Tristan
“Everybody up.” Orion bellowed in the hall. “Hurry, something has happened to Viv.”
I could tell by his voice that something was wrong, but the moment he said Viv’s name my body was moving before my brain knew what was happening. I stumbled out into the hall, the others not far behind me.
“What, what the fuck is going on?” Bentley demanded as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes.
I had to admit I was impressed that he was able to sleep after what he’d witnessed down in the basement. Maybe this pup wasn’t as weak as they all thought him to be.
“I’m not going to go over this twice. Get to the living room. I had coffee sent up. Once you are all truly awake, I will explain what happened,” Orion ordered.
My eyebrows shot up at the authoritative tone he was using, it was almost as if Okami was running the show, but his eyes were still that same eerie violet color. Typically, when Okami was in charge he turned black, giving us a warning to who we were dealing with.
Silently, we shuffled down the steps to the living room where a cart with coffee and simple breakfast food were arranged.
I filled my mug up with black coffee and sat in my favorite armchair as I waited for the others.
The room had this lingering tension in it as if at any moment someone would snap and the whole room would explode into chaos.
Glancing at the clock on the mantel I saw that it was four in the morning, amazing how getting up two hours earlier than normal threw you off.
Sipping my coffee I noticed that Darius was not in the room, my guess was that he’d been working in his office and fell asleep there.
“Did you find Darius?” I asked, peering over my mug.
Orion paced the room chewing on his thumb nail— something I’d never seen him do before. Whatever he learned it wasn’t good, I’d never seen him so ruffled before.
“Yes, I stopped there first just to be sure, he should be up any moment,” Orion answered, never stopping in his movement.
“Bro you are giving me anxiety with all the pacing and intense energy,” Koit grumbled then pointed to a chair. “Sit your ass down and tell us what’s going on, we don’t have time to wait for Darius.”
A growl slipped out of my lips at his words. “No.” This caused everyone to stop and turn their attention on me. “We will wait for Darius, none of us are going to be left out when it comes to Viv.”
This seemed to settle Koit and the others, but Orion kept up his pacing, though he did stop chewing on his thumb.
Moments later Darius strode into the room looking like I thought he would from working all night.
His hair stood on end and his button down shirt was rumpled and had the sleeve rolled up past his elbows.
“Thank god you didn’t start without me, I got a hit on some of the background information and wanted to confirm it before I said anything to you guys,” Darius said as he rushed over to the coffee, filling up a mug downing it and pouring himself another.
It was then I realized that a full moon was only a few days away and we were all on edge with the pull on our wolves. Each time the moon reached her peak things around here got worse— tempers were shorter than they already were, leading to more fights among us and the rest of the pack.
“Is it alright if he starts talking now Dad?” Bentley mocked, giving me a raised eyebrow.
Seems the full moon is making his already delightful personality even better. I didn’t rise to his bait, but let things play out naturally instead.
“Viv is pregnant....” Orion blurted out as he stopped to look at all of us, terror making his eyes wide. “Something is wrong— really wrong and we need to get to her ASAP.”
We sat there stunned for a moment before Rik shot out of his chair and stalked to Orion grabbing him by the throat. “You better have more information for us than that.”
“My mother left me a note where I kept things hidden, she saw a vision of Viv before she died three hundred years ago. She told me she couldn’t see much of where Viv was, but she saw a symbol of a shield with a howling wolf across it,” Orion continued.
“As I flew back, I got my own vision of Viv finally, and she was pregnant— like extremely pregnant going to pop any minute. Something was wrong and she started bleeding, collapsing to the floor. Dr. Faulk was there with her, but I couldn’t make out anything else in her room to give us a clue.
There were no windows or anything hanging on the walls, it almost seemed like a hospital room with monitoring equipment. ”
Now Darius was up and in Orion’s face. “Did you say a wolf on a shield?”
“Yes,” He choked out as Rik’s grip got tighter.
Darius grabbed his wrist and seemed to ease him back from truly hurting Orion. Not that I was sure how much damage it would have done, being a demi-god and all, but we were still learning.
“That is the logo for Grayson Industries, that is a second confirmation we have that she is in one of his facilities,” Darius shared with the rest of us as he ran his fingers through his hair again. “We can’t wait any longer, we need to get to the States.”
Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back trying to process all the information we have just received.
It was very uncommon for a female to get pregnant on her first heat, but Viv was literally created to bear the next generation.
We should have thought through this better, now is not the time to be bringing innocent children— my own child— into the world.
My heart started to break as I thought of Viv all alone trying to deal with everything that was happening to her.
Even as dysfunctional as we are here, we aren’t doing it alone.
“That can’t be right, there is no way she could be that pregnant in a matter of six months,” Bentley interjected. “Even if she was having twins, werewolves have a longer gestation period due to the dual nature of our kind. This is what makes them so risky, because females can’t shift.”
Orion hung his head as he took a seat on the couch.
“I hope to the gods that my vision is wrong, and this is something that will happen further in the future, and we can be there for her, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not.
” Raising his head to look at all of us, he had tears welling up in his eyes.
“She told me to find her. I’ve never seen her look so scared and heart broken.
It’s going to haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. ”
“We need to settle what we can here quickly. All the rest of this can be done in the states, there is no reason to stay here,” I said, feeling the resolve in my bones.
We couldn’t leave Viv alone, she needed us.
“The thing we need to focus on first is making contact with a friendly pack in the States that we can stay with or give us permission to enter their lands. There is also the matter of Vadik’s men here on the island... ”
“You’re forgetting the small matter of the Collective. If they know we’ve left the island they will come and take it from us,” Bentley challenged.
I knew what I was going to say next would be tossing a match into gasoline, but it needed to be said. “Let them.”
“What?” Darius roared with Rik hot on his heels of anger and disbelief. “Over my dead body will I let them take this land.”
“What about over Viv’s dead body?” I questioned.
“Because if we don’t get the fuck off this rock and to where she is, I have no doubt she will fight like hell to get back to us.
If they see her as too much of a liability they will kill her, especially if they do have an offspring to work with.
It would be smarter to raise the pup into compliance then to battle against a vengeful alpha female who is protecting her child. ”
“Tell me, would you be able to look her in the eye and know we gave up on what she was fighting for?” Darius countered.
I stood and getting right in his face. “Absolutely I would. You want to know why? Because she would be alive, pissed, and ready to rally the troops to prove to those pompous assholes who the real alpha is in this world. Viv is only touching the tip of the powers that she has, same with us. The eight of us have the chance to change history for our kind as we know it, but not if we aren’t willing to sacrifice something in order to save her. ”
“Damn...that was hot,” Koit chimed in. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sold.”
Darius jerked his gaze away and looked at the others taking in their expression and only then did his shoulders slump in resignation. Reaching out, I placed a hand on his shoulder causing him to look at me once again.
“Letting go of this island isn’t failure— losing Viv is.”
“If that’s the plan then why even bother with getting rid of Vadik’s men?” Bentley questioned.
Much to my surprise Rik was the one who answered.
“They won’t even blink at harming others to get what they want when they don’t comply with the new way of things.
The Collective wants to preserve our kind and will use other tactics to get them to see reason.
Out of the two, the Collective is the lesser of evils. ”
“There is also a good chance that Vadik is still in communication with them. I believe Sofia thought more highly of herself than she really was,” Tav said, interjecting for the first time.
He had been quietly leaning against the fireplace, watching us all. I could see in his gaze the need to hunt these men down who were a threat to his pack. This would be the first full moon we had with this new version of Tav and I don’t think anyone was prepared for what might happen.
Koit sat up and leaning forward looking at Tav. “So, you have a plan already.”
Tav just gave us a smirk as he pushed off the wall and headed back upstairs to our rooms. “Don’t worry Koit I won’t leave you out, I’m gonna need that nose of yours.”
“I’ll work on reaching out to my contacts in the US and see what I can gather in general about their werewolf culture.
There is an alpha’s son that I became good friends with back in the day, we lost contact when I came back to Europe, but I’ll see if I can dig him up,” Orion stated as he rose and headed up to get some sleep.
“I think it might be best if we all get a few more hours of sleep now while we can. Once things start rolling there won’t be a chance, and having clear level heads for this plan is important,” Darius suggested as he made his exit.
I made to head back to my room when Bentley stopped me. “Tristan... I know he is our mate brother but was Orion telling the truth?”
It wasn’t a secret that I could feel people’s emotions, giving me the ability to tell if they were lying or not, but I had to be touching them. When Viv and I mated my powers grew, but the moment our connection was cut off so did the boost.
“Bentley, I didn’t have to use my gift to know he wasn’t lying.
That haunted look in his eyes, you can’t fake a reaction like that.
Whatever he saw scared the ever-loving shit out of him and he will have to live with that rolling around in his brain for the rest of his life,” I explained.
“One day, you’re going to need to stop seeing the worst in people and give them a chance to prove you wrong.
You were the last to become her mate and the first to be a prick for no reason.
First impressions are hard to shake, but give them time. ”
Bentley glowered at me as his lip lifted in a snarl. “I never said you could read my mind like that, so much for needing to touch someone to use that trick.”
“Pup, it’s written all over you. I bet even Koit could have read that from you,” I chuckled as I left the room, hoping to get a few more hours of sleep.