She didn’t flinch, and I got the feeling that Caroline would have gladly gotten in bed with the devil himself if it meant taking Shay down a notch.
Hurting him, the way he’d hurt us.
“So that’s it, then,” Caroline said. “I’m one of you.”
I got a vague and fuzzy sense of her thoughts on the other side of the pack-bond—not nearly as clear as they would have been if she was a Were. I heard enough to know that this was not a place she’d ever expected to be.
Welcome to the club.
She startled at the sound of my voice in her head, and I figured it wouldn’t be long before she learned to shut me out, the way Ali did, the way I’d shut Callum out, growing up.
Let’s do this.
Even with the addition of Caroline, four was a small number to represent our pack, but Devon was my second-in-command, and at the moment, he was bleeding power, anger, pain.
Our eyes met, and his took on the sheen of tears. He crossed the space between us and opened his arms. I’d been intent on staying strong, on keeping my emotions in check, but seeing Devon undid something inside of me. He’d been there when Callum brought me home to the Stone River Pack. He’d been the reason it had started to feel like home—and he’d been with me every step of the way since then.
It was killing him that this time, he hadn’t been there, that I’d been gutted, and he wasn’t there to stop it.
Without thought or hesitation, I launched myself into Devon’s grasp. I buried my face in his shirt—purple silk that smelled like him, felt like him. I didn’t cry, but my body shook like I was sobbing.
Devon murmured to me, held me, hurt for me. Through the bond, I could feel his emotions, and I felt him feeling mine. We only stayed that way for three seconds, maybe four, before I stepped back, sending a death glare around the group, daring them to comment.
No one said a word.
I went over the plan—again and again. It was simple, but we couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong.
We were going to do this by the rules.
Eventually, Griff joined us. He didn’t ask what had happened or what had brought us to Snake Bend territory. Maybe he’d been watching. Maybe he’d tried to see Maddy again and had realized she was with Shay.
Maybe he saw all he needed to see in Lake’s eyes.
“We have a plan?” he asked.
Two werewolves, two humans, and a ghost up against the third-largest werewolf pack in North America?
“Yeah,” I said. “We have a plan.” I outlined the details, the rules. “Think you can handle damage control?”
I hadn’t counted on Griffin’s presence, but having an ally who was impervious to the fangs and claws of our opponents wouldn’t hurt—though if things went according to plan, there wouldn’t be much of a fight.
“We’re really doing this,” Lake said. It wasn’t a question, or a complaint. She punctuated that fact with a low whistle. “This is big.”
She was right.
This wasn’t defense.
This wasn’t waiting for Shay’s next move.
This was war.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
DEVON AND LAKE SMELLED THE SNAKE BEND PACK coming long before I felt their presence registered to the part of my brain that was alpha.
Foreign. Wolves.
Foreign. Pack.
Devon, Lake, Caroline, and I spread out in a line. Behind us, Griffin faded from view: invisible, but present. Our secret weapon.
Shay came around the bend first. I saw surprise in his eyes, then delight. Apparently, he thought I’d done something stupid.
He hadn’t seen stupid yet.
“You,” he said, stepping over the border and relishing the words, “are trespassing.”
“No,” I said, my voice an exact echo of his. “You are.”
It took a moment for my words to sink in.
“Take a deep breath, Shay.” I gestured around. “Does this smell like Snake Bend territory? Does it feel like it’s yours?”
I hadn’t been able to ship my pack off to Callum’s for safety because territory was only territory as long as it was occupied and protected.
“What I don’t understand,” I said, “is why you took your whole pack after Maddy.” I pretended to mull it over. “You must have made deals with the other alphas—the ones whose territories border yours. You wouldn’t have just left your land completely unprotected unless you were sure no one else would come after it.”
I shrugged and smiled. “Whoops.”
Shay had never seen me as a threat. He’d never even considered the possibility that I might strike back.
“You think that four children can stand against my entire pack?” Shay’s lip curled upward in disgust. “You think I’ll let you take what’s mine?”
I smiled. “I don’t think you have a choice.”
Shay had left his territory. His pack had left their territory. He’d gone after Maddy with everything he had, stacked the deck in his favor in the event of a confrontation with my little ragtag group.
He’d done it to intimidate me.
To remind me that he had the power.
That I was nothing.
Well, look who was nothing now.
“While we were waiting for you, the four of us went for a little run in the woods,” I said, my voice downright chipper. “And our peripherals? The ones you’ve been more or less stalking from your side of the border for the past year?” I turned to Devon. “Remind me where they are again?”
“Well,” Devon said, tapping his chin thoughtfully, “I believe that Phoebe is in Minnesota, and Sage is running the border in Iowa, and Jackson was just telling me that he’d always wanted to see Missouri….”
The plan had never been just to take North Dakota from Shay.
I wanted it all.
The man I’d taken it from stepped toward me, every muscle tense, violence and rage battling for supremacy in his eyes.
“Nuh-uh-uh,” Devon told him. “Our alpha’s really been very understanding about the issue of trespassing, but I’d suggest you stay where you are.”
Shay’s pack had been quiet up until now, but I could hear the murmurs starting—growls and grunts and human words, hushed to whispers.
They were the third-biggest pack in North America, and now they had nowhere to go.
“Seven people cannot claim a territory.” Shay spoke through clenched teeth, and his jaw trembled. He was fighting the urge to Shift.
If I kept pushing him, Senate or no Senate, Callum or no Callum, rules or no rules, he was going to kill me.