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CASSIAN
The usually vacant meeting room was packed, the large space suddenly felt small. I’d ushered William and the other werewolves into the room, along with Griffin, Grace, and Sam. They’d calmed down but their faces were still ghostly pale. I asked them to tell us every detail.
It had been a long time since the feral wolves had attacked, it seemed like most of them just vanished after going insane. No one knew where they went, and they were practically untraceable once they were gone. It was a mystery that I’d shoved under the carpet, we had bigger issues to deal with. Clearly, I could no longer avoid it.
“We were passing the time at the bar; it was mostly empty. And suddenly we heard a huge crash and screams. They were terrible. The screams were mixed with growls and that’s when I knew. In seconds it went quiet again, and the witch went to check it out. She opened the door and froze. I had to pick her up to move her so that we could see.” William shook his head as he relived the moment. “It was something from a nightmare. Humans, maybe three or four, I don’t know for sure how many because their limbs were torn off and scattered across the road. There were paw prints in the blood, but the feral wolves were gone.”
My stomach sank. Feral wolves were known for tearing through anyone who got in their way, but to attack in such a public place… “Were any other people there?”
“No, but someone must have seen it because we could hear sirens approaching. We came straight here before the human police spotted us.” William was a big guy, muscular and bulky, but he was shaking. “I’d never seen anything like it…”
Why would they attack now? And in broad daylight in a public area. It made no sense. It was hours after dawn, and usually they disappeared right after dawn. Feral wolves didn’t stick around.
“And the witch?” I asked, ignoring Griffin’s glare.
William shrugged. “She locked up as soon as we left. I didn’t stick around to see what happened after the police got there.”
“And you’re sure they were feral wolves? Not some other animal attack?”
“No, I could smell it in the air. They were definitely feral wolves. I just don’t know how many of them,” William said quietly. The rest of the group shifted behind him, they were uncomfortable, and I had no doubt that they would drown themselves in beer or whiskey as soon as I dismissed them.
“Thank you, William. You guys can go and gather yourselves.” I motioned toward the door, and they left before the last word left my lips. No one else said anything, no one moved for a while after they left.
Having human police involved carried a whole other level of complication. It would be easy enough to let them to believe that it was just an animal attack— technically that is all that it was. They would do their investigations, create new rules or stricter prevention in terms of animals in the city, and eventually they would pin the attack on an innocent wild wolf or two and it would be over.
The complication occurred when one attack turned into two, three, and more. My pack hadn’t had a feral in months, not since that day when Miles, one of my younger pack mates, became feral and killed his mate, Savana… Which meant that the feral wolf came from another pack, one outside of the city.
I had to go to the bar to see if there was something I could trace to find out who the feral wolves were and where they came from. My pack was the only pack in this part of the city and any fallout from this attack would fall onto us.
Why hadn’t the High Council intervened yet? These were human victims, perhaps they would jump in now once they heard about this incident.
“Why were you having Morgan watched?” Griffin asked, breaking the silence. “She’s on our side.”
“She’s on your side, Griffin. I put a watch on her more for protective reasons. She’s not a suspect but she’s been MIA lately, which is understandable; she has a business to run. But it leaves her vulnerable.” It was a half lie—Morgan was vulnerable, but she never said she was on our side. The only reason she was around was for Griffin. I didn’t know how jealousy affected her or what she would be willing to do to get Emily out of the picture, no matter how much she pretended to be friendly. I put the guys on watch to make sure she didn’t plan on doing anything reckless.
Griffin shook his head but kept quiet.
“What do you want to do about this?” Sam asked.
“The humans will eventually believe that it was an animal attack. I think we should just leave them to it.” Grace voiced my thoughts on the animal attack, but I couldn’t just leave it. “If we get involved, they could become suspicious, you know how humans are; as soon as they are scared they will believe anything.”
I shook my head; she was right of course. It had happened before over a decade ago. There was an attack in a different state, a witch got curious and pushed her nose into their affairs. Within a week they had pinned the death on her, and she was locked up. It didn’t matter that all evidence pointed to an animal, she got too involved, asked the wrong questions, and the humans made up their minds.
“I agree with not getting involved, but I need to go there. We haven’t had a wolf turn feral in weeks. This one, or however many of them, came from outside the city, in broad daylight. It’s unusual, and I need to find out which pack they belonged to.”
“I see your point, but the police are already there, and you know once they do their investigation, there’s nothing left at the scene. Putting yourself in there right now will end badly,” Grace said, her expression was hard and unwavering. “If they target you, it won’t just affect you, it will affect the pack too.”
Before I could respond, a knock sounded, and Emily popped her head in.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt. One of the guys said you were in here and we heard about some shit going down in the city.”
I waved her in and Ember followed close behind. They sat down while Grace and I filled them in on what happened. When we were done, Emily had gone pale, Ember was grim and stared at her hands. I wanted to comfort both of them, but Emily had taken the seat next to Griffin, and Ember was next to Grace. Grace patted Ember’s shoulder and smiled sadly. Griffin put his hand on Emily’s knee and she looked at him with tears in her eyes. A twinge of jealousy flashed through me but I shoved it down—that wasn’t important now. Emily was new to things like innocent people dying. Even though she had experienced violence, there was always her own adrenaline mixed in. This was different. I knew she needed the physical contact to not disappear into her own mind about it. If she could save the whole world at the expense of herself, she would.
“What do we do?” Emily asked.
I reiterated the conversation with Grace and where we stood. She bit her lip and I could see the cogs in her mind working to find a way to fix things.
Ember cleared her throat quietly. “I can go, I’m human. Well, in the basic form. I know how to speak to cops. My dad was one before they wrote me off,” she whispered, her words were barely audible. “They might even know him.”
