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Day 158 of the re-emerged Hat Island pack, Tuesday, Nov. 12, Osoyoos
The morning was cold. Benny could see his breath, as he jogged in place while someone built up the fire and heated the grill. More venison. He liked venison as much as the next person — it was some of the best meat ever — but he wouldn’t mind some variety. He wondered if someone could be sent into Osoyoos after something. Bread? Eggs? Bacon? And he’d never admit it to Okami, he wouldn’t even mind some fruits and vegetables.
Titus was in human form, dressed in contributions from the men — sweats, socks, and a pair of Birkenstocks contributed by Ken, who just shrugged sheepishly when they all stared at him. “They’re great for camp and motel rooms,” he said.
Titus was staring at his feet morosely when Benny sat down next to him. “I’ll never live this down,” he said. “Birkenstocks?”
Benny grinned at him. “I feel a story coming on,” he teased.
Titus laughed. “Good to see you, boy,” he said. “About time you two showed up. I was beginning to worry.”
“What happened?” Benny asked.
Titus grimaced. He’d made a run up to Penticton to see a lady, he said. He hadn’t heard there was any conflicts brewing between the two packs. Why would there be? Penticton pack had been waiting for him. Grabbed him, tossed him in a jail cell in someone’s basement. “Who has a jail cell in their basement?” he complained. “Can you imagine being the realtor selling that place? Do you pass it off for kinky games? Seriously.”
Benny chuckled. “When was this?”
Titus looked tired. “What day is it?”
Benny told him, and Titus frowned, calculating it. “Been three months? Is that possible?”
Anything was possible, Benny thought. But that long in a jail cell, being beaten regularly? What had he been doing then? Mid-August? He frowned. Fleeing Russia, he thought sourly.
And Tanaka became Chairman of the World Council of Alphas at its new headquarters in Seattle. Benny doubted the timing was coincidental. That must have freaked out all the traditionalists. “Is that when Dad went missing?”
“He went off a couple of weeks before that,” Titus said. “He was moody. Getting calls from all over the place. He didn’t talk to me about it, of course. Nope. But I knew the signs. He needed to clear out for a bit. Nothing new about that. So he comes by and says, I’m gone. Take care of the place, will you?” Titus started to say something else, then glanced at Ryder and back to Benny. “And he said something that led me to believe he might be gone a while. I argued with him. I’m good backup, but I’m no Alpha, and that region needs an Alpha. That’s no news to anybody. But he wasn’t having any of it. Basically said, deal with it.”
Always cracked Benny up when Titus used modern slang. The man was older than dirt, and his usual slang indicated it. But then, he’d use some phrase like ‘deal with it’ or ‘seriously.’ TV? Benny didn’t know. Maybe Titus was a secret Twitter addict.
“So you got set up?” Benny prompted.
“Classic honey trap,” Titus agreed. “Didn’t even get some honey out of it.”
“They beat you up pretty bad,” Benny observed, ignoring the rest of that.
“That started about three weeks ago. Ask me all kinds of questions, then beat the shit out of me. Even when I gave them the answers! Most of what they wanted to know was no big secret. And the rest of it, I didn’t know because I’d been in that damn basement for weeks.”
Benny snorted. “It’s occurred to me that they wanted your pain to spill out in the pack bonds and add to the instability in the Okanogan.”
Titus considered that. “Maybe,” he said. “How bad is it?”
“Bad,” Benny said. He told him about Ryder getting a call about his mom, and someone had used Oscar to do it.
“Oscar?” Titus shook his head. “Hard to imagine. He liked her.”
“He was pretty confused and messed up when Ryder found him,” Benny said. “Said he knew it was wrong. Ryder said it felt like suicide by cop. He wouldn’t give up his fellow soldiers — his term.”
Titus frowned. “Someone broke his admittedly loose hold on reality,” he muttered.
“That’s what we thought,” Benny agreed. “And I’d like to know who. That’s just wrong. But the question still exists, why?”
Ryder came to join them. “I think they were trying to get Dad’s attention,” Ryder said. “I’ve had some time to think about it. They expected someone to call Dad. And it could even be some of the pack were getting worried. Titus is missing. Dad is missing. They figured someone knew how to reach one of the two, and would, if something happened to Mom. But they got me instead.”
“That makes sense,” Titus agreed. “I don’t know how to reach Tom, though. I mean I can feel the bond still. So he’s alive.”
“Southeast Asia, I’m guessing,” Benny said. He didn’t elaborate about the girls being sent to the school from there.
Titus’s eyes narrowed as he focused inward. Checking the bond. Benny wondered how often he’d done that in the last few weeks. Taking comfort that his Alpha was still there. But he’d either kept his situation from Dad, or his father had ignored him. Would he do that?
Not the man he knew. Not unless he had a really good reason. And that was what alarmed Benny the most — was there a really good reason?
“I figured that’s why they were beating me up,” Titus said. “So Tom would feel it and come home. That was the question that got woven in to every session. Where is Tom Garrison?”
Benny nodded. “I’m not sure they wanted him home as much as they wanted to know where he was — easier to send an assassin after him than to challenge him for Alpha.”
“McKenzie wants to expand into Okanogan?” Titus asked, considering it. “Asshole. But you’re right, he couldn’t win a challenge fight with Tom. If he sends an assassin, he’d better be good — better be a squad. But that’s beyond McKenzie’s reach. Especially if Tom’s in Asia as you say.”
Benny’s eyes narrowed. Titus was hiding something. That last line. Was his father in Asia? He started to probe, when Ryder straightened up. “We’ve got trouble,” Ryder said, looking up the knoll where his men were on lookout. One of them was headed toward them at a good run.
“How do you want to handle this?” Ryder asked Benny. “It’s your show.”
Benny looked around, and for the first time he realized Jessie had been standing nearby, listening in. Didn’t matter, but the girl was good, if even he didn’t notice. He really was going to recruit her if Abby needed an intelligencer service. And she was going to, sooner or later.
“We form a loose circle to greet them,” Benny said rapidly. “Then, it depends on who comes. But essentially, it’s a challenge circle. I’ll talk, if you don’t mind. Ask some questions. We’ll go from there.”
The guard came into the camp. “Can’t tell who it is,” he said. “An SUV and a pickup. So more than four, or they wouldn’t need two.”
Benny nodded. Probably so, although if they thought they’d have prisoners going back, they might bring an extra rig.
The second guard was running fast when he hit the camp not far behind the first one. “They made the turn up the hill,” he said. “Pickup driver has his window down. Scenting for shifters, I’d guess.”
Which also made sense.
“OK, listen up,” Benny said, shifting personas. He widened his stance, dropped his filters. One of these days he was just going to leave them down — get rid of the easygoing playboy persona forever. Which would suck — he liked that Benny Garrison.
“Loose circle — like for a challenge fight,” Benny repeated. “Circle opens to where he’s going to get out of that pickup. That’s going to be the leader. I ask questions. He makes demands. I put him down, you grab his men. Get the bungie cords from your packs.”
The men nodded and got them. Benny ignored what else they might have gotten from those packs. He had strapped on a knife sheath himself this morning. He had been surprised the pack had waited this long to come after them.
“They’re coming for you, Titus,” Benny said. “But I’m going to claim status as a representative from the Northwest Council — it’s true,” he added when Titus started to say something. “Abby Stafford became chairman of the Council a month ago. So you are under my care.”
“I can fight my own battles,” the old man objected.
“On a normal day,” Benny agreed. “But you’re hardly up to fighting speed. Besides, this is between packs, and that makes it Council business.”
Titus nodded reluctantly at that.
“Ryder?” Benny asked. “You OK with that?”
He nodded, too. Reassured that he had his team in order, at least for now, Benny watched the tracks that led up from the road.
The two rigs crested the hill, reaching the camp spot and parked. Two men got out of the white pickup and waited for the three who got out of the tan SUV, before walking toward them. Benny sized them up. The man in front was the leader. Not the pack Alpha, he was too young. Had they really just sent a squad out here?
“I want to ask him questions,” Jessie said next to him. “I’ve been searching for him, and now that I’ve found him, I have the right to ask him why.”
Benny glanced at her and then back to the men who had stopped and splayed out behind their leader. Bjorn Hansen? Was that who this was? That made more sense than just a squad leader, he conceded. They’d sent the pack Second after Titus.
Benny studied him. Bjorn Hansen was a city slicker. It showed in his moves, in his clothes, in the slackness of his body. Oh, he was fit enough. Muscled, young, shifter — of course he was. But out here, men developed a toughness that he didn’t have. Part of it was his youth, Benny conceded. He was Jessie’s age — early 20s. His skin was soft, not burnt by working out in the sun. He held himself a bit stiffly, as if he wasn’t used to being on uneven ground. For all that he was dressed in jeans, and a sweatshirt like the others, he had polished boots, and that blond hair had been cut in a salon.
Well, so had his own, Benny conceded, but then, he freely admitted to being city. They might be the only two men here who had hair like that.
“You have my prisoner,” Bjorn said, his voice pitched to carry. “I’ve come for him.”
It was a good baritone. Confident, up-and-coming leader. And Chen had tossed him away? That didn’t compute.
Bjorn looked around and saw Jessie. He smiled. Benny flinched. This was going to get ugly. Jessie didn’t even blink. “And it looks like you have my woman. I’ll take her, too.”
Benny started to reply but Jessie beat him to it. She took two steps into the circle to confront her fiancé — former fiancé? Benny wasn’t sure what she considered Bjorn to be at the moment. Ryder started after her, but Benny shook his head slightly. Ryder stopped.
“Your woman?” Jessie said, and there was a growl to her voice that raised the hair on the back of Benny’s neck. “I was your fiancé. And then you let that corrupt bastard take me. Your mom said you were banished, but you weren’t banished from the pack — you just left the city, didn’t you?”
“Banished from the pack?” Bjorn snorted. “Hell, no. Alpha Chen asked me to take on this job — to come out here and be a better conduit for him and the army he was building. He thought I could do it, and he wanted to make amends for losing you. My parents threw a fit — you’d think Penticton was outer Mongolia the way Mom carried on. It was supposed to be temporary, and then that bitch killed Chen, and I’m stuck out here. But there are advantages — being pack Second suits me. For now.”
The men he was with looked at him sideways at the last. Benny thought that had been stupid. Bjorn was an arrogant man. How had someone described him? One of those men who thought their shit don’t stink? Oh yeah, one of the women at the bar last night. It amused him.
“You didn’t think to take me with you?” Jessie asked, she was pacing in the circle. Benny watched her with narrowed eyes. Something.... He frowned. She was wearing sweats, no surprise, but he was pretty sure she had nothing on underneath. And she wasn’t wearing shoes.
She’s prepared to shift, he thought with alarm. But he couldn’t interrupt this. He wasn’t sure he could have explained why, but he couldn’t. He glanced at Titus, hoping the old man knew more about what was going on than he did. But Titus was focused on the scene in the circle. Benny glanced around; they all were fixated on Jessie slowly circling Bjorn, even the Penticton men.
Danger, his wolf said. Benny agreed. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
“Take you with me?” Bjorn was saying. “And piss off the very Alpha who was giving me this chance? Hell, Jessie. Do you know what it would take to advance like this back home? Your grandfather wasn’t going to step down anytime soon. And I wasn’t going to challenge him, either. But the 2-bit Second out here? I could take him. And now I run things.”
“After the Alpha died, I looked for you everywhere,” Jessie said steadily. “I’d promised I would. I searched all of the Vancouver peninsula. Couldn’t find you, or word of you. Your family shut their door on me. But I’d promised I would look. And look I have. But you knew where I was, and yet you didn’t come for me.”
“I’ve had a few other things to clean up!” He said it dismissively. “Chen screwed up. And Alpha McKenzie has had a lot of patching up to do with their Chinese partner to prove we could step into Chen’s position. We needed to re-acquire the power batteries. We needed to take out the Okanogan pack heirs and grab their pack. And we needed to find the Okanogan pack Alpha. I didn’t have time to rescue you from problems of your own making.”
“Problems of my own making?” Jessie asked, and the growl was more prominent. Her wolf was taking over, Benny realized. “Having my grandfather sell me to the Alpha for his plaything, was a problem of my own making?”
“Well, you challenged everybody,” Bjorn said, condescendingly. Benny’s eyes opened wider — was he deliberately baiting her? Or just incredibly stupid about women? “You were constantly challenging my dominance — probably their dominance as well. Is it any wonder that the pack Second and the Alpha would take steps to show you your place? Bring you to heel?”
The last phrase barely had time to register with Benny when Jessie changed into her wolf and leaped for Bjorn.
Bjorn wasn’t expecting it. He dodged the initial attack, but he couldn’t shift — not in those boots. He tried to kick the boots off, and then he tried to kick her. Should have done that in the other order, Benny thought dispassionately.
Jessie didn’t know anything about fighting. Of course not. An abusive Alpha wasn’t going to teach girls of the pack to fight. But her wolf could fight — and that was one enraged wolf. And Benny thought Jessie had ceded complete control to her wolf — a smallish gray wolf with brown markings, muscled, fluid. Jessie had spent some time as a wolf, Benny thought, which surprised him. Ryder moved as if he was going to intervene.
“No,” Benny said. “She challenged him. You can’t interfere.”
“Challenge?” Ryder said under his breath. “She’s a woman. They can’t challenge!”
“She did,” Benny said. “I’m not sure how either. But I can feel it. Look at his men — they’re not interfering. It’s a challenge fight. They feel it instinctively.”
“She knows nothing about fighting, Benny,” Ryder said, a bit desperately. “She caught him by surprise. But that’s not going to last long. And he’s a pack Second! He’s dominant.”
Benny gauged Bjorn Hansen’s dominance. Benny was easily the more dominant. So was Ryder. And he thought that might mean that Jessie was too. He glanced around. Titus? How did he compare? More dominant than Bjorn, but injured. And Jessie had commanded Titus to shift, and he had.
“You’ve got a mate bond forming with Jessie, do you know that?” Benny asked quietly, not looking at his brother. He focused on Jessie instead. She was harrying Bjorn, nipping at him. Bjorn cussed at her, as he tried to dodge her. But she was quick.
Ryder gave a half-shrug of agreement. “My wolf keeps saying mate,” he said, with a lopsided smile. “And since the only other word I’ve heard him use is ‘kill,’ I assume it’s true.”
Benny snorted. “So visualize your mind. Find your wolf. Find the warmth that is your pack. And somewhere near all of that you’ll see a bond forming. That’s the mate bond,” Benny said rapidly, his eyes on the fight. And it was a fight now. Bjorn had decided to fight as human since he couldn’t get out of his clothes rapidly enough. Bjorn did know how to fight — not well — but he’d been trained at some point. Just unpracticed. He probably had used more dominance than skill, then, to get to be the pack Second. Or treachery. That was possible considering what they’d done to Titus.
“Yeah, it’s there,” Ryder said in a low voice. He was almost panting as he tried to control his wolf. “I’m not sure I can hold my wolf back, Benny.”
“You can merge with her, through that bond,” Benny said quietly. “Lend her your strength. Let her feel that you stand with her, support her. Give her some of your energy. Careful!” Benny said with alarm. “Don’t overdo it, or you’ll black out. That won’t help — and you’ll never live it down.”
That made Ryder laugh, and he relaxed a bit. “Good,” Benny approved. “Now breathe. Send her energy, support, encouragement. A nice steady stream of power for her to draw on.”
He nodded. Benny watched him. It looked like he got it — who knew? It was all woo-woo, made up on the spot, like so many of his solutions of late. He turned back to watch the fight.
Bjorn first tried to play it for laughs. He patted her on the head. The wolf snarled at him and lunged for the Bjorn’s hand, and he snatched it back. Bjorn looked around and saw that no one was laughing. No one was coming to his aid either. He looked at Benny.
“Call her off,” Bjorn snarled. “Call your pet off, or I’ll kill her.”
“You can try,” Benny said with faked nonchalance. “Besides, she’s her own wolf. And I’d say you pissed her off royally.”
Bjorn kicked at her again, and Jessie-wolf nipped at him, then launched for his calf. Benny studied her methods. Ah, she’s trying to hamstring him, he thought, enlightened, as she circled around Bjorn. He was watching her warily. But it was hard for a human to fight a wolf. No claws, no fangs. But she couldn’t reach his most vulnerable spots without backing up and lunging upward. And Bjorn wasn’t letting her do that. Not a complete fool, then.
So Jessie worried at him. Making him dodge her fangs as she lunged at his Achilles tendon. then she went a little higher — his femoral artery. Or maybe his balls, Benny thought with a snort. Bjorn moved fast enough to protect them anyway. He thought of Abby’s take on pulling a man’s balls off as icky. Might be, but Abby had killed more than one man that way.
But a second lunge for Bjorn’s groin made Bjorn realize how serious of a fix he was in. He crouched down, pulled a knife out of a sheath strapped to his calf, and came up with it in his hand. He held it like he knew how to use it too.
There was a muttering among the men. Even his own. Wolves traditionally didn’t use human weapons in a challenge fight. But no one moved to interfere, although Ryder was struggling with his own wolf. Benny looked at him, and said, “No,” very firmly. Ryder glared at him, his wolf showing in his eyes, but he didn’t shift, and he didn’t interfere. “Focus,” Benny said. “Feed her strength and energy.”
Ryder swallowed hard and refocused inwardly. Benny watched him for a moment to make sure Ryder-the-man was in charge, and that Ryder-the-man wasn’t going to do anything stupid, and then he turned back to the fight.
Jessie-wolf was wary now, watching the knife. Bjorn was laughing. “Not so brave now, are you little girl?” he taunted. Jessie didn’t seem to pay him any attention. She was circling, making Bjorn move around the circle, as he kept turning to face her. He lunged at her with the knife, and she went under it and got a hold of one calf and clamped down and tore it.
Bjorn screamed, and slashed down at her, but she wasn’t there. He turned to find her, facing her again, but now on one leg. She’d done a good job — ripped the muscle so that it would take longer to heal, and she might have even gotten the tendon. Enough damage that Bjorn couldn’t move as fast. And he was angry — the kind of anger that led a man to make rash mistakes.
Benny thought Jessie had a plan, but he couldn’t see it. She needed to get that femoral artery, or to take him down to the ground so she could get the jugular or his guts. Rip open the belly, then slash the jugular. Or his nuts. Men generally wouldn’t go there, but Abby did — quite effectively. He wondered if Jessie knew about that.
It was very hard to tell what Jessie knew — she had been listening in on everything.
She kept lunging at Bjorn, harrying him, and Bjorn was tiring — that leg wound was significant. A bit higher and she could have gotten the femoral. Too bad she missed, Benny thought.
Bjorn took a step back and landed on a rock. His leg buckled, and he lost his balance. Jessie-wolf was on top of him in a flash, shoving him down. Benny caught a smile on Titus’ face, who was now feet from the fight. Benny frowned, suspicious of that fortuitous rock. Had that rock been there when they formed the circle?
Bjorn still had the knife. He got in a good slash, but Jessie-wolf ignored it. She ripped at his belly, shredding his sweatshirt and his jeans. And then she reached his bare skin. She snarled and ripped open his belly.
Bjorn screamed. “Pull her off,” he ordered his men.
Benny glared at them. They didn’t move. Really, Benny didn’t think they would have even without his glare. He doubted Bjorn Hansen had done much to ingratiate himself with the men he controlled.
She straddled him and slashed his jugular. And then his femoral artery by his groin. And finally, she bit down on his cock and pulled. Bjorn screamed. Benny winced; probably most of the men did. But no one tried to stop her.
She dropped his severed cock on his mouth. Benny grimaced at that. Do not piss this woman off, he thought, glancing at his brother. This wasn’t a mate he was envious of at all. And then she howled her triumph, howled again and again, drowning out the dying screams of the man she’d once loved.
Everyone just waited. This was Jessie Nickerson’s show. Benny considered the political implications of what had just happened. The winner of a challenge to the pack Second became the pack Second. Was Jessie pack Second for the Penticton pack? Wouldn’t that be a clusterfuck?
Or an opportunity. Benny frowned. But he too waited.
When Bjorn was truly dead, he saw Jessie stagger. The pack bond? She hopped off of the body and retreated to her clothes. She changed back to human. “It was justice,” she insisted defensively.
Benny nodded. “As a representative of the Northwest Council of Alphas, I agree. Justice has been served.” He looked at the Penticton crew. “Go. Leave the pickup. But take the body of your Second and get the hell out of here.”
They didn’t move.
“You heard him,” Jessie said. She hadn’t reached for her clothes and was standing there naked. No one leered. No one even blinked. “Take his body and get it out of here. Leave me the pickup.”
The men moved then, and Benny closed his eyes in pain. Damn it. They hadn’t taken his order, but took hers? She was their pack Second. Their wolves knew it, and the men were listening to their wolves. Hell, they were probably all but seconds away from shifting themselves.
But they quietly got Bjorn Hansen’s body, and hauled it away. They hesitated at the dismembered cock, but with one glance at Jessie, they grabbed that too. She stood there glaring and defiant until they were in the SUV and headed down the hill. Then she sagged.
She held her hands to her head as if she hurt. “Make them stop! All these voices in my head! Make them stop!”
“Easy girl,” Benny said. He walked up closer to her. “I can help you with that. Can you focus on me? Not on the voices. Not on anything else. Just look at me.”
Jessie looked at him with glazed eyes, as if she was starting a migraine. Benny winced. Not a good sign. “So think of your favorite cop show,” he said, discarding his usual water weir metaphor. What would a city kid like Jessie know about water weirs? “You know how the police stations always have those one-way glass barricades? Sound proof, vision proof....”
She laughed and nodded.
“Good,” Benny said, exaggerating his approval for her, and she relaxed a bit more. “I want you to visualize building one of those in front of all those nasty little voices who want things! Erect it as tall as you can, and make sure you get it stretched out wide enough that you don’t leave anyone out. Can you do that?”
He saw when she managed it. Her shoulders lost their hunch, and her breathing started to slow back down. Even her eyes started to clear. “Yes,” she said, gratefully. But then she looked over his shoulder at someone and started crying. “What the hell have I done?” she asked. And then she shifted and ran.
The men all stared at each other. “Well?” Benny said to Ryder. “Go after her, dumbass.”
Ryder stripped and shifted. Then he raced out after his mate.
Benny turned to the others. “Let’s get this place cleaned up. And someone use that pickup to take Titus into Osoyoos for some clothes. And for God’s sake get him some real shoes! And groceries. We may be here for a while. I like venison, but it could use some sides.”
“On it, boss,” one of the men said, a phrase usually reserved for Ryder. Titus followed him to the pickup.
“Titus?” Benny said quietly. “You kick that rock?”
“Sure did,” he said without turning around. “I gave it a kick and made sure she could see me do it. Not my first rodeo, boss.”
“Why?”
“She saw to my needs last night,” Titus said. “Made me shift when I was too messed up to know I should. Cleaned me up, fed me by hand. I owe that gal. It was the least I could do.”
Benny watched him as he continued on to the pickup. Well, that was interesting. He looked at the others. “So whose turn is it for guard duty?”
And slowly the men sorted them themselves out. Benny glanced after his brother and his mate and shook his head. He wished he had cell service. No one was going to believe this. He considered opening his link with Abby, but he’d tamped it down because he thought she might need to claim distance from what happened out here. And that hadn’t changed just because he had good gossip he was badly wanted to share.