Chapter Fifteen:
Callia

 

It had only been a matter of time before the werewolves figured out their role during the Takeover. They had been the foot soldiers, the meat shields, those who had doled out violence firsthand and fought on the front lines.

They’d been the ones who’d taken the most significant losses, and the vampires and witches had allowed it to happen because that was simply… easier.

But it wasn’t as though vampires hadn’t fallen. Countless fledglings had gone to their deaths over the course of the Takeover itself, but they’d been too new and difficult to track.

And, well, few had cared about them either.

Callia hadn’t.

Not then, not when she’d been burning with single-minded determination for the very cause she’d now turned her back on.

Who would’ve thought she’d work so hard to undo what she’d been responsible for?

“We’re allies, aren’t we, Malone?” Callia asked, tilting her head as Imriel poured the werewolf’s next drink.

“What do you want?” Malone instantly retorted, holding out her glass for the boy. As he stepped back, she took a few measured sips.

It took a lot to make a werewolf drunk, and it would be all too obvious if she tried, but Callia could get Malone to loosen up a little if she plied her with just the right amount of liquor. It was a pity Imriel couldn’t influence minds like he could read them yet…

“World peace,” Callia replied dryly, leaning back against her spot on the comfortable couch. Those words weren’t as tongue-in-cheek as they’d once been, though. “Really, Malone.”

Malone flashed her a feral grin, but it grew dark as she leaned forward.

She was every bit as tense as Callia was relaxed — or at least, as relaxed as Callia seemed. She knew better than to let down her defenses even with a werewolf she called ally and perhaps one day might call friend.

Malone sobered, for all that she drained the rest of her glass and beckoned for Imriel to refill it again. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, Callia. You have a good explanation, I’m sure.”

Didn’t she always?

“For the rumors,” Malone added.

Callia didn’t need the addendum, but she didn’t interrupt. She nodded. “And it is an explanation, not an excuse,” she told Malone patiently, knowing that would come up in the wake of her words.

Malone snorted at that. “I’m spending too much time around you, vampire. I can see what you’re doing.”

“Telling the truth?” Callia asked, her voice mild.

“You’re like a storyteller,” Malone remarked. “A good storyteller, but you are one. You’re honest as long as it suits you, then you figure out how to twist the truth to make your point of view more compelling when it doesn’t.”

Wasn’t that just startlingly astute coming from the werewolf Elder? She waved Imriel over after he gave her another refill, and he set down the bottle of bourbon before the much taller boy curled up to tuck himself under her arm. Her fingers slid through his hair, and she absently kissed the top of his head as she kept him close. She still wanted him to eavesdrop on Malone’s thoughts, but…

She’s being blunt, isn’t she, my Imri? Honest?

Callia projected the thought carefully, making sure Imriel caught it — unlike her usual thoughts, which she hid behind more mundane ones.

She felt more than saw him nod against her.

Good. That made this easier.

“Well then,” Callia said with a wry smile, “I suppose I’ll have to make this as clinical as possible.” Her smile faded. “We all served our roles during the Takeover.”

Malone stiffened.

“Vampires and werewolves were most suitable physically capable of combat,” Callia continued as though she hadn’t noticed. “Witches have their strengths, of course, but they’re easily enough brought down unless they’re highly capable. They heal as well as humans, and they aren’t nearly as deadly as ‘wolves are.”

Pander to the werewolf’s ego, just a bit, and keep it laced enough in truth to make it hard to discount. There were reasons werewolves were vampires’ natural enemies — and why she wanted them on her side.

“We lost fledglings,” Callia said quietly, and it was all she could do to keep the bitter grief from her voice. It had been her fault that so many had been turned and killed, but she’d thought them all disposable then. Now… now, she wasn’t so sure they had been or that they should’ve been seen that way. “You lost cubs.”

“Your kind didn’t fragment the way ours did,” Malone said, bitterness edging her voice. “Everyone fell apart and came back together in a jumble. It’s all we can do to keep the packs from going to war.”

Interesting. Callia had known that all was not well in werewolf land, but she hadn’t known it was that close to outright civil war. But then, vampires didn’t often collect themselves, preferring to remain alone or in smaller groups that were harder to separate.

“The rumors?” she asked, tilting her head. “Are they really making morale so low?”

Malone sighed, downing the rest of her glass again but setting it aside before Callia could send Imriel to fill it again. “Yes and no,” she said. “There have been rumors for a while of one of the packs supporting the Rebellion.”

“The one led by… Aggie, is it?” Callia asked thoughtfully.

Malone nodded, briefly looking startled before her smile turned rueful. “I forget sometimes that you have eyes and ears everywhere.”

Callia shrugged. There was no sense in denying it, especially to someone she needed to have as a close ally. “This is how our kind operate,” she explained. “We keep tabs on one another. We handle threats that present themselves, but mostly… The vampires who avoid violence tend to be the ones who get the furthest.”

“I’ve never heard of you getting into a physical fight,” Malone said.

Callia’s smile turned vulpine. “No,” she agreed sweetly. “You haven’t.”

That didn’t mean she’d never been in one or that she couldn’t hold her own, but that simply wasn’t how vampires operated. They weren’t like werewolves.

Malone shook her head. For a moment, they were both silent, then the ‘wolf continued, “There are rumors that the ‘wolf who got enslaved on treason charges wasn’t really guilty, that Aggie just set him up.”

Imriel shifted restlessly beside her.

Callia couldn’t wait to hear just what Malone had been thinking throughout this conversation. “So shouldn’t something be done? He’s Ivers’ pet now. If Ivers illegally holds a supe as a slave…” she prompted, like she wasn’t cuddling with a legally marked Conti witch who served as her slave — in a way. He was pampered and loved, adored and cherished, and he loved her just as much.

Was that truly slavery?

Oh, yes. That was slavery of the worst sort. No writ of freedom could undo this because his own kind had damned him for the crime of being born into the Conti family. Callia knew it, but then, she’d always known it. She only had to take care that Imriel didn’t understand how little choice he had. By the time he did, though, the love in his heart would have continued to swell until there wasn’t room for bitterness or hurt.

She hoped.

“He confessed,” Malone replied. “Anyway, that’s not something we can fix.” Her lips pressed together into a thin line. “One pack is under Ivers’ control, somehow — well, I guess we know how. Getting it back is the hard part since pack law doesn’t mean shit to them. Aggie’s wants to go back to our old ways,” and there was such yearning to the Elder’s voice when she spoke, “but they need help.”

“Which is why you’re on the brink of war,” Callia confirmed with a nod. “But shouldn’t rumors of being used as foot soldiers unite you, not divide you?”

Malone’s smile was brittle. “It’s one more thing for us to fight about. It’s our pride, you see. Some think it was an honor to have been so critical on the ground. Others think we were used and thrown away. We can’t even decide on how we feel, even if it is true that we were expendable.”

“No one was expendable,” Callia replied with more conviction than she’d had before, shaking her head. “We needed every foot we had on the ground. Everyone served in their best capacity, and if that meant as soldiers…” She watched Malone. “Our own died too,” she reminded her.

“That doesn’t mean ours weren’t put into the more dangerous situations,” Malone said, baring her teeth as the mood in the room started to twist into something tenser.

“Of course you were,” Callia said calmly, much to Malone’s obvious blatant shock that she’d come out and admit such a thing. The woman must not have been very good at poker. “Werewolves are the apex predator, are they not?” She shook her head. “Vampires might have survived. Witches certainly wouldn’t have. But werewolves… you had the best chances of living through all of this.”

Malone was silent for a moment, her breaths even despite the way her nostrils flared. “Tell me you aren’t fucking with me on this, Odessa.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Callia said. Even if the truth now wasn’t exactly the same truth as it was then.

“So what do we do?” Malone asked after another moment of disconcerting silence.

“Well, are the werewolves accused of working with the Rebellion actually doing so?” Callia asked.

Malone hesitated, and that was enough to give her the answer she needed.

Callia pressed on. “Because if they are, the Rebellion might have a chance in hell of carrying out their plan, wild as it is.”

“Their plan,” Malone said slowly, staring at Callia with her eyes just a little too wide. “And you just happen to know what it is? You?”

Time to roll the dice.

“Mm. I just happen to know they have everything but the manpower needed to pull off their task,” Callia said, sealing her own fate one way or another.

“You know this is treason, by your own laws,” Malone told her.

“Darling,” Callia said, “of course I do.” Her own smile was brittle then. “I was there when they were drafted.”

She was the reason they’d been drafted, whispering in all the right ears…

“You don’t agree with them?”

Callia shook her head, but it took her a moment to speak. “Not anymore,” she said softly, admitting the words aloud for perhaps the first time. “Back then…” She closed her eyes briefly before opening them and gazing intently into Malone’s amber ‘wolf eyes. “Things were different. I was different.”

“We all were. It was a decade ago.”

Ah, poor naive little werewolf. Malone would never understand what Callia meant, what role she’d had to play, unless she came right out and said it. That wasn’t ever going to happen.

The only thing Malone needed to know was what she did already. Only a few years before, Callia had ensured a smooth road for the female ‘wolf to ascend to the Council as her own ally.

Callia had played her role, and she’d seen all of this come to pass because of it. She wasn’t going to take the blame for it from anyone else, not when she was more interested in seeing it ended now. “So I suppose that’s treason, yes,” she confirmed with a nod.

“And what happens if Council members are hurt? It’s barely enough of a guiding force as it is.”

“What you mean,” Callia corrected her, kissing Imriel’s forehead again as the boy stayed so still she could almost forget he was there, “is that the Council has been crumbling since its conception. Now it may fall apart so something better can take its place.”

“What?” Malone asked, sneering at her. “Do you plan on becoming Queen?”

Callia arched a brow. “I want as far away from whatever government rises from the ashes as possible, darling,” she said. “So long as I and those I care for stay alive, I don’t care what happens after it falls.”

Imriel jolted, staring up at her.

“Calm, sweet boy,” she murmured to him. “Calm. Nothing will happen to us.” They would be on the winning side, after all. If anyone decided to try an ex-Elder witch hunt, she wouldn’t be there for them to find —and neither would Imriel or Draven.

“I want to bring the packs together,” Malone said. “I don’t want a hands-off role.”

“Then we’ll make sure you’re in a position to do just that. I don’t know enough about werewolf politics to offer much input,” and Malone scoffed at Callia’s words, for all that Callia ignored it and continued, “but I do know it’s possible. They’re crying out for a leader, especially if one of your own packs has been following a witch.”

“Elias Ivers, at that,” Malone said, lip curling up into a snarl. “Of all the people…”

“He’s the most likely to have managed this,” Callia confirmed, nodding. “There aren’t many of his caliber, I’ll admit. I certainly couldn’t have done it.”

Malone’s eyes narrowed. “That makes it sound almost like you tried, Odessa.”

“We were all young and stupid once,” Callia said, meeting Malone’s gaze without flinching. She rolled the dice again, opting for the truth for all she knew it could be a mistake along with the rest of this. “We’ve all made mistakes. I’m doing my best to correct mine before the world turns to ash beneath our feet. I promise I won’t interfere or intervene with the werewolves unless you ask for my help.”

“I won’t,” Malone said, voice holding a little more bite than was truly necessary.

“But if you do,” Callia said with a shrug. “You know where to find me. Until then…”

Malone drew in a deep breath, gathering herself before Callia’s eyes.

Callia could see it when the werewolf made her decision.

“What do you need from me?” Malone asked, committing herself every bit as fully as Callia had. At least, she seemed to.

If she hadn’t, though, Callia would know soon enough, when Imriel told her about the meeting from his unique perspective. Having a secret telepath was a gift beyond measure.

The rebellion was going to be beyond pleased to know their attack had a chance of succeeding, and Callia would get to be the one to deliver the news that she’d negotiated it. Dangerous, where the other Elders were concerned. This was the first time she’d act in any sort of open capacity. She’d relied on others to do her work, making it all but impossible to trace her activities back to her.

This time… She needed the recognition of having aided the rebellion. Their plan was solid, and they had a real chance of succeeding. With the backing of the supes, they even had a chance of holding any ground they gained.

She was playing the game, and she had to make sure all of her pawns were perfectly in place before everything came tumbling down.

“Contact Aggie,” Callia said. “She knows who to talk to in the rebellion. Just give her the go-ahead, and I rather suspect you won’t need to do much at all.”

Three days. They only had three days to put this all together, but they could do it. And with the help of the werewolves — their foot soldiers — along with any vampires that would help, they would do it.

Callia smiled.

Your move, Elias.