AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At first, Graham felt terror. Grimmaw pack, as well as Sable and everybody he was responsible for tending to, was casually standing among a tense adversary, poised to escalate a conflict.
But on closer inspection, not only did the three wolves—two he recognized from Deacon Claw and one he didn’t recognize—not seem to care about the gathering audience, both within their reach and watching from up above, they seemed ambivalent to Jude and Graham.
They were going to shift, but first, they approached Miranda. “Thank god you’re here,” Miranda said. “I told these jackasses to leave because I got all sorts of bad vibes, but they’re not listening. No idea what they’re here for.”
“They haven’t tried to escalate anything. Have they?” Graham asked. He tried to hide the tenseness in his voice but probably failed.
“No,” Miranda replied. “Near as I can tell, they’re looking for somebody. They ignore everybody who tries to engage with them.”
“So, the biggest threat they’re causing is just making a scene?” Jude asked.
He had a point. By creating a spectacle, they were interfering with pack business, stifling productivity. The civilians on the outside had no idea what was transpiring here, but that didn’t mean they weren’t jeopardizing the safety and work of all the business owners as well as all shifter-related commerce.
Part of Graham thought that the best thing he could do was to return a sense of normalcy and motivate everybody to return to their daily lives. But then, if the rival pack shifters did escalate anything—and Deacon Claw hated nothing more than being ignored—he would be jeopardizing the safety of everybody here.
So instead, he transformed, with no regard for his clothes. The fabric tore from his body and ripped with every bulge of muscle and bone as his hands moved to the ground, becoming paws. In his peripheral vision, he could see Jude taking the hint and casually discarding his T-shirt and jeans as the great onyx form of his wolf took hold.
As the strange wolves yipped and ran around the courtyard, Graham could see them subtly acknowledge him and Jude, in spite of their feigned indifference. In his slacks, now ripped apart, Graham could hear his phone ringing and worried that it might be Delilah. He knew that changing form to answer it would be a very different idea. She needed to stay as far away from this as possible.
On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if the Deacon Claw pack would ever wear down and leave. He held his ground, watching the entrances to every building and carefully monitoring the pack members spread about the crowd. Some had lost interest and gone about their lives by this point, but the interfering wolves were nothing if not tenacious. He could see now that they had even brought backup, and that the three of them hadn’t come alone.
Some thirty minutes later, Graham could see a familiar blonde streak in the windows overlooking the courtyard, darting back down the stairwell. His heart skipped a beat.
No, he thought.She can’t be here.
He had no idea how Deacon Claw pack had found out that she was living there, but nobody had said anything to directly confirm that she was even here. She could still escape. It didn’t matter that nobody had any claim to her since the deal had fallen through. If her old pack was here, she wouldn’t be safe anymore.
Uncaring of nudity, Graham shifted and called out. “Deacon Claw pack!” Graham roared out. “You’ll find nothing of interest to you here. Leave me and mine alone!”
“Finally talking to us, are you, Grimmaw?”
Jonah approached, followed by Clark, as the third wolf watched on in fascination.
“The silence was all yours, Deacon,” Graham snarled.
“It’s a nice try, but we can smell her,” Clark said.
“Smell who?” Graham asked. “You mean the girl you were going totradeus? Even if she’d made it to us, which she hasn’t, she was still promised to us.”
“You know that isn’t how that works,” Jonah growled in response. “As we told you, the deal was altered. The female will go to Silver Paw, not Grimmaw.”
“And as he told you,” Jude interjected, now human, as well. “You don’t just get to take back a deal you agreed to whenever it suits you.”
“I don’t see why you care,” Clark interrupted. “As I recall, you were appalled by the deal when we brought it to your doorstep.”
Jonah’s eyes peered into the crowd suddenly, and he let out a frightening chortle. “There she is!” he cried. “There’s the runaway!”
Graham could see all of the eyes in the crowd fixating suddenly on Delilah’s form. He was frightened for her. Why had she stayed in spite of all of the danger and trauma it posed her?
Delilah stood coldly and seemed a little taller than usual. “Yeah, it’s me. What of it?”
Graham grinned proudly. He would defend her in a heartbeat if anything escalated, but he was just glad to see her fighting. Not for her safety—he wanted to keep her far away from this, and he felt a fear greater than anything he’d ever experienced—but for everything she’d gone through.
“What of it?” Jonah barked. “You’re a peace offering. You’re coming with us, or else.”
In spite of the potential dangers, Delilah held her ground. Jonah defended the pack’s practices, claiming that trafficking her would be done in the name of tradition and for the good of the pack. He was an older wolf, a slave to tradition, but Graham still couldn’t understand how Clark would approve of this deal… couldn’t comprehend how awful he was.
Then Jonah threatened his pack’s safety if she didn’t come back with them, and that was the final straw. “Why is that necessary?” Graham asked. “Consider your peace offering given. You gave her to us and here she is. I don’t understand the problem.”
