MADDY
Shifters started to arrive in carloads, rented box trucks, and on motorcycles the day after Nico’s video. There was a surrealness to it as I watched hordes arrive in our pack lands. Nico had made the call, and it had been answered. Dozens of shifters from around Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas arrived first. They were the closest and managed to get here quickly.
When the first string of vehicles had crested the hill in the distance early that morning, a murmur of fear had shot through the pack. Our first inclination was that anti-shifter attackers were descending on us. Nico had rallied our forces, and we were getting ready to defend the gates when the scent hit. Shifters. A new group was coming to ally themselves with us. That had been the beginning, and since then, it had only grown.
The guest houses were all packed, and every home in the pack lands had at least three people bunked up with our members. Hell, even my parents had taken a couple of shifters from an Ohio bear pack into their tiny cabin. The only home that didn’t have some of our new guests in it was ours. That decision had been made under protest. Nico had wanted to bring as manyin as possible, but the rest of the pack had declined. Luis and Nico’s dad said that, as the alpha, he needed a place of respite to gather his thoughts and stay sharp for the battle ahead.
We were so crowded that, eventually, we had to have people stay at off-pack locations. Javi and his pack volunteered to leave the safety of our land to head back to his own land, claiming he’d feel safer there with reinforcements. He took three packs with him when he left—a lizard pack from Nevada, a wolf pack from New York, and a bear pack from Texas. Nico would get in contact with them when it was time to rally together for whatever was coming.
As much as I agreed with Nico and wanted us to pull our own weight, I was grateful I didn’t have to worry about entertaining guests. My nerves were at an all-time high, and the stress was getting to me. Apart from that, I was starting to show. My tummy was expanding by the day. Currently, it looked more like I was three plates deep into a Thanksgiving feast, but the pudge would soon be obvious for what it was.
By the sixth day, things had settled down a bit. The influx of shifters had become more of a trickle. Most packs that had enough people to send to the cause had already sent them. Any more that were arriving had to come from far away, and it took them forever. The farthest away had been a group of seven leopard shifters from Belize and a group of polar bears who’d driven from Alaska pretty much nonstop for over four days to join us.
Nico was in his office, talking to Donatello on the phone. Sinthy had sent him back to his island a couple of days before so he could use his communications setup to coordinate with the others in his group. He was still attempting to locate Viola, hoping to end things before an all-out war started.
I left him to his business and went for a walk. The warm breeze helped me calm down, but the rest of the pack lands werechaotic. The noise of so many people alone made it hard to think. Luis, Felipe, and Sebastian were working with Nico’s brothers to help the new arrivals get up to speed with our security and perimeter, as well as some of the strategies we’d developed when training with Sinthy’s battle illusions.
The buildings were so full that a group of about a dozen people had set up tents near the tree line to the west of the gates, and I could hear their conversations echoing up toward me. That took a backseat to what I saw at the opposite side of the pack lands.
Sinthy and Maxwell. Even in the distance, I spotted Sinthy’s long hair fluttering behind her as she led Maxwell into the forest. I smiled sadly as they vanished into the trees.
She’d been taking the boy out every day. It seemed like Sinthy was spending more time in the woods than she was in the house, and most of that time was spent with Maxwell, helping him hone his talents and get a handle on his powers. All around me, people were preparing for war, and I felt like a sitting duck. I ran a hand along my belly before turning around to head back inside.
A familiar voice called out to me before I reached the front door.
“Maddy.”
I grinned and turned to see Gabriella jogging up the path.
“Hi. Is everything okay?” I asked.
Gabriella nodded and smiled, but then her eyes narrowed on me. Even though she hadn’t raised me, and we’d only reconnected over the last few months, there was something inherently maternal about her. She was giving me a look that told me she sensed my deepest worries.
“What’s on your mind?”
For a split second, I wanted to deny that anythingwaswrong, but I gestured feebly to the activity surrounding us.
“I feel like I’m not doing enough. Everyone is getting ready to fight, and I’m just hanging out. It’s like I’m waiting for the end of the world.” I shrugged half-heartedly. “I wish I was doing more to help, I guess.”
Gabriella glanced behind her, then walked over to put her arm around my shoulders.
Pointing out at the activity, she said, “Do you notice anything?”
I scanned the pack lands, stopping on each little grouping of people as they worked or talked. I couldn’t tell what she was getting at, so I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Over ninety percent of the fighting force is men. The packs from around the country sent almost exclusively men. Our own fighting force has some women, but that’s out of necessity. If I had to guess, with all these extra fighters, most of the women won’t be in the final conflict. The men will do the fighting.”
My gaze darted back out across the area I’d looked at a moment before. Gabriella was right. For the most part, it was mostly men doing everything. There were women, but the majority of them were doing things like delivering food and fresh towels or tending to the small gardens and otherfemininejobs. A sudden rush of heat rose in my chest. It pissed me off.
Gabriella must have caught a whiff of the change in my pheromones because she chuckled to herself. “Calm down. It’s not on purpose. It’s the nature of shifters. It’s not a misogynistic plot. This is how it typically plays out in the animal kingdom. The men protect the pack, and the women protect the families and children, and obviously their mates.”
“But we can fight,” I said.
“True,” Gabriella agreed. “As a last-ditch effort. If wild dogs attacked a pack of wolves and overwhelmed the males, then, obviously, the females would jump in to defend and fight. But that’s the last thing they do. What they are supposed to do is stayback and protect those who can’t protect themselves,” she said and tentatively touched my abdomen.
I remembered the discussion Nico and I had about using the vial—about it being a last option and only to be used if there was no other choice.
“Let Nico protect you,” Gabriella went on. “That’s his duty—what he’s made for. Your job is to protect the child growing inside you.”
