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“I appreciate that. I’ll visit in another six to ten weeks. I don’t want my people bolstering the dark side, and my gut tells me this coterie is doing so, but nothing in their heads points to it. Feel free to contact me directly, rather than going through Ryan. If one of my assistants answers this number, tell them it’s slayer business. If I’m unavailable, I’ll call you back at my first opportunity.”
“I appreciate that, but you have to know if I find them harming humans, I’ll take them out and you’ll hear about it through your own grapevine.”
“I’m aware. A heads up would be nice, so I can work to put people I approve of into position to grab the power when you release it through Sybil’s final death, but Ryan has explained why I’m not likely to receive it.”
“Who would you bring to town?”
“The current Master of Nashville for the top spot, and the current Master of Asheville for his Secundo.”
He blew out a breath. “You could give John-John a heads up that if I call him to Charlotte, he should come to town and see what I want.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“No promises, but if there’s time, I’ll see what I can do.”
As it turned out, I didn’t need to feed from Furio, so I didn’t. His contract says I can, but during our negotiations, I told him I would only do so when I needed to, and would avoid it when I had others available. He knew I would once every three months, no matter what, but otherwise, I’d try to refrain.
The three of us arrived at Homewood before dawn, but not by much. Julian has a place to bed down, and Furio has a small bedroom. At Homewood, the werewolf can sleep while I’m down for the day because I trust the security Cora and her people have in place.
Chapter 10
Cora
We were a few days from the full moon, and I spent an hour at the old farmhouse, going over what Chase had brought in to feed everyone. I chopped and prepped some of the items, and made sure everything was sorted logically, with sticky notes on the fridge detailing what was available. We’d feast on deer and whatever else we could hunt and kill while in wolf form, but I liked to have the ingredients on hand for a huge breakfast the next morning. A healthy pack spends time together in both of our forms, after all. Some would have to get dressed and go to work, but many could stay and hang out while we cooked and then ate a feast of a first meal. If I got caught up handling someone’s drama, others would be able to jump in and prepare breakfast. It’s how a healthy pack works.
I’d been asleep when Marco arrived home, but he’d left me a note to make use of Furio in whatever way he could be of service.
We were going to have to talk about the coterie’s wolves, at some point. Furio isn’t Pack, he belongs to the coterie, but with Marco and I bound so tightly, Furio smelled a little like Pack. It was a problem, and it would only get bigger until we either bound our two organizations together closer, or we split everything apart.
I didn’t want to do either, but I feared the choice would be out of my hands in the near future.
“Let’s pull in another six dozen eggs,” I told Chase. “The second and third nights are weekend nights this month, so we’ll have more people staying to eat, I hope. If not, we’ll boil them and I’ll send them to the flock at the coterie house.”
“I love the way you and Marco take care of each other’s people,” Chase told me. “I know he’ll be there for me, that he’ll have my back just as much as you, should push come to shove. It’s comforting, when I thought it would be stressful, before he came.”
“I’m glad he’s put you at ease,” I told him. “It’s important. Thank you for telling me.”
When Furio woke, I sent him to the armory and had him load practice ammo into a few dozen mags that fit the pistol and rifle Marco prefers. “While you’re at it, look to see if we have mags for whatever you have on you. Load a dozen of them as well, and you can head out back and practice with us once the sun goes down.”
“I’d enjoy that. Thanks for including me.”
“I know Marco is most likely to use his vampire tricks in a battle, but it can’t hurt for him to know how to shoot. It always makes me nervous when someone is around as many loaded weapons as we have on the premises, and they don’t know how to shoot them. I try to get him on the back forty at least once every six or eight weeks to shoot for an hour or so.” He’s actually a decent shot, just not as comfortable with a gun in his hands as I’d like for him to be, so I drag him out to shoot with me when I can manage it, and I introduce a different weapon each time, before he shoots the ones he’s most comfortable with.
“Marco says since he’s running with the Pack on the full moon, and I’m invited to run with him?”
“You are, yes. It’s awkward, and I’m sorry for it, but I’ll tell our people to welcome you on the run. We’re a tightknit group and we’ve been together a long time, much longer than I’ve been Alpha. You come from a similar background though, so I hope you won’t feel like an outsider for long.”
“Most Alphas wouldn’t let a lone wolf oathed to a vampire run with her pack, much less try to make him feel welcome.”
“Absolutely correct, but this is special circumstances, yes? Don’t overanalyze it, please. Just go with it, and we’ll hopefully make sense of it in the near future. Marco and I are a work in progress, and I realize that makes some of our people nervous. I’m working on it, and I have confidence we’ll figure it out, but for now, I don’t have absolute answers.”
* * * *
Marco
It killed me that I wasn’t able to tell anyone about the skin suit I’d worn, or even that Alaric had ridden on the plane with me. I tried to tell Cora to check the video feed for the plane the day I rode it, and I couldn’t even do that. It would’ve only shown Alaric getting on and off, and not even that if he’d altered his vibration enough, but I wanted her to know something had happened, even if I couldn’t tell her what.
But there was no way to alert her at all.
