Our pack had three females. Sora, who was mated to Lance. Katie, who was a baby.
And Lake.
“Usually isn’t too bad, unless there are a bunch of men and only one female,” Mitch continued.
But of course, in our world, that was the way it always was. Most Weres took human mates. Whoever ended up with Lake wouldn’t have to worry that she’d die in childbirth. If she married a werewolf, her children would be pure-blooded Weres.
“She’s fifteen,” I said.
Mitch nodded. “That she is.” He didn’t say anything else, and I felt an overwhelming urge to change the subject and an abject inability to do so. After a long, torturous silence, Mitch patted my shoulder again and then shoved me back toward the restaurant.
“It’s almost dark, and if I know Ali, she’ll be worrying.”
Just like Mitch would, waiting for Lake to come back.
“Go on,” he said gently. “Git.”
With one last glance at the forest and Lake’s shredded clothes, I did as I was bid, and got.
When I got home, Ali didn’t harass me about what I’d been doing all day, because I preempted any questions on her part by throwing some of my own at her.
“Did you know Callum sees the future?”
Ali opened her mouth and then closed it again. “Mitch?” she said finally, her mouth settling into a tense, straight line that told me she’d be giving him a piece of her mind in the near future.
“Peripheral from another pack,” I said, figuring that I’d save Mitch a confrontation or two.
Ali nodded and after a few seconds of silence, she spoke, “I’ve always known. Callum told me the day I decided to join the pack.”
“Before or after you decided to join?” I asked.
Ali didn’t answer me, and I read the meaning in that. Callum had put his cards on the table and told Ali he saw the future before she’d chosen to become a part of his pack. The only reason he would have done that was if something he’d seen played a pivotal role in causing her to stay.
“What did he see?” I asked her.
Ali shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I changed it. It didn’t happen.”
“Ali?”
But she wouldn’t budge, and I filed the exchange away as a mystery for another time. Right now, I had other questions. “Did everybody but me know?” I asked, trying not to sound as put out as I felt. Ali had earned herself a few buys. I’d given her enough venom she didn’t deserve over the past few months to forgive her for keeping this a secret.
The rest of the pack, however, was another story.
“Most of the oldest wolves know,” Ali said. “None of the wives do. Devon doesn’t.”
She knew me well enough to know that Dev was the one who mattered the most.
“I take it Lake knows now?” Ali continued.
“Maybe.”
Had Lake even heard that part of Tom’s confession? The moment he’d mentioned that foreign alphas would be passing through the Wayfarer, she’d gone quiet and pale.
“The Senate is meeting,” I said.
“Senate,” Ali scoffed, purely out of reflex. “There’s nothing democratic about werewolves. Nothing.”
She was right. This meeting would be like throwing a bunch of champion gladiators into a ring and telling them to talk out their differences over tea. A democracy sounded good in theory, but every time the Senate met, it threatened to be the last.
All it would take is one alpha to decide that he was above it. Below it. Whatever. One dominant wolf curious to see if he could force his will on one of the others, absorb that territory into his own. Grow his pack’s numbers and power by taking someone else’s.
By force.
“Lake’s gone,” I said, thinking of those same men and the way the thought of them had sent her running—not because she was running away, but for the same reasons I’d forced myself to race her to the dock. To prove I was faster. Stronger. Tougher than anyone thought I was.
Even me.
“Gone?” Ali was startled. “Gone where? Does Mitch know?”
I nodded. “She Shifted and took off for the mountains.” It was easy to picture Lake running. She was a honey-blonde wolf, a color you never would have seen in nature, and she was fierce. If I’d wanted to, I probably could have reached for her through my pack-bond, but I knew when to leave well enough alone.
When Lake was ready to talk about it, she’d come back.
“The Senate,” Ali said, and this time, her voice was tighter. Less sarcastic, more pained. “Some of them will have to pass through here to get to Callum. I take it Callum is the one who called them?”
Callum was more or less the only one who ever called the Senate. The others were content to live as kings in their own territories. He was the one who’d declared them a council. This whole democracy thing was his idea. Given what I knew now about his so-called knack, I had to wonder if there was a reason for that move.
Callum never did anything without a reason.
“Lake doesn’t want to see anyone who passes through,” I said, refusing to think about Callum any more than I had to. “Mitch says male werewolves can get weird around females.”
Ali’s silence wasn’t a surprised one. She’d known, then. I probably should have figured it out when Lake’s visits to Ark Valley had become fewer and further apart, the older we got.
“Nobody will touch Lake without Callum’s say-so,” Ali said. “Not unless they’ve lost their minds.”
Considering that Lake and I were currently tracking a Rabid, that was less than comforting. Disturbing, too, was the idea that some of the other alphas might be unstable enough to fall under the same classification, at least where female werewolves were concerned.
“Callum wouldn’t let anyone hurt her,” I said.
Ali tried to hide her incredulous look, but I saw it anyway, the way her mouth twisted to the side and her eyes widened, reminding me that he’d done more than let Sora hurt me.
He’d told her to do it.
“Callum’s more of a big-picture person, Bryn.” Ali’s voice was soft, and I got that she was trying to be gentle with me, trying to make me understand the situation in a way that would hurt me less, even though she had no desire to understand it herself. “Sometimes, for the future he wants, the details have to give.”
The details. Like me.
“I’m going to go,” I said. “To my room. It’s been a long day.”