Nine Souls Read online

  “This is my family, and I take care of my family. You have one week to decide.”

  And he left the ring with Ashley, walking straight for me.

  Alucard was shaking his head. “I’m glad we don’t have to deal with this kind of shit.”

  Roland was staring off at nothing, but the comment jolted him from his thoughts. Vampires had to deal with all sorts of cloak and dagger shit. I’d rather have an open, honest fight any day, and it looked like Roland leaned more towards my way of thinking.

  Gunnar and Ashley had been… merciless. I couldn’t blame them, not after Zeus tarnished their wedding day. Watching them approach, I noticed their wounds had already begun to stitch closed. They were still open and raw, but not as horrifying to look at as they had been. The four lines across his face from Zeus’ parting shot didn’t look too serious, and probably wouldn’t even leave a scar, but I winced inwardly seeing them up close.

  Gunnar halted before me, still in wolf form. The two wolves he had pointed out at the end of his speech trotted over with robes and bottles of water. Very thick, expensive robes. Gunnar and Ashley shifted back to human form, accepted the robes and drinks with murmured thanks, and then sat down, motioning for the two to join them.

  I jerked my chin at the other pack, who were now huddled together in a tight mass. “Shouldn’t you make sure they leave town before you head out for your honeymoon?”

  Gunnar shook his head, smiling faintly. “Firstly, nothing will hold me back from my honeymoon.” Ashley purred her approval in an entirely inhuman sound. “Secondly, the duel is over. Zeus challenged me on my turf. I won. They have the choice to flee back home and establish a new Alpha among themselves, or stay here and submit to my pack.”

  “What about option three?” Paradise asked thoughtfully. Gunnar looked at her and she wilted slightly under his bloody stare. “Where… they wait for you to leave and then attack your pack?” she finished in a hesitant whisper.

  Lost was leaning forward, eager to hear the answer.

  “Well, that might throw a wrench in the honeymoon,” I said out loud.

  Chapter 16

  Ashley smirked. “I doubt four-to-one odds against them sounds very appealing.”

  Gunnar nodded absently, studying the distant pack. “Even with fair odds it wouldn’t come to that. But it will make more sense if we circle back to that question in a moment.” I found myself listening intently as he took on a lecturing tone. “There is one absolute – the Alpha is the law. Period. Every wolf agrees on this. It’s simply in our genes. If a wolf decides to not be part of a pack, he’s essentially choosing to be an Alpha… his own Alpha.” He waited to make sure we were all on the same page before continuing. “If a wolf disagrees strongly enough with the Alpha’s methods – if he’s corrupt, not taking care of the pack, or not keeping them safe – they can challenge him. The winner becomes the new Alpha, and his word is now law.”

  Paradise and Lost nodded slowly. Their eyes were haunted with the memories of their own experience. They had been abducted and turned by werewolf rapists. All because the Kansas City pack had fled when a demon came to town, so there had been no one to stop the sons of bitches. Until Callie and Roland came along, killed them, and freed Paradise and Lost.

  The two fledgling shifters had a lot to learn about how wolves interacted – and a lot of prejudices to overcome, thanks to their past. It was why they had been spending some time with Gunnar’s pack lately, trying to learn from a good example. And how to defend themselves, of course, but they seemed to have a knack for that.

  Paradise spoke up. “What if they had sufficient numbers and chose a new Alpha right now?”

  Gunnar shrugged. “There is a two-week period where they may not attack.”

  The two girls frowned in unison. “Why the hell would anyone agree to that?”

  Ashley leaned forward. “Without this law, an entire pack could challenge Gunnar’s right to rule, one by one, with the real Alpha sitting back and tossing his lower-level wolves at Gunnar until he was too exhausted to continue. Only then would the Alpha step in to finish it. That is why there is a two-week rest between duels.” Her eyes grew distant, but she didn’t continue.

  “That!” I pointed, leaning forward. “What was that look on your face?”

  Gunnar waved a hand. “A third party only has to wait one week to submit a challenge.”

  I frowned. “That seems like a big loophole…”

  Gunnar shook his head. “Not really. Two packs are unlikely to work together. Why would they?” He saw the look on my face and sighed. “Let’s pretend Zeus had an Alpha friend and they wanted to team up to take me out. What’s their purpose?”

  “Kill you, obviously. And take your pack.”

  Gunnar nodded. “Let’s say they succeed. Who gets my pack? You think after two dominant Alphas just invaded me they’re suddenly going to decide to share? Split my pack down the middle? To both be Alphas? Can you imagine the chaos?” he asked, waving a hand at the five hundred wolves around us. “The confusion as this family goes to Zeus, that family goes to the other… No. They would turn on each other within hours just to stop the infighting. The winner would end up trying to take all three packs.” He let that sink in. “So, why bother teaming up in the first place? Much easier to pick off the smaller pack, acclimate, and then challenge the next pack if you think you can handle it. But pretty soon, your pack will be too big to efficiently manage, and will likely split off. Full circle.”

  I found myself nodding, taking it all in. I laced my hands through my hair. “Where did you learn all this? You two don’t have prior experience with packs…”

  Ashley answered. “It kind of just came to me over in Fae. Like an instinct…”

  Ashley had gained something in Fae, for sure. And not just strength. She had been like a general. I had always attributed it to her experience as interim CEO of my old company, Temple Industries – applying her corporate management skills to the pack. Because many corporate bosses studied The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which pretty much applied to the werewolf thing.

  And a lot of other things in life, if you thought about it.

  “But we didn’t really put it all together until after my last trip to Fae. We were trying to figure out some internal matters and got to talking with these two clowns,” Ashley said, smiling at the two wolves who had sat silent during the conversation. “Meet Drake and Cowan,” she said.

  Drake was the scrawny guy with the wild mop of hair. His eyes glinted with mischief as he smiled at us, dipping his chin. “Pleasure.” His eyes might have lingered on Paradise when he said it, but it was hard to be sure. I found myself smiling as if I had found a new drinking buddy.

  Cowan, on the other hand, had a face like a block of stone, as if he took everything seriously at all times. His skin was almost charcoal dark and his eyes were chocolate brown. He was the kind of guy you wanted with you in a dark alley. The way he looked at Gunnar and Ashley, was nothing short of devotion. “Greetings. I’m the balance to his chaos,” he said, jerking a thumb at Drake. He said this without humor, just a statement of fact.

  Drake chuckled and gave us an easy shrug. “Truth. Like peanut butter and jelly.”

  I wasn’t sure if that made any sense, but I think I knew what he meant. They were pals.

  Ashley rolled her eyes at Drake. “They’ve been with us for about a year, slowly working their way up the ranks, but we hadn’t spent much time around them, personally. They said our plans were solid and we got to talking. They were drifters from a pack on the East Coast and decided they didn’t like some of the decisions being made…”

  “What was so disagreeable about the other pack you were in?” Roland asked.

  I had almost forgotten he was present.

  Drake answered. “They came up with some crazy ideas that only seemed to benefit the few at the top.” Cowan grimaced as Drake continued. “They wanted to establish regional and local Alphas that all bowed to one king.”

  I
nodded slowly. “Not unlike Corporate America with its District Managers, General Managers, and Store Managers…”

  Drake nodded with an angry gleam in his eyes, even after all this time. “Sounds great, but it wasn’t. Like Gunnar just explained. If you had a problem with what your local Alpha was doing, and he wouldn’t listen to reason, what did you do? Challenge him?” Drake shook his head with a humorless smile. “No way. Because your local Alpha was good friends with your district Alpha, and you didn’t want to piss him off. And if you went over your local Alpha’s head, the entire chain would come crashing down on you to set an example. And that’s just one aspect.

  “Because we’re talking about territorial killing machines who don’t like submission. But to give him a handful of Alphas to submit to? Each level more important than the previous?” He whistled, shaking his head. “It got out of hand quicker than we ever imagined. No one knew who to turn to, who to trust, and the Alphas just kept getting angrier and angrier. We started seeing the corruption – some of our female wolves called to audiences with the King, and not ever coming back. When we learned that they were being used as leverage to keep our own local Alphas in line, we realized it was too late to stand up. The King was basically taking hostages from all over his kingdom, preventing any of his minions from rising up.”

  Cowan cleared his throat. “It was madness… We got out before it imploded, leaving the entire area in chaos, duels from sunrise to sunset, deaths by the hundreds as the local Alphas tried to claim their independence while the district Alphas fought to keep their territories.”

  Gunnar nodded grimly before turning to Paradise and Lost. “It’s in our blood to be dominant. That’s how wolves are in the wild. As human as we think we are, we share that wildness. Denying it only results in chaos. We live in balance, or we die.”

  Carl and Talon were actually napping, apparently bored to exhaustion with the lecture.

  Gunnar spotted them and grunted. “We have a plane to catch,” he said, smiling at his wife. Ashley grinned eagerly. Gunnar spoke again, this time addressing all of us. “Drake and Cowan will be in charge in our absence. We promoted them last night to our seconds in command. Since Ashley is technically my Mate, we decided it didn’t make sense for her to be the liaison between me and the pack.”

  Drake noticed my frown and held up his hands in innocence. “I argued with him about it but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I know what you’re thinking, though, and you don’t need to worry. I have zero interests in being an Alpha. I didn’t even want to be second in command.” Cowan looked horrified at the idea, shaking his head adamantly.

  “Which is one reason you two will do well,” Ashley said. Then she turned to the rest of us. “Also, they couldn’t challenge us even if they wanted to. They’ve sworn their lives to us. They literally cannot challenge us or do anything to put us in harm’s way. For this oath, they may speak freely to us without fear of consequence. Which will benefit the pack as a whole.”

  Gunnar nodded, settling a stern glare on the two wolves. “Keep my pack safe.”

  Drake and Cowan nodded. “On our lives, Wulfric.”

  I glanced at Tory, who had been strangely silent. She gave me a faint nod. Well, if she approved of these two, and Gunnar and Ashley did, that was about as good as it could get. Not that I had any say in the matter. And they had sworn an oath.

  I let out a deep breath, climbing to my feet. Gunnar had asked me to back off and leave the wolves to him. I needed to do so. Otherwise, my interference could cause him even more problems. Like the one he’d had to resolve today. This Alpha, Zeus, had come to town full of piss and vinegar because he assumed the real power behind Gunnar was me, and that he would have an easy victory. My meddling – although with the best intentions – had cost him something.

  I couldn’t make that mistake again.

  “Let me call the pilot for you two lovebirds,” I said, wrapping an arm around Ashley and Gunnar’s shoulders.

  Drake and Cowan began barking orders to the wolves. I didn’t bother waking Talon and Carl, hoping they would wake up in the empty field and have to find their own way home.

  A six-foot-tall lizard man and a Thundercat walking the streets of St. Louis, or better yet, calling an Uber. They would have a long walk.

  I glanced back to see Callie nudging them with a boot and grunted.

  “Spoil sport,” I muttered under my breath.

  Gunnar chuckled. “You’ve got it bad, man. So bad…”

  Ashley giggled, squeezing my waist.

  I sighed, refusing to acknowledge the truth to their statement.

  Chapter 17

  Gunnar and Ashley had left without further fanfare. Murdering two wolves was good enough.

  I had tried cornering Tory before leaving the fight, but she had told me, loud enough for Baron Skyfall to overhear as he coincidentally walked by, that she had work to do. She didn’t say it harshly, at least her eyes had let me know it wasn’t personal and more for show, but it was also apparent that she fully meant to handle it all on her own.

  I let her. But I did tell her to keep an eye on her students from Shift, just in case this was some ploy to take them away from her. Or use them against her.

  Tory had been a cop so I had no doubt she would get to the bottom of the theft. But that was my concern. That her skills as a cop would lead her to an answer that would put her, the Reds, or the students at Shift in danger. Or any of my friends. That the dragons might be angling to gain control of the Beast Master to use her against my friends.

  Everyone had parted ways to head home, leaving the other pack under discreet surveillance.

  Talon licked his paws incessantly beside me until I shoved him in annoyance. Alex walked beside us through the twisted overgrown path at Chateau Falco, eyes alert out of habit. He had been kidnapped one too many times in his life, and now kept an eye on everything at all times.

  But he would be a lot harder to kidnap now that he wasn’t a kid. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, still uneasy about his recent developments. He now resembled a tall, strong, dark-haired guy ready to take on a college campus. In the past few months, he seemed to have aged five years. Pan had checked him over repeatedly but found absolutely nothing wrong. His only suggestion was that his time in Fae had messed with his aging, or that perhaps his body was trying to catch up to the age it would have been if he had never been kidnapped by the Fae.

  On a very surface level, I was kind of glad for it. I wasn’t really father material.

  And it was nice not to feel the sharp paranoia whenever we went out in public together – that someone might recognize the kid beside me as the one who went missing years ago, and think that I had kidnapped him and held him prisoner this whole time. With him looking like a young college student, I was able to breathe a little easier.

  He was no longer gangly and awkward – thanks to all the training my various friends had been giving him. Alex had no magic, so every one of my friends jumped at the chance to teach him how to defend himself and kill his attackers by any means necessary. He was a fast learner. To catch him up on his education, I had put him in school with a bunch of ex-murderer monsters.

  I told you. I’m not good father material.

  He had been in his early teens when I met him, so it wasn’t like he had much else to learn by that point. He didn’t intend to become a doctor or teacher or anything so disciplined. He wanted to be… well, like me. I decided to put him to work in my bookstore, Plato’s Cave, most nights. He wasn’t a manager yet, but he was infinitely better than Alucard had been.

  As a result, Othello had been able to step into more of a CEO role of both the bookstore and Grimm Tech – my supernatural technology company. We were only just now announcing ourselves to the market to introduce some of our prototypes and gauge interest.

  Of course, not all the products were available to the public. Because they were my weapons.

  With Alex’s determination and work ethic, I could eventual
ly see him doing quite well for himself at Grimm Tech if he so chose. He had a knack for seeing the forest through the trees.

  But as we walked through the trail, he just listened. Intently.

  Talon kicked a rock with his velvet slippers. “And the Welsh Bible had nothing else to say?” We’d gone over this a dozen times already, but I could tell he was agitated so obliged him.

  I shook my head, thinking back on the book Yahn and I had… borrowed from the Vatican recently. We had given it back after copying everything we needed, but all in all, it hadn’t been as helpful as we had hoped. It had given us some answers, but like life usually worked, it only gave us additional questions.

  “It filled in some blanks, but nothing majorly helpful.”

  “And he still sleeps?”

  I nodded. “Weird, right? Van and Baba say they found him that way. Like a cryogenic sleep.”

  “What is a cryogenic sleep?” the words sounded strange coming from the squat, five-foot kitty-cat-man. He didn’t carry his white spear at the moment, but his leather kilt made steady whooshing sounds as we moved, and I thought I heard metal hilts or cross guards clinking in hidden pockets. Not that he needed blades. He was dangerous enough with just his claws.

  I thought about how to explain it. “Like how Sleeping Beauty was in a living sleep, but couldn’t wake up until Prince Charming gave her a kiss.” Alex frowned, silently repeating the words as if doing so would impart understanding.

  But Talon hissed. I flinched, ready for danger, but heard only birds chirping. I rounded on him. “I will not kiss this Knight,” he growled, his thick, beardlike fur quivering. He even had his long, furry ears tucked back low.

  I let out a tired sigh. “No… that wasn’t what… never mind. The knight is alive, but he can’t wake up. At least, we don’t know how to wake him up.”