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I walked down the road, looking at everyone I passed. There was relative calm on the faces of the humans, but the werewolves looked a bit agitated. They were scared. They had heard of what might happen, and they were worried.
I came to my destination, which was a pub at the end of the street that catered only to wolves. I pushed the door open, and the conversation in the pub stopped as everyone took a sniff of me, and they recognized me immediately. Not a single word was said until I reached the bar and nodded at the lady tending the bar.
“There is someone here for me,” I said, and the girl nodded.
“Come with me, please,” she said after stepping out from behind the bar and led me to a room at the far end of the pub. Once wecrossed the room, the conversations behind me resumed again. I knew if they hadn’t been talking about me before, they definitely would now.
The bartender led me to the room lit only by a singular bulb that dangled, throwing its shadows around. The lady stepped out fast and left me with a man seated against the shadows, drinking a pint of ale. He looked up at me and cocked his head.
“You didn’t make an order with her before she left,” he said, his voice a croaky terror
I stopped right in front of him and took the only other seat in the room, and sat across from him on the table.
“I am not here to drink,” I said.
“I have found that conversations like this go better with drinks—something to temper our anxieties. For example, you are worried I will kill you here, and the status of your position wouldn’t matter much. Alphas seem to be dying these days. And I also am considering the possibility of killing you and getting away with it. They are both erratic thoughts and non-beneficial to the two of us. The drinks help tame them.”
“I don’t need a drink. I have enough fortitude for that.”
“Well, I don’t,” he said and stepped away from the darkness. He was just as they had described. Dashing.
His look was his greatest weapon—an instrument of deceit. You wouldn’t expect someone so good-looking to be capable of such evil.
“So, what do you want from me, Viper?” he asked.
They called him Heralder, and years ago, he was in the employ of the Tarloux family, making kills for them. He could conquer a city on his own and have them bequeathed to the family. They didn’t need armies back then because they had him. The man who precedes loss. You see him, and you count your losses. The downside, though, was that no one knew what he looked like. At least no one lives to describe him. When he got tired of giving the family cities, he went freelance, and now he works for just about anyone that could afford him. He was expensive but sure to get the job done.
“You know what I want. The alpha killer and her new lover.”
Heralder chuckled. “She’s a nuisance to you, isn’t she? For a month, you’ve been chasing her, and you’re no closer to getting her. You must be frustrated.”
“She’s killed scores of hunters. She seems to know what she is doing.”
“Of she does. That is why she is still alive. Now, you’ve told me what you want me for, but I have no interest in the alpha killer. No, I am here for a different interest.”
“What is that?”
“You have someone in holding that I would love to talk to. Or rather, someone that might have useful information for me. They call him Bonne, and you have his family. His wife and sickly son. Give them to me. Bonne and I have unfinished business from years back.”
“You are not here to make demands,” I told him. “You are here to be hired. And I would advise you to watch the manner in which you speak to me. You are in my town.”
Heralder looked like he still had something to say, but the look on my face held him back, and he just watched me. I didn’t like the look on his face because it looked like he was watching me, looking for a weakness. I wasn’t going to give him that.
“This is what I need you to do,” I told him. “You get Hayley and Luke.”
“Alright,” Heralder said. “I’ll do what you need me to do, but I need to see that family too. You do that for me, and I’ll be in your debt.”
“I do that for you, and you fight with me should I ever need your help with intelligence about the Tarloux family, you give it to me.”
He seemed to be thinking about it for a while, and then he nodded.
“Alright, I’ll help you with the Tarloux family.
He had agreed to that so easily, that I didn’t trust him. Going up against the Tarloux family isn’t child’s play, and he would know that more than anyone else. Why was he so ready to do it, then?
I moved closer to Heralder to threaten him and make him aware that should he cross me, he would have to answer to my wrath, and something clicked in me. The man called Bonne never once came to claim his family. And here I was, sitting with a man that I had never seen before, one I had contacted through letters and who had claimed to be Heralder.
What if this was the first move?
