Chapter Seventeen
Hunter and Dara were gone, and Seth was moving on to the time wasting and distraction part of their plan. Evil geniuses liked to talk a lot, right? Not that he thought Zane was a genius. Evil though, there was something to that. Seth needed to keep him talking until Hunter and Dara returned and they’d move on to part three. Or was that part two?
“I’m waiting,” Zane said, his arms folded.
“The way I see it, you’ve clearly got some master plan. Your pack has been steadily taking over territory for a while now. You took out Baelon as leader of the Palus Plains right after the last Gathering and now you’ve made the bold move of trying to take out the Cove’s alpha line. What gives?”
“The wolves are dying, Seth.”
“Yeah,” he huffed. “I’d noticed. What I don’t get is why you’re trying to speed up our demise.”
“The wolves are dying because we’re weak. We lack strong leadership. We don’t fight for what we want, what we need. We squabble amongst ourselves like kids.”
“And what do we need?”
“One single pack spread out across the country. Under one alpha family. United, loyal, and ready to fight.”
“You mean like the bears?” That was how the bears had always been before the pact had been broken. They had one alpha leader and all bears submitted to him. Of course, that hadn’t worked out any better for the bears. The only one Seth knew of who could shift was Hunter.
“Like the bears but bigger. We have the numbers, the ambition, that those oafs never did.”
Seth was glad Hunter wasn’t around to hear himself being referred to as an oaf. Not that he was that sensitive, but he was touchy when the subject of him being a bear came into the conversation.
“And you mentioned fighting. If all wolves are loyal to you and your family, who, exactly, would we be fighting?”
“The bears won’t be much of a threat, not now. The lions, though… their prides are strong, even though their shifter numbers are dwindling. They’d be next. After we take the dens.”
Seth blinked, holding up a hand. “Wait just a second. The dens? They’re neutral ground. They don’t belong to any pack and don’t pledge their loyalty to anyone. Not to mention the fact that they’re mostly abandoned. Why include them at all?” He pretended to be clueless, wondering how much Zane would tell him. Clearly, the alpha had worked out the omega-shifter connection and that traditionally, dens were where the highest concentration of omega were. And yet, with his numbers, he could easily have taken River Den and Hilltop already. Why hadn’t he?
“They’re strategic points, confluences of multiple shifter species, often present between the borders of multiple packs. Taking them will give us footholds, will give us power.”
Seth hid his smirk. So, Zane wasn’t sharing what he knew with Seth. And, given how his men were nodding, he wasn’t sharing it with them, either. If it was generally known that mating an omega restored shifter powers, there’d be no way to safeguard the dens and the omega who lived there, not without multiple packs on board. It was then Seth realized how close they were to Zane’s eventuality. There weren’t enough alphas protecting the dens. And from what Hunter had told him, there weren’t enough dens. River Den and Hilltop were bursting at the seams, too full of omega and smaller shifter species looking for a home and for safety.
“So, you take over all the wolf packs and install yourself as leader. You take the dens.” And take control of the omegas, presumably doling them out to his family or those he felt were worthy. “Then the lions are next on your list, followed by whatever is left of the bears. And after that?”
“After that, there’ll be no group big enough to stand against us. We’ll control the shifters, all of them. The power will be in our hands.”
Seth nodded. “And what will you do with it?”
“Rebuild the shifter kingdom, build it up into something bigger and better than it’s ever been.”
“And then?”
“And then we take our rightful place in dominion over the animal kingdom.”
It sounded like a dark retelling of the Jungle Book or the Lion King. Seth had a bad feeling about what Zane actually meant.
“Um, when you say the animal kingdom…”
“The humans will fall, and the age of the shifter will begin.”
Seth had been right on both counts. Batshit crazy and evil genius.
“How’s… how’s that going to happen? They seriously outnumber us, and they have a pretty heavy arsenal.”
“It will take a generation or two for us to infiltrate the necessary installations. Military and government. And then we’ll tear them apart from the inside. Once we separate them from their weapons, we’ll have the advantage. A shifter versus a human? There’s no contest.”
Seth rubbed a hand across the back of his head. “Wow. Wow… that’s… you’ve really thought this through. So, you’re, uh, not big on us living in harmony with humans?”
“Living in harmony?” Zane spat out. “Living in hiding is more like it. So we don’t offend their delicate human sensibilities with our animal instinct. We’ve become so cowed by them that we can’t even change form.”
“Yeah, that’s a real downer. And having to pay taxes is pretty crap too. Plus, their zoning laws are just… give someone red tape and they just don’t know where to stop.”
“You think this is a joke?” Zane said, moving toward him.
“No,” Seth said quickly. “But I will admit, at first glance, it seems a little… ambitious. But you are talking generations and not overnight for the whole human thing, but what’s your timescale for getting from here and now to, you know, shifter overlord.”
Zane grinned. “It’s already begun. In a year’s time, there’ll be no wolf alphas left to stand against me. Then we take the dens. In two years, we’ll begin our offensive against the lions. In three years, we’ll have taken care of the last of the bears.”
“Three years? That’s… that’s fast. I guess, without the bureaucracy, you can move pretty quickly. What does your dad say about all of this?”
“My father?” Zane laughed. “That man had no ambition, no leadership. He was content to sit and watch the world fall apart and not lift a finger. He died in his sleep like the old man he was.”
Even though Zane didn’t say it, Seth doubted the death was as natural as it sounded.
“I’m sorry for you and your pack’s loss.”
“Our fathers are the old. We’re the new. This world is ours for the taking if we’re willing to fight for it.”
“And is there room for a ‘we’ here, Zane? I mean, I’m fairly certain we’d fall like dominos against your pack’s warriors, but does it have to come to that?”
Zane paced back and forth. “Fall in line, pledge loyalty to me, and we will be brothers-in-arms.”
“That’s all it would take? I pledge my loyalty, agree to fight by your side, and my pack will be safe?”
“Of course. Though I will need you to kill your uncle.”
Seth’s eyes might have bugged out of his head. “My… uncle?”
“Shane, leader of Moon Weir.”
Seth glanced at Axel, standing just behind and to his left. His cousin clenched his hands into fists but otherwise didn’t move or speak.
“Shane is a reasonable man,” Seth said. “He understands the situation.”
Zane shook his head. “He’s part of the old, the part that needs to give way and yield to the new. His sons are of age, they can be caretakers of their pack if they pledge their loyalty to me.”
He looked past Seth to Axel.
“You’re Shane’s second son, yes? Fated to watch your brother inherit the pack and be forced to play second fiddle to him.”
To his credit, Axel played his part beautifully.
“That’s about the size of it, yeah. And even then, they won’t let me mate who I want, foisting some chick from another pack on me so they can have backup kids in case my brother fails to produce.”
Seth winced. The emotion in Axel’s voice was real, even though Seth knew he wasn’t for a second considering Zane’s offer. At least, he hoped he wasn’t. They hadn’t made a plan for that.