A few growls sounded around the circle, but Willow didn’t flinch. She had an impressive mind. Within a few weeks of meeting the pack, she had learned to read wolf voices as if they were English. She knew these sounds were not threatening her but rather were the expression of wolves who didn’t trust human authorities and had good reason not to.
April looked around the room at all of them, and her eyes seemed to grow bright as she watched Willow nod acknowledgment of the wolves, of their old fears. Malachi wished he knew what his mate was thinking; her scent suggested some new understanding.
“If our enemies were human,” he said, “we would at this point contact the police. But this is a feud between two packs. We deal with these wolves on our terms.”
Trevor barked, “That’s right!”
Lucy reached across Jeremy to poke Trevor’s arm. “You just hush. Wake my pups andyou’llbe the one reading them bedtime stories for the next half hour until they’re back to sleep.”
Meanwhile other, quieter growls of agreement sounded around the room.
Robert spoke to Willow. “Our alpha’s exactly right. We do not involve humans in a fight between packs. We haven’t done that for centuries.”
Willow nodded. “I guess I get it. I just wish it wasn’t all on the pack, as long as they’re shooting at our alpha.”
“We’ll continue to be vigilant,” Malachi said. “We’ll maintain a patrol on the Lane. April, I know you can’t predict them absolutely, but would you expect the rogues to start something in town, in view of humans?”
“Wait,” she said. “Won’t y’all end up exhausted if there’s a 24/7 patrol? I mean, even if you take shifts like you are now. That’s going to wear everybody down.”
Malachi spread his hands. “I agree, but I don’t see another way.”
“Tech,” Ezra said. “Cameras with infrared. Set them up along the property line, way up in the foothills. We’d be alerted to any activity long before we could smell them.”
Technology was the one solution Malachi would never have considered. He wasn’t only a wolf; he was also what Rebecca called an “old soul,” preferring to record lore longhand, to read classics, to hold a book in his hand rather than an electronic device. Several wolves growled at Ezra’s idea, but…it wasn’t a bad one.
“We’rewolves,” Trevor said. “We don’t use human tech to defend our mates and pups, any more than we’d use guns.”
“The rogues already broke wolf tradition, Trev. Seems to me like that gives us more license in responding.” Ezra looked to Malachi and shrugged. “Or I could be wrong.”
“You are,” Trevor said. “No guns, no tech, period.”
“Wolves use human-devised tech every single day,” Willow said. “Unless you’re going to tell me Henry Ford was a wolf. Or Thomas Edison. Or—”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not using a car or a light bulb to defend my mate and my pack from other wolves. If wolves have to fight one another, it’s done with nothing but ourbare hands.” Trevor lifted his as if to demonstrate. “My dad, Patrick, Arlo, William—they all taught us this when we were just pups.”
Willow tilted her head at him as though trying to figure out whether to continue her challenge. She turned to Malachi instead. “Who’s right according to the lore?”
His chest rumbled as he thought it through. “Trevor’s correct about the tradition as it’s written.”
Trevor’s purr gained volume, and he folded his arms and sat back in his chair. Kelsey batted the back of her hand against his bicep, which he ignored.
“However,” Malachi said, and Trevor cocked one eyebrow at him. “It’s also written that when a pack faces lethal danger, the alpha is responsible to preserve life by any means necessary—other than endangering innocents outside his pack.”
“There you go,” Ezra said to his brother.
“It’s a good suggestion,” Malachi said. “I hadn’t thought of it, but I’ll look into it, and if it’s doable, I’ll have it done. I don’t know the cost, given how many cameras we would need.”
“Of course we’d all pitch in,” Ann said, and Robert nodded along with a few others. “Like they did back in the day for the paddock fence.”
Then, from the far corner, Rhett said, “Never mind all that. I can get them.”
Twenty
Rhettwastheonlywolf standing, his back to a corner, leaning with arms folded and one ankle crossed over the other. No doubt Trevor and Aaron assumed that pose deliberately standoffish, but Malachi knew better. Rhett was wound too tightly right now to sit. Every trained reflex and instinct in his body would demand he remain ready to take down any threat. It was something he’d had to explain to Malachi, because his scent was unaffected.
