1. Darius #2
Bentley had a major chip on his shoulder from being a bitten werewolf and not having grown up in our world.
Many times he found us barbaric, much as Viv did, and they were both still coming to terms with our society.
Bentley was the shortest out of all of us, and with his golden skin and unique light green eyes, you’d think he was a pushover…
but that was far from the case. His sharp tongue and sharper attitude often got him in trouble with the pack.
His problem was he didn’t have the physical strength to back up his mouth.
When Viv had been working with him on the research, he’d begun to soften up, but now that ship had sailed and he was back to the punk we’d first met.
“Don’t you ever get tired of being an ass all the time?” Bentley shot back with a scowl.
“Not really, just comes naturally,” I answered with a shrug.
Next, Rik and Koit arrived. Since the two of them found out they were real blood brothers—well, half-brothers—they had been even closer than before, if that was possible.
Rik nailed the typical mountain man look with his bright green eyes, full beard, plaid shirt, and jeans.
The man who preferred to be alone reading a book, drinking wine, or roaming the woods as a wolf was now the go-to person of our pack, along with his brother.
Koit—the irritating little shit with the charming blue eyes and trendy black haircut, whose favorite pastime was to piss me off—actually did a decent job working with Rik to keep the peace.
Granted, he could talk an eskimo into buying ice, but that was neither here nor there.
Now, we just needed Orion to show up and we could get this meeting going.
Speaking of the devil—sorry, demigod—Orion sauntered in and flopped into his seat with twigs sticking out of his shoulder-length white hair that was down for a change, and mud smeared on his pale-ass skin.
His eerie violet eyes took us all in, and then he grinned like we were all the best of friends or something.
“Look at this, all of us here in one place for a change,” Orion announced cheerfully.
“Tav isn’t here,” Koit pointed out, glaring at Orion.
Much to my surprise, Koit and Orion had been at each other’s throats since Viv’s been gone.
Koit believes it’s Orion’s fault that Tav left to head out on his own instead of working with us on our search.
To be honest, I saw both sides of things—I wanted to be out there looking for her, but we didn’t have a clue of where to start, which made it hard.
We’d checked all the places we knew Vadik had used at some point or another to hide, coming up empty.
It seemed that he’d even left his pack, letting the alphas of the packs that he’d taken over run things so he could disappear off the face of the earth.
“For now, but I’ve had a vision that he’ll be returning to us soon,” Orion said offhandedly before turning to me. “So, what kind of trouble did your temper get us into this time?”
With that, all of them looked at me expectantly. “Right, like I’m the only one here who has a temper, Mr. God-of-Torment.”
“Actually, it’s Demigod-of-Torment. There’s a difference,” Orion pointed out with that stupid smile still on his face. “Please continue.”
“Wait, you had a meeting with Able today, didn’t you,” Rik interjected just as I was going to speak, causing me to snap my jaw shut with a clack. “Oh fuck, what did you do?.”
“If you would let me speak, I might be able to tell you what happened.” I growled, slamming my fists on the table.
“Tsk, tsk. I’ve warned you many times, Darius, that temper of yours will get us in trouble,” Orion chided.
“Enough,” Tristan bellowed, standing from his seat. “You’re all acting like pups when we have a mate we need to find and a pack to keep from imploding.”
All of us fell into silence, sitting back in our chairs, truly scolded.
“Now Darius, please tell us how the meeting went. Will they give us any aid at all?”
“No, they will not help us…and we are now considered a hostile threat to the Collective,” I shared, causing the room to turn to chaos.
“You have to be fucking kidding me. What the hell have you done?”
“Darius, you need to fix this, and fix it now. We won’t be able to survive without their support.”
“Are you telling me we are cut off from everything? How is it even possible you fucked this up so badly?”
“Well, this turned out just like I predicted.”
Snarling, I stood, picked up my chair, and threw it across the room. It smashed the window and landed out in the yard somewhere.
“I get it, all right. I royally fucked up, but the only way to fix this is to surrender to the Collective, and we are not doing that. This is Viviana’s pack, and I will make sure it stays that way, even if I have to sacrifice myself to make it happen.”
This shocked them all into shutting up.
“They want us to surrender?” Tristan ventured first. “Is this a new development?”
“No, it’s been their condition all along once they knew Viv was missing. I tried to stall them and figure out another way to make it work, but the old asshats refuse to budge on the matter.”
Rik sat back in his chair, stroking his beard, deep in thought. “Why don’t we surrender to them? There is nothing saying we can’t just take back what’s ours when we get Viv back. It would free the rest of us up to leave and look for her with Tav—maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.”
Koit gaped at Rik. “Now I know you’ve lost your mind.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but Viv is more important to me than this pack,” Rik challenged.
“She would never forgive us if we abandoned them to save her,” Koit countered. “It’s the one reason she took the job in the first place—to give these people hope of a better life.”
“You’re telling me that if Tav walked in here right now and told you that he knew where she was, you wouldn’t drop everything to go find her?” Rik challenged with a raised brow.
Koit huffed and ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“That’s good, because I think I might know where she is,” Tristan announced.