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Chapter 12
“Iwould just like to point out,” Samantha, a coyote shifter, said from her seat, arms crossed, “that the armadillos will be pretty annoyed that they weren’t involved in these discussions.”
Blake stopped shuffling his papers when Luther glanced sideways at him. Blake stared hard at the coyote for a moment before casting Luther a mildly incredulous expression. It had taken weeks for them to get a meeting of these shifters together; it was difficult enough to coordinate between bears, coyotes, and bighorn sheep—everyone had their own schedules and no one had wanted to compromise. And now this coyote was giving them flack for not including a bunch of armadillos?
Unbelievable.
“Well, we will of course extend all the information discussed at this meeting to the armadillo clan if they would like,” Blake offered. “I’ll be taking meticulous notes.”
“We’ll pass it along. You can count on their help. I just think they won’t be happy that they weren’t included in the discussions,” Samantha said, and the coyotes around her nodded. Blake noted the way a few rams at the back of the group rolled their eyes, though he knew, after coming to understand the local clan dynamics better, that it was mostly because a non-alpha member was speaking for the good of her people. Coyotes, however, had a loose social structure with shifting power dynamics. They tended to live independently of one another—unless a threat, like these cougars, brought them back together.
And for that, Blake was glad. Even if they were more loners than the other shifter clans in Angel Fire, at least they had enough sense to come together during a crisis. At least no one was getting murdered this time—not yet, anyway. The whole point of this meeting was to be ready, to organize, mobilize, and fight if the need should arise.
Besides, it wasn’t like Blake was an alpha either. He and Luther needed to sell an alliance between all the Angel Fire shifter clans to some of the bigger players. Bears were the biggest players around, but that didn’t mean everyone was jumping to work with them. So, in a room rented out in the basement of the college, they held the first of what might very well be many meetings between the bears and the other shifters.
His inner black bear paced within him, uneasy in the presence of so many kinds of shifters. The potential for trouble always escalated in such circumstances.
With the last of the late arrivals—rams, of course—finally taking their seats at the assortment of desks around the room, Blake gave Luther the signal to get the meeting going.
“First, we’d like to thank everyone for attending tonight,” Luther said, then nodded to AJ, the new ram alpha. “We appreciate your time and attention.”
“I was under the impression I’d be meeting with the bear alpha too,” AJ remarked, his beefy arms crossed over his equally massive chest. “Where the hell’s Ruiz?”
“Miguel was called away when there was a report of another incident at the mining camps,” Luther explained. “Cougar scent was all over the place, and he wanted to sniff things out for himself before human officers contaminated the scene. He apologizes for not being here to meet with you personally.”
The ram shifter leaned back in his chair with a scowl, clearly unimpressed that he was dealing with underlings, but at least he wasn’t walking out the door. With slightly lifted eyebrows, Luther scanned the room for more objections, and when none arose, he carried on.
“As you know, there have been several break-ins around Angel Fire over the last couple of months, increasing in frequency as the summer draws near. Vandalism is on the rise. Just this last week, the home of Blake’s girlfriend was splattered with sheep’s blood. Shortly before the discovery, Blake detected cougars on the property. As it stands, according to a bear on the police force, all recent criminal acts of this nature, including one mugging, left cougar scents behind.”
“Is it Willard Vesper again?” one of the coyotes asked, a question met with murmured agreements and various head bobs.
Luther shook his head. “We can’t confirm that yet. The ringleader, if there even is one, isn’t known to us.”
“We can’t be sure if it’s the cougar clan returning for revenge after the events of last year,” Blake continued, picking up during Luther’s contemplative pause. “Some of the cougar scents have repeated themselves, but there seems to be a lot of them out there. We’ve sent out patrols through the forests and around the mountain, but haven’t found any physical evidence to confirm what we suspect.”
“Moving like ghosts,” another coyote muttered, her expression dark. “I don’t like this.”
“None of us do,” a ram agreed. “Our favorite bar got trashed last week, and when we went to check it out, all we could smell was cougar. They’re fucking with us.”
“We visited their old den when all this shit started,” AJ added. He pulled the cigarette out from behind his ear and started fiddling with it. “Empty. The place looked and smelled abandoned. If they’re here, they aren’t staying in Angel Fire after they commit all this crap. They’re leaving town before we can catch them.”
“And that’s why we’re so grateful you all are here,” Luther insisted, jumping off from what the alpha had said. “This is an issue that will affect all of us. We believe it is in our best collective interests to share information, work together, and, well, kind of trust each other.”
As the rams chuckled like a band of misbehaving idiots at the back of the class, the coyotes exchanged wary looks with one another.
“I know there have been reasons in the past that suggested we ought not trust each other,” Blake said, trying to smooth things over. “Neither Luther nor I have been here long enough to let that influence how we interact with all of you. In the face of another potentially violent encounter with these cougars, the rest of the bears in Angel Fire share that sentiment completely.”
“This isn’t a bear against cougar, coyote against cougar, ram against cougar kind of fight,” Luther agreed. “We need to show unified strength. This is our town. Cougars are outsiders coming in, filling that void that Willard Vesper left behind, and we need to show them that we won’t stand for it.”
“Hear, hear,” a coyote said, almost timidly.
“Well, if you bears are spearheading this campaign of group picnics and basket weaving,” AJ said as his rams chuckled, “then what exactly do you propose we do about this problem?”
Luther quickly shared the patrol schedule, the traveling in pairs, and coordinating with local shifters in the police force, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.
“Right, okay, but what are we gonna do about these assholes?” AJ pressed, his voice hedging on a sneer. “What’s the game plan, gentlemen?”
“We…” Luther tried not to be too obvious in the way he turned to Blake for assistance.
As it stood, there was no end game in the works. Miguel had a lot of shit to juggle with this whole thing, and tonight was just supposed to be about selling unity and strength amongst any clan willing to stand up to the cougars. They had no intention of offering an actual solution to a problem that was really starting to ramp up. However, from the looks on everyone’s faces, they clearly wanted something—and Luther had nothing to respond with. “We…”
“We have a plan,” Blake announced. “There’s a lot going on that is both said and unsaid, both behind the scenes and played out for everyone to see. And…it’s…”
Luther leaned back against the front desk, arms crossed, and gestured for him to proceed. Blake had dug himself a hole, it was up to him to climb back out.
Blake tossed his notebook aside, rolled up his sleeves, and exhaled deeply. “Okay, here we go… The big plan…”
