Once all the chairs were situated, I walked over to him. “Are you okay, Dad?”
He blinked, surprised by how direct I was being. After a moment’s hesitation, he sighed and sat down. “You know me, son. Usually, I take things in my stride. It’s one of the thingsI’ve always prided myself on. But this? It’s too big. Bigger than anything I can ever recall. This isn’t a Lorenzo crisis. This is nationwide. Hell, worldwide, really. It won’t be long before other countries start implementing the same controls.”
Sitting down, I patted his leg in agreement. “Kinda tough to fight the whole world, right?”
“Exactly,” Dad said, pointing at me to emphasize his point. “You get it.”
“I do,” I said. “Even before this, there were people who despised us. People who would use any excuse toget rid of us. This thing has ripped the curtain away. Carte blanche to do whatever they think is necessary.”
Dad looked at me, his face pale. “You know what I’m waiting for? What we haven’t heard of yet, but I know is coming?”
I nodded grimly. “Reports about shifters being killed?”
“You got it. The stories will start to roll in soon. Maybe another day or two. ‘Feral’” — he made air quotes with his fingers— “shifters being killed to protect some family, or a guy out hunting, or a family pet. Whatever it is, it’ll be bullshit. That whole feral thing is a cloud of crap. Do you know how rare it is for a shifter to go feral? One in ten thousand at most. And most of the time, they can get help before they go off the deep end completely. I’d love to know what kind of horseshit she showed the government to fool them into this. It had to have been good.”
I put a hand on his knee and leaned forward. I had a strange, dizzying sensation of a reversal of roles. It was like I was the father trying to console his scared son. The juxtaposition was strange, and I didn’t like it. Pushing those thoughts away, I forced a smile. “It’ll be okay. We’re smart. We can figure this out. I know we will.”
Dad chuckled ruefully and shook his head. “The confidence of youth. I miss it. I really do.” He looked at me seriously. “How do you think the meeting is gonna go?”
“No clue. I barely know most of these guys, and only in passing. Honestly, I think you know more of them than I do.”
He leaned back and let out a breath. “Well, I don’t know how we’ll get out of this, but if we do, this meeting will be instrumental. We have to come up with something.”
I hated that I had to put my faith in someone else, but my father was right. We’d have to lean on others if we wanted to succeed in anything—the lizard shifters, Donatello, God knew who else we’d need to align with before this was all over. All we could hope for was that this didn’t end poorly tomorrow.
80
MADDY
When the alphas started to arrive, I had a hard time concentrating on anything else. A call from the guard house had alerted us to the first arrival, and from my window in the upstairs bedroom, I could see the first trucks and cars pull up the road and turn toward the meeting hall. It seemed like the rest of Nico’s pack was curious about what was coming, as I could see quite a few others standing on their porches watching the convoy roll in, and there was a strange combination of excitement and dread in the air.
After almost two hours, I was in the meeting hall, and all the alphas had arrived. Every alpha in the southern half of Florida had come to the meeting. Some from smaller packs came by themselves, and others from bigger clans came with two or three other elders or high-ranking members. Florida was a haven for wolf shifters, and ninety percent of the men who had come were wolves. There was a small contingent of panther and bear shifters too. Nico’s cousin, Eliza, pointed out a grizzled old man who was apparently the alpha of a gator shifter clan—one of the rarest types of shifters. It still made my head spin how many shifters there were in the world. I’d always known there were alot of shifters, but it was hard to quantify it when they all looked like regular humans.
Nico stood at the center of the room and addressed everyone in attendance. “I want to thank you all for coming. For those who don’t know me, my name is Nicolas Lorenzo. Call me Nico. I’m the alpha of the Lorenzo pack. My father” —Nico gestured to his dad— “Carlos was alpha before me.” Nico paused for a moment, and I couldn’t tell if he was thinking about what to say or if he was waiting for someone to ask a question. After the hesitation, he continued. “You all know what is happening. You’ve seen the news reports, you’ve heard the rumors, and you know the history. Edemas was real. His hidden vial of blood and all the power that comes with it… it’s all real. I’ve called you all here to decide what our next move should be. The royals were once boogeymen who hid in the darkness and shadows, but they are in the open now. How we deal with them will determine not only the rest of shifter history but human history as well. I’m being serious when I say that the world hangs in the balance right now.”
The entire meeting hall fell silent. I glanced around at the myriad of expressions. Some were contemplative, others looked scared, and a few others looked angry. One of the angry men raised his hand, and Nico nodded at him. He stood and gave a hesitant glance to the back of the room where I stood. I’d been with Nico as the group took their seats, and they all knew I was his mate, that I was the reason this was all happening. “So…” the man said, “I hate to say this, but isn’t it obvious that we need to give her to the royals?”
“You’re gonna tuck tail and give the fuckers what they want?” a man with deep black skin and a shaved head said from the other side of the room.
“That’s Montague,” Eliza whispered in my ear.
“The boy’s right,” another voice called. “Give her over. Then we can go en-masse to find and destroy this vial of blood.”
Everyone started talking at once, the voices barking from every corner of the room. Some in agreement, others in dissent. Nico raised his hands and tried to calm the building furor. At the back of the room, the old gator shifter leaned over to whisper to a couple of panther shifters. This was already not going well. I watched Nico. His face was a mask of fury, and he let out an inhuman howl that was a combination of his human side and his wolf. Power surged out of him, permeating the entire room. Ever since we’d mated, his wolf had become tenfold stronger, and no one in his pack could resist the urge to bow to his strength. It appeared as though that power wasn’t only reserved for his own pack. Every man in the room was an alpha, former alpha, or an elder, but when Nico was finished, they’d all shut their mouths, and most had involuntarily bowed their heads to him in deference.
“Enough,” Nico growled. “Look at me. Even without that vial of blood, I’m the strongest alpha in this room. Does a single man here deny that?”
The room was silent. There wasn’t even a murmur of dissent. A quick glance around the room revealed several confused faces. Most of these men had not bowed to anyone since they’d become alphas themselves. So, this must have been a strange experience for them.
Nico nodded to himself. “I do not believe the old stories are completely true. Edemas was not the monster the legends tell us.”
A broad mountain of a man with light gray hair stood.
“That’s Tiago. He’s a bear shifter and the alpha of one of the most powerful packs in the state,” Eliza whispered.
“What do you mean? How can you know that?” Tiago asked Nico.
Nico gestured toward me. “Maddy is a shifter. Until a few months ago, her wolf had been suppressed with drugs. Once her wolf appeared, we discovered that she was the reincarnation of Edemas’s eldest daughter. The crown princess of his rule. She was murdered by the original founding members of the royal society. Edemas’s queen was also murdered. The man was not a bloodthirsty madman. He was goaded and driven by rage, anguish, and heartbreak. He was provoked, and when he lashed out, they spent decades and centuries framing him as something other than what he was.
