The werewolf council? Great, that was just what we needed. More attention, and bigwigs breathing down our necks.
“Is there any chance of delaying calling in the council?” Tianna asked. “They’ll ask questions we don’t have easy answers to.”
Brock raised his eyebrows at the Amazonian fae-witch. “A horde of vamps invaded werewolf pack territory. I have no choice but to alert the council. It’s my duty as a pack alpha. Besides, if they were to find out some other way before I told them, that’d be reason enough for a trial on my competence to rule these wolves.”
Ah, so Brock had considered keeping them out of the loop, but we couldn’t. Damn.
Tianna nodded slowly as if she understood all that Brock wasn’t saying. “Then I’ll leave you to it while I go seek out Willemena. If we’re lucky, she won’t want to charge you something you aren’t willing to pay.”
“I’ll pay whatever her price. Evie’s safety is my top concern,” Brock said.
“Willemena was Gran’s friend, and she’s already played a role in guiding Evie,” Cass added. “She should want to help.” But he emphasized the word “should,” because witches were a fickle and moody bunch. Just because Willemena should do something was no guarantee that she would.
Tianna nodded once, but didn’t look overly hopeful. “I’ll keep that in mind, sweet cheeks. Thanks for the heads-up.” Winking long pretty lashes at him, she sashayed out of there, stepping right over the vamp’s head as if it were nothing more than a rock.
Cass whistled after her, encouraging her to wag her hips even more. She looked over her shoulder, offering him a smoldering look that made him fidget and me grateful that he now had his own place to spend his wild nights.
“All right,” Brock barked. “Let’s get to it, everyone. I might have to tell the council that we killed an entire seethe of vamps, but they don’t need to see the evidence of our kills. The vamps’ bodies will disintegrate with the first light of day, but the wolf council might arrive sooner if they question my story. Ray!”
Brock’s second in command stepped forward, leaning a shotgun against either shoulder. The look in the werewolf’s eyes was calm, as if it took far more than a battle with vamps to rattle him. I could see why he was Brock’s most dominant wolf.
“You know what to do,” Brock instructed. “Get it cleaned up fast. I have to tell the council right away. I’ll have Tianna bring the witch to Evie’s cabin. Make sure the council doesn’t go near her place.”
Ray gave one curt nod. “You got it.”
Brock had been assigning Ray a lot of responsibilities since our one night stand, and I hadn’t seen him much. Now I wondered how much of that was Brock delegating his duties to Ray so he could keep an eye on me.
The second—as tall and broad shouldered as Brock, but with close-cropped brown hair—turned to face the wolves gathered around us and started barking orders. He was clearly used to organizing them. Those who remained as wolves began shifting back to their human forms. Those who hadn’t shifted set off to track the strewn bodies. I wasn’t sure what exactly they planned to do with all of them, but I didn’t think I wanted to know. Probably burn them. It was going to be a big fire.
“Take Nathan’s body to the clearing by the river,” Brock said. “You know the one. We’ll put him to rest there.”
Ray nodded. “All right.”
“We’ll do right by him once I deal with the council.”
Sabine ran up to us, carving a path between the wolves in varying degrees of transformation, her ashy blond hair disheveled and her eyes wild until they landed on me. “What happened? I was tending to the wounded when I heard that Evie almost died.”
My heart sank. The wounded? I’d been too busy worrying about almost dying to consider what might have happened to all the wolves that had rallied to defend the pack.
“I need to check on the baby,” Sabine added, and from the looks around the pack, it was clear that the rumor mill had done its job and everyone there now knew I was their alpha’s baby momma.
“Can you do it while she’s a fox?” Brock asked. “Because she can’t shift back yet.”
Sabine raised her eyebrows in curiosity, but didn’t ask. “That will be fine. I need to make sure the baby’s heartbeat remains strong.” The doctor moved to my side.
“Are any of the wolves seriously injured?” Brock asked, sounding conflicted. The alpha had to be feeling pulled in all sorts of directions at once.
“A few. I’m treating eight wolves, but all of them will make a full recovery. Some might just take a while is all.”
I hinged on the “full recovery” part of her statement with everything I had. This vampire seethe attacked because of me. Tonight’s display was all my fault.
The edges of Brock’s shoulders softened just a bit at Sabine’s report. I imagined that, beneath the unshakeable leader mask, he was as relieved as I was that we hadn’t suffered greater losses.
Brock faced Ray, who appeared to be waiting for any final instructions. “Let me know if you find anything unusual,” Brock told Ray, who only nodded knowingly before taking off to supervise the cleanup.
“Cass, Reo, Haru, and Molly,” Brock continued, “please wait for Evie at the cabin. We’ll be along shortly.”
Cass narrowed his eyes at the alpha as if he didn’t want to let me out of his sight either, but he eventually relented. “I’ll go, but only because Tianna might need my help.” I didn’t want to think about what kind of help Cass might want to offer the Amazonian woman.
