“Yes. Talia has asked me to go. It pleases my true mate, so I will do it.” Lukan met his brother’s gaze steadily. Normally, Salvi would have taken that as a signal to drop his gaze and look down at the ground, to show respect. Not today.
Salvi shook his head. “It is an insult to our pack. The Thorolf pack stole our women and cubs. They killed many brave members of our pack when we rescued our families.”
“Thorolf’s father did. And we killed him, and many of them, in revenge. And now we stage raids on each other and weaken each other, rather than joining to fight our common enemy,” Lukan said. “If you think that the cyborgs will just give up and go away, you are a fool. They are rebuilding and returning.”
“I would rather die than run mewling to our enemies to be saved!” Salvi spat the words. The men who were gathered behind him nodded, grumbling amongst themselves, although they were not quite as ready as Salvi to look Lukan right in the eye as they did it.
Lukan scoffed. “Actually, we saved the Thorolf pack. And while you may be ready to die foolishly, I will not allow you to make that decision for the rest of our people.”
“I am not alone in my thinking,” Salvi said. He was so angry that his claws curved out of his hands and fur covered his face.
“Change back,”Lukan snarled. He glared at Salvi and concentrated hard. Salvi let out a cry of pain, and his fur and claws sank back into his flesh. He staggered back several steps.
“Anyone who does not stand behind me is free to leave, and join another pack, or form their own pack,” Lukan said. “We will not have this conversation again. If you attempt to discuss this with me again, I will take that as a formal challenge.”
He stared at Salvi, keeping him pinned in place with the power of his concentration. Salvi went pale, struggling to break away, and sweat beaded on his forehead and rolled down his face.
Finally he nodded, and gasped out, “We will not have this conversation again.” Lukan relaxed his mind, releasing Salvi, and Salvi turned and stumbled off, with the other Wor-Lan pack members following him.
Lukan had a feeling that Salvi and some of the other pack members would be leaving his pack soon. That was acceptable to him. Salvi did not understand that courage and sacrifice took many different forms, and that sometimes, to forgive took more strength than to fight and die.
* * * * *
The meet-and-greet party was held on the same rooftop where Talia had first arrived.
As it turned out, they didn’t have to worry about Alexandra. She hovered in the background, on the side of the room where the Thorolf pack congregated, pointedly ignoring Lukan and Talia. She wore a cocktail gown so low cut that it plunged down to her navel, and tossed her hair back and flirted with men from the Thorolf pack. She laughed loudly at everything they said, and kept touching them and leaning up against them. The men seemed to be enjoying it.
“Good lord, I hope one of them picks her,” Talia murmured to Lukan before she went off to mingle with the crowd.
She pulled the women aside one by one – no easy task with all the men clustered around them. She talked to them at length and also talked to the men who were visiting. Then she sat back and observed the interactions of the men and women, taking careful notes.
Afterwards, she and Lukan flew back to his home and sat down in Lukan’s office to discuss what she’d found. Mar-ee hovered in the background, ever-present.
“The problem is with the screening process,” Talia said. “Alexandra built up a successful business on Earth by appealing to a particular type of clientele. She matched women who were beautiful by Earth standards with very wealthy men. They both knew what they were getting. But she hasn’t changed her approach at all when she’s screening women for Ilyria, and it’s a massive fail. She sold these women on the fact that your packs are extremely wealthy and the women would be living in luxury. She didn’t sufficiently explain how important family was to your packs, how they should only come here if they were ready to have a lot of children, not just one or two, how fitting into the pack would be vital…honestly, ninety percent of the women at the party tonight shouldn’t even have been there.” She held up a pad of paper. “I made a list. They’re here for all the wrong reasons, and if they decided to stay here, they’d be miserable.”
Lukan shook his head in dismay.
“And,” she continued, “I looked over the contract that you have these women sign. The fact that you require these women to leave Earth forever and never return? That’s going to further cut down your ability to recruit quality women. I understand that you only select women who have no children or close living family, but still, many women have friends they don’t want to leave behind. And many women won’t be willing to leave behind their culture, everything they’re familiar with. If they could at least visit Earth from time to time, it would be much better.”
“They can’t,” Lukan said. “Federation law is absolute on that. There are a number of low-tech planets that Federation members are completely banned from. We do not interfere with these planets until they reach a certain level of technological advancement. It has been tried in the past, and it never ends well. Mass panic, fear of alien invasion, wars breaking out, that kind of thing.”
“Still. It’s pretty extreme. I’m glad I don’t have to sign that kind of contract.”
Lukan’s heart dropped. “But you do,” he said. “There are no exceptions. I thought you knew that.”
It felt as if the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. Talia went still, and was completely silent for a long, long moment. Lukan felt everything inside him go still and cold. It felt as if his heart wasn’t even beating. It could not be. They could not have come this far, experienced so much pain to be together, only for it to be snatched away again. It was too cruel.
“Say something,” he pleaded with her.
Slowly, Talia put the pad of paper down and stared at him. “Lukan. You know my father and grandparents live back on earth. And Rosamund is one of my best friends, and actually I have a bunch of good friends that I wouldn’t leave behind. They would notice if I disappeared.”
Lukan swallowed hard. “I can arrange for your family to be moved to a mansion on Earth. They would be supported in luxury for the rest of their lives. You could…you could send them messages, pretending that you were living overseas…”
Even as he said it, he knew it wouldn’t be enough for her.
Lukan felt fear rushing through him. He’d never been afraid before.
This could not be. He could not lose his Talia.
