Kai glanced at the clock for the tenth time. It was too quiet for eight thirty, especially on a Friday night. Usually, by this time, there was a line of people sitting on the bench outside waiting for the hostess to call their names. Maybe it was the attacks. Or maybe it was just the calm before the storm.

He dumped the coffee grounds and refilled them, hitting the button on the machine before picking up the dishes on the counter and discarding them in the back. After that, he started refilling the ketchup bottles. Ember sat at the end of the counter, wrapping the silverware with an intense concentration one usually saved for complex math equations and bomb disposal. Kai fought the urge to ask her if she was okay for the thousandth time. He only had to look at her to know she wasn’t. She’d lost more weight. Her face was gaunt, and she carried purple smudges under her hollow eyes. He didn’t want to think about when she’d last washed her hair. It was starting to be a contest, between her and Quinn, of who could unravel faster.

The bell over the door chimed, and he glanced up and grinned. “No way.”

Ember looked up, eyes going wide. Kai didn’t blame her. Ogden Thurman had that effect on people. He was the only man Kai knew that was taller than Rhys, maybe broader too. Ogden’s long red hair had started to concede to the silver of age, and his beard was a snowy white. His ruddy skin and bulbous nose gave him the appearance of Santa, but the thick braids in his hair and beard were only popular with ancient Vikings and Portland hipsters.

Oggie was neither.

"Oggie, man. How are you?" Kai said.

Ember looked from Kai to Oggie like she was watching a tennis match. The large man sighed, as if the sheer act of existing was exhausting, and settled on the stool closest to Kai, the metal groaning under his weight. "Hey, kid. Your alpha around?” he asked, his voice like gravel.

Kai nodded, filling a glass with chocolate milk and handing it to the man. He slugged it back like a shot of whiskey while Ember continued to gape with wide-eyed fascination. “Yeah, she’s in the back doing payroll. Ember, keep an eye on the front for a minute?" 

“Yeah, sure," she muttered absently, eyes still on Oggie.

The kitchen was usually loud on Fridays, with Donovan and Rhys yelling at each other over the grill while Tristin and Ember barked orders through the window or complained about the wait time for their food. But that night, Isa had cut all but him and Ember with a strict warning to the others to be available if things picked up.

When Kai made it to the back, he frowned at Isa’s closed office door. That was weird; Isa never shut her door. Kai didn’t stop to think, just turned the knob. “Hey, Isa—” He stopped short, squeezing his eyes shut. “Oh my God. Seriously? This is a restaurant. We have a health code.”

Wren laughed, and there was the distinct sound of clothing being adjusted. “You can open your eyes now, drama queen,” Isa said. Kai peeked open one eye and then the other, sighing when he realized everybody was fully clothed.

Isa arched a brow. “You’re supposed to be watching the front." 

He gave her his sternest look. “And you’re supposed to be doing payroll.”

"She can call me payroll if she wants,” Wren said, giving Isa a wink before dragging her closer for a lingering kiss. Kai fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Please, no more, I beg of you. It’s like catching your parents making out.”

With the full moon rapidly approaching the wolves emotions were heightened…on every level. Which meant Isa and Wren constantly pawing at each other and Donovan looking at everything like he wanted to eat it or mate with it. Of course, it often meant Rhys pawing at Kai as well, but Rhys wasn’t there, so the approaching full moon in no way benefitted Kai. Therefore, he found the whole thing annoying.

She scoffed. “Imagine having to watch your brother play tonsil hockey with his boyfriend while you’re trying to eat your French toast each morning,” she reminded him, combing fingers through her long mahogany hair, looking at her reflection in the mirror behind her desk.

Kai’s cheeks flushed. “Fine,” he acknowledged. “But it’s still not as traumatizing as watching your parents going at it.”

Isa rolled her eyes. “What was so important that you had to burst through the door without knocking?”

"Oggie's here." 

Wren's face lit up, and he lurched towards the door before seeming to remember he and Isa had been in the middle of something. He turned to look at her, his expression so hopeful and full of anticipation one would think Isa hide a rubber ball behind her back. Isa gave another perfect eye roll, shaking her head. "Go. Go play. I'll be right there. Oh, and bring the whiskey."

Once Wren had disappeared, she muttered, “Every time.”

Oggie might be the only person—other than Isa and Neoma—that Wren was excited to see. He was a friend of Wren’s mother and was an ally to Wren’s pack in Tennessee. He was one of the few links Wren still had to the Black Thorne pack since his father forced him to choose between Neoma and the pack. He chose Neoma. His family hadn’t forgiven him for that.

Kai and Isa followed behind Wren, entering the dining room as Oggie was asking Ember, “So, you’re what all the fuss is about, huh?”

Ember’s face fell, cheeks flushing under the man’s scrutiny, but Oggie didn’t seem to notice. He stood, sweeping the tiny alpha off her feet in a massive hug. Kai was sure it would have broken the bones of a human. Isa responded with the same enthusiasm. “What brings you our way, old man? You’ve been out of touch for months.”

“Gotta keep moving,” the man said.

He glanced at the whiskey bottle and then back at Wren, expectantly. Wren poured two fingers worth into an orange juice glass and handed it to him. He drained that just as he’d drained the chocolate milk. Kai slid onto the stool next to Ember.

“Is he a wolf?” Ember whispered.

“Bear.”

Ember’s eyes widened. “For real?”

He nodded.

“Why is he dressed like that?”

Oggie sort of dressed like a Viking too, with his leather pants and his long coat. Kai snickered, shaking his head as the three shifters turned to look at her. Ember shrugged, doing her best to look innocent. She had to have known they could hear her. Maybe she didn’t think bear shifters had the same hearing as wolf shifters?

Oggie gave her a hard stare. “I dress like this, missy, because I was in the mountains of North Carolina yesterday, and it’s colder than a witch’s nether regions up there.”

“Oh…sorry,” Ember mumbled before asking, “Do you live there?”

“Where? In the mountains? No. I don’t live anywhere. Like I said, I gotta keep moving.”

Ember frowned. “Why?”

His laugh was startling in the quiet and as big as he was. “Boy, she’s a nosy one…like Quinn,” he told Isa, ignoring Ember’s question. “How’s the boy? Recovering from his brief journey across the veil?”

Ember gasped. “You know!”

He gave her an imperious look. “There’s very little that happens in the supernatural world that I don’t know about. It’s my job.”

“What are you, like, the Ministry of Magic?” Ember asked. Kai couldn’t help but be a little proud of Ember’s knowledge. She’d devoured the books in just days and then insisted they marathon all the movies during the last full-moon pack night. She was becoming an expert in all things Harry Potter, and Kai insisted on taking all the credit.

“Oggie hunts the things that hunt us,” Kai said.

“Oh,” Ember replied, as if that made perfect sense.

Oggie looked at Wren. “That’s why I’m here.”

Wren’s easy expression disappeared. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“A pack was hit outside of Asheville last night. The third in as many weeks. The Saw Hill pack. Brutal attack. Only one survivor.”

Isa frowned. “That’s awful, three packs in three weeks?”

“Land dispute?” Wren asked.

“Not llikely.” The old man pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and tried to flatten it out with one meaty hand before sliding it across the counter. Wren wrapped his arms around Isa from behind, and they leaned over to look at the paper. Ember and Kai followed suit, standing enough to get a good look.

It was a drawing, a childish scratch of a pencil on notebook paper. It took a moment for him to realize it was four swords all pointing in different directions to form the shape of a cross. It meant nothing to him, but Wren and Isa frowned at each other. “This has to be a joke, right?”

“What is it? What does it mean?” Kai asked.

“The Legionaries,” Wren said, his voice flat.

“Who?”

“Hunters,” Isa said. “Supernaturally strong hunters trained to take out shifters with brutal efficiency. Some claim they were Roman soldiers turned into weapons.”

“Roman soldiers?” Kai asked. “Turned by who? The Grove wasn’t even the Grove until a few hundred years ago. Right?”

“Debatable. Some blame the Grove for atrocities committed on the supernatural for the last six centuries. Others say that before the Grove the gods turned to other supernatural creatures in an attempt to control magic,” Oggie said, scratching at his beard. “Some claim the Legionaries were the gods’ original attempt to regulate the supernatural. When the shifters refused to bow to the gods’ demands, they turned these Roman soldiers and armed them with the knowledge to kill.”

“Turned them into what?” Ember asked, sounding breathless.

He shrugged. “Some say demons, some say they were given the bite and then unleashed on their own kind. I don’t know, really. It was a story. Something shifters told their kids to teach them the importance of never letting their guard down against the Grove. Nobody’s ever actually seen them. Truthfully, most of us didn’t believe they existed.”

“But Oggie, it’s just a drawing,” Kai reminded the man, tapping the paper. “Somebody could be trying to scare shifters. Probably the Grove.”

Oggie looked to Isa. “Not according to the kid they left alive.”

Isa’s frown deepened. “Kid?”

Oggie nodded. “Seven, maybe eight years old. Watched his whole pack get slaughtered by a group all wearing that tattoo. He said they were huge, like giants. That they looked human but were strong like shifters. They had red eyes and fangs. He said they let him live so he could give you a message.”

“What? Us? What message?” Wren asked.

He ran a hand along the back of his neck. “They said, ‘Tell the Belladonna pack, they’re next.’”

They all looked at each other in confusion. It was Ember who asked, “Why them? Why some random pack we don’t even know?”

He snatched the whiskey bottle and poured more into his glass. “There was a girl. A non-shifter who’d been staying with the pack the last week, a girl named Evangeline. They were looking for her. They seemed to think she had some ties to you.”

Isa shook her head. “I don’t know anybody named Evangeline. Where is she now?”

“The boy said somebody came for her two days before the attack. Said she wasn’t safe and moved her.”

Kai’s heart tripped. “Moved her where?”

Oggie looked at Isa. “According to that boy? Here.”

“That’s insane,” Isa said. “Why would we be hiding a human girl?”

Oggie rubbed his hands across his face, a gesture Kai had seen Wren mimic a million times. “There’s a lot of talk out there about your pack right now. Rumors that you’re attempting to build an army.” He pointed at Ember. “Her army.”

Ember’s mouth fell open. “My army?”

Isa seemed just as shocked. “Why would they think that?”

“Lupercalia,” Oggie said.

Kai frowned. What would anybody care about Lupercalia? It was celebrated by packs every year.

“What about it?” Wren asked, looking as perplexed as Isa.

“You’re inviting the best warriors of the surrounding packs to your home to fight.”

“We’re inviting our friends from the surrounding packs to eat with us because it’s a wolf holiday. The fighting happens every year. It’s tradition,” Isa said.

Kai had no idea what was going on. He didn’t know much about this Lupercalia celebration, but it was the first time Isa had agreed to not only participate, but also to host the festivities. “I thought Lupercalia was celebrated by all shifters, not just wolves?”

“It is. Now,” Isa said, annoyed. “This has the Grove written all over it. They’re just trying to start shit.”

Oggie’s mouth turned down. “Well, it’s working. You’ve never participated in Lupercalia before. Now, you’re not only participating in it, you’re playing hostess. It looks suspicious.”

“Only to people who don’t know me,” Isa said. “I have my reasons.”

Oggie blinked at Isa. “That’s what they’re afraid of.”

“This is ridiculous. I was just trying to…I don’t know…connect. I was hoping—” She cut herself off abruptly, looking at Wren.

“Hoping for what?” Wren asked, tension soaking his tone.

“Don’t be mad,” Isa told Wren, stepping out of his embrace before she turned to him, holding her hands in front of her, “but I invited your father.”

Wren’s face collapsed. “You what?”

“It’s been long enough, Wren. We need your pack. We need more allies, especially if we dissolve our association with the Clearweather pack.” Kai’s heart rate shot through the roof. “The Clearweather pack’s territories dominate the Southern States, and they’ve just acquired several territories on the West Coast, too. We’re losing a huge ally. Besides, now that your sisters are married and your mom’s sick…don’t you think it’s time?”

There was a stinging on Kai’s left arm, and he realized Ember was gripping his forearm tight enough for her nails to bite into his skin. Her attention was on Wren and Isa, but he could feel her fear. She hated when they argued. She was like a seven-year-old worried her parents were on the brink of divorce. Kai patted her hand.

Wren didn’t look angry, but stunned. “How could you do this without asking me?”

“I was going to tell you if they agreed. I didn’t want to get your hopes up if they refused.”

“You thought I would want to see them? After what they did?” Wren swallowed hard. “I’m assuming that my family refused since you didn’t mention it.” Isa nodded, and Wren’s throat bobbed convulsively. Kai didn’t have to be a wolf to pick up on his distress. “And Neoma? What did you think was going to happen when Neoma saw my father?”

“It was Neoma’s idea,” she informed him.

“No way,” Wren said. “She’d never agree to that.”

“Don’t you think she feels terrible about what happened between you and your family because of her?” Isa ran her hands through his sandy blonde hair, her voice soft. “She did agree. She will always put the pack before herself. And she’ll always put you first, just like you do for her. You know that. Besides, she feels like she needs to fix it.”

They never really talked about what happened between Wren’s pack and Neoma; Isa always said it was Neoma’s decision whether she wanted to share that story.

Wren fell silent, but Oggie wasn’t done. “Isa, girl, bow out now. It’s still weeks away. Cancel it. There is too much happening here to invite a bunch of shifters into this town.”

“I can’t do that, Oggie. I won’t do that. My pack is too small to stand against the Grove.”

“So they’re right. You are looking to build an army.”

She scoffed. “Not an army, a network. Do you have any idea what we’re trying to do here? What we’re trying to protect?”

“That’s the problem, kid. Everybody knows it, and now they’re coming after you because of it.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not backing down.”

“I didn’t think you would, but I gotta say I’m disappointed. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Isa looked resigned. “Of course I do.”

“Good because you’re betting the entire pack’s life on it.”