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“Pay a visit to her uncle?” I slammed the drink, reveling in the searing heat of expensive whiskey pounding down my throat. I wanted to savor it, but this revelation was a big deal from Kane. “Thank fuck! It’s about time.” I’d been itching to go after that asshole since Levi dug up what had truly happened to Charlie while she’d been training her uncle’s ferals three years ago.
“Gareth is her uncle on her mother’s side,” Kane reminded me. “So, he doesn’t have the same clout as Sal Larsen.”
“Still an alpha to be wary of.” Levi slid into the conversation like he’d been here the whole time. “He’s got an army of highly trained wolves.”
“That he pays for loyalty.” I put my glass down. “They’re more like mercenaries rather than a clan.”
“Yeah, but he pays well, from what I’ve heard, and they’ve taken his bite, so they’re committed.” Kane called up a live aerial feed to display on the screen. “He’s at his summer house this month.”
“He has a handful of wolves with him.” Levi pointed to the scattering of guards on site. “Not his full pack.”
“Confident, isn’t he?” I scanned the grounds, curious as to how we suddenly had an aerial view of Gareth’s place. His cabin was nestled into the Rockies, built right into the side of a mountain. It might have looked cozy and relaxed with a clearing in the forest, next to a spring-fed pond but I could tell that it wasn’t chosen just for its idyllic views. “Even if the cabin has one way in.” I pointed to the access road leading to the house. “He must think he’s untouchable to have so few wolves with him.”
“He rotates them.” Levi pointed to the screen. “And he’s got a hell of a security system in place. It took me forever to hack into this drone feed.”
I should have known—my brother, the geek of all things.
“Of course, you infiltrated his security.”
“I called in a favor, helped me bypass some of Gareth’s protections.” Levi nodded to the screen. “We should let Charlie have her day with her uncle. Let him see what she can do.”
“Because the training is going so well?” Kane rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s not ready.”
“She’s resisting embracing her beast because she has no stakes yet,” Levi said, a contradiction to what Kane was saying earlier about her not wanting to hurt us, but still, a valid point. Maybe those two reasons weren’t exclusive, either. Charlie was a complex woman with many different, competing desires, motivations, goals.
It was possible that the fight wasn’t real enough for her yet. Sure, she was angry, and she wanted a piece of her stepbrother, but she wasn’t pushing for action. Fear, my gut said, was holding her back—fear for us, fear for herself, fear of what her beast could do.
“We need to get her in the action,” Levi continued. “Up the stakes so she has a taste of long-overdue revenge.” He waved his hand. “She’s been hiding for too long.”
“A trial run?” I liked it. “When do we leave?”
“Hang on…” Kane cued the video of their latest training session where Charlie lost her shit about five minutes into the fight. “We can’t just whet her appetite and think there won’t be risks.”
“We’re not going in blind, and her beast side is exactly what Gareth and his goons need to experience,” Levi said, his arms folded. “We’ll make sure the team who goes with her will know when to get out of her way.” When Kane started to argue, Levi cut him off. “We need to show her what she can do with the right motivation. Her uncle has it coming.”
Kane studied the video again, frozen on Charlie’s transformed face, her eyes blazing, fangs bared and muzzle scrunched mid-roar. She was a force.
“We can’t stop her once she goes beast like this.” Kane sighed. “We can’t show any weakness in front of another pack.”
“No, we let her go. We let her do her thing.” I couldn’t help grinning. I was amped up and ready for a fight.
“And if she gets caught up in bloodlust?” Kane turned to face us. “We can’t all go with her.”
“Like I said, we make sure our guys are fully prepped,” Levi said.
“I’m going with her,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “I’ll be her wingman. She listens to me when I step into her world.”
“Johnny does seem to have a calming effect on her beast.”
“Your attention will be divided,” Kane said, his tone more resigned than enthusiastic. “You won’t be able to fight if you’re in her head, too.”
He was speaking from experience. We hadn’t quite mastered how to project ourselves into her mind and stay with it enough to protect ourselves out in the real world.
“Don’t worry about me.” I had faith in Charlie. “I’ll make sure things stay cool.”
Kane shot a look at Levi, who shrugged in response. “You know how I feel about this.”
“Okay, fine. We move forward. Johnny, go collect a team and brief them.” He nodded my way. “And make sure Lex and Ari are with you.”
