Chapter 4
As darkness fell, Thano stepped into the clearing. There were more people than he'd anticipated, though fewer than they'd been last year.
Armelle stood in the middle, towering over most of the others, the crows painted the trees black, and the vampires were wispy shadows on the sidelines.
"Good evening."
Fala, Raven, Conal, and Tuur were all in human form, though Fala was without clothes. He was amazed she didn't freeze.
"Why are we here?" Ciar sounded grumpy, most likely because Romeo was still at home. It was comical how the once fiercely independent panther now got snarly if he had to be away from his mate for more than ten minutes.
"To discuss the board in Last Hope." Thano gave him an impassive look.
"Are we taking them out?" Draven looked confused.
"It's not my intention at this point." Though he wouldn't miss them if they were gone. Stupid humans.
A few crows made soft caws and fluttered their feathers.
"I wonder if maybe we made a mistake getting involved." He looked around, his gaze landing on Armelle. He valued her opinion.
"How do you mean?"
"We spend hours every week discussing tolls and taxes, and future plans for the settlement, and so on. We spent weeks watching the humans argue about a telephone."
"A telephone?" Armelle looked confused.
"Like in Romeo's stories?" Humbert hurried out from between the trees.
Armelle glared at him. "I told you to stay in the den."
Humbert ignored her and turned his round eyes to Thano. "Is it like the telephones in Romeo's books?"
"It's a landline, not one of those portable ones we heard about in the last story."
He looked disappointed. If the round bear ears he had in both his forms could've drooped, Thano was sure they would have.
"The kind of phone is irrelevant. What I'm wondering is if we're wasting our time with the humans. None of their decisions affect us, and while we need to know what's going on, and knowledge about human behavior is crucial, maybe how we had it before was a better approach."
"With only you on the board?" Conal's tone gave nothing away, but Thano believed he detected a hint of disappointment.
"With one representative from The Moonlight Ranch."
"But we get paid for our work there." Tuur stepped forward, so everyone could see him. "For every meeting we attend, we get more digits in our bank account."
"Yes, but have you been able to do anything with those digits? Have you bought anything? Been able to use them for anything at all?"
He didn't speak, but Thano knew the answer.
The humans had forbidden breed to have human money.
At first, no one had cared since breed traded favors, they didn't buy stuff, but now more and more wanted things from the settlements.
Those who worked with humans had a bank account with funds in it, but they weren't allowed to make any withdrawals.
If they could get a shop to agree to give them an invoice, they could file it at the bank, but few businesses did.
Thano remembered a time when invoices had been a slip of paper. Not anymore. Now the shop owner had to go with you to the bank, and few wanted to since they then had to close the shop. Plus, most humans didn't want to do business with breed at all.
"If we withdraw, we can't steer decisions." Conal's eyes had turned to those of his wolf.
"True, but maybe we should let them do it on their own. If they haven't learned their lesson, then we'll teach it to them again."
There were a few nods, mostly from vampires, which had Thano suppressing a wince.
He tried hard not to be like the other vampires.
As with every species, there were those he liked and those he disliked, but in general, vampires considered themselves superior to every other species.
Many wanted to keep humans as cattle, and they looked down on the shifters.
Assumed they weren't smarter than their animal spirit, which wasn't true.
So when only vampires agreed to a suggestion, it was often the wrong one.
"Yes, but what about this toll thing?" Conal glanced at Fala and Raven. "They'll make things harder for themselves."
"Maybe it's a lesson they need to learn." Enyo, one of the vampires, dropped the shadows around her so everyone could see who was talking.
"Maybe." Thano gave her a short nod.
"What's the toll about?" Armelle crossed her arms over her wide chest.
Conal replied before Thano could. "The board wants to add a fee to the dock. Everyone who wants to tie their boat to it has to pay money."
"We don't use the dock." Armelle shrugged.
"No, but almost all the food they eat in Last Hope comes from Fisherman's Lake, and they travel there by boat."
Armelle nodded. "And if they have to pay, they won't come."
"Or come more seldom. It could also mean, since they have to use the dock to deliver food to Eli's shop, the food would become more expensive. Which, in the next step, would mean the Gallo pack would have to pay more money to stay alive."
Yes, Conal should be the one who stayed on the board.
He analyzed the situation, but Thano didn't like that he played on people's empathy for Romeo's family group.
"The Gallos won't starve. Ciar and Draven would keep them fed.
" Thano gestured at the two, who nodded as if he'd given them an assignment.
"No, perhaps not, but there are others."
Of course, there were. It was an entire settlement. When Thano didn't reply, Conal continued. "If we allow them to enforce the extra tax, everyone will suffer, and those in the direst situations will starve."
"It's not our job to make sure the people in Last Hope don't starve." Enyo glared at Conal.
"I don't suggest we do anything to help them other than stop them from making stupid decisions." Conal showed some sharp teeth.
"But the board doesn't think it's a stupid decision.
" On a personal level, Thano believed it was, but what he believed was neither here nor there.
He didn't live in Last Hope, and he never planned to.
He didn't need to eat solid food and only did if he wanted to, so what it cost didn't have an impact on him.
"They believe they can do something good with the money they'll get from the toll. "
Conal narrowed his eyes at him, and Thano almost smiled. Conal wanted to argue, but since Thano was the leader, he held his tongue.
"Why did you call a meeting, Thano?" Armelle looked confused.
"I think we should take a step back, allow them to deal with their own affairs. I think our time there is a waste of...well, time. I still think we should have a representative on the board, though. We need to be aware of what they do."
Silence fell.
"What do you think?" He looked around the clearing.
Armelle shrugged. "My life is here. I've never been to Last Hope, so I don't care what they do."
She wasn't human-passing, and no non-human-passing ever went into settlements. It was an agreed-upon rule all over the world.
Fala pursed her lips. "We can fly there whenever we want. What they do has little to do with us."
"As long as Eli still has a shop and enough money to buy our meat, I don't care." Draven looked at Ciar, who shrugged.
"We'll look after Romeo's pride." Ciar met Thano's gaze.
"What about money?" Conal turned to Ciar.
"Money?"
"The Gallo pack needs money to pay for their housing. You might be able to give them meat, so they don't starve, but they need money too."
Thano thought back to Alice in the shop, trying to sell her plants to Eli. She needed money. "If they can find jobs, they'll have money."
"Romeo's mother is old." Conal met his gaze.
"Not old. She's still of working age." She was. He didn't know if she had been working since they'd moved there, but she had to or she wouldn't have been able to pay for her house. Unless Romeo was paying for it.
"It doesn't matter." Raven spoke for the first time. "Romeo's unkindness will be taken care of."
Fala frowned at her. "They're not unkind."
"Murder. Romeo's murder will be taken care of."
"Oh." She nodded. "Yes."
"I'm in favor of Thano's suggestion. I believed being on the board would teach me things about humans, but all they do is argue. I can listen to people argue back here."
"What about the money we get?" Tuur spoke again, and Thano almost groaned. Since when did breed care about money?
"The money you have so far is yours. Do you need more?"
Tuur looked confused. "I don't know. Isn't it what humans do, gather more digits?"
Armelle made a woofing sound. "You're a bear. You shouldn't care about what humans do."
"I care about what humans do." Humbert's round eyes shone with excitement. "They have so many fun things, especially in Romeo's stories. Like the cupcakes he read about last night. I want cupcakes."
"We do too." Fala focused on Humbert. "We asked Eli about them in town today, but he doesn't have them. He said he'd had a picture of one once."
Humber's mouth dropped open, but before he could ask anything else, Armelle cut him off.
"You can talk about cakes later. Let's finish the meeting.
I think you're right to leave the humans to do human stuff, Thano.
You stepped in and helped out after the last board was misplaced, now they can handle their own problems. No group here would appreciate someone from another species making decisions for them for a long period.
When in a crisis, everyone appreciates help, but once things are stabilized, we care for our own.
" She finished her statement with a nod and took a step back to indicate she'd said her piece.
Raven nodded. "I agree with Armelle. We killed the board and took over while things settled, now we withdraw."
Fala tilted his head in a bird-like way. "Crows like to watch humans. We don't want to be them." When she said nothing more, Thano nodded. He took it to mean she didn't want to be on the board since it was like being human. Maybe.
Conal met his gaze but didn't speak, so Thano focused on Tuur.