AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you really think this has to do with the Grave Pack?” he asked quietly.
“Absolutely,” Torryn said. Everyone was trickling back, leaving Nyx and Stella to tend to the wounded. I doubted she was happy to be back in a healing tent, but she’d be invaluable there.
Garren patted our alpha on the shoulder in silent reassurance and solidarity. Everyone was looking to our alpha now for answers and he was still trying to process it all.
“Pack meeting tonight, security meeting now,” is all he managed to choke out before heading toward our last building standing. At this point, I half expected it to explode before we even got there.
Leven took my hand and gave it a squeeze, leading me toward the security office. He’d been quiet since our encounter, and I could tell he felt bad. With everything happening here and with our group, it was hard to find time in the day to connect.
“You okay, big guy?” I asked as we hung back a few steps to give us space.
“Sorry for yesterday. I’m just so tired of feeling out of control, helpless. First the tracker, then you going missing, then all this mate craziness… I’m out of my depth and I fucking hate that.” His words came out in a harsh growl, and I stopped walking. Callum could wait.
“I’m still here, Leven. That won’t change,” I promised. “I’ve been feeling the same way. With us trying to get Holt and Torryn situated… I’ve missed you and Nyx. Sometimes I miss the way things were, even though I wouldn’t change having them for mates either. If that makes sense?”
“Things felt simpler then, but you’ll be happy this way,” he said in a moment of gentleness I didn’t expect. “We’ll be all right. Finding time will get easier when we aren’t fighting for our fucking lives. I promise.”
“Thanks, Leven,” I said.
“Get the fuck in here!” Callum’s voice bordered on hysterical and we didn’t want to push the alpha further so we hurried forward.
“Sorry, Alpha,” I said, trying to soothe him. But Callum was a statue right now. There would be no getting through to him because his one goal in all this was to keep us all safe, and to do that, he had to figure shit out. Fast. Until then, we were stuck here in a ticking time bomb. Who knew what else could go wrong? How many of us would die before we figured out a place to go. That was honestly terrifying.
“What’s going on, Alpha?” Carlo asked.
“There was a fire in the kitchens. And the framing fell on a few of our newer wolves. Everyone wants us to leave.”
“Gods, I’m glad someone else thought that,” Antonio breathed out. “I’ve been doing a bit of research on my own. Unfortunately, most of the packs we could stay in, have been given the same treatment we got. Uninhabitable or too small are our current hurdles.”
Callum cursed and slammed his fist into the table, making the metal groan under the force. I’d never seen him doubt himself or become this unhinged. It was a bit scary. He was our leader, the strong one, and now he was just as lost as we were.
“Do we just give up on our home, though?” he asked quietly, flopping into his chair and rubbing a hand over his face in defeat.
“If we don’t act, this place will be uninhabitable. Outside of our spigots, if anything else goes wrong we won’t even have running water. If we can’t even build? Then this isn’t a home,” Leven said. He was using logic to calm the alpha and Callum’s shoulders slumped even farther. He knew we were right but asking an alpha to upheave his pack and take risk like this was like asking snow not to fall in winter.
“If pipes burst, it could flood the entire neighborhood,” Carlo agreed. “And tent living isn’t going so well either. We need showers, food, basics.”
“Our only choice is to move,” I said gently, running my hand down his arm. He caught my hand and held onto it, doing the same to Holt’s on the other side. “We can ask the pack their thoughts, but I doubt anyone feels safe here anymore.”
Callum took a breath and let go of our hands, standing and pacing. He was out of his slump and back in protector mode. “Hades, I need you and Emma to head to town, get enough pizzas for tonight and something for breakfast that’s non-perishable.”
“On it, Alpha,” Hades said, grabbing keys from the hook inside. At least we still had our cargo vans and other cars, or we’d be really fucked.
“What do you need the rest of us to do?” I asked to keep him on track.
“Antonio, Carlo; I need you both on research. Keep scouring, there has to be something on the Grave Pack. And we also need somewhere to stay for now. If we could handle both at the same time, that’d be preferable.” He turned to me next. “Did the Grave Alpha give you any hints? A clue minced in his words?”
I shook my head. “No, he just taunted that we wouldn’t find him. He bragged about his mates and how much power he had, he likely spelled that place so we can’t find it, some kind of barrier.”
Callum turned to Holt for confirmation. “I’d have to agree with her. That’s the only explanation I can think of. He didn’t just start his pack today, and he’d never keep his home in those shitty complexes. Sharing space doesn’t feel like his style.”
“Why do wolves not have archives?” Leven sighed. “We could at least find pack lands big enough to accommodate a huge pack.”
“I don’t know but we need to change things,” Callum said. He was gripping his hair so roughly that it was sticking up at crazy angles.
“I’m going to see if Nyx needs help in the healing tent,” I said. This meeting had me ready to pull my hair out and I needed a moment of quiet to think. “I really need to learn names, but one of our new wolves didn’t look good.” We were five times the size we were when I first arrived, it was hard to keep track of everyone now.
“We’ll start going through the alpha network and see if we can find something that way,” Carlo suggested. “If we have news, we’ll bring it to the meeting.” With that, the two dismissed themselves.
