Page 4 of Pack Rage
Before she finished speaking, the rogues all dropped to one knee around me. “Pack protector,” Caleb repeated, in a voice that sounded rough, like he hadn’t spoken words in a long time. The others echoed him. I blinked, unsure what was happening.
Sergeant came to my rescue. “That she is,” he said from the door to the dining hall. His eyes met mine, and I saw relief in them. I wondered what he saw in mine. Whatever it was, it made him frown, before he cleared his throat and went on. “But if any of us want to have a pack left to protect, you’d better let her through.”
As soon as we all found seats in the dining hall, it was time to eat, and food was arriving on the long tables. Somehow, they’d found or hunted enough supplies to pull together a decent meal, with steaming bowls filled with venison stew, baskets of warm cornbread, and even peach cobbler in the long metal pans that were a bitch to get clean. Not that doing the pack’s dishes was my job anymore.
That felt weird. It felt weird enough just to eat at one of these tables myself, and not the scraps that had fallen underneath, or the leftovers that made it back to the kitchen. Not that there would be leftovers tonight; we were all eating like the plates might grow legs and run off.
I was impressed at how well the mealtime ran. Half the shifters in the compound ate in the first shift, while the others stood guard and did work to clean up after the battle, or care for our wounded.
Then the other half came in and repeated the process. We’d shown up near the end of the first dinner round, and witnessed the calm transition from one group to the next. The first group was almost half female, with seventy-some women, both ranked and unranked, sitting side by side. For the most part, the ranked females weren’t acting like they had any right to more food or drink than the others, and the few I saw trying to pull rank had a wild-eyed rogue snarling at their throats within seconds.
That settled them down real quick.
The second group was mostly the remaining male Southern shifters. More than one of those rat’s asses sneered at me whenthey entered, though I had a feeling it was meant to hide their fear of me or my mates. The rest of the group were male rogues, though most of them were wearing real clothes now, instead of animal skins. The rogues still smelled sour, and acted wilder than the others, except for one pair of males who sat close together. Those two exchanged subtle, affectionate touches more than once during the meal. One was a rogue, and the other an older, ranked male who I’d seen at Southern, but never spoken with. When the older male turned his head to press a gentle kiss to the young rogue’s shoulder, I noticed a mating mark on his neck, and realized they were a mated pair. True mates? It seemed possible.
Had this young male been drawn to Southern somehow, seeking his true mate? I tucked that thought away to ponder later, and tore into the stew that Caleb set in front of me.
When we’d finished our meal and a group of the males got up to clear the dishes without being asked, Glen let out a low whistle. “Sergeant’s only been inside the compound for twenty-four hours, right? Can you imagine what it’ll be like in a month?”
“Possibly a pile of rubble. We’re sitting ducks inside this fence. They can come back and pick us off at their leisure,” Sergeant said, sitting next to Brand.
Sergeant gave a quick whistle, and in twenty seconds, every other shifter had left the dining hall. Only Sergeant, Brand, Glen, Dean, and I were left. When the door shut behind the last shifter, Sergeant pulled out a pad of paper. I peered down at his notes. He’d been making lists: numbers of Enforcers in each main pack as well as some smaller packs, numbers and types of weapons, and vehicles with locations marked beside them.
“Nobody here had a laptop for you to use?” Glen asked.
“Welcome back to Southern,” I muttered.
Sergeant sighed heavily. “We have to assume the laptops and phones left behind are Eastern’s. So we aren’t using them. But itmeans we’re cut off from our allies. Until we can get our hands on some… What did the girls call them? Burner phones.”
I almost smiled. “The closest town is a couple dozen miles down the main road. Are we at a point where we can send someone out?”
“Not yet. We know Torran and a few of his Enforcers left, but we don’t know how far they went.”
“I have the sat phone from the plane,” Dean offered. “Samuel has another one back at Mountain.”
Across the table, Glen perked up at that. “Patrick has one, too. We can call them both and coordinate an attack on Eastern. We have cars and trucks, enough to bring a good number of fighters to their doorstep within days.”
Brand shook his head. “They’ll see us coming and be ready.”
“Not if we move fast?—”
“They have drones, and maybe even satellite surveillance. They knew Dad was still alive, that I was Alpha, and that the pack was making their way to the Den to give their pledges to me. They’ve been watching us. Hell, they knew when you crossed into Mountain, Glen. They had Dad on the phone within an hour, commanding him to lock you up.”
“From the trees,” I mumbled. “I bet they had cameras installed.”
“Cameras. Like trail cameras?” Glen asked. I nodded. “What if they have those here at Southern?”
Before he could finish speaking, Sergeant had whistled and two rogues came running through the door, dropping to one knee beside him. “Yes, Alpha?”
“You’ve got a job. Get help from the women.” He sketched out what they were to look for, then sent them away. “I should have thought of that last night. Northern didn’t use that kind of tech, or not much anyway.” He faced Glen. “Your brother was always asking to bring some in, to train our Enforcers, and tohave extra eyes, but your dad believed in tradition…” We all went quiet, remembering just how wrong that had made things go at Northern.
Sergeant broke the tense silence. “Brand tells me he’s been called to an emergency Council meeting. If he attends with an army at his back, Aidan McDonnell won’t hesitate to use everything at his disposal to stop him, and make him out to be an Alpha gone rogue.” I frowned. It was kind of the truth. Brand wasn’t planning to join the Council. “Brand will be thrown out of the Council, and his vote removed from the emergency meetings.”
Brand grunted. “That leaves only Aidan and Luke as voting members. He can ram through anything he likes, except for major changes of pack law.”
Like rescinding the law that stated Alpha’s children couldn’t leave their own packlands without permission. But wouldn’t there have to be a majority vote?
That wouldn’t matter. “Luke would never vote with that possumfucker.”
