it was becoming a strain to hold a shield around everything Peyton tasked him with to keep it from bleeding through his thoughts and risk Dewi learning it.
