****
The Alpha’s house reeked of panther as Raul stood in the living room, carefully maintaining his subordinate position. Even without Keira’s warning, Harold’s greeting would have given him enough notice to behave himself properly. Raul looked around, trying not to appear to be noticing details; the last thing he wanted was to come across as a spy.
“Raul was the one who helped me escape,” Keira told the Alpha, sitting down on the leather couch that hugged the wall. Raul remained standing, a few feet away from her, hands in front of him, in a sort of modified “parade rest” position. The old man looks like ex-military, Raul thought, feeling an almost unwilling sympathy with Harold. He didn’t want to like the man; the Alpha panther was everything that Raul had ever been taught to distrust. But he had already begun to question the dogma that living as a werewolf had bequeathed to him; Keira was unlike anything he had been taught to expect of a panther female.
“Lachlan and Gary are dead,” Harold said. “You got away. Explain that to me.”
“They were given the opportunity to leave, too,” Keira said, glancing at Raul. “He offered them assistance, but they wouldn’t take it.”
“Why did you?” Harold’s voice was tight, almost brittle with suppressed anger. Raul looked at the man more intently, taking in the details of his face; there were similarities to Lachlan, but that could simply be close breeding. He had more than a few cousins in the Pack himself.
“Lachlan and Gary insisted,” Keira said. “Because I am a female of mating age. They kept us in copper chains; I fought with this one to try and create enough of a diversion for all of us to get free, but the Alpha came in.” Harold looked at Raul sharply and Raul looked away, carefully keeping his gaze on the floor, expressing no dominance.
“The wolf Alpha overstepped his boundaries,” Harold said, his voice cut through with a throaty growl. “He has to be made to pay. I can smell that one’s mark all over you—why shouldn’t I call in the clan, have you both whipped and then put to your own deaths? You for a traitor, him for being part of the illegal execution?”
“If we don’t settle this,” Keira said firmly, “then our clan and their Pack are both just going to keep picking each other off bit by bit until either the elementals get involved or neither of us has enough members to survive.”
“The wolves have to pay for what they did,” Harold insisted. “I can’t let what they did slide.”
“What would you ask as a price?” Keira shot a scowl in his direction, but Raul disregarded it. “I will tell you now—the Pack itself is divided about the executions. Some of the members are glad it happened; the raids on our businesses were getting out of control. Some of the members are against Reginald now, because what he did isn’t our way.”
“It’s exactly your way, wolf,” Harold said, the growl in his voice intensifying. “It’s the coward’s way.”
“And raiding businesses in the dead of night is brave?” Raul head Keira’s warning hiss, saw the tension increase in Harold’s demeanor. “We didn’t even know your grievance with us—how is raiding our businesses, vandalizing our properties, without telling us what you want from us, a way to solve the situation?”
“You wolves know exactly what you’ve done,” Harold insisted. “I shouldn’t have to tell you.”
“I want to know what you think we’ve done,” Raul said, bringing his gaze up—briefly—to meet Harold’s. “We can’t broker a truce between our groups if nobody is willing to discuss their grievances. I’ve told you ours; you tell me yours.”
“Wolves have been poaching on our lands,” Harold said, scowling at him. “Some of your Pack have been stealing from our businesses in the middle of the day, pilfering things.”
“Young, or full Pack members?” Raul made a mental note of that—it was something he hadn’t known. Of course, if it were werewolf youths, their actions were likely to have been motivated by pure pettiness, or done as a way to “prove” their bravery to their friends.
“Full Pack members,” Harold said, almost spitting the words out. “And one of your asshole Pack buddies killed a panther of mating age last month.”
“What?” Keira was as shocked as Raul felt. “When did that happen?”
“I brought in a possible mate for Lachlan,” Harold said quietly. “Since Keira won’t mate him, I thought a panther from another place might be a better fit. She was here three days, and then I found her dead on the clan’s running territory, marked by the wolves.”
“I hadn’t heard about this,” Raul said. “Would you be able to identify who it was that killed the female, if they were brought before you?”
“Of course,” Harold said bitterly. “The only scents I know better than that pissy wolf smell are the scents of my own kin. I’ve locked it in my memory.”
“Why didn’t you go to Reginald for justice?” Raul could see on Keira’s face that she was appalled. “We started these petty raids on the wolves’ businesses because you wanted to stir up a war?”
“I wanted to force them to confront us,” Harold said. “All you wolves think you’re too good for the rest of the shifter community; the only way I’d get you to come talk to us was to get you good and mad.”
“Instead, you made us goad them into capturing us, and killing Lachlan and Gary!”
“That was Reginald’s decision,” Raul said firmly. “Our bylaws say that you three should have been put to trial, your Alpha contacted, some kind of agreement come to.”
“Excuse me if I’m not surprised that a wolf doesn’t even obey his own Pack’s bylaws when it stops being convenient,” Harold said bitterly.
“So how are we going to heal this breach?” Raul glanced at Keira. “You’ve lost kin, I’ve lost kin and friends, and Raul’s Pack is in chaos. Will you agree to meet with members of the Pack to bring the killers to justice?”
“I need revenge for Lachlan as well as for the female,” Harold said firmly. “And I know exactly who killed my boy. I want to see Reginald dead.” Raul pressed his lips together; he could understand the older man’s desire for vengeance, but he couldn’t think of how he could protect his own kin—the Pack—and also bring the peace that he and Keira desperately needed. Reginald had set him up; he had called members of the Pack, some of whom had attacked him in the melee.
“Let me see if I can help you track down the female’s killers,” Raul suggested. “And then we can talk about Reginald. The Pack itself might not give you the opportunity to kill him.” Harold laughed, the sound cut through with a throaty, purring growl.
“I’d accept whoever replaced him as Alpha,” Harold told him. “Provided he or she rose to the top spot by putting him to death.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Raul said wryly.
“Will you grant us safe passage to leave?” Keira’s voice was tight, but her pheromones were not as strongly marked with fear as they’d been when the two of them had arrived; Raul thought to himself that he might never plumb the depths of her personality—the way she interacted with her Alpha was different from the way she treated him, and he was sure that it was different from how she acted with outsiders. All of us here have different personalities, depending on who you talk to, Raul thought absently.
“I’m going to have to put the matter of you taking up with a damn wolf to the clan,” Harold said. “You can leave my house, I won’t detain you—but you’d best not show your face in any of our running lands.” Keira looked briefly shocked—shocked and hurt—but then she inclined her head, accepting the verdict.
“We’ll go,” she said, looking at him. She turned back to Harold. “If you send trackers after us when we’re staying away, though, I won’t hold back—not in protecting myself, and not in protecting him.”
“You’ve mated him?” Raul’s heart beat faster in his chest.
“No,” she said. “But if he’s willing, I fully intend to.”