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“Declaring war,” Luke said,
The man shook his head. “You declared war a long time ago, Luke. You declared it when you eloped with the Alpha killer here.”
“Her name is Hayley,” Luke said defensively and stepped forward. The man cocked his head, interested, and nodded.
“Hayley,” he said, correcting himself and nodding at me again. The others stepped forward this time, and they all stood behind the first one. A couple of weeks ago, Luke was on the other side with them; now, he was with me.
“What happened in the Palace?” I asked.
“You’ll find out. Bonne asked us not to tell you. A secret between the two of you,” the first man said, looking at Luke with a sly smile.
“What did you mean war?” another one asked, and I wished I knew all of their names. They were all Luke's friends, and I would come to know them one by one. Their stories and how they became lone wolves. For now, I just watched them. They were the people that saved Luke and me when Viper cornered us on our way out of town. So, they were on our side.
“Before you left, you said you were going to get something. Where is it?”
Luke looked at me and nodded his head. I dipped my hand into the small pouch I had tied around my neck, removed the stone, and showed it to them. They all stepped back from it, reactingdifferently than I expected them to. I didn’t understand why they stepped back.
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“That thing,” the first one said. “Too much power. I can feel it pushing against me. Like a tornado.”
Luke and I felt the power in it when Merine showed us, but it wasn’t as strong as a tornado as he described. I put it back in the pouch, and they all seemed to recover.
“But the stone isn’t why we called you here today.”
“You want to attack the package?” the man asked, and he looked at the others.
“You know about it?” Luke asked.
“The new alpha isn’t James. He isn’t good at covering his tracks. We found out easily, and he’s in a stir, so he’s getting sloppy. We were making plans to attack it before, but we didn’t want to do that without assurance that you were alive. Bonne thinks if we do, the council will come down heavy on us, and we need to be ready to receive the heat. We need you to do that. We need the two of you to do that.”
“So, you guys are ready for war?” I asked them but didn’t need to get an answer. I could see it in their eyes. They’d been just lone wolves for a long time—the wolves that lived in the reservation, and now, they wanted to make a name for themselves. This was the first step towards achieving that.
“Yes, we are.”
“You know what this means don’t you?” Luke asked. “If we attack the Tarloux family’s merchandise, they will come for us. They have always hated lone wolves. Now, they will have reasons to exterminate us.”
“We know. You have your stone thing. It’s got some power, doesn’t it?”
I smiled at them. “It has a lot of powers.”
“Good. Let’s go up against some bad wolves then.”
Luke and I led the charge, but it wasn’t much of a charge. The container where they kept the children was guarded by humans and just a handful of werewolves. The humans had guns, but it was over before they could understand what was happening. We cut through them like grass on a field. It was too easy. When we were done, Luke picked one of the wolves, who was still alive but trying to escape.
He smacked the wolf against the container and looked into his eyes that were filled with fear.
“I want you to deliver a message for me,” he said as the wolf squirmed under his touch. He recognized him and couldn’t take his eyes off Luke and me. I stepped closer to drive the fear further. “Go to Viper. Tell him we freed the kids, and we are coming for him next.”
He dropped the werewolf, and he scampered off. Then we walked to the large container, where we could hear some screams and whimpers. The kids were in there. One of the lone wolves broke the padlock used to lock it with, and the kids were there. The smell from them hit us hard, and we both stepped back.
“They are werewolves,” Luke said. “All of them.”
I moved further back than the rest as my mind was digesting information, trying to understand what this meant. James said he’d been delivering kids to the family for a very long time. What does the family want with little werewolves? Werewolves that were yet to ascend. The answer was obvious to me, but I didn’t want to believe it.
“What do they want with this many kids?” one of the lone wolves asked.
“An army,” I replied, barely an audible whisper, but I knew even with the whimpers coming from the kids, they could hear me. “They are training an army of hunters.”
