Chapter Eight

CAM HAD NOT adequately prepared for, nor had he anticipated the dangers in his impromptu exodus from the Ancestral Lands. Travelling Highway 16, also known as the Yellowhead, at dusk created a perilous adventure.

Jumping the shadows and weaving through the in-between only applied when the distance between hops stayed within the realm of visually available landmarks. In other words, Cam had to see where the intended destination lay in order to advance his journey. As the sky tinted to purple, the shadows became more frequent, and it grew less easy to discern one location from another. Although, there were more locations to choose from as the day receded and lost out to the night.

Halfway through his journey, he emerged from the dusk right beside a deer. Stumbling across crepuscular creatures shouldn’t have been surprising, but both Cam and the leggy beast jolted in surprise. The doe, terror registering in its wide brown eyes, bounded off, gliding across the field at breakneck speeds. Cam clutched his chest, bent over on the spot where he’d been assaulted, and waited for his heart rate to return to a normal pulse.

The increased number of semi-trucks rumbling down the highway during the waning daylight hours also meant crossing the road carried a different sort of risk. Squashed by a B-Train wasn’t high on his list of things to do either, so Cam kept to one side of the highway.

A couple of hours short of midnight, Cam emerged for the last time, melting out from the inky black behind the heritage burr oak planted in front of Uncle Bart’s house. Regardless of who owned the house, Cam needed to see Dev and use his friend’s God-granted tracking skills to hunt down Everton’s werewolf den. Cam had to get into the second-floor apartment, where he and Ev had spent a night after being rescued from Radcliff’s dungeon.

Cam knocked on their door.

And waited.

“Hmph.” He walked out into the yard and studied the dark house. There wasn’t a single light on. “Well, shit.” It had never dawned on Cam the guys wouldn’t be home. “I wonder…”

Fae are nimble creatures. Agile and crafty to boot. Cam discovered sliding his fingers into the roughness of the house’s stucco allowed him to scale the side and check a few windows. As luck would have it, the bedroom window had been left open.

After slicing the bug screen covering with his sharp nails, Cam squeezed in through the tear. The ancient house showed signs of age and the window frame’s wood crumbled and splintered during Cam’s entrance. Cam pulled a fair-sized wooden spike out of his thigh and grimaced while he did so. He imagined the lecture he would get from Dev for destroying the mesh barrier and wood casing, but waiting in the yard all night for Dev or Tully to come home wasn’t an option either. After all, keeping up a human guise and waiting on Dev’s front stoop would have been impossibly boring. His journey had left him drained and fae magic did require a marginal amount of gas in the tank. After his trek, all his energy had bottomed out. At least here in Dev’s house Cam’s glamour didn’t need to be held. Relaxing, a shimmer of air rippled over his body as his horned, winged, and swishing tail body returned.

Cam sighed. The mental exhaustion from maintaining the fae magic had taken more out of him than he cared to admit. But his first stop before finding somewhere to curl up and patiently wait for the boys was the refrigerator. His stomach twisted and cried out for attention at the mere thought of a juicy slab of flesh.

And thankfully, someone had taken out meat and thawed it. Two good-sized steaks had been left on a plate in the fridge where the freezer ice had melted, leaving a viscous juicy puddle of pink beef juice.

Teeth elongated and sharpened in Cam’s mouth. His eyes narrowed as his jaw extended. Lifting each chunk of flesh up and over his waiting maw, he gorged himself, savouring the salty taste and sinewy texture. He licked the plate clean of any indication of its previous contents, then set it back in the fridge. After all, leaving a dirty plate on the counter would be rude.

Cam’s belly protruded with a food baby bump. He rubbed his midsection as he forced up steak-flavoured burps.

He sat on the couch for a bit. His tail kept getting in the way and the cushions had been made of some fabric his furry wings stuck to. Cam pried his wings away—like pulling apart Velcro tabs—twice before giving up on the piece of furniture. Instead, he paced the hallway looking at the various photos hanging there in a decorative pattern. Some were art; others were mass-produced prints. An odd one here and there was a framed snap of Dev and his redheaded Tully.

“This is boring as shit.”

Cam found his way into the extra room the boys used as an office. Poking around, he picked up a stack of papers that included investment statements, a couple of bills, and some junk mail.

Directly under the monitor, a small stack of business cards lay in a rectangular plastic holder meant for them. A stylized picture of Dev had been created as part of the business logo on the card. Cam picked one up and scrutinized the cartoon-like doppelganger.

“Community Sociologist. What the fuck does that even mean? Gods, Dev. I leave you for a few short months and you go do something like this? Ugh. You so need an image consultant.” Cam shook his head. His tail switched back and forth, clearly annoyed with Dev’s choices.

Under the job description an address and phone number were listed.

No landline existed in this apartment. The guys relied on their cell phones. The address wasn’t too far away, and in fact, Cam had walked down Whyte Avenue so many times the neighbourhood had been seared into his memory. He recalled the historic brownstones which had seen multiple renos over the course of the building’s lifetime that would match up to the address listed on Dev’s business card.

If that’s where his best friend worked, Cam needed to head over there. Working late on a weekday is exactly the kind of thing he’d expect from his lifetime pal.

Cam would be there in minutes.

It was worth a look. What else was he gonna do? Stick around the apartment and pace the halls?

He stepped over to the window and peered out into the yard. Cam spied the monster heritage oak tree in front of the house. The tree had officially been designated as such, proudly displaying a brass plaque indicating its protected status.

Cam slid the window open, and this time, removed the screen instead of slicing through it. One reprimand on a torn window screen would be sufficient.

Clutching the card closely and thinking about his best friend in the entire world, Cam breathed in deeply, focused on the darkest side of the tree, and like butter set on a burning element, dissolved into the night.

 

EVERTON LILCH GRUMBLED as he turned the kitchen faucet off. He picked up the dish towel in one hand while selecting a plate balancing on the top of a mountain of now clean dishes, containers, bowls, and assorted other kitchen weapons.

Franco sat at the raised countertop bar, directly across from Ev, as he shovelled in the last of the leftovers in the fridge.

“Glad you’re home.” Franco’s mangled words fell out as gravy slopped from his fork onto his monstrous beard.

Everton grimaced at the sight.

“You know, for a house full of grown-ass men, I would have expected the pack den to be kept up to a reasonable adultlike living standard. This place looks like a Gods-damned frat house.” Ev squinted at his second in command.

Franco was a good guy—a beast of a man, almost as big as Ev, but then, all werewolves, male or female, were massive.

Franco peered at Ev with a glint of “I told you so” in his light-brown eyes. He refocused his attention to his meal and continued to shovel the slop from the bowl into his face.

“Seriously, Franco, this place is a dump. What the hell?”

“The guys don’t listen to me like they listen to you. I mean, you are the alpha. Yeah? Orders come from you. Best I can do is tell them Daddy’s gonna be mad when he gets home. And here you are, at home, and mad. So I didn’t lie.”

“Yes, but as my second, you’re not commanding respect or keeping them in line. I need you to hold this all together for me when I’m not here.”

Franco shrugged. “Then be here. I don’t want to complain or bitch but this isn’t my job—this honour belongs to you. I kept this lot together for a whole year. We even had a plan to bust you out of the witches’ dungeon. We were close to executing it, too, and then bam, you show up. And then poof, you’re gone again.”

A counterpoint to that train of logic didn’t exist. Yelling at Franco for speaking his mind would be detrimental to their relationship. Besides, the man had summarized the situation rather neatly, and Franco’s observations left Ev second-guessing his abilities as the alpha.

At least the house still stood, though its cleanliness remained questionable as Ev studied the main floor. With five men, each the size of a Mack truck, living in the renovated two-story, the domicile lacked enough open space to be comfortable. Once a month, though, the residence emptied, giving the walls a break, a chance to breathe, and an escape from the infected bloodline curse the inhabitants all endured.

The house, located right along Edmonton’s River Valley, allowed the men to run free and stay relatively out of sight from the city’s inhabitants during those full moon periods. The pack had a quick escape to a large tract of wooded valley. Any hunting within city limits was strictly forbidden, and kills were only allowed outside the boundary of the city.

Everton never questioned what got killed, only where the werewolf carnage took place. The last thing they needed were the city cops banging down their door on the regular, or worse, the Magistrates.

The Darkmoon Prairie Walkers had been around almost as long as the Guardians of the Night Grove, their sworn enemies. In fact, Ev couldn’t remember which came first. Not that he’d been around for either group’s inception, but he’d been the alpha of this pack for the last fifty years or so.

“Where is everyone?” Ev gave up, throwing the tea towel on the counter. He leaned against the bank of drawers behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. Muscles along his forearm rippled as he clenched his fists.

“Josip is visiting his ex-wife and the kids—” Franco picked up the bowl and scraped the bottom with his spoon, attempting to get each drop and morsel of stew. “—and Serge is out trying to find Lars.”

“What do you mean ‘trying to find’?” Ev cocked an eyebrow.

“Well, if you’d use the cell phone you have, you’ll have seen the dozen or so texts I sent about a week ago when Lars didn’t come home from the last boundary run.” A regular scamper near the pack’s territory edge was performed on a rotating basis. Like doing house chores. Except the run allowed them to shift, and any werewolf loved a good run.

Ev dropped his head forward in disbelief, dug his phone out of his back pocket, and stared at a black screen.

“You probably have to turn it on.” Franco growled as he pushed the empty bowl aside. Ev glanced up briefly from his phone to eyeball Franco. The pout on his bearded face indicated his disdain, but Ev was unsure if the frown had been meant for him and his clueless abilities with technology, or for a now-empty food dish.

Ev held the side button and turned the device on. After a quiet couple of minutes, Franco stood up, walked around the kitchen island, and stood beside his alpha. He grabbed the phone and punched a few buttons. Everton gaped in awe at the rapid movements of Franco’s fingers.

“There. I set up your notifications which you had turned off.”

“Maybe because I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“That’s nice when you’re on vacation, but when you’re the leader of a pack of misfit wolfen beasts who are generally self-destructive, make bad decisions, and run hot and angry most of the day, you might want to stay in communication with me so I can update you on everything going on.”

“Hey! Not fair. I came back to the city because you called and told me there was an emergency.”

“I had been calling you for two weeks! And yes, there had been an emergency. We still have an emergency and now a missing wolf.”

“Okay, well, Lars has been known to get his ass thrown in jail for bar fights. Has anyone bothered to check them out first?”

“Of course I did. I also called the hospitals and a handful of funeral homes. Nothing. He’s flat out missing. But that’s not the worst of it.”

“Do tell, what other scenario would prove to be worse than Lars missing?”

“There’s another alpha in town. And he’s been down in our River Valley in front of the house. His scent is all over the place.”

“You sure it’s an alpha? Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a drifter wolf come through town.”

“Oh, quite sure. It’s the same heady scent you give off that gives us all an erection whether we want one or not. And I’ve snuffled out the pheromones down by the riverbanks right outside our front door. Whoever the culprit is, he’s been watching us.”

“No shit.”

Ev grit his teeth over this catastrophic information. A drifter wolf passing through town, no problem. Hell, even another pack moving close by was fine, so long as they kept their distance. Edmonton’s city limits stretched far enough in all directions to handle two clans of werewolves. But shapeshifters weren’t exactly common. You can’t breed a wolf. Only make them, and most don’t survive the bite because a werewolf who is lashing out and biting is seeing nothing but red. And in the confusion, anger, and bloodlust, there isn’t enough common sense running through the wolf’s brain to say, “Whoa buddy, just a nip is all you need.” Nope, it’s rip them to shreds.

But an alpha wolf who’s encroaching on pack territory and spying out Ev’s pack house? That’s problematic. Another alpha infringing this close usually meant there’d be a challenge for dominion close at hand.

“I’m too old for this shit.” Ev shook his head.

“That’s why I call—”

The door exploded open as Serge came loping in. Still wolfen—sort of. Tufts of fur had sprouted out in patches, limbs were gangly, stretched, and half human. Serge’s face was misshaped, giving him a goofy comical look rather than the terrifying maw of a predator. His haunches backpedalled as he tried to catch himself on the hardwood floor. The beast panted and slobbered everywhere, vainly attempting to get a foothold on the slippery floors.

“For fuck’s sake, Serge, pull it together. You’re ruining the fucking floors! You will fix every scratch you make.” Everton’s hackles went up despite only having a short-cropped fringe of hair around his lower scalp. His shiny dome had been a source of amusement for the rest of the pack. Some werewolf. Bald.

Everton glared at Franco. “What the fuck is this?”

“Serge has figured out a half-assed way to morph directly before the full moon.”

“What in hell’s name?”

“This is yet another reason we need you here. New wolves need guidance. Otherwise, they figure shit out on their own.”

“This is not good.” Ev slapped his mitt of a paw over his face, struggling to comprehend how a shift had gone so wrong.

Everton’s dominant presence needed to be consistent. His heart ached momentarily as memories of Cam and quiet afternoons spent in the Ancestral Lands clearing came to mind. Sun beating down, a light breeze coming off the nearby mountains. Those afternoons had been heaven.

The pack house held nothing but stress and ulcer-inducing emergency situations.

With a few snaps and bone cracks, and a small puddle of drool and blood soaking into the claw marks he’d made in the floorboards, Serge stood naked in the entryway, chest heaving, and a sheen of sweat covering his body. His dirty-blond hair and fur, soaked and matted, stuck to his skin. Smears of mud, grass, and twigs dotted his body.

“What the hell?” Everton crossed his arms for the second time in minutes.

“I found Lars at Emily Murphy Park. He’s dead. The Night Grove witches did it! I saw them there, hovering over his body. You should see what those bastards did.”