Chapter Five
Daric followed behind the two women as they entered the elevator. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but curiosity definitely pricked at him.
He knew he had been mean to Meredith today, and on purpose. But with every insult he hurled at her, the ache in his middle grew. He tried to stay in his room and read some of the books they had provided him, but he couldn’t concentrate. Not when all he could think of was the scent of wildflowers and dark amber eyes flashing in anger. His plan was to make her hate him, and it seemed to work, too well almost.
Unable to do anything else, he went out to the common rooms. There was no one around, so he decided to explore. He found the staircase that led to the connected lower level, which housed the training room and gym. Voices led him to the main exercise room and when he walked in, he could feel an ugly, unfamiliar feeling rise up in him.
Meredith was in the middle of a training exercise, and while she easily outmaneuvered and outwitted her opponent, he didn’t like the way he had his arms around her. And then there were the two men who came forward to greet her victory. The one man, the tall one with the blonde hair, looked and touched her with familiarity, his eyes roving her her body. He wanted nothing more than to obliterate every atom in his body.
“We’re here,” Alynna announced.
They walked into the secure area, which was not the same as the detention levels were he had been kept, but the security was just as tight. Alynna led them into a dark room, which had a one-way mirror on one side.
Meredith gasped when she saw the occupants of the other room. Three men were inside, one of them casually sitting on one of the chairs in the middle of the room, another beside him. Leaning against the wall, partially hidden in the shadows, was another figure.
“Meredith?” Alynna asked. “Do you know them?”
The blonde Lycan nodded. “Yes. Can I see them?”
“Wait,” Alynna said. She grabbed the phone hanging on the wall and spoke into the receiver. “Confirmed, Grant. Go ahead.”
The small door to the side of the room opened and Grant walked in.
“Gentlemen,” he greeted. Grant’s stride was confident, his air that of an Alpha. He stopped in front of the table, looking down at the two men expectantly.
“Alpha,” the dark-haired one greeted. He stood up and tugged at the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a wolf’s head tattoo on his forearm. “My name is Killian.”
The one beside him grabbed the neck of his shirt and pulled it aside. “Alpha,” he acknowledged. A similar tattoo was on the right side of his chest.
Grant looked at the third man in the shadows, who didn’t move an inch.
“Believe me, he has one too.”
“He still needs to show it to me,” Grant answered.
With a sigh, Killian turned to the third guy. “Connor. Do it.”
The man moved into the light. He was tall, probably as tall as Daric, but had reddish blonde hair and a beard. Tattoos ran down both arms and curled out from the neck of his shirt. He would have been handsome, were it not for the long scar that ran down his right eye and cheek, which made him look dangerous. He continued to walk towards Grant, lifting the side of his shirt to show off the tattoo on his rib cage.
“Well, Lone Wolves,” Grant began. “What are you doing in my territory? And why would you cause a ruckus in the lobby of a public place and risk exposing our secret?”
“We know you have her,” Killian said. “Meredith. Our sister.”
“Sister? She never said she had brothers,” Grant replied. “If you were her brothers, then you would still have a clan.”
“We’re not her biological brothers,” Killian explained. “But we grew up together.”
“Lone Wolves banding together? You know that’s not allowed,” Grant said with a frown. “There’s a reason you were designated as such.”
Behind the one-way mirror, Meredith was wringing her hands, her face drawn into a deep frown. “What happened? What did they do?” Meredith asked Alynna.
The other Lycan sighed. “The three of them came into the lobby of the building this morning, and demanded to see the Alpha of New York and their sister.”
“In front of all the humans?” Meredith asked.
Alynna nodded. “Yes. That’s why we had to detain them.”
“Idiots!” Meredith muttered. “I told them not to come after me!”
“Hold on,” Alynna frowned. “You told them…how?”
Meredith shrugged. “I have my ways. Anyway, that doesn’t matter.”
“We need to find her and talk to her,” Killian continued.
“Your sister was caught breaking into our offices. Do you know what kind of punishment that holds? She was lucky she only got 10 years of servitude to the clan,” Grant explained.
“And you have my thanks, Alpha, for not sending her to the Lycan Siberian Detention Facility,” Killian replied. “But we need to see her now.”
“Why should I let you see her? Especially after you risked exposing our secret?”
“Because we are desperate, Alpha,” Killian explained. “I ask for your leniency one more time. Let us deliver the news to Meredith.”
“What news?”
“That our father is dead.”
The air in the observation room grew so heavy even Daric could feel it. He turned to Meredith, who remained still. Not a word or reaction, not even a flicker of emotion in her eyes. In fact, they remained cold and emotionless. He longed to reach out to her, touch her, and make sure she was all right.
“Meredith?” Alynna asked in a small voice. “Mer, I’m so sor—”
“Take me to them, now,” Meredith said in an eerily calm voice. “I need to see them.”
“I can’t—“
“Alynna,” Daric spoke. “She should be in there, with her brothers.”
Alynna’s eyes darted from Daric to Meredith, and then she let out a sigh. “Grant will kill me, but fine.” She looked at Daric. “You stay in here. If you move an inch, I’m gonna eat you for dinner, you hear?”
He nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Daric watched them go, Meredith’s retreating back as stiff as a board. He thought of his own father, and how he watched him die at the hands of Stefan. He knew the feeling, the cold numbness and denial, and the grief afterwards. His chest tightened, and the need to comfort her grew. No, he couldn’t do this. He needed to harden his emotions, if he was going to succeed in killing Stefan, and he definitely needed to stay away from Meredith.
***
“Killian!” Meredith cried as she burst through the door to the room.
“What the hell?” Grant exclaimed. “Alynna, I told you not to bring her here.”
“Grant, c’mon!” Alynna admonished. “She just found out she lost her dad.”
The three men gathered around Meredith, who stood quietly in front of them.
“Is it true?” Meredith asked, her eyes searching their faces.
The blonde one, Quinn, nodded. “Yes, it is. Archie’s gone.”
Her breath hitched. “How…when…I…” She sank down on the chair, her face draining of color. “When did you find out?”
“A few days ago,” Killian said. “I mean, the NYPD called us in Portland. We went and identified him today.”
“What happened?” Alynna asked. "Did they tell you anything?"
Killian shook his head. “They don’t know yet. They just said they found him in an alleyway. Said it looked like he had jumped from a building.”
“No!” Meredith protested. “He wouldn’t!”
“We’ll find out more tomorrow,” Quinn supplied. “We’re going to see the detectives at the police station to get more info.”
“I don’t understand,” Meredith said, taking a deep breath. “He can’t…it’s not true…” She stood up quickly, nearly knocking the chair over.
“It was him, Mer,” Killian said, taking her hands in his. “I’m sorry. It was Archie.”
“Can someone please explain what’s going on?” Grant said. “Who is Archie? Was he your father?”
“Archibald Leacham or Archie to us. He wasn’t our biological father, but he was the closest thing any of us had to one,” Killian began. “He found us all. We all lost our clans and families or,” he looked at Connor, “worse, and he took us in.”
“He knew you were Lycans?” Alynna asked.
Quinn nodded. “Yes. He was married to a Lycan, but she died a few years after they got married. He’s properly registered with the Portland clan.”
“He was able to gather you all together? He found you?”
Killian gave a nostalgic smile. “Kind of. Or we found him. We were all underage when he found us. We lived in his house outside Portland and as soon as we all turned eighteen, made us register as Lone Wolves so that we wouldn’t have any problems if we traveled to other territories.”
“He took in four strays?” Grant asked. “Just like that?”
“Archie was also a master thief,” Quinn explained. “Taught us everything we know.”
“Wait, you’re all…I mean, like Meredith?” Alynna asked.
Quinn laughed. “Kind of. The three of us,” he motioned to the two other men. “We all have our specialties. Killian can pick any lock, break into any safe, and escape from any situation you can think of.”
“And Quinn’s our master hacker,” Killian finished. “Archie sent him to Stanford and Caltech.”
“And you?” Alynna asked Connor.
The man huffed and said nothing.
“Connor has a very particular set of skills,” Killian said with a mysterious smile. “But he taught us all how to fight and defend ourselves.”
“So, Meredith,” Alynna said. “You kind of do all the things they do?”
She nodded. “A little bit of everything.”
“How did you get in with these guys?” Grant asked.
“I was…” Meredith took a deep breath.
“Archie took her in,” Killian finished. “We had all been under Archie’s guardianship for a few years. Meredith was the youngest and last one he adopted.”
“Our baby sister,” Quinn joked.
“Ugh, I hate it when you say that!” Meredith pouted. “I’m not a baby!”
“Alpha,” Killian continued. “I’m sorry for causing trouble. We’re not here to break out Meredith.”
“Yeah, that’s what she gets for getting caught,” Quinn said, which earned him a slap on the head from Meredith. “Ow, Mer! Stop it!”
“Shut up, keyboard warrior!”
Killian rolled his eyes, apparently used to the banter of the two. “As I said, we just wanted to let her know the news.”
Meredith sank back into her chair. “Archie…it’s just not him. He wouldn’t do that.”
Killian frowned. “We know. We think we found a connection with the mages.”
Grant suddenly stood from his chair. “How do you know about the mages?”
“Calm down, Alpha,” Killian said nonchalantly. “Just because the Council’s trying to keep a lid on the whole mage thing, doesn’t mean news can’t get out. If anything, we know you’ve been trying to rally the clans together to stop the mages.”
“What did you find out?” Meredith asked.
“Well, we’re not sure yet," Killian said. “But Archie came to New York to meet with someone. We found his datebook and there was a flight number, an address, a time and then next to it, he wrote ‘mages?’.”
“From that point, it only took a little bit of digging,” Quinn continued.
“But how could he get mixed up in all of this?” Meredith asked, a confused look on her face.
The three men looked at each other and grew quiet.
“What?” Meredith asked. “What happened?”
It was Connor who spoke, the first words anyone ever heard from the gigantic man. “It’s not important. We just need to figure out what happened to him and make them pay.”
Meredith frowned. They were keeping something from her, and she was going to find out what.
Grant sighed. “Seeing as this is an unusual circumstance…I grant you permission to stay in New York to investigate what happened to your father.”
“Thank you, Alpha,” Killian said with a grateful nod. “We’ll stay out of trouble, I promise.”
Grant shook his head. “We have a few rooms open in our security barracks. If you don’t mind bunking together, you all can stay for a few days. Meredith’s staying there, too.”
“That’s very generous of you, Alpha,” Killian replied.
“I’ll show them upstairs then,” Alynna said.
Grant massaged his temple with his fingers. “And I’ll brief Nick. He’s not going to be happy about this.”