Chapter Fifteen

T HE QUIET THAT FELL over our tribe with the heat season became daunting after Cristian left. I could understand why nothing had happened during those sex-driven weeks. But now? It felt too quiet, too peaceful. A month or so of intense fucking was not enough for our enemies to change their ways and abandon their plans.

I kept wondering when they’d hit. Who their next target would be. The silence on all fronts drove me insane. No intel, no movement. Nothing.

Talking to Cristian was the only distraction I allowed myself. Missing him was visceral, like my body was going into withdrawal now that I couldn’t touch him, see him whenever I wanted. We texted all the time and called whenever we had more than a few spare seconds.

“If it stays quiet and it’s not just a ruse, I can come visit you again,” Cristian had said on our last video call.

I’d grinned like an idiot at that and had to put real effort into stopping myself from wagging my tail like an overexcited pup. I hoped we managed that. It hadn’t been long enough since he’d left for me to miss him this badly.

Dimitri burst into my office, breathing ragged and face streaked with worry. “Get to your father’s office,” he said between gulps of air, then he was gone. I stood and rushed out of my own office, following Dimitri to where Chinggis and his advisors were gathered, faces grim and bodies coiled tight.

A large monitor that my father rarely used was now set up on his side desk so we could all see it. The screen displayed a familiar map of our tribe’s territory, red flashing dots marking the positions of all our Russian allies. Most of the non-mob affiliated packs had pledged their alliance to us, but it seemed like more dots than I remembered. If we now had more allies, why were they all looking like the end of the world was upon us?

“Someone fill me in, please,” I said when I realized they were staring at the screen, silent and unmoving.

“The reports started coming in about fifteen minutes ago. These are the ones we know of, could be more,” Dimitri said.

“What are they? It looks like pack locations.”

“Sites of attacks. The mobsters are no longer quiet,” Father said, his lips curled in disgust.

“So many,” I whispered and covered my mouth with my hand. “A third of them aren’t even our allies.”

“They aren’t taking risks. I imagine attacking all those who even mildly oppose them sends a powerful message.”

I turned to look at Dimitri as he spoke. His face was grim, like the others’, but there was underlying rage burning in his eyes. Good, I could work with that.

“Casualties?”

My father shook his head. “We don’t know. The packs managed to send word of the attack, but we’ve had no further communication.”

“We have to help them.” My eyes went over each spot, taking in the magnitude of this attack. They couldn’t possibly have enough men to do real damage, or take over all these packs and force them to obey. But they could scare them enough that their support for us would falter.

“How? How do you propose we help them? With what men, how do we get there in the first place?” Batbayar sneered at me, his beady eyes drilling into me.

I ignored him and turned to catch my father’s attention. “We still have that helicopter tour business, don’t we? They can carry a few teams to those in range. Our packs closer to the Russian border can drive to the closest ones. We’ll get to the rest as fast as possible. I’m sure we have enough spies and plants around Russia, they can help as well.”

Chinggis stared at me, silent for what felt like an eternity. “Good strategy. Get to it.”

“But Chinggis, it will expose us to an attack,” Batbayar said in a whiny voice.

Thinking of his hide, as always. I wished I could bash his head in right now.

“Silence,” Father says, his voice thundering in the office. “They are our people. They need help, reassurance. We asked for their support, we can’t abandon them because we might be attacked. We have enough strong werewolves here to defend this compound.”

Batbayar opened his mouth to say more, but a sharp look from Father silenced his protest.

“Ganzorig, get it done,” Father said and I nodded. I turned on my heel and signaled for Dimitri to follow.

Batbayar called my name when we were both outside of Chinggis’s office but I ignored him. I had no time for his pestering disapproval of me. There were more important tasks than validating him by listening to his nonsense.

***

I was on one of the copters despite everyone’s opposition. I was making myself a target, exposing myself to an attack. True, but it didn’t matter. Our people had been attacked, it wasn’t a possibility, it was their reality. They needed us as much as we’d needed them. They’d offered their support, we couldn’t cower in our safe compound in response.

Dimitri had joined me, then Mönkhbat and Ganbold, flushed and breathing hard, had run after us. They insisted on being there with me. I had no time to argue, so they’d both got in and we left.

The first pack we got to were living in a small compound a few kilometers from the border with Russia. A few were wounded, the kids were scared, but they were fine, albeit rattled. They hadn’t been involved in any conflict with other werewolves for decades. They didn’t understand the reasoning for their attack, but they hadn’t changed their mind about supporting us. I hadn’t asked, but when they realized I was there with my men, they rushed to tell me.

The next pack… that was a bigger mess. It was Kirill’s pack and they hadn’t held back when attacking them. Seemed like the mobsters among us had unleashed their viciousness and wrath on our first supporters, probably hoping they’d end their dissent once and for all. Kirill’s and the other four packs he was allied with had always maintained their independence. No matter what regime held the most power among the Russians, they’d stood their ground.

The destruction angered me at first sight. Houses set on fire, wounded among the women and children, dead male werewolves, I wanted to avenge them all. As the anger subsided, their pain was mirrored in me. These people didn’t deserve such violence. For what? Power? More money? No wonder most Russian packs had hurried to pledge alliance to the Mongolian tribes if this was how their strongest behaved. I was a descendant of Genghis Khan and even I thought this was horrible. Pointless too.

“They hit the others just as badly,” Kirill said, his eyes burning with anger. “Roman and Oksana have some packs living close by. It’s the same as you said, they were mildly scared and have some wounded.”

I groaned and closed my eyes, propping my hands on my hips. “They’re trying to hit where it hurts most. If the five of you stop supporting me, the others will follow.”

Kirill smirked. “They don’t know us well. The Commies used to hold the position the mobsters have now in the past. They were far more vicious. We’re still alive and well. Still won’t bow to them.”

I remembered those times well. Oksana’s pack had been pushed into Siberia. A sort of exile that was supposed to scare the others into submission. They’d all relocated to Siberia, banding around Oksana. My father had intervened, threatening to kill all the pack alphas that had forced them into Siberia. They feared him more than anything because his punishments had been ruthless when it came to disobedient alphas in his tribe.

We kept going from pack to pack, refueling where we could, while our other wolves who were undercover checked on the farther away packs in our care. Kirill, Oksana, Feodor, Roman, and Alexei had been hit the hardest, it seemed. The violence had escalated for more outspoken, prominent packs, but no one had been safe. Even the weakest of our supporters had been attacked. Worse, the neutral packs had been targeted in an effort to make sure they stayed put or joined the mobsters.

By the time I returned home, there were requests for men and support from so many packs, my head was spinning. Batbayar and other advisors were trying to dispatch wolves to help all of them, but there weren’t enough men. Oksana and the others in her circle had offered their support, but we still didn’t have enough fighters to send to every pack that had been targeted.

“It’s impossible,” Chinggis said, his voice strained. His eyes looked tired, his face drawn and pale. “We either expose ourselves, or we let some of the packs fend for themselves.”

Batbayar, silent for once, caught my eye. “Any idea?” he asked, no trace of the usual disdain in his voice.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was tired and angry, overwhelmed by the destruction and pain I’d seen. I had a plan, but I considered keeping my mouth shut. I was not in the mood to fight them on it.

“Son, speak up.” The pleading in Father’s voice gave me the strength I needed. We were all tired, our tribe was suffering, we couldn’t afford to be cowards.

“We need reinforcements. We can ask Shiki and Vicks to lend a hand.”

“The Dacians and the Dragons?” Batbayar sounded reluctant, but no insult followed which surprised me. “Would they want to?”

“They would if Ganzorig asks,” Chinggis said, falling back into his chair. “They could provide the numbers, but I don’t know what their presence would do to pack morale. They are foreigners.”

I shrugged, turning to look out the window to my father’s right. It was pitch black, I couldn’t see much, but I could almost make up the shapes of men patrolling our compound.

“They have wounded kin, dead packmates in some cases. They are alone and need protection. They won’t care where it comes from. They’ll only start complaining about foreigners in our territory when the threat is gone and they feel safe again.”

“The boy is not wrong,” Batbayar said, defeated and weary as my father was.

“I’ll start making phone calls.”

***

The next day reinforcement arrived. The Dacians were the fastest. Cristian and the first of his men, five or so, arrived on the first commercial flight they could get. By the end of the day, more of Cristian’s men and the first Japanese had made it to Ulaanbaatar. Shiki arrived in his jet with more wolves from his pack, all trained to fight.

For a moment, I worried about lodgings for all these warriors. I quickly realized they weren’t here to lounge. The moment they arrived at the compound, they got their marching orders and asked about means of transport.

Cristian and Shiki were the only ones who stayed behind.

“Your shadows,” Shiki had said. “Someone has to make sure you don’t do anything stupid and survive this.”

My father’s office had been… remodeled. We’d broken down the wall separating his office from the one next door to expand it. The doors had been removed, so that people could move in and out of the new command center without interrupting others. Chinggis’s desk had also been replaced with a longer one. All chairs, side tables, and decorations had been removed. Small desks with computers had been wheeled in and a large tablet was taking half of the table, a map displayed on it. The same map with locations of our packs and those opposed to us was flashing on father’s huge monitor.

“Any more attacks?” I asked, surveying the map on the table.

“No,” Shiki said, not lifting his eyes from his phone. “It’s quiet for now, but all intel shows a lot of movement.”

We’d pooled all our resources together, tapping into every connection we had. Shiki had even reached out to his Yakuza contacts to make sure everything was covered.

“They might be preparing for some other type of attack,” Cristian said from his spot in the corner of the room, somewhere behind me. I suspected he’d picked it because it was easy to watch everyone and protect me. I didn’t feel I needed protection, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. Were the roles reversed, I would have acted the same way.

“We might have something useful,” Batbayar said. He tapped the tablet and a decrypted message showed up. It had some random penis enlargement spam before and after it. “The leaders of the mob faction are going to meet soon.”

“We don’t have a location.” I cursed under my breath, as this was the biggest break we’d had, yet it was unusable.

Batbayar huffed, looking down his nose at me. “Yet,” he said, prolonging the strong “t” of the word.

“When?”

His disdain cleared and he sighed. “Too late. Our man is the driver of one of them. He’ll know when they’re on their way to the meeting.”

Shiki looked up from his phone long enough to glare at Batbayar. “Are you trying to offend me, old man?” His eyes were back on his phone before he’d finished the question.

Batbayar gasped, putting up a hand and waving it at Shiki. “No, I would never presume to…”

“Just give me the location, I’ll take us there.”

I bit my lip not to laugh. It wasn’t the time and place but this was too funny. Batbayar wanted to ask more but was afraid. No one could take us there, in theory. Shiki had flashed to our small medical center, but we’d kept that information from spreading out as much as we could. No one had informed my father’s advisors, not even Chinggis himself.

“Shiki here has some fae tricks up his sleeves, Batbayar. Relax, we just need a location.”

“Of course.” He bowed, the gesture strange on him.

“Send it to our phones when your man has it,” Shiki said, shoving his phone in his jeans pocket and signaling for Cristian and me to follow.

The three of us formed a mean single file to my cabin where Shiki went straight for the booze. He stole my father’s best vodka and poured shots for the three of us.

“Drink up, boys, it will be a rocky ride.” He giggled and downed the drink.

I sighed and picked up the tumbler, wondering whether it was wise to drink before a fight.

“Have you ever flashed with two people at once?” Cristian asked.

“I avoid using flashing like the plague. I haven’t run tests on how well it works, Cristi.”

“Thought so.” Cristian drank the first shot and poured himself another.

Shiki rolled his eyes. “I’ll get you there, don’t worry.”

“I know. I just wonder if any of us will be in any condition to fight when we get there.”

Shiki tilted his head and considered Cristian’s words. “Most likely. Besides, they’ll shit their pants when they see us materializing in the middle of their meeting. That will give us a beat or two to recover.”

“We have no other choice. We either hit this meeting, or I have to hunt them down one by one. I don’t want this to escalate into a tribe war that lasts for years.”

Cristian stepped behind me and pulled me against him. He kissed my cheek and rested his chin on my shoulder. “Oh, we’re going in. Better to cut off the head of the mob and see the rest scramble around and fall into chaos.”

Shiki grinned, his eyes twinkling and flashing steel blue. “Oh, look at that! How cute of you to cuddle and kiss before battle.”

“Shut up,” we muttered at the same time. Cristian kissed my cheek again and released me.

“So what do we do now? Wanna watch a movie or something?”

I stared at Shiki, a biting remark on my lips. I stopped when I realized there wasn’t anything we could do. Looking at each other and drinking wasn’t a better option, so why not watch a movie?

“What do you want to see,” I asked, logging onto my Netflix account.

“Oh, I know,” Shiki said, throwing himself on the couch. “Vicks told me about this really crappy movie with some werewolf in Bucharest.”

Cristian groaned. “That stupid Olivier Martinez film?”

“I think so. She didn’t tell me who was in the movie.”

I looked at Cristian over my shoulder. “Have you seen it?”

Cristian blushed, averting his gaze. “Maybe.”

“Aww, you had an Olivier Martinez crush!” I laughed and relaxed for the first time since this whole mess had started.

“The movie was a disappointment,” Cristian said, pouting a little. “You should see it though. If we think of it as a comedy, it might work better.”

***

I woke up to the shrill of my phone. I tried to move, but Cristian was sleeping next to me, his head on my lap. Shiki had slid on the couch, his head on my shoulder, legs propped awkwardly on the armrest.

“Time to wake up,” I said, my voice sounding as groggy as I felt.

When they moved enough for me to reach the phone I’d left on the coffee table, I picked it up and checked the message. “We have a location.”

“Go time,” Shiki said, standing up. He took his own phone out of his pocket and clicked on the address Batbayar had sent. It was a building in Moscow, so there was a street view of our destination.

“We’re flashing there,” Shiki said, pointing to the roof of the building, next to the fire escape. “I can’t do any better until we get there and see where in the building they meet.”

“Close enough,” Cristian said, tying his hair in a tight ponytail.

I hadn’t even noticed how much his hair had grown. I saw him every day now, filtered through the video called, and it was hard to notice such gradual changes.

Nausea hit and I grabbed the edge of the railing going around the perimeter of the roof, steadying myself.

“You fucking bastard,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Feels worse when you know it’s coming,” Shiki said, but stepped farther from me and Cristian.

He’d grabbed us out of the blue, while I was lost watching Cristian, and flashed here. I wanted to punch him in the face, but thought I’d spare him. I wanted him sharp when we rushed the meeting.

Cristian placed his hands on my shoulders and kneaded, helping me relax. It was freezing cold and I only had a light sweater. There hadn’t been time for jackets with Shiki’s surprise flash.

“We’ve got movement,” Shiki whispered, looking over the railing to a side street leading to the building we’d landed on. “Do you recognize anyone?”

I peered down at the figures moving about. My eyesight was better than any normal human’s but I had to squint to compensate for the lack of street lighting and the distance.

I nodded, gripping the railing harder. It was them, or at least part of them. We were in the right place.

Shiki told us to stay put as he went down the fire escape to get a better look at where they were gathering. The cold was gone, or at least it seemed so while I waited for him to return. I felt ready for this, firm in my belief that this was our only way out of the current in-fighting.

“I hope they give me a chance to talk them off the ledge. I don’t want to kill them all.”

Cristian sighed and touched his shoulder to mine. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

I closed my eyes, trying to focus. Whatever they forced me to do, I’d learn to live with it. Right now, the attacks had to stop.

Shiki returned, a deep frown marring his face. “Let’s go shut these shitheads down.”

I wanted to ask what he’d heard, but the weird sensation of flashing quietened my questions. We landed in the middle of a dim room, on top of a table filled with food and booze. All the mob-affiliated alphas were standing around it, along with their betas and some bodyguards.

I liked our odds. Part-fae Shiki could have taken them all, but he was polite enough to leave a few for me and Cristian.

I had planned a speech to try and bring them back into the fold, but we were met with growls and shouts and someone cursing about not having their gun. Idiots couldn’t trust one another, that was why they’d agreed on bringing no firearms. Their alliance was driven by greed alone, and it showed.

Two words in, and they charged. I growled in frustration and threw myself into the fight. Punches, kicks, growls, and screams of pain blended in a vicious music that fueled my rage. Flashes of the senseless destruction I’d seen in the packs I’d visited, the haunting image of Cristian covered in blood, the dread of my mad run through frozen Russia, it all ran through my head, making me howl and drive my fists to everything that came within touching distance.

When the mobsters figured they were losing, they shifted one by one, snapping their teeth at us and circling us. I followed suit, shaking my fur and letting out a battle howl. If they wanted teeth and claws, they were going to get it.

Shiki stepped to my left, his fae-enhanced wolf form towering over all of us. To my right, Cristian bared his teeth, growling at our enemies. For a second, they were taken aback, scared by a future tribe alpha, big and strong, flanked by even more vicious allies.

Pride and rage won, and they charged all at once. They were limping and slow after the first fight, while we seemed unharmed. These were werewolves trained to shoot and knife, to steal and murder, to put poison on the street to make money. They were poor warriors at best. Useless, I’d call them.

By the time it was over, the room was painted in blood, splattered everywhere. Torn jugulars would do that. Some were still alive, breathing shallow, eyes dull.

“Want me to bring a doctor in here?” Shiki asked, wiping the blood staining his face and making a poor job of it.

I sighed and nodded, standing in the middle of this sad pile of broken bodies. Naked for the most part and covered in blood. Cristian came to stand next to me and I leaned into him, needing his strength.

“Look at this mess,” I whispered, my eyes roaming over the wolves.

“It’s their mess, not yours.”

I knew that, it still hurt that I’d failed to convince them. Not that they’d ever given me a chance. “I’ll be surprised if any of them survive.”

Cristian nodded, and pulled me as far from the mess as the room allowed. “It was either this, or more of your tribe suffering. These weren’t your normal, run-of-the-mill stubborn weres.”

“They were still part of my tribe and I feel like I failed them.” I looked at my hands, bloody and shaking, and groaned.

Cristian cupped my face with both hands and raised it. He placed a quick, reassuring kiss on my lips and smiled. “That’s why you’ll make a great alpha. You did not fail these men. They made their own choices. Your worrying about them is commendable. But you can’t save or protect everyone. Especially when they don’t want it.”

He touched his forehead to mine and I took a deep breath. He was right, I knew as much. He was probably talking from experience, as he’d been the effective leader of his tribe for a long time.

Shiki flashed back with one of our doctors. The man’s face paled at the sight of our battle, but he straightened and got to work.

“Come one, I’ll take you home,” Shiki said. “I’ll come back for the doc here and whoever is still alive.”