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Chapter 16
Day 159 of the re-emerged Hat Island pack, Wednesday, Nov. 13, Penticton
The takedown of thehouse near the college went smoothly enough. Ryder and his Wolves staked out the place until the young men started coming home from work. By 6 p.m., he decided they were probably all home — those who were coming home — and he walked inside.
There was little hostility. Ryder thought they might have even been grateful. Had they too lost their connection to Bjorn and the pack, and just waited hoping that they hadn’t been forgotten? The first dorm had Miles to go for help. Who had this group had?
Well some of them had gone to their shifts at the houses where the women were held, Ryder reminded himself. Don’t forget that these young men — just like last night’s young men —are hardly innocents here.
Ryder surveyed the young men sitting in the living room and sighed, though. They mostly looked pathetic. Another dozen young men. Apparently 18 lived here, but they already had six of them in custody. He needed a location to hold all these men while they figured things out! And then what was he going to do with them?
Benny was upstairs talking to some of them individually. He was pursuing the man he called the Pied Piper. Ryder recognized that intent narrow focus. Benny was on a hunt. But Ryder needed solutions to here and now, and sadly, he didn’t have any.
What he had was roughly two dozen young men who had been waiting to become part of Chen’s army and do battle. “For what?” Ryder asked them, puzzled. “What is the army for?”
They’d looked at each other. “We’re mercenaries,” one of them explained earnestly. “We fight for the side that hired us. For the side that gave....” He trailed off and looked around him. He didn’t finish the thought, but Ryder knew —for the side that gave them their wolves. He didn’t know whether some of the men —those who had been recruited from family packs and independents— really didn’t know that the others were made-wolves. If they did, they probably assumed it was done the old way, by nearly killing them and bringing them back as shifters.
But Ryder didn’t think any of them had been changed that way. No, all of these had a latent gene that allowed the Pied Piper to bring the wolf forward.
So now they had 20 recruits in Everett with Mei Tanaka, some at the Vancouver pack house, a few more in Bellingham, and now these. And there was still the lodge. He couldn’t get a concrete number of how many might be waiting up there for him.
He sighed. What he had was recent recruits and no drill sergeants. He needed some sergeants ASAP.
He looked at his own men. “Kev? There was a kid last night at the other dorm, named Andrew. Could you fetch him? By that I mean go ask him nicely to come here?” Best to be clear, Ryder had found. Kev was likely show up with Andrew gagged and bound under his arm if he didn’t.
Kev nodded, and he left with a look around the room and a shake of his head. Ryder tried not to laugh, but that about summed it up. These recruits were more pitiful than anything else.
Well, most recruits were, he’d found. Tear them down, build them up. Someone had already started that process here, and then the chain of command fell apart. And these young men were cut adrift. Ryder had a choice — kill them or make something of them. And he couldn’t bring himself to contemplate killing dozens of young shifters who could still do something meaningful with their lives.
So what was he going to make of them?
He grimaced. The only thing he knew, he guessed. He was going to make soldiers of them. If there was a war coming, and the other side was gearing up, they’d need soldiers too. “Fix supper for yourselves,” he said. “Settle in for the evening. I’ve got to go meet someone for dinner. But I’ll be back. And tonight we’ll talk. But you’re not alone. You do belong —you belong to me.”
They were too cowed to even argue.
Ryder went upstairs after Benny. “We’ve got to go,” he said. “Dinner, remember?”
Benny looked up from the conversation he was having with three young men — men he’d identified as born-human. “Can you go without me?” Benny began, then saw the expression on Ryder’s face. “No, I see that you can’t.” He scrambled up off the floor.
“I’ll be back, and we’ll talk more,” Benny promised them. Or threatened —Ryder wasn’t sure which. And from the expression on the recruits faces, they weren’t sure either.
Ryder just nodded at them. “They’re fixing food downstairs,” he said. “Eat, relax. We’ll work things out.”
They nodded, but they didn’t get up until after Ryder had followed Benny out of the room. Downstairs Kev was back with the Chinese kid —Andrew. Apparently, they’d come back by bike. Well, what other transportation did they have? He needed to work on that. He pulled Andrew and Kev aside. “Look, I’ve got to go to dinner out at the pack house,” he said quietly. “Andrew? You’re in charge here. They’re your squad. See to it that they’re fed, bivouacked. Might get them some exercise. Kev and Trip will be your guards. But you’re in charge of the men.”
