Page 12 of Wild Wolf

“Sergei Sokolov.”

“Patronymic?”

“I hate that question,” I muttered.

“You forgot to give yourself a patronymic?”

“I didn’t forget, but my mother did not provide it, if you please.”

Dante snickered at me. “Okay, okay. I’m never letting you live this down, as you’re usually better than that, but I bet you’ve put together a damned good story for yourself. You usually do. So, where are we headed?”

“Blagoveshchensk. It’s in eastern Russia. If you cross the river, you enter China. It’s north of Harbin and Changchun and across the river from Heihe.”

“I see your geography is as good as ever. It’ll take us a while to get there. Where can we find you?”

“Let me ask my hostess.” I lowered the phone and regarded the ved’ma with a frown. “They are willing to come, and they will come in a group. Where should they go once here?”

“You can invite them to your home if you would like, but we can issue them letters for a hotel in the area, but we will need to know how many are coming.”

Letters? Rather than ask, I lifted the phone to my ear. “I’ll need to know how many of you will be coming so you can get letters for a local hotel, although I’ll give you directions to my cabin.”

“You and your cabins. Don’t worry about the letters. We have access into Russia through Moscow. You can tell her that.”

“They’ll be coming through Moscow, so they don’t need any letters, but thank you,” I dutifully relayed.

The woman paled and said in Russian, “They are connected to Moscow?”

Interesting. She didn’t want Dante to overhear that question? I switched to Russian and replied, “They’re connected to everybody, Alevtina Petrovna Volkova. There will be too many of them to realistically stay at my cabin, so if you could give me information on a good hotel here, that would be appreciated.”

“There is a good hotel for guests near the train station.” She gave me instructions I relayed to Dante so he could handle any reservations they would need. “We have a guest home for visitors.”

“Please thank her for the offer, but we prefer to use hotels, as they can become neutral territory,” Dante told me.

I relayed his reply, which earned a nod from the ved’ma. “Your friend is wise,” she complimented.

“Oh, Dante?”

“When you have a question, I worry. I’ve learned this is something to worry about. When you have questions, you are thinking, and when you think, trouble brews.”

“I see you are displeased with me right now.”

“Only slightly miffed. Your programmer and your SEAL whine constantly, for you are a black ops legend and have disappeared again. What do you want?”

It pleased my wolf both of our friends cared we’d disappeared. “They seem to have issues with a lack of children and women among our numbers.”

“Ah. Simply addressed. Please ask if there are any bitches wishing to have children this winter. If so, we will invite them to the United States. We have room for four without me even thinking about it. That includes their mates, as we have found long-term separation makes it harder on them. There isn’t enough time to teach the Alphas how to stop the transformations, but we can handle that in the next year or so.”

“Alevtina Petrovna Volkova, my friend offers four placements for wawkalak or bodark women and their mates for this winter. Your ved’ma and higher placed wolves will learn how to help them, but for this year, it would be safer to send the pairings to America. This is something that you can discuss with my friends upon their arrival.”

Grigorij’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”

“Me? No. My friends? Yes. They don’t make offers like that without meaning them. It can be brought up for discussion when they arrive.” Trying to hold several conversations at one time tested my patience, and I sighed. “Amber will be fine to come to Russia?”

“She’s been taking her temper out on the SEALs. If I don’t bring her, she might finish breaking them.”

“How does Lane hold up against her?”

“He’s learning to be good sport for her.”