Chapter Eleven

After Willa kicked Blue, Diana, and Lance out of her house at ten thirty, Blue went straight home and opened his laptop.

He ignored the slew of unread e-mail messages from his father, bulk deleted the ones from his stepmother that had chatty subject lines but edicts from his father inside, and opened his note-taking app.

Mostly, he used the software to sync information with Kenny about potential business opportunities, but he also had a few folders in the cloud that were dedicated exclusively to research about the arcane. Blue had spent a lot of years of his life sifting through that information and working out what events were real versus what were bogus. He wasn’t going to let the data go to waste. Contrary to what his father thought, it was important to know how the outside world discussed people like them in historical texts.

He’d just opened his bibliography on the ancient Greeks when a text message flashed on his phone screen:

 “Shit, what now?”

It wasn’t a group text like he usually got from Coyotes—they always CC’d Willa on any messages they sent him, probably expecting she’d show up to be the good cop to his bad cop.

That message was sent especially to him and from a number he’d memorized as belonging to a certain sheriff’s deputy.

“Damn,” he spat, pushing back from the table.

Fortunately, he hadn’t wasted time undressing. He had his shoes back on and car keys in hand in no time flat. Then he tossed the keys back onto the counter, kicked off the shoes, and shucked his clothes.

He could run to Sixth. If Tito was giving him a hasty heads-up about Coyote issues, Blue handling the mess in his animal form made sense.

He stalked quietly to the dark side of his rental house, laid his head to one side and then the other, and rolled his spine. As much as he hated wasting energy to force himself into his animal shape, it was the fastest way to impose order. Alpha magic was stronger when he was in his wild form.

Shapeshifting, to him, had always felt like having live wires in place of his bones, and when the magic started rippling through him, scalding hot electricity poured into them and stole his breath. His body both shrank and stretched, skin rippling over reshaped bones, and balance falling forward onto four feet.

He gave his fur a hasty shake and took off at a sprint, keeping to the shadows of his neighbors’ yards and then taking alleyways rather than streets.

Which troublemaker is it this time?

He didn’t know why he bothered wondering. Guessing was pointless. The whole pack was unpredictable. He couldn’t pick just one pain in the ass.

He crossed over to Iglesia, saw the flashing of police cruiser lights, and sped up upon identifying one of his charges pressed against the hood. Allen Banks was attempting to shapeshift under Tito’s grip.

Don’t you dare, dipshit.

Blue let out a quiet bark upon approach and ignored the two Cougars chomping at the bit to take a piece out of Blue’s pack member.

Foye and . . . 

Of course.

Blue rolled his eyes.

The second Cougar also had red hair, so he had to guess that was another Foye. There were three brothers, supposedly.

Tito got out of the way right as Blue launched himself at the car hood.

Allen had barely started to stand when Blue set his teeth into the younger man’s shoulder.

Get down.

Allen couldn’t fight him. He didn’t even have time to scream out in pain or complain. Blue’s will was greater than his, his energy too dominant.

Allen hit the ground writhing and convulsing.

Blue pulled his fangs out of his back and sat close while the Coyote shifted in front of him.

Blue wouldn’t have bothered—he would have let Allen have the shame of getting tangled up in his clothes—but Tito pulled a knife from somewhere and cut Allen’s jeans and shirt off of him as his body morphed.

Allen laid on his side, panting heavily, canine eyes rolling meekly toward Blue.

It’d probably be a good five or ten minutes before Allen could muster up enough energy to stand up. Being forced into animal form by an alpha was a bit like being yanked through the birth canal and having the misfortune of being fully aware it was happening. OG had done it to Blue enough times that he knew precisely how badly the compression hurt. It was the worst kind of squeezing—like being suffocated and crushed at the same time. There was nothing kind about a forced shift, but sometimes they were necessary.

Momentarily ignoring the Foyes, Blue canted his head toward Tito.

Well?

Tito shifted his weight and, sighing, massaged the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to arrest him on mere suspicion that he was about to commit a felony, but you and I both know he probably was.”

Blue thumped his tail against the ground impatiently.

“I don’t know if he was in his right head or not. I’ll let you make that determination.”

And what’d he do, Deputy?

“Found him in the cab of Hank’s truck rooting through the glove compartment.”

“Miles found him first,” the not–Mason Foye brother said. “You’d better be happy my wife has a soft spot for kids too stupid to know better.”

He—Hank, apparently—had longer, brighter hair than his brother’s.

Same asshole countenance, though.

Hank crouched and met Blue at eye level. He had the same asshole energy as his brother, too.

How nice that their daddy got a spare heir.

“If it were up to me,” Hank said dourly, “I’d evoke a deadline for you to get your pack out of town.”

Whatever, man.

There was a chance that whatever it was, Blue wouldn’t be there, anyway. He hoped that wasn’t the case. He still had a lot of work to do in Maria.

Tito let out a ragged exhalation and tossed a blanket he’d gotten from the trunk of his car on top of the shivering Coyote. “Mason could, Blue. Old treaty provision made four or five generations ago. Shifters were tearing up the damn town—if you could even call it a town at that point. It’d barely gotten started. The Coyotes, Wolves, and Cougars made an agreement that they’d put an end to the turf battling for the time being, but all bets would be off if any group made a personal attack on someone in another group.”

“As you may have learned,” Mason said, “there’s only one full-time Wolf in Maria.”

Tito grunted. “And he’s not even from here. Moved for his mate. The pack that used to be here got chased out about a hundred years ago. The fact that the Coyotes are still here, in spite of the hassle they’ve given the Foyes, is due only to the fact that little towns like this tend to do better overall if there’s diversity of supernatural groups. Better for the magical ecosystem.”

Blue waited for the “but.”

“But I’m running out of patience,” Mason said.

Here we go.

Blue would have rolled his eyes again if he’d truly thought doing so wouldn’t be the opening salvo to a public alpha tussle. The town probably didn’t need that. Both shifter groups were still paying off property damage from various conflicts.

“So consider this a warning,” Mason continued, and then shrugged. “Or maybe a suggestion, if you like that word better. My wife says I should practice being more diplomatic, so now I can tell her that I am without lying.” He smiled.

Blue didn’t like the way that man looked when he smiled. His wife probably liked the guy’s mug well enough, sure, but the expression made Blue want to ball up a fist and swing it, and he didn’t have fingers at the moment.

“What month is this, May?” Mason asked his brother.

“Yep.”

“Cool. Pack chaos usually starts to surge as spring fever kicks in, so we’ll see how well controlled the Coyotes are by . . . hmm.” Mason narrowed his eyes and tapped his unshaven jaw. “June first. That’s a Friday, I think. If I’m not seeing significant progress by then, I’ll demand that the pack leave and I won’t shed any tears about having to forcibly remove anyone who lingers. I don’t give a damn how long they’ve been here.”

Jackass.

Blue was hearing his father in Mason’s words—the rigidity, the callousness. He understood that Mason was fed up. Maybe Blue would have been, too, but the idea of uprooting so many families who’d been settled in the area since the town’s inception was downright Machiavellian. It was the kind of ultimatum Bruno probably would have appreciated.

The Foyes backed away.

Mason nodded to Tito, and then the brothers strode toward the pickup parked down the street.

“Shit,” Tito said under his breath.

Yeah. Shit.

“I can’t help you out on this one, man,” Tito said. He backed away from Allen, who was struggling to his feet.

Blue didn’t bother to help. No way in hell was the guy going to stay upright. Blue had poured too much juice into him for it to be possible. He’d psychically bulldozed him.

As Blue predicted, Allen plopped right back down and panted.

“I try to be as fair as I can be as a law enforcement official,” Tito said, smoothing his black hair back from his forehead, “but I’m the Cougar glaring’s de facto patron. I’m obviously going to do what’s necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of the cats. Most of the time, I stay out of the way and let Mason step in to deal with Cougar business. Foyes have been in charge for a long time around here, and for good reason, you understand me?”

Blue didn’t respond.

“Listen,” Tito said and sighed. “I like Willa a lot. She’s good people. I wish she’d reached out to us before and told us who she was. I wish she’d said something about the problems in the Coyotes, but I can’t change the past.”

Blue was certainly starting to wish that he could.

“At a certain point, if I have to step in and roll up my sleeves, I will,” Tito said. “Get me?”

Yeah, I get you.

Reluctantly, Blue nodded the best he could without a human neck.

“A’ight.” Tito knelt in front of Allen and rested his forearms on his thighs. “He gonna be okay?”

Blue made a noncommittal woofing sound.

Allen would be shambling around town, zombielike as though he’d taken a heavy sedative, for the next few days at the very least. He’d be most impressionable during that time—perfect for reprogramming. Blue didn’t want to have to do it. He hated that he was taking such a risk, but he didn’t see where he had a choice. Allen’s personality might be permanently changed by the time Blue screwed his head back on, but that was the risk he had to take to give the young man and the rest of the pack their best chance at a future. Their success meant Blue got to stay put.

No more playing around.

He sank his teeth into Allen’s fur once more and forced the canine onto four feet.

Let’s go.

Allen went, obedient because he had no choice.

Blue didn’t even want to think about what Willa would say when she found out. Somehow, though, he didn’t think she’d be gracing him with another of those cleansing laughs.