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“So, with a couple of scouts we can get an early warning? You have a map of the area?” Jason asked.
Duncan nodded.
“The biggest challenge is the men we’ve already got,” Jessie said, thinking it through. “We need to make sure they don’t switch sides.”
“Easily said,” Jason replied. “You have any ideas on how we’re going to do that?”
She thought it over. “Maybe,” she said. She met Jason’s eyes. “Maybe we create another dandelion burst.” She saw the muscle in Jason’s jaw twitch. Later, she mouthed at him, and he nodded.
Jessie got off the couch and headed toward the door. “I need to eat something besides meat,” she said, the men trailing after her. Then she was going up to the attic to think. And she was going to have a chat with Jason about Mei Tanaka and exactly what had happened at the campground when Mei took on two dozen of Chen’s recruits and made them hers.
Jason trailed her up the stairs, carrying a platter of more skewers of meat and instructions from Cass to make her eat all of it. Jessie wasn’t going to argue. She was starving. She thought maybe skipping the skewers and going back to T-bones might not be a bad idea.
“So, are you and Mei still linked?” she asked bluntly.
He hedged. She rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time for that, Jason,” she said impatiently. “If I hadn’t known it then, I would now that I’ve become a pack Second. You stepped into that role with her as if she were a new Alpha. Are you still?”
Jason grimaced. “Yes,” he admitted finally. “Except she’s not an Alpha, and I’m not her Second. But there’s a link there.” He considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “I have her back.”
And he didn’t like being up here, Jessie thought, with some compassion. “So what created the link?” she asked. “I only heard the story afterwards. Mei came up, there’s a standoff, and she kicked the crap out of the ringleader, then announced she was hungry.”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh, “that’s pretty much what happened. She says the links feel more like family links, like she inherited a bunch of clueless cousins. We don’t talk about her link to me, or to David.”
David was David White, the medic who had been there. “And Alefosio?” she asked.
Jason shrugged slightly. “He’s not talking either,” he said. “And I wouldn’t if I were him, either. Margarite isn’t going to want to share. He escorted the bus on out to Odessa. I suspect he’s going to go back to Vancouver, and pretend it never happened.” He shrugged again. “And who knows? Maybe nothing did happen. Or maybe it glanced off, because he had a prior commitment. Jesus, Jessie, none of us know what the fuck happened.”
Jessie nodded. “And we’re going to go down there and try to recreate it,” she informed him. “So how important was the display of dominance? What about the food? The command that they obeyed? What was the trigger?”
Jason frowned, and thought about it. “She identified the ringleader —and he had their attention right? And when she defeated him, that attention snapped to her. So not unlike a challenge fight. But for links, not pack. And not for territory. One of the recruits said, ‘she speaks for us,’ as if it were no big deal and perfectly obvious. None of us had ever heard of such a thing.”
Jessie considered that. She’d let it sink in a bit. Not unlike a challenge fight.... “OK, next thing. We’ve got two packs essentially heading toward a fight. What happens? What role does dominance play? Can their leader command my guys to fight for him, and they have to obey? Can I do that to his?”
Jason stared at her. “I have no clue,” he said blankly. “And the only person who might, is Benny, and he’s off playing Rambo, if I had to guess. I don’t know of any time when two packs did fight! Not in my lifetime anyway. Although....” He considered it for a moment, and she waited. “I guess the retribution is the closest thing. And Alpha Tanaka himself was involved, along with Alpha Garrison. They don’t come any more dominant than those two. But a battle between two packs? Doesn’t happen. The Council would intervene with enough troops to stop it or make one side the winner.”
He thought some more. “Or they might end up with a challenge fight between the two Alphas, I suppose,” he said. “But Jesus, Jessie, I don’t know how that would even work.”
“So what is Campbell expecting to happen then? He’s going to roll in here and expect us to show our bellies?” Jessie asked. And which Campbell was coming? Did it matter? Maybe, she decided. She’d met Angus Campbell, and he was an old, dominant wolf. She had killed his son — so he hadn’t been as dominant as she was. His grandsons? She didn’t know —she had no feel for them. Maybe Duncan would know.
He’s planning an attack of some kind,” Jason agreed. “Call it a raid? Come in here, take the women, enlist the men, kill the leaders? Declare himself Alpha if he finds Ryder and kills him, declares himself pack Second if he kills you instead?” He shook his head. “We should get you out of here,” he muttered. “If you aren’t here, he can’t take the pack Second role. Buy us some time.”
Jessie shook her head. “Not happening,” she said firmly. “I hold the pack bonds, and I’m going to protect the pack. And Angus Campbell is as corrupt and foul as McKenzie was. I’m not handing this pack over to him.”
“You don’t know how to fight!” Jason protested.
Jessie smiled at him. “You know what Ryder said when I told him that? He said I’d killed three challengers in three days — not bad for a wolf who doesn’t know how to fight.”
“You’re planning to go wolf,” Jason said slowly.
She nodded. “I’m planning to greet that bastard as a wolf,” she agreed. “And then I’ll kill him.”
Now that Jason had a strategy to consider, he was a big help, Jessie found. She’d liked him at Margarite’s place, although she hadn’t had any interactions really. But he’d seemed competent and steady, and was generally amused by most of it. But this situation was different. Here he was in charge with both Ryder and Benny out in the middle of nowhere.
He needed a commanding officer, she thought. Now that he had one, he settled in. They studied the view from the attic windows out the back. Really, if she had this house, she’d have her bedroom up here. The views were wonderful. You could see all the way to the river and the greenbelt on both sides of it. There wasn’t any movement that she could see, but maybe it wasn’t dark enough yet. It was 4 p.m. — another hour and it would be.
They agreed to station some sharpshooters up here as backup. And Jason pointed out where he’d have their outposts on Duncan’s map. “Two watchers,” Jessie said, remembering how Ryder had set it up. “One to bring word, and one to continue watching.” He nodded.
“Then let’s go talk to the recruits,” she said. “I’m going to have Cass run the kitchen, Amanda will be in charge of the house —just as they’ve been doing. But the other women? I want them to shift. We aren’t as helpless in wolf form.”
