“Look, the bears aren’t doing anything but hanging out and respecting your brother’s wish to talk in the morning. If he wants to attack us unprovoked, then he can explain to the police why he’s creeping through the streets with cherry bombs and rabid wolves.”
“They’ll say it’s because you bears poisoned the city.”
“And the cops will say, they already suspect us, and that vigilante justice is a crime.”
She winced and looked out the window at the dark night. She couldn’t see anything. Just a haze of light over the city streets and the shadows of nearby buildings. First thing her brother would have done is kill the electricity to the block. “How come the lights are still on in here?” She could see the red numbers from a clock on the nightstand. 2:48 a.m.
“Building has its own generator.” He arched a brow. “Got a black bear security expert and a grizzly bear electrician.” He tilted his head. “Don’t you wolves have people?”
She nodded. “My brother loves electronic toys.” God only knew what elaborate stuff he’d set up around the mansion and the community center. She’d been involved in every aspect of the construction process, but Raoul had added all sorts of special stuff at night. At the time, she’d thought it a good idea. Now she wondered if he’d doctored the water pipes so he could easily dose the pack with serum. Not to mention what he could have done to the electricity, the air vents, and she had no idea what else.
Before she could comment, floodlights kicked on all around the neighborhood. What had been dim or shadowed a second ago, now stood out in stark relief. And inside, she felt the collective surprise ripple through her pack. As best she could make out, they were coming from all sides, intending to surround the bears as they stormed the former hardware store. But with the sudden flood of lights, they all seemed to pause.
“Can you send them a message?” Ryan asked. “Through the pack link?”
She shook her head. “It’s not a verbal thing. We get each other’s emotions and sometimes a general sense of direction. No words.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do.” He said it as a statement, and she wanted to argue. She was an alpha’s daughter. She ought to do something, but what? Usually she would send support vibes through the link, but she didn’t support what they were doing. “Go away” would likely inflame things. At best, she should stay quiet and pretend she wasn’t even here. Few people in the pack could get a directional sense from the pack link, but those who could would know she was sitting here with the bears.
She sighed and dropped her head on his shoulder, feeling frustration eat at her. The drive to do something—anything—to save the ones she loved from disaster churned like acid in her gut.
“Simon won’t hurt them unless he has to.”
She tried to take comfort in that. Maybe the pack would get spooked by the floodlights and turn around. Except the moment she thought the words, she felt the wolves stir. Anger surged quickly followed by defiance. It was a madness she hadn’t felt from her people ever. Normally the pack link calmed and soothed, but this link stirred to violence, and she felt her own blood surge with the connection.
Worse, she felt a single, strong vibration through the link. A dark mind pushing the rest to madness.
Raoul. What the hell was wrong with her brother? Why would he push the pack to madness? Unless he was already there, and he was just bringing everyone else along with him.
“He’s going to get them killed.” People she’d known all her life, pack mates who were good people, though maybe not very discerning when it came to complicated issues. They didn’t know how to think logically, to separate emotions from passionate words to look at the sense of things. She’d tried to reason with them, but they moved with the crowd without thought or discretion.
She bit her lip, beating her brain for something—anything—that she could do to stop them. They had tothink. But she could already tell from the link that there wasn’t a soul among them who would listen to reason now. Not with Raoul stirring them up.
She pushed up from Ryan, breaking the restraint of his arm with an impatient growl. “I have to stop them.”
“You know you can’t.”
“I have to try. It’s what an alpha does.” She said the words with conviction, knowing that it was the first time she’d called herself an alpha. Not just the daughter of one, but a leader of a werewolf pack. It didn’t matter that her pack wasn’t following her right now. She was an alpha inside.
He pushed up on his elbow, wincing as it pulled at his side. When the pain built to excruciating, he flopped back down and looked at her. “You have tothink. They’re not, but you can.”
She went to the hallway and looked into her father’s room. He was resting peacefully, the shallow lift and fall of his chest the only indication he was alive. She thought about waking him, but the doctor had told her the longer he slept, the better. If he hadn’t woken from the mental turmoil of the pack outside their window, then he wasn’t strong enough to do anything even if she could manage to rouse him. He had to rest, which meant it was up to her to do…what?
She paced back into Ryan’s bedroom, crossing to the window to stare down. She saw the naked street, empty of everything except a few parked cars. She felt her people out there, hovering on the edge, slinking through the shadows as they hugged the buildings.
“You’ve talked to them already,” Ryan pressed. “You’ve told them everything they need to know.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged. Then she bit out the word in fury. “Yes!” Why wouldn’t they listen?
“So you’ve given them all the information, but they’re choosing Raoul anyway.”
She dropped her head against the cool windowpane. They were right there on the edge of her awareness. So close. So bitter. Was that Raoul? Or was that seething resentment inside everyone?
“They’re going to die.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But you can’t stop them from making bad decisions.”
She spun around, her agitation making her voice sharp. “I’m an alpha. I may be just a hybrid, but I’ve always taken care of the pack. Everything I’ve done is for their good.”
