“Those six you just showed us,” said Warren.
“Yes,” Adam agreed.
“I’ve also heard of Gartman,” said Darryl, his voice so deep that if Gartman had been in the room, he’d better have hoped he could run faster than our second. “Harolford and the others, they are in trouble and they have to find somewhere out of Gartman’s reach. Our pack, not affiliated with the Marrok, might look like a good place to make a stand—if they can take us.”
“They hunted on our territory until you noticed,” Honey said. “To see how alert we are.”
“No telling how long they’ve been in the Tri-Cities,” Elliot said.
I cleared my throat. “The goblins keep a pretty thorough watch. Unless they have someone with Adam’s skills, if they had been here long, we’d have known about it.”
We paid the goblins to keep watch for us—as did the vampires. There just weren’t enough werewolves to cover the whole of the Tri-Cities and the surrounding areas. I didn’t have any idea how many goblins there were. But if a supernaturally gifted being stepped foot on our territory, mostly we knew about it within a few hours.
“Maybe they paid off the goblins,” said Auriele.
I was about to disagree when Adam said, “Or maybe they are owed a favor—the goblins wouldn’t betray us for money. But all of the fae have to abide by the bargains they make. These wolves have done a couple of things that make me think they’ve been watching us awhile—or that maybe they have a way to get information on us that doesn’t involve them being here.”
“Renny?” asked Mary Jo.
Adam nodded. “That’s one. How would they know about Renny without being here?”
Jesse stood up.
Adam nodded at her.
“Facebook,” she said. “Mary Jo posted a photo of their last date together.” She sat down triumphantly.
Mary Jo slumped lower in her seat, but she nodded when she did.
“Facebook,” said Adam, sounding blindsided.
Darryl stood up. “It would be a good idea for the pack members who are out to avoid having a social media presence.”
“Make it so,” Adam said as Darryl sat down. “Too many people know who you are—and that makes your friends and families targets.”
“To those who want to take the pack from us,” said Darryl heavily, his dark eyes flecked with gold.
Adam smiled—and for the first time in weeks it was a happy smile. Though nothing could erase the exhaustion on his face, that expression lit his face and sweetened the beautiful features.
“Yes,” he agreed.
5
“IS THERE A REASON WE’RE HAPPY ABOUT THIS, BOSS?” asked Warren warily.
I happened to be watching Sherwood and saw him grin in sudden comprehension. He knew what Adam was doing.
Adam nodded in answer to Warren’s question. “I think so. I’m going to conscript them, if I can. We need more bodies. They need a place to be safe. It might take some negotiation.”
Auriele looked at Adam, and there was just a hint of a sneer on her mouth when she said, “Try to take them before they take the pack from you?”
Beside her, Darryl stiffened.
The smile melted from Adam’s face and his eyes grew cold. “Make no mistake, Auriele. They cannot take this pack from me.” He stared at her a moment, until she dropped her eyes. It was not voluntary, that averting of Auriele’s eyes. I could see it in the stiffness of her shoulders.
“What the hell, ’Riele?” said Darryl in a voice that I don’t think he intended to carry.
She shot him a venomous look.
“Auriele,” said Adam in a soft, dangerous voice. “Do you want to challenge me for the pack?”
She shot to her feet. “Darryl—”
“Darryl is welcome to make his own decisions,” Adam told her, without looking at Darryl, who was shaking his head vehemently.
“No,” said Darryl. “Absolutely not.” Obviously he didn’t want Adam—or maybe Auriele, who was also not looking at her mate—to be under any misapprehension of his intentions.
“Auriele,” said Adam. “Go to my office and wait for me there.”
I was pretty unhappy with Auriele at that point. But that didn’t stop the hackles rising on the back of my neck at his tone of voice. Auriele was a strong member of the pack, and I didn’t like her being talked to like she was a misbehaving twelve-year-old. It brought up shadows in my memory of just such pronouncements from the Marrok.
But I was not a werewolf, and not caught up in the need for pack and order that the werewolves were. I knew that the argument she wanted was something that Adam could not tolerate here with the whole pack in attendance. If he didn’t stop her right now, she might force him to do something that he didn’t want to do.
The wolves were all of them dangerous—to other members of the pack, to the community, and to themselves. A wolf without boundaries killed people that their human halves would not want killed. Auriele knew how far she could push the rules of the pack—and she was pushing beyond them. That wasn’t safe for her or the people around her.
Still, it struck me that Auriele and Adam were both acting a little out of character. I looked around the room and felt the tension in the air—but there had been something hovering in the meeting room since I’d first come in—before the Renny incident even. And I wondered, if Adam was locking down the bond between the two of us because he didn’t want to damage/ pollute/ scare me (or whatever excuse he was using), what had been happening with the pack bonds? He couldn’t shut those down—so what was he doing? And how was it affecting the pack?
Auriele hesitated for a heartbeat, then wrapped herself in righteous fury that I was not wholly unsympathetic with given Adam’s tone of voice, before she headed out the door. I wondered how much of her over-the-top behavior had been pushed on her by the pack bonds she shared with Adam. I’d had a few members of the pack make me act stupidly before. They had been doing it on purpose—but I knew that it could happen. For that matter, I wondered if Adam’s patronizing tone came from the same source that had made him act weird yesterday.
Adam watched her leave, then looked at Darryl.
“I would like to bring you into that conversation, too,” he told Darryl.
“My mate is passionate in defense of those she loves,” Darryl growled defensively.
Yes, but she wasn’t stupid, I thought, sitting back. Yesterday and today she had been acting entirely out of character. Something else besides Christy was going on. Something maybe like Adam’s struggles and the pack bonds.
“Her loyalty is one of her best qualities,” Adam told Darryl sincerely—though he was quite aware that the rest of the pack were listening. “And so is her intelligence. So when I’m done here, we are going to sit down with her and figure out what is interfering with her usual good sense. It isn’t that she suddenly decided she needs to take over the pack. If Auriele wanted this pack, I’d figure that out a few months after I’d agreed to take a twenty-year sabbatical in the Yucatán Peninsula and left y’all in her tender and competent care.”
The stress level in the room resolved into a wry wave of amused agreement. Darryl … Darryl kept a game face on. I couldn’t tell if he knew what was bothering Auriele or not. Adam, I thought, would know about what the pack bonds could do better than I did. He’d do his best to keep the pack safe and stable. But for how long?