0106
Dane
Taking a seat in the large chair, I take in the shadows of the grounds. It had been a week since Damien had returned and still, there was no sign of Salem. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he realised that he couldn't get what he wanted from us. but until I knew more,
the grounds would be guarded.
Turning my head back over my shoulder, I see that Neah is still fast asleep, huddled up into a ball with her hands cupping her bump. Unbothered about me not lying next to her.
'She looks so peaceful.' Aero mutters
'She's beautiful.' I whisper back to my Wolf.
With no sign of Salem, she had been so much calmer. Raven insisted that she was at the stage in her pregnancy where she had more clarity. Even if it was temporary.
And I was more than happy, there was a moment where I thought I would lose her to the darkness.
The very darkness that I enjoyed seeing in her.
Her heart rate changes and she stretches out. "You're watching me again." She mutters sleepily yet keeps her eyes closed.
"I will never stop watching you."
She doesn't answer and the beat of her heart slows telling me that she had fallen back into a slumber.
My eyes move up to the clock, it was coming up to four in the morning and the Wolves on guard would be swapping over soon.
There's movement over the far side of the grounds and as he steps out of the shadows, I see Klaus heading this way, books under his arms as he quickened his pace.
Groaning, I push myself up and move to the bed, kissing Neah on the cheek.
She doesn't wake, but a small smile spreads across her face. A kiss was all she would let me have at the moment, insisting that being pregnant made sex uncomfortable. When the twins are here, I will remind her of everything she has been missing out on.
Slipping out the door and down the stairs, I find Klaus with his hand ready to knock on my office door.
"Klaus it is four in the morning."
"I'm sorry, Dane, but this couldn't wait." He is practically grinning from ear to ear.
I gesture for him to enter the office and he quickly drops the books on my desk. "You know how it was really hard for me to find information on Neah and other Lycans. That the only information was from a long time ago and only snippets of literature."
"I remember Klaus." I yawn
"Remember what Jess said, about the humans having stories."
"Get to the point." I snap, exhausted.
"I've been going to the library and book stores in the city and in some of the nearby towns. If the books are even remotely factual, I believe there are more Lycans out there."
"What are you talking about?"
He opens up one of the books. "This one." He seemed really pumped about finding this information. "It talks about how Lycans showed themselves to humans around five centuries ago. That there was a war between them. A lot of both sides lost lives but ultimately, the humans won."
"Okay."
"There is no mention of Lycans being wiped out, Dane. Just that they won. Don't you see, Dane, they survived."
"We can't say that. Not when I have never come across any." I had made deals with a lot of packs and none of them had anything hidden so deeply like Moonshine had.
He shakes his head, opening up the other book. "This one talks about the war too, but this one says the Lycans won the war."
"If Lycans won the war, there likely wouldn't be any humans."
"That's what I thought but there's more. This one says the Lycans won the war, but they knew they didn't have the numbers to take on the world after losing so many in the war." He smiles and then frowns.
"They wanted time to repopulate and they couldn't do that with humans knowing about them. They went into hiding. Leaving the humans to believe that they won."
'Hiding? Where?' Aero mutters and I repeat the question to Klaus
"It's not specific. I've searched the book and there is no mention of it. Just that it was important to keep the knowledge of Lycans quiet."
"Why were we not taught anything about this war in school?"
"Think about it. If they wanted to go into hiding, the last thing they needed was humans or Wolves discovering information years down the line." His deep green eyes flicker up to mine. "We were told about a war, Dane if you remember your history." "The Great Wolf War."
He nods his head. "It was known as that, but what if that was just a cover up. I feel like such a fucking idiot. Of course the Lycans worked to wipe out all information. But then why would someone write a book?"
I cock an eyebrow. "It probably wasn't supposed to end up there. It was likely supposed to stay with the Lycans"
"You are probably right." He taps the book, more excited than ever. "The guy who wrote this book was a leader in the war. He kept talking about the importance of a blood line. His blood line to be precise." He closes the very old book and hands it to me 'The War.' By Aldous Kitson.
Kitson, it was a rare name. Of all the Wolves and the very few Lycans I had come across, Neah was the only one with that surname left.
"An ancestor?" I murmur, turning the brown book over in my hands.
"I would say yes, just by the way he talks about bloodlines. Neah is a female Alpha, her genetics had to come from somewhere."
"Are the Lycans a threat?"
"I don't know." He mutters. "It talks about them rising again, but it was centuries ago, Dane. And all of those would be long dead. So it would be descendents."
"Damien has always believed there are more out there. Are you telling me that my mate was not just the leader of Moonshine but is the leader of every Lycan out there?"
He nods his head at me.
"Have you told anyone else?"
"No, I came straight here."
"Good. keep it that way. I need to figure out my next step."
More Lycans, would they be a threat to our kind? What if there are more like Salem? Too feral to think straight.
"She couldn't control Salem." I mutter, "Not completely."
"Damien told me something about that. It's something to do with the rejection. Like Jenson, Jenson rejected you as his Alpha and rejected the pack too. It's likely that Salem did that but possibly long before he met her. I'm not sure anymore. New information is seeping out everywhere. "Do you really believe that?"
He sucks in his cheeks. "I only really believe what I read and what I see for myself."
"I need to speak to Damien."
Klaus follows me upstairs. Knocking on Raven's door, I call out to Damien, only to find him stepping out of the room next door where Dorothy slept now.
He yawns and looks at his watch "A bit early isn't it?"
I nod to the door he is pulling closed, "She okay?"
"Still a few nightmares. She's getting there."
****
Damien sits in the chair in my office, his legs spread as he leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs. "So I was right."
"It seems that way, yes. Why, why did you think there are more?"
"Shortly before I was bitten, Cassandra would talk to me, telling me it was such a shame that I wasn't a true Lycan. Muttering something about how I would have been a good specimen in the Lycan pool but because I am a bitten Lycan, I wouldn't be as good as the true thing." He chuckles.
"If only she could see me now."
"That doesn't imply there are more."
"You're right. But when I questioned her, she didn't really give me an answer. To me, that suggests there was and is a lot more than I know about. A lot more than any of us know about."
"But you have been around, you've never come across any?"
"Other than Mallory and the Rogues, no. Even when I was hunting for Salem, I didn't come across any Lycan scents."
"So it could just be a load of bullshit.".
"Come on, Dane. We all know you don't believe that." Damien shakes his head at me. "What if they have found a way to conceal themselves?"
"You are talking about masking their scents?"
"Yes."
I look over to Klaus. "What do you think?"
"Maybe there is an element of truth in his words," He shrugs his shoulders
"So there could be, what, hundreds more?"
"It's a big country, they could be hiding anywhere. Didn't you tell me Moonshine hid up in trees?" Damien presses
I nod.
"What if they went the other way? What if they went underground?"
They both fall into silence. Waiting for me to speak.
"We are not going to do anything." I mutter after discussing it with Aero.
They both raise their eyebrows at me in surprise.
"Neah will be giving birth in about a month. We have enough shit going on with Salem and the possibility that he might return. Plus you have Dorothy. I don't need anymore crap right now." "But..." Damien starts
"No. I'm still watching my mate constantly for any change. What do you think finding out there are more Lycans out there will do to her? She doesn't need it and I sure as hell don't need it." "They are her kind. Your soon to be born pups kind."
"I am doing what's best for my mate and you need to keep your mouth shut. I mean it Damien, if a single word of this gets to her you will regret it."
He snorts.
"You haven't seen the things I'm capable of. And I will do what I need to do to protect my mate."
My eyes flicker to Klaus who had already lowered his head in submission to my tone, but Damien stares back at me.
"Fine." He snaps. "But I'm telling you, this will backfire. If I have learned anything about your mate, my Alpha, she fucking hates secrets. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go and check on Dottie." He slams my office door shut behind him
If the situation were different, I probably would go looking. Just to get answers for Neah. They had been in hiding for centuries, it won't hurt for them to stay there.