Miss Mabel sat across the dinner table from Doc. J.J. He’d brought dinner like he did most nights when his work didn’t require his attention. The man’s heart was golden. She admired how he kept up with it as old as he was.
“So, tell me again. Jessie is good? She’s happy? That girl’s been holding things together for too long for everyone else. The Alpha’s learnt to treat her better?” She’d lived so long. All she could do was live vicariously through other’s stories. Many of those stories were repeats of generations past. It was better than television. Most of the time, anyway.
“I’m not sure yet. I see her tomorrow for the first tim
Ashley talked herself into what she’d expect would happen when Sal talked to her father. They’d never talked about her finding a mate or how their relationship would change. He’d told her many times that he lived for her, and she was his life. Even thinking about this, sent Ashley’s world into cataclysmic shock. The guilt of her father’s perceived reaction was too much. She wasn’t ready to take a mate. It’s happening all too quickly. Sal is far too forceful. Ashley felt many confusing feelings toward many within the pack. Every decision she looked at didn’t make her happy. She kept running back to the safer options that she knew. She knew nothing about Sal. He could be a monster. She didn’t know. Sal sat there, trying not to grind his teeth. He
Jessie sat listening to the two men talk. They discussed the situation and sweeping changes to the current pack formation. She couldn’t predict how the pack would react to this. They’d not settled from taking in the Iron Hill Pack. But what else could they do? They needed more members to expand. There were people looking for homes. Albeit not the people Alrick would choose. Could they get the pack to band together for this? It could benefit them. Or spectacularly fail. “So you have this part vaguely sketched out. You’ve started the process for housing. We’ll need to know housing placement. There’s also demolishing the buildings there now. Finishing the clean up the horror show. Then we’ll see about adding space for them to add sheep and free-range chickens. They can come in and
Ashley watched the cottages and cabins passed the SUV moved through the community. They’re headed to the visitor’s cabins. “You’re quiet. What are you thinking?” “I’m wondering whether you’re wrong and what I'll do when you get fed up and leave.” “Have you experienced many people become fed up and walk away?” Ashley didn’t respond. Sal now understood her attitude. This would be harder to fix. But she didn’t know Sal enjoyed her resistance. Sal’s convinced he’s a patient man most of the time.
Two hours ago messages went out to every pack member. This was a mandatory meeting about an urgent matter. Everyone would arrive within minutes. Again, Jessie stood in the large gathering area and looked around. “I’m wondering Alrick. With the increase in pack members will this room safely house everyone. Or will we need a larger space?” Alrick stopped helping with chairs and looked at his mate. She insisted on setting up drinks for the people before the meeting. He looked around him and thought about her question. “I’ll look into the number of people we can host here. It may force us to hold these things outside until we can fix this issue. But I suspect you’re cor
Ashley followed Sal to a cottage not far down the road. They were now in the dark. She saw where they were going from; the moonlight reflecting off the leftover snow. A day that snow piles would disappear. It was just one of those things. Rachel met them at the door. “Hi, come in, both of you. We’ll get started soon. Craig won’t be with us. Something is happening at the packhouse tonight. He’s needed there. Get comfortable and have a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.” She disappeared into a room while they settled themselves in the main living area. A laptop rested open on the coffee table. The silence was more noticeable because of the anticipation and fear of job loss. Ashley glanced at Sal. He sat across from her. His elbows rested on his kn
Bonnie called many of the pack’s more maternal members and asked them to meet with Jessie later this morning. It was a hard night to sleep for Jessie, and she kept. Waking Alrick up with her, tossing and turning. Now tired as she was, Jessie waited for help to arrive. If they arrived. Bonnie sat with Jessie as she waited. “If they don’t come, then we’ll do this ourselves. When they come around, they’ll regret their decision when they can’t benefit from our work.” “That sounds drastic, and it goes against what Alrick said. No, we’ll do what we can and leave it like that. I won’t put an entitlement barrier up between the groups. It wouldn’t be right or fair to anyone.’&nb
Ashley and Sal left Rachel’s cabin to return to what Ashley realized was their home currently. She realized she felt numb. Numb from shock because she didn’t have anywhere to turn. Everyone abandoned her, even her father left her to her own devices. What was she going to do? She couldn’t believe this was happening. She either accepted Sal or abandon her life. Meaning she’d have to find a new pack. Either way, she’d be walking away from her life. That was terrifying to her. Inside again, with coats off, Sal moved into the kitchen and Ashley settled onto a sofa. She contemplated what to do. With a staggeringly larger number of confusing and conflicting things floating in her head, she watched Sal moved through the kitchen. Curiously, she watched him for the first time move about in the kitchen. It wasn&r
Rachel sat back after closing the last file and looked at Davie. “Well dear. I think we need to interrogate Hector Kilian. I can’t hand over this case to the council with these gaping holes.” Davie shifted in his seat and looked at her in all seriousness. “I agree. We may have the head of the monster dealt with, and one of its claws. But there’s still the arm of the problem we need to annex. Someone is pulling Kilian’s strings and receiving these shipments. I suspect person is the one tampering with the facts we’ve been receiving.” “I suspect it’s a local, but I can’t be sure if we’ve encountered them or not. Things appear very well buried. It’s someone the Alpha doesn’t
Three months since the mine returned to the Silver Ridge Pack’s control. It’d been out of their hands for almost six months in total. The miners could finally return to the mine safely. Oddly, the Fae never returned to the region. Perhaps the Fae thought better of returning for some unknown reason? Either way, the pack now settled into their new way of life. Everyone lived more closely together and now grew closer to each other every day. Kelly and Kyle focused on themselves and the things going on in the tavern. Making changes where needed to make life easier for the suddenly overflowing pack living and working under the tavern’s roof. Not everyone initially was a pack member, which meant there were strangers among them, but they were in the same position as the pack. They would come to find their places in the pack. It wasn’t smo
Kyle left Craig’s office and went back to the tavern. The changes around here didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t know how he’d tell Kelly the truth about him. He’d told Alpha Alrick when he approached him to ask for membership, and they both agreed that they would take it easy and not tell anyone about it. He entered the warmth of the tavern and went in search of Kelly. There were more people staying here. Kyle would need to get used to it. On a good note, someone started preparing the bar for tonight. He wondered who that was. He’d need to find out and see what he could arrange. It would be nice to have someone else behind the bar a few nights per week. He’d have time to focus on Kelly and Eddie. Here’s hoping it wasn’t Kelly. She would have so much on her hands right now. He w
In the Chamber, Dean found his people working hard to document everything they could. He thought of the worst-case scenario. His mind worked out vague plans on how they’d evacuate the entire pack or packs. He didn’t know where the blast radius would be. If they could use this magical leak to their advantage, they could use it to attract the magically starved Fae here. Because they’d attacked several wells of power in Europe. Well, ancient wells, wells that ran dry over a thousand years ago of their magic. “Sir! I think you need to see this.” One of the portal experts brought in to review what they’d found. “I need to show you what we have. Though I think we just might have a weapon on our hands that we can use.&r
Dean left the Alpha’s office and moved towards the vehicle that would take him to the mine. His heart sank. Because of the lies he must tell these shifters. But the mage’s council ordered the information with a need to know thing. Those runes weren’t the mystery. It’s the placement of them. Dates and times didn’t add up for them. The meaning of the runes was what they wanted, kept quiet. Mages or even druids opened these portals. It’d been the humans, but that wasn’t the shocking thing. Humans didn’t possess magic, meaning someone was powering them. Someone supernatural, and the traces of power he’d found at the other site told him far too much. It took him several weeks to discover what supern
Alrick sat back in his chair as he watched Jessie walk from the room. He hated doing that, but the future didn’t look like it would be any easier. If Kelly and Kyle possessed any chance at happiness, they must work things out by themselves. Interfering with any part of the process would cause complications and all involved would suffer for it. He couldn’t stand for that. Now he needed to focus on the issues at hand and put out as many of the dumpster fires as possible. Craig found three incidents already where he’d forced wolves into time out, meaning they’d locked them away for a time to cool off. To wolves, this was like putting a drunk into a drunk tank to sober up. Territorial instinct still lingered within wolf shifter’s minds.&nbs
Jessie now sat in Alrick’s office again. Alrick returned to the office and instantly went to his computer and copying something to everyone. There were two mages in there with them and they were watching a video Alrick took of the portal. “Well, it’s definitely not natural, and whatever is trapped inside the crystal isn’t as secure as we hoped. Look at this crack here. When the wall came down, it must have damaged it. We’ll get it secured as soon as we’re done here. But the runes are fascinating. I’ve not seen anything similar to this. We need to get copies of them. Then we’ll get people in translating them. But I know these aren’t from the local area. They didn’t have a written language when these runes appeared, that’s for sure. Someone came here and did this long
Kyle couldn’t believe this. It took him several attempts to discover why this summons came so suddenly. When the enforcers first entered the tavern, he thought they were there to take him away from everything and everyone that he’d grown to love within the last few years. Now, with Kelly so close all the time, he didn’t want to deal with this. He just wanted to live a quiet life. Thank the gods he didn’t go off on them. Because what they called them in for was far more unbelievable. The Fae were back. Gods, the Fae. Now here they were setting up people to stay above the tavern. Several would stay in the restaurant, studying the human media for mentions of their actions. Others looked after the cattle. The mine would one day return to the pack, and only the gods knew when it would happen. NARC sent a motley cr
Kelly couldn’t believe what was going on. Her heart pounded as they escorted everyone to the Audience Chamber. Her confusion increased when she saw everyone entering at the same time. Was there something wrong with the refugees? Before entering she asked several people but all she learnt was, it was an emergency. Once inside, though, she learnt quickly about some very unbelievable things. The Fae were back and roaming the world again. How could that happen? No one was aware of that. They could only find out that one enforcer on duty at the mine experienced an attack by an unknown Fae. Where and why were both great mysteries? Kelly quickly found Petra and retriev
Alrick sent the first force back to the Audience Chamber to help with organizing nearly three hundred shifters. They would fan out throughout the emergency land. When this pack first settled here, they laid out the main buildings in such a way that they could guard them easier, and the pack could monitor each others’ safety. The issue with this is it didn’t take into the changes within fighting over time. With machine flight, and now Fae using the Dream Realm as their public transit. They literally popped in and out at will. But at least it gave protection from physical attack and a false belief that everything would be okay. He prepared to go with his second set of forces for a short time. He needed to assess what truly was there. Not that he didn’t believe Herald. If Herald said he saw this, then Alrick believed