“Well, it’s more than I was expecting.” Varos leans back at the list we have compiled of the shifters who seem sympathetic to what is currently happening to mythical shifters.

“Is it enough?” I drag the pad over and scroll through the names. “Are any of these shifters of any importance in the community, human or shifter?”

“These guys,” Ronnie highlights on his laptop.

Immediately, I see the two names on the shared doc on my pad. “They’re…what kind of shifter?”

“Wolf,” Varos says. “I’m setting up the email now to see if we can get them to meet with us.”

This is something. This is better than something. This is us finally seeing the possibility of either a change or at least a way to strengthen any coalition we can gather to oppose these hate groups.

* * *

The wolves don’t take long to get back to Varos. He sets up a meet and they are willing to come to the shop to talk with us.

There’s an air of excited energy all day as we wait for the wolves to show up. Not that we haven’t met our own share of wolf shifters. Carlo is one, after all. It’s this official feeling, that we’re meeting, two heads of different factions, to come up with a solution that affects us all.

Right on time, as Varos goes to lock the door for the night, a car pulls up outside and parks. “Taran, they’re here.”

Taran heads for the front of the shop to greet them while the rest of us make sure our stations are pushed out of the way so we can all sit. Other than Carlo, all the other mates have gone home for the evening. This is to be a meeting of the alphas. Carlo is there because he is a wolf shifter and all of this is hinging on him at the moment.

He glances at me with an uncertain smile. On my way by him to roll Bronaz’ station against the wall, I duck in and kiss his neck. “It’ll be okay, Carlo. I have your back. Remember that.”

“Right,” he says, letting out a nervous breath.

The keys rattle in the lock and two alphas stroll in and stop while Taran motions them in. “We have coffee and water.”

The dark haired wolf lifted his hands. “Nothing for us, thanks.” The blond one that followed him just shook his head.

Taran gestures to the two most comfortable chairs and took up his stool close by. “I appreciate you agreeing to meet with us.” Starting on his left, he went around the room introducing us, ending with Carlo. “Carlo is Sako’s fated mate. Even though he’s an omega, he might be able to answer your questions if you have any.”

“We’re mostly caught up to speed, thanks to Varos.” The dark-haired man gestures to the blond next to him. “This is Lars, my mate. I’m Carson.”

“We were surprised to hear from you. We thought you kept to yourselves,” Lars says abruptly.

Carson touches Lars lightly on the wrist. “There were rumblings in our neck of the woods about some shady business and missing shifters. None of our community appeared to be affected by these rumblings, although we tried to keep as close an ear out for it as we could. What affects one, affects all.”

“Tell us what you know so far.” I like this guy Lars. He wanted to get down to business. I can respect that.

Taran motions for Varos who hands them a data pad. “This is everything we have. Several months ago, Taran’s mate was approached by a man…”

Both wolves listen attentively as Varos gives them a run down. He explains the muggings, the kidnapping, our happening on Carlo and how his information has started to unravel everything into this giant conspiracy.

The questions they ask show insight and experience. Both Varos and Carlo do their best to answer everything. I’m so proud of my mate. He’s clearly uncomfortable here. I know he struggles with the guilt over how he was a part of this before losing his memory.

He holds up like a champ under their questioning.

“Once we realized that this was a lot bigger than just some guy who has an axe to grind,” Taran says at the end of Varos’ explanation, “we knew we had to do something. But our access and resources are limited.”

Carson nods along, lips pursed as he swipes through the information. “Whoever cracked all this out of the emails is a hell of a hacker,” he say.

Varos’ smile lifts just a little in pride. “A good friend of ours has helped us get this far. Like Taran says, though, we’re starting to outstrip what we can do and we’ve attracted their attention.”

Carlo sits next to me, his hand wiggling under mine to wind our fingers together. I pull it in my lap and cover his with both of my hands.

Lars takes the pad from Carson. “This isn’t some random group. It’s organized. Especially if they managed to co-opt one of our own,” and he motions to Carlo, “to do their dirty work. It also indicates there’s a head on this snake that needs to be removed if you’re going to make any progress. You’ll need to find who that is.” Lars looks at Carson. “And that can be hard to tease out, judging by what I read.”

“Which is where we can help,” Carson says with a light smile. “It’s our mission to keep tabs on gangs and problematic organizations that threaten our way of life. We have an extensive network of people we can put on this, if you trust us with what you have.”

Varos digs around in his pocket to pull out a thumb drive. He crosses the room to place it in Carson’s hand. “That has everything we’ve found: files, emails, financial records, images, searches…all of it.”

Lars takes it from Carson and pockets it. “We’ll put our people on it and see if we can find the location of a headquarters, if they’re even that organized and not a loose assemblage of terrorist groups.”

Terrorist group. That rings ominously in the air and I glance at Carlo. I can’t tell what he’s thinking but I can almost feel his energy curling up in a ball.

“What happens if you find who’s doing all this?” Taran asks.

“We turn him into the human police.” Carson rocks to his feet. Lars joins him. “If you have found illegal stuff going on with the shifter community, chances are there’s a long line of paperwork to show other illegal dealings.”

“We found sketchy dealings in some of the financials we dug through,” Varos says.

Carson smiles and holds out his hand to Taran to shake. “And then we hand him over to the police. It’s not optimum, since it doesn’t make them pay for what they did to our shifter brethren, but we know how to make it hurt anyway.”

“The main thing is to shut them down. We’ll be in touch when we know something more.” Lars taps Carson on the shoulder and heads for the front of the shop.

“He doesn’t like to waste time,” Carson offers with a smile. “Varos will be our point of contact?”

“That’s fine,” Varos says as we all follow them to the door. “I’ll keep our hackers in the loop.”

“Be careful not to give me their names; I’ll be tempted to poach them from you. What you uncovered was some damn fine work.” Carson nods to us as Taran lets them out.

After the car carrying the wolves drives off, Taran locks the door and kills the lights in the front part of the shop. The look on his face leaves us all with a good feeling about how the meeting went. He flops into his chair and lets his head fall back.

“Well?” Nyve says, kicking Taran’s boots. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Taran hooks his fingers behind his head and gives us a wide smile, “that we have a chance at bringing this to a close. Those guys? They know their shit. They have the experience we need. We have the information they can use.”

Bronaz pats Taran on the shoulder. “I’m just glad to know we’re not alone. It was kind of disheartening at times to think we were the only ones who knew this was going on.”

Varos waves his phone at us. “We’re getting a lot of buzz about this now with the rumor that the wolves are on board. Others are more than willing to join in any information campaigns or protests we want to organize.”

Bronaz rolls his stool to his chair and pulls his station out of the corner. “I’m trying to figure out how two alphas ended up as fated mates.”

“Yeah,” Nyve scratches at his head. “That’s a rare thing. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything like that.”

“They seem to make it work.” Taran rocks to his feet. “All right, now it’s a waiting game. Varos, keep me posted on the progression of things. With this alliance, these assholes are bound to hear about it and step up their activity.”

“Or go to ground,” Varos says with a wrinkle to his nose.

They look at Carlo as if expecting confirmation. He shrugs. “It really will depend on how much of a threat Lars and Carson’s people are. They don’t consider the wolves a threat as a whole. I’m an example of that.”

Taran and Nyve stay behind to lock up. Carlo and I hop on my bike to head back to our apartment.

Carlo is quiet as we head up the stairs. “How are you doing?”

“The meeting was surreal. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I’m glad I had something to contribute. It was pretty intimidating sitting in a room full of alphas.”

I chuckle. “I can imagine it was. Overall, Taran looked pleased at this development. We may finally start seeing an end to this.”