“Agree,” Austin said as we turned into a wide street.
A large house flanked either side, leading to an even bigger house at the very end.
“The beta, the lead enforcer, and Drex,” I guessed. “These are large residences.”
“That’s usual,” Austin told me as he stopped in front of the house, parking in the middle of the street. “Look at my brother’s pack. His house is massive. You didn’t see it, but his beta’s house is, too. A show of wealth is usual in a shifter pack. If the leaders are prosperous, it means the town is prosperous. The way we set things up, one can’t happen without the other.”
“Except Broken Sue has a moderate house,” I argued, “and your house in the woods is gorgeous but not extravagant.”
“I wasn’t looking to establish a pack when I built that, and Brochan didn’t plan to join one. Now, it isn’t a pack at all.”
“Ivy House puts every rich alpha to absolute shame,” Broken Sue said as he pushed open his door. “No one can compete with it. We don’t need to be fancy, we simply have to pointto Ivy House and call it a day, especially now that Naomi has remodeled the interior.”
Austin started out of the Jeep and paused, turning back to me, his features knotted in thought. His gaze delved into mine, as though trying to poke through into my brain and get insight into whatever had entered his head.
“What?” I asked.
He watched me a little longer and then glanced at the alpha’s residence again. In silence, he climbed from the Jeep, leaving me to wonder what he was thinking.
Sebastian and Nessa didn’t file in with the Ivy House crew, standing to one side instead, posh, poised, and sophisticatedly unimpressed. It was their call to arms, and they were ready for battle.
My stomach fluttered as I motioned my crew in line. I could feel the basajaunak hovering around the large house, probably blending into the trees and ready to sprint to our aid at a moment’s notice.
“They seem awfully keyed up this trip,” I said.
“Who?” Cyra asked, swinging her arms in boredom.
“The basajaunak. I get rushing into a fight, but they usually relax after they’ve accepted an all-clear.”
“They think the mountain is unsettled,” Niamh said, for once without a cooler or even a libation. “Nature or the trees or whatever is not happy. They get a bad feeling from this place.”
Right. We’d talked about that, and then all the other issues with this trip had taken precedence, including the discovery that mages were coming here to look for Tilda. That needed to be addressed with Drex today. We didn’t know when those mages might come through. Their force wouldn’t be anything we couldn’t handle, but we had a full travel schedule—we wouldn’t always be here. If those mages came in without us, Drex’s packwouldn’t have a prayer. We had some things to figure out, and the first was whether we’d help them at all.
Two lines of town shifters filed down the street in orderly rows. As they neared us, they spread out and formed a semi-circle, closing us in.
The door opened behind us, and I turned to find Drex’s shifters filing out of the house in loose garments. Dan came out and went right, and Vessa went left, heading up the crisp lines.
Drex exited last, as was usual for these types of meetings. He took the focal point in the middle, the door open behind him, a purple muumuu covering his body. This time it wasn’t to see my reaction. His stern face and flashing eyes said he was ready for battle, and that muumuu would be torn off at a moment’s notice.
“Alphas, we meet—“ Drex cut off.
More shifters entered the street now. Ours. Austin had prepared for hostility, and our people had been watching. They came in four lines before stopping in formation to block Drex’s shifters. Basajaunak stepped out of the trees, all around us. Gargoyles lowered in the sky.
Drex’s expression turned to granite. “Alphas, we meet again.”
“Under similar circumstances, it seems,” Austin replied.
“So it seems. Forgive my tardiness. And my extra personnel. You’ve created an unsafe environment for some of our residents, and so I had to fortify my defenses.”
My jaw went slack, and I struggled for words.Wecreated an unsafe environment? We hadn’t staged an attack in the middle of town or created an ambush in the trees and then kept a bunch of secrets.
Austin laid his hand on my back, ready to take the lead. That was probably wise, given that my anger level had just shot sky-high.
“Which of your residents feels threatened?” Austin asked.
Drex paused for a moment. “The mages. They are in the house. I’d hoped to clear the air about yesterday, but it seems Mirelda was correct. That was—is—Elliot Graves, and he has brought the Captain.”
“Mirelda?” Austin asked.
