“Hi Emily. Sorry, I have to leave a message like this. But we made it here to the resort alright. Slight problem though. We hadn’t even checked in and Penny that Damon’s daughter. She’s gone missing. I’ll try again later. We have to go look for her.” Emily finally got to her desk for the day. Her pups kept her, and many others, busy these days. This was the last message on her voicemail and as soon as she heard Eva’s overly cheerful voice, she knew there was a disaster happening. A pup alone in their territory was difficult. At least it wasn’t raining. They should be able to track her scent. Though if she disappeared from the lobby, it could become more difficult with all the layered scent. “James, we need some trackers at the resort.” Emily leaned into James’ office once she got there. James looked up from his computer. “All ready? What why?” “I just got a message from Eva. They made it here fine, but Damon’s little girl wandered off from the lobby before
Eva couldn’t believe the panic she was in. The first thing she did was run toward the river. It was at the base of a cliff or eroded embankment praying she wouldn’t find Penny broken at the bottom. She couldn’t have gone this far so quickly. She’s just six years old. That didn’t mean nothing when you spoke about Penny. Hours later, there still wasn’t any sign of her having wandered off. No trail or scent led from the lobby of the resort that matched Penny’s. There were still people looking, and Eva was beside herself. “My dear, if she was injured or dead, we’d have found her by now. I’m sure as soon as she gets hungry that she will appear out of nowhere.” Janine assured Eva, but it didn’t ease either woman’s worry. “There are still lots of places to look. Lots of rooms and many locations still to search. This isn’t a small place.” “I’m aware of that and you’ve made it larger somehow.” Eva would swear on her life there were rooms now that never existed when
“You left a message hon to come see you when I could. What’s up? Your message said it was urgent.” Thomas entered Asia’s office and came to her. “One of your pack’s pups has gone missing. Now they’re looking for them right now.” “Asia, which pup is missing?” “Oh right. Damon’s pup, Penny, is missing. I got a call from Eva almost an hour ago. They made it to the resort and promptly lost Penny before they could check in properly.” “Why didn’t Damon contact me?” “You were in a meeting with you Gammas. I was the first person they could reach. She said Penny’s been missing for over five hours now. The entire resort and James’ pack are searching. So far, there’s no trace of her. They have tracker searching, but it’s near impossible before of the foot traffic through the lobby.” “That pup could be anywhere. She’s tiny and fast for her size. She’s also afraid of nothing that I know of.” “I only met her the once, and she seemed adorable.
“Thanks for keeping me updated, Janine. I’ll have someone at the airport waiting to pick them up. I hope this doesn’t turn into a PR problem for us. It’s the last thing we need and to be a pup of a close friend, too. How’s Eva handling this and Damon?” “I have Eva with the on call healer right now, making sure she doesn’t need to be sedated and Damon’s just beside himself. He’s running himself ragged. It’s been nearly twelve hours now and none of our trackers here have found any sign of her. We’re looking bad, Emily, and I just feel horrible for Damon and Eva. I just finished going through this with James, but he was a grown adult.” Janine sounded like it was getting to her as well. “Then I have the resort pulling my attention away just like pack business.” “Well, let me deal with pack business here this time. I have plenty of sitters for the pups here. So that’s not part of the problem. You can put a skeleton staff in place to run the day-to-day issues. Is Haden
Janine hurried moved through the lobby. There behind one of the square ornamental columns was a half door leading into the wall. A faint light filtered through the doorway. “It connected the lights here to the main power. We think if the lights are on in the lobby, then the lights are on down here.” “Great and no one caught the wiring irregularities?” “They were afraid to cut anything in case they had to fix it again because it was a necessary wire to some obscure location. Someone also didn’t follow up on where it led. So we have a few lights down there. I’d recommend taking light with you because we don’t know how long the bulbs have before they die down there. Also, be careful that electrical is old and quite possibly a fire hazard.” It was one of the maintenance staff saying this to Haden and herself. Either way, the pup entered here. The secret passage went on for some time. It turned corners and steep stairs finally came into view. “I can see w
Eva and Damon were so relieved that Penny was found confused, but healthy and whole. The staff were trying to identify the things found hidden within a sealed off mine shaft and the remains of two people. This wasn’t death by misadventure, that much was true. They found the adult corpse still wearing shackles and, by the feel of them, the person would have never left that place without help. With no light and the adult hobbled to the wall, the pup must have tried to escape to get help and failed. It was all a very sad thing. The pup died only twenty minutes from the exit. Many packs followed Thomas’ pack and inventoried their weapons stores. James planned to start after his surprise mating ceremony. Now they found that their work was far greater. “I don’t know about Emily or James, but Damon, this isn’t a normal stash of weapons. I think they may have been stolen and hidden here. The marking on the crates isn’t a pack symbol I recognize.” Eva lay in bed with Damon
“Hey, I’m so glad you could come. It feels like it’s been forever since we last saw each other.” Eva smiled at Emily before she hugged her. “Are these your two? They’re so tiny!” They stood in the resort’s lobby, greeting each other. Emily’s pups were in their stroller because Janine begged to have time with them. “Yes, finally we can see each and caught up. Yeah, these two are mine. It’s still hard to realize what miracles these two are. Hey, not all of us got the readymade family. How is Penny after that adventure of hers?” James was here looking at the things hidden in the caves or old mines. They had a story here that no one understood. But there were plenty of people looking into and there was no rush to solve it. “She appears no worse for wear, but with her, looks can be deceiving. I’ll explain later. Oh, now grandma wants these two to add to the collection of pups she has in the garden right now. That’s where Penny is. They’re enjoying the day there, learni
Emily was enjoying her afternoon with Eva. It was better than the past. They were adults with their responsibilities lifted just for the day. Emily felt relaxed and pampered, which was a new sensation for her. Another great thing was when Eva told her flatly that she wouldn’t talk about the planning of Emily’s mating ceremony until tomorrow. They were going to let it go for now and not drag the day down with all that planning and decision making. No Beta or Luna talk either. It was just them and having a good time. Emily lost her suspicions about a plot against her as the hours went on. They got massages, ate lunch, and later got facials. Eating lunch was a little odd. Everything was her favourite, but then Janine knew her and ran the place for the pack. After lunch, it was on to manicures and pedicures, followed by hair and makeup. This was around the time Emily had a sneaky feeling someone was pulling the wool over her eyes. Everyone was up to something. She co
Happy EndingsJames and EmilyEmily and James have come so far from the stunted, messy, immature, and abusive relationship of their early years, overcome medical disaster, and so much more. Now, as parents and on the verge of a successful resort business, they deserve a little peace and quiet to enjoy their second chance. Their highlight success was with the rogue wolves that came to them. All but two survived the trip and the great adjustment into pack life. They had such success that eventually both twins had their own packs when they were old enough.Janine and HadenThey have both found a second chance with each other and a new lease on life managing the resort. Life won’t be quiet for them, but that’s the life they chose. So we leave off with the weapons, passing to the Largest Ontario Wolf Shifter Pack and the political power of the Wolf Shifters. Now they can settle into their twilight years together, chasing Duck Shifters from the front fountain, and keeping bear shif
The candle and a long stem lighter, so Gwenda chose to use the lighter without the candle and she heated the back of the paper. “Here goes nothing.” It took several minutes, but something appeared. “No one knows we used this trick. I had to have written it. There’s no other way this could have worked. Now what do we have? GPS coordinates, wait. There’s another set. Maybe I went back to get the coordinates?” As she move about the page, a set of seven coordinates appeared. She took the flame away, but gasped. “There’s something else here. Hold, let me reveal it too.” Everyone moved in closer and watched an eighth GPS location appear. “Either location? Where’s does that lead to?” This stumped her for a moment. “We need to plug these into a GPS system and see where they all lead to. The first one isn’t anywhere near the others.” “Of course not. The first one is in Orion’s Forest Territory. They probably scattered the others around here. I recognize the general numbers f
Finally, Asia’s plan came to fruition. Today, they would have their mating ceremony. Janine helped so much, with all the plans. She’d gone above and beyond when it came to their unique needs. But Asia now saw that it was safer for their packs to stay where they were. Penny now scared Asia with little comments, and her track record of being accurate with those comments was the reason.Asia watched the internet as information leaked out. Much of the speculation came from disbelievers and conspiracy theorists. The government and law enforcement had little to say, which only fuelled the debate more. Asia knew there was nothing to be done but to stay quiet and let the ruling council deal with it.Today was her mating ceremony, and it would be a good time in her life. It took long enough to get this far with Thomas and her pack. She wasn’t going to fool herself. There would always be someone commenting on the changes in a negative way.Those witnessing in person were minimal and all, but Ap
Karl greets the Alphas as they file into the room he’s using as a study currently. Once they’re settled with tablets, notepads, etcetera, James opened the meeting. “Alright, I think we can skip the intro to the reason for this meeting. We all know why and who we are. Okay Karl, tell us what you have found.”“Thank you, Alpha De Marre. Yes, uh, this is extremely complicated, so please bear with me as I need to explain there’s far too much back story. First, I have received some upsetting news. The latest attack by the Fae was investigated by my life partner’s enforcement team. The entire team is missing. I want to leave and go help, but I have been told not to stay here to continue working. Second, there’s supposed to be a Fianna weapons expert coming, and they are now late. Now, what I found while translating the journal. Hold on, I missed a few disturbing facts.” Karl held up a smaller book. “All original surviving copies of the translation book for the Fae language at in the univers
Karl now turned his attention to contacting his life mate, Pat. Everyone should be home. It was early there.He kept trying with no luck to connect with Pat. Karl didn’t like the feelings of isolation. Or that he didn’t know where Pat was.After some time, it forced him to decide to stop trying. He couldn’t reach anyone at home. It was as if the location was empty of life and that was far from normal. He took a break and found himself a drink and lunch. He could eat before stopping by the front desk to request that they explain how to find the room he was using to study the books in. When he identified the weapons, he did it under the view of the local arms master who ran James’ armoury. They worked together with attempting to understand what weapons killed which creatures. Some were pretty famous while others were far front known. He needed a person who understood lore and creatures from it. He knew languages used for writing magic spells and rituals. He wasn’t truly a specialist an
“Morning Karl, I have a response from the council. The Fianna will send a representative out to assist you. I’m surprised they moved this quickly. They have requested we send them via a mage driven portal rather than flighting out there. You should see them after lunch. Let the front desk know where they will find you. We’ve arranged for their stay. Now, how is the translation coming? Those weapons can’t be handed over without an understanding of what their purpose and function is.” Mages were well ahead of the everyday man. Humans finally got video calling, mages always had that. They called it scrying and Karl used it now to contact his mentor. Who was within the grand walls of the great library? Mages had to have a mentor while they studied and proved themselves. “Thank you, that’s great news. I have most of it translated. Currently, I’m attempting to build a detailed catalogue. With entries about each weapon mentioned within the journal. After that, I must identi
Asia met with Janine the next morning to organize her mating ceremony. Thomas and Haden couldn’t help with it since they needed them to help with the latest discovery. “So here we are. I think I have everything ready for you to look through. There’s even a checklist, so as we fill the binder, we know we haven’t missed anything. Now, so I can help direct you in the right direction. What did you have in mind?” Janine tried to give off a professional air. She ended her words and held her breath, waiting for Asia’s response. “Oh, well, I don’t want anything too complicated. Actually, Thomas and I have been talking about it and we realized that there’s no way we can get everyone we want here without going over the budget.” Asia peaked at Janine, unsure how she would react. Asia watched Janine’s face fall. “Oh, we still want a simple mating ceremony, but we want to live stream it to both territories. We’ll have two receptions later on. But it makes everything a hu
“Okay, now you have to tell me who pushed you to do that. I want to thank them. It was perfect.” Emily sat in the bath with James and a glass of wine. She couldn’t see her official mate as she sat between his thighs with her back leaning against his chest. “I’ll start getting offended if you won’t believe me. It was my idea and others just helped. I didn’t like how much you were doing with the pups, pack, resort, and trying to get the mating ceremony setup. It was too much for anyone. I wanted you to relax and enjoy this time.” “You really have changed. A year ago, you wouldn’t have cared if I collapsed from exhaustion.” Emily was a little beyond tipsy now after the refreshments at the reception and drinks at the spa. She’d been careful, but they added up. James, too, was nicely mellowed out. They handed their pups off with a pack caregiver on duty for the night. “Yes, I would have. I relied on you far too much. I think if things hadn’t gotten to the extreme, thi
You’d think mages would write everything down on paper and there would be hundreds if not thousands of people employed to look it up at the university. But that wasn’t the case. Computers hold their own kind of logical magic. People just accept that it’s a science. But Karl was aware of the rare instance when some sort of information made it into the hands and minds of those that needed to information to change the world.Here, Karl had the name of a mage, but no time period. They had an app for that. He sent the information about the approximate dates from the journal. Then he hoped for the best. If the name was in the database, he would receive that information soon enough. If it wasn’t, then he could proceed to a physical look up within the older written documents that had yet to be transferred into their version of a computer. Now he continued to translate the stories within the book. That’s what they were, stories. Each weapon had a story. No facts or statistics were t