I bit my lip. “Well, I’m happy you’re both still in one piece.”
“Don’t worry, my important bits weren’t affected, in case you were wondering. If they had been, it would’ve been quite a different story.” Danny grinned. “Where are you off to, then?” He bobbed his head toward our new ride. “It’s not safe to linger here any longer. We’ll meet up with you soon, but you should get out of town immediately.” Danny was in charge of Pack security for a reason. He was always on alert and he was good at his job.
“We found out Marcy is safe for now. Rourke thinks we should head to the Ozarks,” I answered. “He’s got supplies there and knows the mountains. The sorcerers need a network, and they won’t have one outside the city limits. You two can meet us there in a few weeks, once things cool down.” I directed my next question at Tyler and tried not to sound too hopeful. “Did you get ahold of Dad?”
“Yes, but it was disjointed,” he replied. I sat up straighter. That was good news. “He was too far away to get a clear signal—I think he said they were still somewhere in the Everglades. They’re tracking the fracture group, and Redman and the rest of the Southern wolves are with him.” Redman Martin was the Alpha of the U.S. Southern Territories, and my father was not a fan. It was unprecedented that he had gone down there to try and work as a team to eradicate the fracture pack. “He was glad to hear we were all safe and was a little frustrated he couldn’t get through to you on his own.”
I shook my head. I internally blocked my father’s natural communication as Alpha, but I had no idea how I was doing it. Or how to fix it. “Did he say anything about James?” My father thought his second had gone rogue. “Did you tell him we figured out he went after Marcy?”
Tyler cleared his throat. “I did, but it didn’t make him happy. I told him we’d fill him in when we knew more.”
Going rogue meant a wolf willfully defied his Alpha’s command. It wasn’t a small thing. No matter James’s reasons, my father could choose not to forgive him, which meant James would be exiled from Pack. And if James didn’t assimilate into a new Pack quickly, he’d have a bounty on his head.
Rourke put his hand on mine and I turned to him. He and James had fought together long ago, and I knew they had a grudging respect for each other. “If James went after your secretary, and left his Pack willingly in a time of war, that can mean only one thing,” he said, his voice firm. “Irish found his mate.”
The same thought had crossed my mind the moment we’d found out he’d gone after Marcy, but there hadn’t been any time to put the pieces together in a way that made sense. “If they were mated, it would certainly explain a lot.” I thought about it for a moment. “And it would definitely explain his reaction to her at the Pack meeting. He pretty much carried her out of the room when she’d tried to bring me water. I think that was the first time they’d ever met face-to-face.” I shook my head in wonderment. “That’s big news. I don’t know much about bonding, but finding your mate outside your Sect is rare, correct?” I looked to Danny, who was older than Tyler and I. He was also English. Maybe Europeans had a bunch of interspecies relationships we knew nothing about?
“I’ve never heard of it before,” Danny answered. “But the two of you are quite an unlikely pairing as well, even though you’re both shifters. Something must be tainting the well we’ve been drinking from, eh? Or a major tide is shifting for supernaturals everywhere, but either way it’s unprecedented as far as I know.”
Cats and dogs were definitely not the norm. Shifters mated with human women, since there were no females born. It had always been that way. If a Sect had males and females, they found their mates among their own kind. A pairing of two supernaturals of different gene pools had the potential to be explosive, their offspring being a rare mix of powers. Danny was right. It felt like a tectonic shift was happening in the supernatural world—and the only one who had any answers was fate. “But the two of them together is good,” I said, nodding once as I made up my mind. “It means Marcy will remain safe. James will protect her ferociously. My father will have to find a way to understand, and if he doesn’t, we’ll have to make him understand.”
Tyler turned away from the window as he glanced down the street. “Something smells different all of a sudden.” He had an uncanny knack for scenting, so it meant it was farther away than the rest of us could detect. Tyler was talented enough to smell an aura, picking up on the subtle layers of someone’s personal magic. Smells still overwhelmed me. Parceling them away took skill and practice, and I hadn’t had enough time to figure it out since I’d made my first change.
Danny’s head went up, too, but he shook his head. “I don’t smell anything, mate.”
“Time to go.” Rourke revved the engine, his eyes scanning the road behind us.
“One last thing before we leave,” I said through the glass. “You guys need to pick up Nick. He’s still at the Coven with the witches and the baby oracle. It’s a long story, but it’s how we found out Marcy was okay. We had to leave him there, but the sorcerers have likely bailed now that I’ve left, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. But if you don’t hear from me before then, meet us in the Ozarks in two weeks.”
Tyler’s mouth opened and closed. “You lost me at ‘baby oracle.’”
“Too much to go into, but he’s in the huge stone mansion on the northern peninsula of Lake of the Isles. You will know which one once you arrive. My scent will be all over the yard.” Rourke put the car in gear. It was time to move. “Oh, and you might want to think about finding some pants before you head over. If the witches get a gander at the two of you in your Calvin’s, they may never let you leave.” I grinned.
“That’s hilarious, Jess.” He bent over the window. His face changed to pensive in the next beat and his emotions ran through me, a mixture of worry and love. “Just make sure you stay safe. That’s the only thing that matters. Stay alive. And, cat, make sure she doesn’t hurt herself. We’ll see you in a few weeks.”
Rourke responded, “That’s my prime objective.”
A few blocks up a grumbling noise shook the street.