Chapter 25 #2
“There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun, Jerica.” His sister’s name dripped with venom. “Besides, I don’t want to leave the Hungarian pack. Our family was one of the founding members.”
Lucien’s tone was one of long-suffering patience. “I don’t think you understand. You’ve already left this pack. We only granted you an audience today because you said you had information.”
Alajos crossed his arms over his chest, jutting out his chin in defiance. “I’m not giving you a damn thing if you won’t even consider letting me back in the pack or sending my sister out.”
“You fucking bastard,” Jerica seethed, shooting to her feet and rearing back a hand to slap him. Galyna stepped forward and caught the hand easily before she could take the swing, carefully marching her back a few steps before she could start a physical altercation.
“I’m not dealing with you if you’re going to act like a brat.” Alajos rolled his eyes.
“I’m the brat? That’s fucking rich. You expect me to be homeless, and I’m the brat?”
“Okay, I think it’s time you took a walk. Back to that home of yours.” Galyna escorted Jerica out, giving me a nod on the way past.
“Back to the information you have,” Lucien said smoothly, glossing right over the embarrassing scene between the siblings. “You’re going to have to tell me something if you expect me to negotiate with you. You’re asking a lot and offering nothing in good faith.”
Alajos rubbed his chin, considering. “Petró was working with a gnome. Had an outstanding order for something important. But nobody outside his circle knew.”
Lucien snorted. “I already know about Sandrine. If that’s all you’ve got, you don’t have nearly as much leverage as you seem to think.”
Alajos swore. “Okay, well, do you know why he was working with the gnome?”
I ground my back teeth at the fact that Alajos couldn’t be bothered to use Sandrine’s name, even after being given his name. We were more than just our species. It was the same stupidity the lynxes pulled in lumping all wolves together.
As a supernatural community, we could do better.
“Magical protection devices, yes, I’m aware.” Lucien waved a hand and turned away from Alajos and toward Olivia as if bored with the conversation. But I knew an interrogation technique when I saw one.
Tricky, tricky, Luce.
“Yeah, because those pixie sons of bitches are making devices of their own! They went against their agreement with Petró!”
All eyes landed on Alajos with renewed interest. Punk he might have been, but that evidently didn’t preclude him from being in the know.
“Go on,” Lucien drawled, still in that same bored tone.
“No. I’m not saying another word unless you promise me something in return.”
“Fine. Fair is fair, and this is a negotiation. I’ll offer you a solid place in a pack, for both you and your sister, if she’s willing to live with you again. But you’d better make it worth the trouble. I can’t go around making deals with exiled wolves for lackluster information.”
Alajos snorted. “Yeah, put all the five-dollar words on it you want. I’ve got the hookup. I was there with Petró when he met with the SOB who threatened us. Us, after we put the suspicion on the new high alpha, just like their weakling king wanted!”
“Threats are nothing to take lightly,” Galyna mused, wandering back in without his sister in tow.
“That’s what I said. The pixies were supposed to split things. We get Europe, and control over all wolf packs in the world after they helped us take out the new high alpha. They got the rest of the globe for all species except wolves.”
Olivia’s face paled, and she clasped her hands tightly together in front of her as Alajos continued his disgruntled ramble. I resisted the urge to walk over to her side and draw attention to her distress, though it went against my nature.
“And how, pray tell, did a species as traditionally weak and size disadvantaged as the pixies plan to get control over the rest of the supernatural world?”
Alajos shrugged as if he couldn’t give a fuck.
“In the beginning, we didn’t care about that.
Petró saw them as a short-term ally, someone we could shiv later after we took care of the high alpha and had the juice from all the packs behind us.
World domination sounds pretty sweet when you’re the one doing the dominating.
” He pulled a knife from his pocket, flipped it open, and scraped underneath one of his fingernails before putting it away.
“Anyway, everything was going fine until you guys slipped away from us and ran across the world. After that, the pixie bro came and threatened us. Some shit about collaring us too if we didn’t deliver on the high alpha’s death.
Petró didn’t like that and decided to buy some insurance, if you will. ”
“Collaring you? In what sense?” Valens asked, arms tightly crossed, muscle in his jaw ticking now that the details were coming out.
“Ehh, he claimed they had magical collars. Could force any species to follow their king’s orders once it was snapped on.
We never saw proof of it, so I think it was just big talk from little men.
You know how it is. Always a dick-measuring contest because they don’t stand a chance against wolves in any way that counts. ”
I looked down at the misshapen metal circle in my hands, so heavily imbued with both dwarven and pixie magic, and the pieces clicked into place.
Supernatural disappearances, mostly less physically dominant species so far. Magical mind-control collars. Angry, vengeful pixies who blamed the wolves for their own species’ decline since the war.
They were kidnapping other supernaturals, slapping collars on them, and adding them to their army. It wasn’t a full-fledged theory, but I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I was on the right track.
“Can you tell us anything else about these collars?” Lucien asked, his grim tone completely lost on Alajos.
“Other than the fact that it pissed Petró off and had him spending a fortune on magical protection devices that the damn gnome flaked out on? Nah. That’s it. He died before we had our next scheduled meeting with the pixie, and with no Petró… I didn’t go. Didn’t see the point.”
“When was the meeting supposed to be?”
“Two weeks ago. Why?”
Right when the disappearances started happening in earnest. Shit on a stick.
More and more pieces were filling into my mental puzzle. They had lost their wolf allies to deal with the high alpha—which meant the other species were their plan B.
But if they truly wanted control over the entire supernatural world Kane wasn’t their only problem. There were many strong species with even stronger leaders.
Was there a plot to take out every leader? Kane could just have been the first in line because the vendetta against the wolves was personal for the pixies.
It made a sick kind of sense, if you left all your morals locked in the attic under Grandma’s quilt collection.
“Thank you. We may have more questions for you—and we’ll expect your cooperation with any information we need in the future as we investigate the pixies—but I am a man of my word, and you did provide information we hadn’t yet discovered ourselves.
So!” Lucien clapped his hands together, signaling the end of the discussion.
“I’ll have you on the first flight out tomorrow morning, and there is a seat for Jerica, should she choose to go along with you. ”
“Wait a Goddess-damned minute. Flight where? You said you’d let me back into the pack, reverse my exile.”
The unscarred corner of Lucien’s mouth lifted in a trite smile.
“Actually, I didn’t. I said I’d offer you a solid place in a pack.
Not this one. The pack that’s willing to take you in is Blackwater, back in their home state of Alaska.
Of course, you’ll have to bend the knee to pledge loyalty to the high alpha to join, but given the trouble you’ve stirred up for him in the past, I’d expect a blood oath to also be required. As a way of proving you’ve changed.”
“You motherfucking shit stain! There’s no way I’m bending the knee to that cock-sucking pissant!”
Lucien shrugged. “Take it or leave it, that’s my final offer. I’ll escort you to your sister’s cottage, and you can let me know your decision in the morning. Your flight leaves at six a.m., or you do. But either way, your exile from the Hungarian pack will continue to be strictly enforced.”
Lucien loosed his alpha dominance as he took Alajos by the arm, dragging him effortlessly from the library, even as Alajos cursed and railed against the Alpha’s unfairness.
Personally? I found the whole thing immensely satisfying.
Except the part where the pixies had an honest-to-Goddess plot to wipe us off the map. Or mind-control us with collars like we were pets to be tamed.
That was equal parts terrifying and infuriating.
I held up the melted metal we’d found on clowder land, which was eerily shaped like a melted magical collar. “So, who wants to bet this was a mind-control device gone wrong that exploded and destroyed Leon’s house in the process of him being kidnapped by a pixie?”