Chapter 81 Nico
NICO
Almost all the alphas had stayed on our property for the night.
No one felt safe staying at a hotel in Clearidge.
You’d never know if the front desk attendant or housekeeper was an anti-shifter bigot.
You might go to sleep at night and wake up to a silver bullet slamming into your chest or a machete across your throat.
So, we’d given them all the fields at the back of our lands to camp out in.
Most slept in their cars, but some had brought campers and tents.
It probably could have been like a festive occasion if there hadn’t been so much at stake.
Maddy had returned late the night before.
It had taken all my control not to go out into the woods to find her.
We’d increased the exterior patrols, added fencing all along our border, and installed dozens of new cameras, but the thought of her being out of my sight worried me more than I wanted to admit.
The next morning, as all the alphas filed in for a second day of planning, I couldn’t see Maddy anywhere.
I didn’t let it get to me at first. She’d probably slept in since she’d been out late, but once everyone was there and Maddy still hadn’t shown up, I started to worry.
I pulled Luis aside. “Can you go find Maddy? She should be here for this,” I whispered.
Luis nodded. “Yeah. Your house?”
“My house, Mom and Dad’s, anywhere you can think she might be.” I thought I did a good job of controlling the panic in my voice.
A half dozen members of my pack brought out trays of donuts and pastries along with several pots of coffee.
We planned on starting at the top of the hour to make sure we had time to find her before the meeting started.
I tried to get my mind off Maddy by working my way through the crowd, shaking hands, exchanging a few words with other alphas, and eating even though I had no appetite.
Over thirty minutes later, I spotted Luis coming through the back door.
He caught my eye and shook his head, then shrugged, turning his palms toward the ceiling.
Fear cascaded through me. She was missing.
My vision sharpened, and my throat constricted.
I started making my way through the crowd toward the door.
My mental voice was screaming at me to run.
To find her and kill whoever had taken her.
I was a split-second from bolting for the door when a calming blanket descended on my mind.
I stopped in my tracks and probably looked like I’d lost my mind—eyes open wide, hands outstretched like I’d lost my balance.
A voice murmured through my mind like a sensation or idea expressed from one mind to another. It was Maddy—that much was certain.
I’m fine. You need to calm down.
It was the strangest thing I’d ever experienced in my life. I’d heard that fated mates shared a connection, but this was crazy and far more intense than what I’d ever heard of.
Closing my eyes, I attempted to do the same to her. I focused my mind and tried to send her a similar message.
I was scared. I didn’t know where you were, I thought, forcing my thoughts through my mind and out into… into what I didn’t know. All I could hope for was that it would get to Maddy.
Her response was immediate and direct.
Don’t worry about me. I’m all right. I’m still in the pack lands.
Stunned, I opened my eyes as a stupid, surprised smile spread across my face. All around me, the other alphas were looking at me like I had a third ear growing from my forehead, but I didn’t care. Maddy was safe. I ignored the looks and squeezed my eyes tightly, sending her one last message.
I love you.
Sure that she’d received it, I made my way back to the center of the room. My chest had been tight and constricted when I thought Maddy was missing, but now I walked with a bounce in my step, confidence, and strength once again pouring from me and my wolf.
Once I was in the center of the room, all conversation stopped, and silence fell across the meeting hall. Without Maddy here, the mood was markedly different. There was less tension, fear, and anxiety. It made me wonder how many of the alphas were actually uncomfortable with Maddy’s existence.
“What’s the plan?” an alpha from near Miami called out, not even waiting for me to speak.
The questions came fast and hard, with more and more men speaking up and taking the floor.
After the first thirty minutes, it was obvious all the men here truly had been cowed by having the last descendant of Edemas in the room with us.
As much as I loved Maddy, I had to admit that we might be able to get more done with her somewhere else.
A young wolf shifter I didn’t know stood up, holding his phone in the air.
“Has anyone seen the news?” When all he received were blank, confused stares, he went on.
“They made the final announcement. From today, shifters have thirty days to turn themselves over to the nearest facility. Once that thirty-day window has passed, the National Guard and local police forces will begin rounding up those who haven’t willingly submitted. ”
Several men started pulling their own phones out to confirm this news. An icy sliver of fear shoved its way into my belly. We’d all known this was coming, but hearing the words made it so much more real. More immediate.
“Well, that’s a trap if I ever heard of one,” a man called out from the back.
I couldn’t see who’d said it, but he was right.
I held my hand up for quiet. “He’s right.
We can’t hand ourselves over. The royals want nothing more than to subjugate us and take what freedom and power we have.
If alphas or members of our pack turn themselves over, nothing good will come of it.
At best, we’ll be prisoners, and at worst?
” I let the question hang in the air, knowing everyone here could connect the dots.
One of the alphas who’d spoken yesterday stood. It was Tiago. “We need to reinforce our pack territory. There are too many shifters in the country for them to truly come in one big force. The first few waves that come will be small units. We can hold them off for a while.”
“True,” I said. “And you should have escape routes and plans ready, but the best thing we can do is figure out how to deal with Viola and the royals over the next thirty days. That was the plan from the beginning, but now the clock is ticking.”
The entire hour was devoted to creating security plans and early warning systems between the packs, as well as fallback positions that could be used to hide the most vulnerable of our packs—the women, children, and elderly.
The Gator and Panther shifters offered their swamp and bayou territories as good areas to hide, which were incredibly hard to access.
By the end of the meeting, almost every shifter pack in southern Florida had created an alliance, but it was definitely a worst-case-scenario treaty.
The only way to truly strike back was for us to go for the vial.
As the alphas filed out of the meeting house, I caught Luis’s eye and nodded toward the front of the building. He met me there with Felipe and Sebastian. We stood there and waited until the last man was out the door.
“So,” I said. “How do we get to Europe?”
“Are we still on the No Fly list?” Felipe asked.
I shrugged. “Even if we were taken off it, we’re still shifters. After everything that was broadcasted on the news, there’s probably no way they’d allow us on a flight.”
“Could we try to buy our way onto a cargo ship? Take one from one of the ports on the Atlantic side of Florida?” Sebastian said.
“Christ, how long would that take? We’ve only got thirty days,” I said.
Sebastian gave me a pained look. “Depending on the weather? Anywhere from ten to twenty days.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” Luis hissed.
I shook my head. “No, too much time. We can’t risk floating on a boat for three weeks.
We have to get there sooner. I’m sure this alpha convention has been reported.
No way they don’t know we’ve all come together.
Viola isn’t dumb enough to try to push anything right now.
They’d be crazy to try something with over three dozen alphas in the same place. But we need to move quickly.”
Felipe sighed. “I have some connections. I’ll see what I can find. Maybe I can get us snuck into Canada, and we can fly out from there. Word is the Canadian government hasn’t gone on full lockdown like the U.S. has.”
I glanced at Luis. “What about Donatello? Do you think he’d help us again?”
Luis frowned and rubbed at the stubble on his face.
“I don’t know. He owed me big and came through big.
He may be ready to wash his hands of us.
Things have gotten… more complicated, obviously.
I’ll put some feelers out to him. It won’t be an immediate thing, though.
It may take weeks of messaging to get him to even say no, much less say yes. ”
Sighing, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Do what you can. All of you.” I looked at my three best friends in turn, hoping they understood the magnitude of what we were trying to do.
“Turn over every rock, call in every favor. Hell, I’ll give up a kidney if I need to.
Whatever it takes, we need to get to Croatia. ”
They nodded grimly, then hurried off to start making phone calls.
After they’d gone, I stood in the meeting hall for a few minutes.
I stared at the four walls and wondered if this had all been pointless.
I’d brought together more alphas than ever before.
At no time in history had this many pack leaders been in the same place at the same time.
Even with that, all we’d really done was make plans for escape, routes of evasion, and agreements to shelter refugees.
It was almost like we’d already admitted defeat. Dejected, I left to finally find Maddy.
She was at home, sitting on the couch when I returned. Without a word, she came to me and wrapped me in a hug. I pushed my face into her hair and said, “Why didn’t you come to the meeting?”
Maddy pulled away and looked at me sheepishly. “I could tell how tense everyone was yesterday. They made it obvious they didn’t know how to act with me there. I figured you might get more done without me. If I’d told you beforehand, you would have talked me out of it.”
I opened my mouth to disagree, but she was right.
I would have wanted her there with me. Still, it annoyed me that she thought she couldn’t come to something that was this important to us all.
I cupped her cheek. “Maddy, this is your pack too. Your family was taken—you’re the one who was hunted first. You should be there.
That way, you can tell all those alphas exactly what they need to do. ”
She gave me a sad smile. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Nico. You can handle things like this. I’ll just stay out of the way.”
That didn’t sit right with me. She was making herself sound like some kind of burden or hurdle for us to get over.
I shook my head. “Don’t say that. You are not in the way.
You never will be. If anything, you’re leading the way.
” I kissed her and could actually feel the way my words affected her.
A warm, contented relief flooded through her, and I could sense it.
It was so strange that I had to break the kiss and blink away the dizziness of vertigo it gave me.
I smiled at her. “This connection thing is going to take some getting used to.”
Maddy burst out laughing. It was one of the first real belly laughs I’d heard from her since we got back from Europe.
The sound was a welcome one and echoed through the house.
“Okay,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d actually get through to you.
I could sense you there and knew you were stressing out.
I don’t know how it works, but I gave it a shot. ”
I grinned and put my forehead against hers. “It’s really freaking weird. But I like it.” I winked at her.
Knowing each other’s emotions and understanding what we experienced only solidified what I already knew.
Our bond was stronger than any mating bond I’d ever seen or heard of.
We were in this together. We were one, and we could do anything.
It felt like we could even win against the impossible odds we were up against.