“I can’t take him, let alone anyone else. He’s a bear.”
“I’m going,” he said. No argument.
She tensed at his words and he reached down and grabbed her wrist. He’d meant to keep her from fleeing, but instead of gripping her in a tight hold, he ended up holding her gently while his thumb stroked up and down her wrist. He was aware of what he was doing. The pleasure it gave him to touch her was beyond anything expected for so simple a gesture.
What the hell had happened to him that he would caress an enemy wolf?
Simon was still considering his options when his cell phone buzzed. He answered it without shifting his gaze from either Frankie or Ryan, but as he talked, his expression tightened into fury.
“Yes? How many? Understood.”
He thumbed off the phone and anger radiated through the room. “The wolves are scouting our territory, checking for weaknesses. Killing bears when they can.”
Frankie dropped her head back against the wall. “The serum has made everyone crazy.”
“Why is Emory doing this? Why poison an entire city? Why start a war with the bears?”
“It’s not him. It’s my brother.”
Simon didn’t speak, but then again, he didn’t have to. Everyone in this room knew that her father did as he pleased. He was not a man to be run by his son. And yet, Frankie shook her head.
“Raoul heard about the serum. Our numbers are low since the cat-wolf war. This was a way of getting more people quickly.”
“By dumping it in the water supply?”
“Yes. It activates latent shifter DNA. So people who are part wolf can turn into full werewolves.”
Vic snarled out an angry retort. “And fuck the ones who go crazy? Too bad about the dead people?”
“No one knew that would happen. He started small.” She gestured to the hypodermic. “Direct injection.”
“They experimented on you?”
“My brother did, but my father got a taste, too. Raoul told him it strengthened shifters.” She lifted her chin. “Have you seen my father hold his shift partway? That’s the serum. He’s stronger, but he also wants more.”
Ryan was starting to understand. “He wants more people, more serum, more power.”
She nodded. “He wants shifter-kind exposed. And he wants the wolves in charge.” She shrugged. “He thinks we’ll do a better job.”
Simon snorted. “You want to run the country?”
“I don’t!” she snapped. “We can barely manage our territory well, but they won’t listen to me.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Ryan spoke casually, as if her answer meant little to him. But the truth was that her next words would mean everything. They would decide whether he trusted her enough to follow her lead.
“I’m taking over the pack,” she said. “I’m giving you Raoul, my father’s going into detox, and I’m going to make damn sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Ryan felt the truth of her words settle into his bones. He believed her. Which meant he was going to work with her—whether she liked it or not.
Chapter 9
Frankie felt her stomach twist with bitter anger. The damned bears weren’t saying a thing and that infuriated her. If anyone else said they meant to take over the werewolf pack—if anymansaid it—then the bears would have shrugged and gone on with their plans. But when a woman says it, they stare at her, doubt written in every line of their confused expressions.
“Female alphas exist, you know. It’s the twenty-first century and—”
“And you’re not a werewolf,” the bear alpha said. There was no condemnation in his tone or expression. Simply a statement of fact.
“So?”
