Magnus looked around Container Village, taking it in. He knew he had a different perspective than a lot of Lockwood Lycans, who were, despite their Lycan natures, mostly urban or small-town. They’d benefitted from being part of a large, wealthy clan that could blend seamlessly into one of the biggest cities in the Northeast and therefore, could trade with the regular population of humans.

The Kenai and Aklark obviously couldn’t. But Magnus remembered the years between the fall of his original clan and his father’s outcasting and the time when Barwulf Waldwyck had allowed him to settle in Lockwood lands. He remembered the months of living in a crappy trailer park where each trailer had a tinier plot than even the poorest of the container houses, where he’d been forced by his father to go around the small area they had in wolf form to piss and mark their territory, knowing the local pit bulls and other dogs wouldn’t dare cross a Lycan’s border.

So he didn’t feel all that out of place as he looked around the village. It wasn’t all that bad-looking, really. Each of the containers looked like they were in some stage or another of being ‘normalized’, with all of them showing electrical and plumbing hookups evident. Most of them had at least a coat of paint on the exterior, with some of them even being sided with vinyl or some other means to make them look like normal houses. While maybe not as luxurious as the Lockwood Towers, Magnus didn’t think the Aklark were doing all that badly. If anything, the houses looked like they could take anything the Canadian winter could dish out and shrug it off, looking for more.

Watching Edward walk off in the other direction, Magnus took a moment to think before heading toward the south end of the village, where if he remembered right, the tea growing greenhouses were. They were a new addition and weren’t actually part of the village. Instead, Magnus found a dirt access road that led for a little under a mile to the greenhouses.

As he walked, he passed nearly a half-dozen Aklark, each of them like Edward, tall and broad with massive frames that supported huge bodies. Even the Aklark women were big, easily equaling Kim Waldwyck in height while probably being equal or more in weight to him.

“Hi,” he said to one who was trimming back the undergrowth that was threatening to creep into the road. “Is this the way to the tea houses?”

“Down the road . . .” the woman said, guarded but not unfriendly. “You’re not Kenai.”

“Lockwood, Sister,” Magnus said, falling into polite Lycan language. He knew the Aklark didn’t use it, but he also knew how to be charming when he had to be, and a little polite language always helped. “I’m here with Edward Stormstout on a visit. I like the tea and hoped to see how it’s produced.”

The woman’s eyes thawed a little, but she still didn’t crack a smile. Tough nut to crack, the Aklark, it seemed. “It’s about a half mile. You’ll see it. So Edward’s in town? Did he bring the babies?”

“No, they’re not ready for the helicopter flight just yet,” Magnus replied, still smiling. If his charm didn’t work, babies were pretty universal as well. “But he’s looking forward to showing them their homelands.”

“And do they look like bear or Lycan?”

Magnus shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. You’d have to ask him. I wasn’t with them when they had their first transformation.”

He kept going, wondering about the woman’s comment. He was honestly curious himself, and in his mind, he tried to imagine what a creature that was halfway between the two would look like. Then again, he didn’t know what it felt like internally for Edward to shift forms, and part of him hoped it wasn’t as painful as it was for him. Maybe it was because of his only being half-Lycan, but he thought it was more painful for him to shift than it was for someone of full blood. It certainly seemed like the Waldwycks could shift form easier than he could. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it. He just didn’t unless he had to or could spend a long time in one form or the other.

“I should talk with Lady Thornblood,” he said to himself, thinking of Melanie Waldwyck, Keith’s mate. She’d only been shifting for a few months herself, although her bloodline was very strong, having been created by Akiko Thornblood herself. Maybe she could give him some insight.

The road turned to the left, and Magnus saw the greenhouses up ahead. He was surprised as he approached. They didn’t look nearly as professional as he’d have expected. There were gaps in some of the panels, and as Magnus came closer, he thought that the herbs or whatever was being used for the tea was dying in the houses.

“What the hell?” he asked, approaching the first of the greenhouses. “This isn’t right.”

“No, it isn’t,” a voice said from the other side of the greenhouse, and Magnus looked toward the sound. The wavy plastic and glass distorted the image, but he could tell that it was a woman from the voice.

“Hello?” he said, moving toward the end of the greenhouse. The figure moved too, and as he approached, he slowed down. “I’m Magnus Fiachan, of Clan Lockwood.”

“I figured you were Lockwood,” the woman said. “I can smell your Lycan-ness, and you’re city, too. No offense.”

Magnus stepped around the corner, stopping as he saw the woman. She was definitely Aklark, equal in height to him, and maybe they’d tip the scales at about the same weight, too, but that was where the similarities stopped. She had nearly waist-length black hair that was braided into a thick cable that draped over her shoulder, and her eyes were gray and almond-shaped, with high cheekbones and a calm demeanor to her face that left her with a sort of regal beauty.

Her body was equally as impressive, Magnus quickly noticed. Her shoulders, while broad, weren’t overly muscular but instead acted as a frame to her voluptuous body. Magnus’s first thought about her build was to call her ‘thick,’ and in a good way. While her waist wasn’t as trim as the average Lycan woman’s, she still had an hourglass to her figure with the size of her breasts and the width of her hipbones, which tapered down to strong looking thighs inside her jeans. All in all, Magnus thought . . . she was hot.

“Well, I’m certainly not Aklark,” Magnus said after a moment, clearing his throat. He’d never met a woman who had such an immediate effect on him, not even . . . her. His immediate reaction was to yearn for her, and his cock twitched in his pants as he noticed just how large, how voluptuous her ass and breasts were.

It was more than her body, though. Her gaze was nearly disturbing in its intensity. He blinked, wondering how he hadn’t noticed her. He had good senses like any Lycan, and he’d been paying attention. She was just . . . silent. “Who are you?”

“Kristina Darksky,” the woman replied, offering her hand. They shook, and Magnus wasn’t sure, but he thought he felt a spark jump between them as their fingers touched. Her eyes glinted momentarily, and he wondered . . . was she interested in him too? “What brings you to the greenhouses?”

“Edward wanted to see what’s been going on up here,” Magnus said, trusting his instincts. “He received some disturbing news.”

“And what have you seen so far?” Kristina asked, turning and walking away. Magnus hurried to keep up, jogging a few steps as the tall Aklark strode next to the greenhouses, her hands behind her back and her eyes inscrutable. “Anything to justify the disturbing news?”

“On the surface? No,” Magnus admitted, catching up to Kristina and walking next to her. It was hard to keep his attention on the path in front of him. He kept wanting to steal glances at her face as they walked. His eyes kept wanting to double-check that she was real. “But there are lots of little things wrong in town.”

“Such as the greenhouses needing repairs,” Kristina said, gesturing to another rip in the plastic. “For the first few months that the tea operation was going, you could have used these greenhouses as models. They were in perfect condition. A single tear in the plastic would be fixed within hours, if not minutes. Ben Stormstout was often out here himself, making sure that the new project was running smoothly.”

“Not anymore,” Magnus noted as he saw another rip in the plastic. “That rip looks old.”

“Been there for three weeks,” Kristina said, her voice level. “I tried to keep up with the repairs as best I could, but I’m only one person, and I’m running out of supplies.”

“And the sickness,” Magnus noted, broaching the subject. “Peter Alces looked like hell, and Ben didn’t look much better.”

Kristina nodded. “I’ll tell you something else, something that I’m not sure Ben or any of the others have noticed. They’re not the only two. There have been others . . . and almost all of them are men.”

“Almost?” Magnus asked, and Kristina nodded.

“Edward’s mother has been struggling too, but I can’t think of a single Kenai female who’s sick, and most of the Aklark women aren’t either,” Kristina said. She showed Magnus the rest of the greenhouse operation, Magnus getting more and more concerned as he saw the damage.

“There’s no way some of these plants will be recoverable,” Magnus noted. “I know more about being a ranger than a botanist, but I know a bit.”

“They won’t,” Kristina said softly, shaking her head. She led him inside, showing him the remains of the mostly dead house. “It’s not good, that’s for sure.”

“What is going on, Kristina?” Magnus said, squatting down to look at one of the damaged plants. “Everything people have told me about Ben Stormstout says he’s as much an accountant as he is a leader. This is money being pissed in the dirt.”

“I don’t know,” Kristina said, shaking her head. “I’m not really part of container village, to let you know. I live outside the village, closer to town in my own place that’s sort of isolated, so I’m not as close as some of the others. I work out here because . . . well, because I like the tea.”

Magnus chuckled at the sudden flash of personal insight into the mysterious and, he had to admit, beautiful woman, and he smiled. “Well, it’s a good reason to take the job. Can I ask you a favor?”

“You can ask,” Kristina said as Magnus stood up. “What can I do for one of the high-ranking members of Clan Lockwood?”

“Oh, I’m hardly high-ranking,” Magnus said, suddenly self-conscious. “But . . . well, Edward has a friend who tipped him off.”

“Jason, most likely. He’s Kenai, but he’s around here quite a bit. He’s looking a bit tired recently too. I won’t blab.”

“Thank you, but I was thinking . . . I could use another viewpoint,” Magnus said. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out his wallet and taking a business card. “Here, it has my work cell on it . . . Kristina, Edward’s worried. And since he’s part of Clan Lockwood and I swore my loyalty to the Waldwycks, that makes me worried.”

“I understand,” Kristina said, taking the card. Again, Magnus felt something like a spark jump between their fingers when they touched, and he swore that her lightly bronzed skin flushed a little. He certainly felt warm. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Thank you. Um, well, I was also thinking . . .” he said in a rush, tripping over his tongue and feeling like a fool, “would it be okay if I asked you to dinner tonight? Like, at the diner or something?”

Magnus could feel the heat creep up his neck. He didn’t know why. He’d asked women out before. While his work with the Waldwycks kept him busy, it wasn’t like he never had dates. Sure, he thought that Kristina was striking, with a beautiful face and a body that was certainly just as eye-catching, but that didn’t mean that . . .

“I like the idea . . . but I can’t.”

Magnus felt defeated, but he nodded. They only had one night up in the Aklark lands. He wasn’t going to have another chance. “I understand.”

Kristina chuckled, shaking her head. “No, I don’t think you do. What I mean is that I’m not allowed in the diner at all, as per Ben Stormstout’s orders. I’ll let Edward tell you about it on the way back to America if you could hold your questions until then. But if I could . . . I think I’d enjoy dinner with you very much.”

Magnus felt the heat rise in his cheeks again, and he nodded. “Okay. Well, I think I need to poke around more. Thank you, Kristina. Tell me, do you have any suspicions as to what’s causing all of this?”

Kristina’s smile faded, and this time when she shook her head, it was more serious. “No. But if I learn anything, I’ll tell you.”