9. Lila
9
LILA
W eylin didn’t say much for the rest of the drive, resorting to random, off-topic comments. I pulled into the parking lot of an expensive-looking restaurant, and my breath caught at the sight of Rainor leaning against the handrail with his hands in his pockets. A matching computer bag to Weylin’s hung off one shoulder.
He, like Weylin, wore a sleek suit, tailored specifically for him. I parked the car and looked down at what I had worn today, one of the few pantsuits I owned. I didn’t have to wear a police uniform for my position.
With a sigh, I got out of the car. I was going to stick out like a sore thumb, but that didn’t matter to me as much right now as it usually would have. I had another piece of the puzzle for the case, whether Weylin confirmed it or not.
“Detective Evans.” Rainor straightened, tipping his head toward me.
I held out my hand automatically to greet him, but he kept his hands in his pocket.
“It’s not you, it’s him,” Weylin said, walking up behind me. He put his hand on the small of my back, guiding me towards the restaurant. All morning, I’d been excited for his touch and smell, but right now, my wolf wanted to be closer to Rainor.
Though I was sure the mate bond was at play, I didn’t want to ask these two men. It was at this moment that I wished I’d known my biological parents. Was this a talk shifter parents had with their young? I had to believe so.
Rainor seemed rigid as we walked into the restaurant. No one greeted us, no one escorted us to a table. Instead, he led the way. The dining room was a mix of black and natural wood, sleek stainless steel, and elegant cream-colored cloth on the tables. The tables were empty, not a person to be seen anywhere.
To the far wall was a line of boxes, or rooms, giving complete privacy to the tables within. This was where Rainor led us. He stopped at a booth that had a curtain for a door and held back the curtain for me. I slipped in, Weylin following me, while Rainor slid into the seat opposite us.
He picked up the tablet on the end of the table. “Drinks?”
“Water is fine, I’m parched.” Weylin wiggled his eyebrows.
Rainor sighed as if he were in pain. “I’m sure you are. Detective Evans?” He glanced up at me, and I could just barely make out the red ring around his pupils.
“You can call me Lila.”
Rainor licked his lips, his nostrils flaring. In this small room, his woodsy, smoky scent filled the air, and I leaned towards it. The scent was so much more than the scraps of it I had been visiting on the forest floor. “What drink would you like?” he asked.
“Water, please.”
Rainor finished on the tablet before setting it down and gathering his own tablet and a file folder from his bag, while Weylin took out his laptop. “I have you set up in our system now,” Rainor said, being all formal. “Here is your login and password. You can change it if you so choose.” He handed me a sticky note. “I’ll have the program link sent to your email, so you can download it onto your computer, but everything pertaining to the case will be available to you.”
“Thank you.” I smiled. He seemed very different from the man that had me pinned in the alley, the wolf that had rubbed his scent all over me.
Our drinks, along with a few appetizers, were dropped off, announced by a soft chime at the curtain, and Weylin pushed it back. A short, stubby robot that looked similar to a vacuum cleaner with a tray on its head waited. Weylin retrieved the drinks and food, placing it along the table.
“Yes, steak bites,” Weylin said, quietly cheering.
“Is there any waitstaff here?” I asked.
“Yes, and they are readily available if needed. However, this establishment prides itself on its discretion,” Rainor said. He took a glass of whiskey from Weylin and downed it in one gulp.
“Is it such a good idea? This place isn’t exactly busy, and it’s lunchtime.”
“It’s closed from five a.m. until three p.m., since it’s more of a nighttime establishment, catering to the wolves.”
Oh.
“Try this,” Weylin said, holding up a piece of seasoned meat on the end of a toothpick.
I took the toothpick from him, sensing a bit of disappointment from him, and put the meat into my mouth. It was savory and tender, absolutely delicious. “So good.”
Rainor cleared his throat. “Right. Let’s get to it.” Weylin and I picked at the appetizers while we listened to him. “I’m going to try to explain as much as I can, but I realize you know nothing of this world, so just try to keep up.”
“I’m a quick study,” I said dryly.
“Yes, well. You do know wolves run in packs, typically families, but packs also include clans, territory, and establishments.” He acted as if he was talking to a child, but the joke was on him. I was watching him. I was figuring out his mannerisms, learning the way he talked, the looks he shared with Weylin, and I was soaking up all this information that he didn’t say aloud. I was reading between his lines.
Rainor pulled up a map on his tablet, and I leaned over it. It was in the area, and then some. The different colored lines along the sections could have indicated towns or county lines, but the closer I looked, the more I realized the lines actually cut through towns at some points on the map.
“What you are looking at is a color-coded map of packs on our continent. The more you zoom in, the easier it is to see exactly where boundaries lay, as well as the large number of small packs. Each color is specific to a pack.”
He let me take the tablet, playing with the map and zooming in and out at different towns. I kept playing around with the app, pressing lines, which caused information to pop up. Different packs, their population, leadership.
Weylin and Rainor talked to one another while I kept myself busy. Food arrived, some sort of rice and fish dish. I ate while I worked, since it was how I normally did things.
The largest area was lined in a reddish-orange color. I clicked on it, not surprised at all when the name Cridhe Pack popped up. It was Kage’s pack, and he was listed as alpha. Rainor was listed as second , and on the same level was Weylin, given the title guard .
I raised my head from the app. “You’re a guard?” I asked, interrupting Weylin just as he flicked a piece of rice at Rainor. Rainor brushed it off his suit jacket with disgust. “Are you even a certified detective or officer of any kind? Where is your branch?”
“Interesting you should ask. This might surprise you just a little, but shifters don’t follow human law. Human law falls below shifter law. Do I have a piece of paper saying I can do what I do? Yes. Mainly for the benefit of showing humans. Does it mean anything? No. Do I have training in my field of expertise? Yes.”
Rainor sighed. “What Weylin means is, while he isn’t certified in the human world, he is certified in the shifter world.”
“Certified insane,” Weylin whispered under his breath.
Rainor grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, drawing two circles overlapping in the middle. “Think of the worlds as a Venn diagram. We have shifters here, humans here. Humans have their own laws and governing bodies…well, shifters, too, have their own laws and governing body.”
“So, you’re the governing body?” I asked.
“No, the council is. Each continent is run by a council of appointed board members. Above them is the high council, which takes care of each continental council.” He began drawing boxes. Up top was a single box, where he wrote high council , and from there, he drew seven lines to seven different council boxes. He moved to one he labeled North America and began spanning a series of lines.
“You’re going to need more paper if you do that,” Weylin said.
“I’m just picking the ones in our area.” Rainor looked up at me. “There are a hundred and thirty-seven packs all over North America, but in our area, we have four large ones. Still with me?”
“Yeah, just, one second.” I got up. “Excuse me,” I said to Weylin. He moved out of the way, so I could go around to Rainor’s side of the table and sit next to him. Rainor stiffened right away, licking his lips and clearing his throat. Ignoring his reaction to my nearness, I held on to the tablet. “So, the four main packs are: Nadair, Awlen, Sgrios? Is that how you say that one?”
Rainor’s lips twitched with a warning of a smile before he controlled himself. “Close, it’s uh, Gaelic. Pronounced Sgris .” He seemed to relax a bit more as we continued talking.
“Okay. And then Cridhe, but on here, Cridhe is easily ten times the size of the others.”
“Ah, this is a territory map. Our pack resides mainly in the city, but we control all this land that’s still considered Cridhe Pack. Within Cridhe are smaller packs with their own alphas. We call them clans, and they all report to Kage.”
“So, Kage controls the pack but not their clan?”
Rainor and Weylin exchanged a look with one another, but it wasn’t just the look—it was something else. A form of communication. “It’s more than that,” Weylin said. “An alliance, of sorts.”
“Cridhe is a very old name, an EGP—established generational pack. These are packs that have been handed down within the same bloodline through generations. There are only a handful of EGPs left worldwide.”
“Why?”
Rainor hesitated. “It really does come down to power. EGPs are held in high regard among our community. Thriving for as long as they do or have been, imagine the victory when such a pack is over thrown.”
Power. I glanced back at Weylin. “These alphas, the victims, are they part of an EGP?” I asked.
Weylin shook his head. “Yes. So far, the alphas to three of the four EGPs on our continent, are missing. Nadair, Awlen, and Sgrios, all confirmed. We have a missing alpha from Ophidian Pack, but it is yet to be determined if it is connected, they are not a generational pack.”
“To me, it seems obvious they are going after the main packs, so would it be safe to assume they’ll go after Kage?”
Weylin scoffed. “I mean, if they try, then good on them.”
“What? Isn’t he, like, your leader?” I asked.
Rainor chuckled, sitting back against the booth. “He isn't like our leader. He is the leader of our pack. He may have become alpha by birthright, but he trained and earned the position, nonetheless.” His eyes darkened. “I take pity on any wolf that tries to go after him—or his pack.”
I looked back down to the tablet, then zoomed in on my town. It was lined in purple. I smiled and shook my head. “Lilac?” I asked Rainor.
He shrugged.
“I was adopted, obviously, since I was raised by humans. But my mother named me Lila because, after I was born, I was left on her doorstep wrapped in a blanket, with nothing but two sprigs of a lilac branch.”
I clicked on it. It was labeled as Lilac Pack, only one member, and I was listed as the alpha. “How many people will see this? Doesn’t this make me a target?” I asked. “I mean, if someone is going around, wiping out packs, wouldn't they go for the one with only one member?”
“This version is only available to Weylin, Kage, and me.” Rainor leaned forward, clicking a few buttons, and then my lilac color disappeared and was replaced with the same reddish orange as Cridhe Pack. “This version is what's available to other packs.”
“You made me part of your pack?”
My wolf within was awoken to the tendrils of scent escaping Rainor. I found myself angling my body towards him. “You are our mate. You will be under the protection of our pack until we work things out.”
“What does being your mate entail? Weylin explained what a mate was, but what does it mean?”
“That you’re mine,” Rainor growled, and I knew it wasn’t him. It was the creature of the night that I met back in the alley. The one they call the beast.
His hand reached out, gripping my hair at the back of my skull and pulling, angling my face up towards his lips. The red in his eyes grew.
“Rain.” Weylin growled the warning.
Rainor chuckled. “You belong to me. My mate. I own you, every part, from this mouth to your pussy. I will give you every inch of me.”
My wolf practically shouted in glee. My breasts pushed up against his chest, my hands gripping the edges of his suit jacket.
“Shit,” Weylin cursed, and I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. His claws were already out, his eyes lit; he was ready to shift. Would he get in trouble for shifting here? In such a public place? No one was in the restaurant when we’d come in, but I wasn’t sure who was out there now.
“No,” I told Rainor. I stared back into his eyes, his lips so close they briefly grazed mine. “Let me go.”
The red flared at first, the growl that followed was menacing, but I slipped my hand up to the side of Rainor’s neck. The heating pulse from his skin was comforting, the exchange of energy and power nearly palpable.
“Let. me. Go,” I ordered, and his hands released, nearly instantly. Rainor sat back in his spot, staring at me with the utmost confused look.
“You have got to be shitting me.” Weylin stared at me with an open mouth. “Who the fuck are you?”