Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Peyton - One Week Ago
Peyton and Aisling emerged from the customs area with their bags as they headed for the monorail to the main terminal. He’d already texted Badger that they were on the ground in Tampa. Badger responded they were awaiting Peyton in the main terminal.
“Let me handle the talking,” Peyton said.
“Yes, sir.”
He hated how subdued Aisling had acted since the revelations he and Trevor dropped on her the first night he’d met her, but it hadn’t impacted her skills in the slightest. Without using his Prime powers on her, she’d damned near kicked his ass in the combat evaluation.
He didn’t doubt that if she’d spent a few days completely resting before the evaluation—and hadn’t chugged a full bottle of scotch just before—she likely could and would have beaten him in a fair fight.
Dewi would hand him his balls for this, but there were things he didn’t want Dewi knowing yet, and that meant he couldn’t tell Ken.
Aisling was a trained warrior, used to making life-or-death decisions for the greater good that sometimes meant sacrificing people to save others. Aisling was nearly twice as old as Dewi and with battlefield experience.
And while Dewi could kick Aisling’s ass in a fair fight—probably—what he didn’t know was if Dewi could make those kinds of decisions in a split second while in a combat situation. If she’d divert from the mission because of personal entanglements.
If she’d hesitate.
They were decisions he prayed they’d never need to make, but as his father had once told him, if he couldn’t make them then he had no business being Pack Alpha.
The man standing next to Badger resembled Faegan, but not as much as Peyton feared he might.
Turned out he wasn’t the only one to think that.
Next to him, Aisling blew out a breath. “Please Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, don’t let ’im smell like the feckin’ areshole, too,” she muttered.
“Steady,” he whispered back.
Peyton watched as Badger’s eyebrow arched when he realized Aisling was with Peyton. They stepped over to an empty corner for the introductions, keeping their voices down.
“Badger Williams, this is Aisling Walsh,” Peyton said, watching Hamish Lewis’ reaction.
Badger grimly smiled and offered his hand to Aisling, which she shook. “Glad to meet ye,” Badger said. “And apologies in advance for Dewi pitchin’ an unholy fit when she meets ye under the circumstances.”
“I already warned her,” Peyton said. “Aisling, I mean. About Dewi. For obvious reasons, I haven’t told Dewi yet.”
“Ah, right. Okay, then. This, sir, is Hamish Lewis.”
The man didn’t drop to his knees, but he subtly tipped his head back, partially exposing his throat, the gesture unmistakable.
“Glad to meet you, sir,” Hamish said. “Like I told Badger, I’ll do whatever you need me to. I swear allegiance to the Targhee Pack, and to you, sir.”
Peyton reached out, touched a finger to the man’s throat, then offered his hand. “Welcome to the family, then.”
They shook, and Peyton’s initial impression of Hamish was his sincerity… and his regret that he’d missed out on his daughter’s life. “Badger told me a lot of it,” Hamish said. “On the drive down.”
“Let’s take this out to the vehicle,” Peyton said.
“We can talk on the way to the house.” He raised an eyebrow at Hamish.
“But first, we can do the other thing out there.” No way would he let this guy anywhere near Dewi—or any other members of their pack—until Hamish had formally taken a knee to him.
Even though Peyton knew Badger had already confirmed the other man’s loyalties with his own Prime powers.
Hamish nodded and dipped his head in submission. “Yes, sir.”
Good. Peyton had suspected from what Badger told him that Hamish would be all-in and trusted, but it was still good to see, in light of circumstances threatening to spin apart around them and shatter like an out-of-control centrifuge that could rain deadly shrapnel on all of them.
Out in the parking garage, Peyton didn’t drag things out when they reached the vehicle. Hamish dropped to one knee, repeated his oath, and once again offered his throat.
This time, Peyton gripped his throat. “I declare you Targhee. And fair warning—if you betray us, I’ll be your worst enemy if I don’t kill you first.” He offered Hamish a hand up.
“I’m done running from the fight,” Hamish told him. “I now have fur in the game, and I suspect there’s a lot more behind the scenes that I don’t know. But will stand with you.”
Peyton nodded. “There is a lot more.”
On the drive to Dewi’s, Peyton rode in the front seat while Badger drove, and Aisling and Hamish sat in the backseat.
That’s when Peyton caught Hamish up as much as he dared.
Mostly the basics—Faegan had somehow located Tamsin, Maisie, and Rupert, and Faegan’s men murdered Maisie and Rupert.
The suspicion that a person or persons unknown was helping him stay hidden.
That they suspected someone was capturing shifters for biomedical research.
That they might also have trouble brewing with relatives of the Mexican drug lord they’d taken out, but they didn’t know if those troubles intersected in some way with their other troubles, or if the timing was sheer coincidence.
Peyton felt Aisling’s intense gaze on him but she remained silent.
She already knew almost as much as Peyton did, but not quite as much as Ken, regarding certain things.
Even letting Ken know as much as he already had was a risky maneuver, being that Ken was human and Dewi’s mate.
But Peyton wanted Ken, along with Aisling, in place as secret weapons in his stead to move and position other pieces on the board in case something happened to him and he was no longer around.
And Ken didn’t even know the full extent of the knowledge he now held, thanks to Peyton taking the precaution of using his Prime powers to silo that knowledge within his brother-in-law’s mind.
Peyton didn’t like doing that but, hopefully, it would never be needed.
If they were very damned lucky.
Aisling knew all of that, too. Peyton took the precaution of giving her the trigger word to use on Ken under certain parameters, which would help unlock the knowledge in Ken’s brain that Peyton had carefully hidden.
Not even Badger and Duncan knew that.
Dewi damned sure didn’t.
Badger glanced over at Peyton. “I’m not even sure which fire to point the bloody hose at first,” he groused.
None of what Peyton had just said was news to Badger.
Unfortunately, Peyton had further updates to reveal to the man only after they were alone at Dewi’s.
Grimly, Peyton nodded. “Some things will have to wait until after Gillian has the baby. I will not miss my first child’s birth.”
Badger snorted. “Like as not she’d rip yer throat out if ye did.”
“Exactly.” Not to mention his guilt would eat him alive.
Peyton also hated to admit that, had he known then what he knew now, he likely wouldn’t have agreed to have a baby at this time. A baby was one more vulnerability for him.
When they arrived at the house, Peyton held back with Aisling while Badger took Hamish inside.
Peyton held out his hand, his meaning clear.
As always, Aisling looked like she had to gird herself for the contact before finally reaching out and letting him touch her so he could speak to her silently.
“I trust all of our people. And yes, I have verified they are trustworthy with my Prime powers. But I meant what I said—if you ever discover any of our people, and I don’t care who they are, working with the others, eliminate them immediately.
Even if they’re a mate or offspring. You have full authority to take blood, and I will protect you.
If for some reason I’m not around, Trevor knows, and it is locked inside Ken as well. ”
Sighing, she nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Dewi will not like me bringing you in like this, but please don’t take her reaction personally.
I can’t even blame pregnancy hormones because she’d respond like that even if she wasn’t pregnant.
But when the introduction happens, no matter what I say to her, what I’ve told you still applies: you ultimately answer only to me.
And she needs to believe what we tell her.
Should something happen to me and you find out before Ken does, you need to activate him immediately. ”
“This is some Manchurian Candidate shite.”
“I know, but it can’t be helped.”
“And if she’s head of the expanded Pack Council, why aren’t ye loopin’ her in?”
“Because you have the experience and contacts she doesn’t. She’s about to become a mom. And I need her focused on events here, not in Europe.”
“And because I won’t hesitate to blow someone’s feckin’ head off regardless of who they are.”
He finally nodded. “Dewi has killed. She’s a ruthless fighter.
But I can’t be certain she wouldn’t get bogged down by who someone is if blood has to be taken and we’ve been betrayed.
Likewise, I don’t know if she’d keep her cool and not kill someone if we need them alive and interrogated.
I need someone who doesn’t have the emotional attachments in case it turns out someone closer to us than we realize is involved. ”
“Ye know, I often wonder if I’d paid attention to me mam and done better in maths if I couldn’t have gotten a desk job in some office somewhere.”
“And?”
She shrugged and broke contact with him. “And unfortunately,” she whispered, “I’m still shite at maths.”
Several hours later.
Well, that went not quite as horribly as I’d expected. At least no one got disemboweled.
Although it’d been close there for a moment, in the beginning.
Peyton collapsed on the bed in the guest room and stared at the ceiling. Dewi hadn’t killed Aisling.
Yet.
And once Dewi had coffee and a nap—and food—and made her second appearance of the morning to actually talk to them, she seemed to have come to grips with the fact that Aisling was now part of their team and their newest Enforcer.
Thank the Goddess.
Although what he hadn’t expected was Ken bursting into the kitchen, naked and with a gun in hand. The man was a far cry from the timid guy Peyton had first met a year ago.
Nature versus nurture, indeed.
Now that Peyton knew more about Ken’s true lineage, it wasn’t a shocker. Had Ken been raised among shifters, no telling what his life might have been like.
And there was yet another mystery Peyton wished they could devote more time to unraveling, but it wasn’t their priority.
Finding Faegan Lewis and anyone rendering him assistance topped that list. The more Peyton learned, the more convinced he felt that the situation shared threads with the rogue shifter shopping secrets, the missing shifters, and the potential secret research being conducted on shifters.
There were too many coincidences, too many commonalities.
The fastest way to shine a light on the problem and solve it would be exposing the truth to the world about what they were—and that would lead to an entirely new and dangerous set of problems.
Peyton sided with the majority of their small secret committee and believed the best way to handle this was quietly and without attracting attention, all while installing more of their own people in positions of power so they could be better protected if the existence of shifters was exposed to the world.
As it was, the Targhees currently had sixteen US senators, nearly fifty congressional representatives, and ten state governors who were either packmates or otherwise beholden to them.
Then there were the hundreds of state and local-level officials throughout the country.
Other packs around the world were doing the same thing with differing degrees of success. It was another reason Peyton moved as many of their packmates as possible from South and Central America, because of the rapidly changing political climates and growing drug cartel problems there.
The Targhees had money and influence to spare in the United States and Canada—and now the UK, with the addition of the Staffordshire Pack and others to their ranks—but spreading their resources that thin among three continents was a losing strategy.
Especially when Peyton didn’t know if they might be forced to close ranks for protection.
Peyton had no interest in holding public office, but there were plans in the works to help prop up a future presidential candidate of their exclusive committee’s choosing.
That couldn’t happen until they dealt with this latest threat. They were all in agreement that Faegan Lewis had to be killed. If he were captured, he’d spill his guts in a second to save his hide and to hell with everyone else.
And Peyton couldn’t let Dewi know about a lot of what he knew because she would defy him.
Worse, she’d rat him out to Gillian, who would put her foot down about him leaving Idaho, much less the continent, to attend to this business.
Obviously, it was tempting to draw his loved ones close, let the rest of the world burn itself out, and take care of only his own, but that wasn’t a realistic option.
Taking care of his own meant eliminating this global threat once and for all. It wasn’t merely an existential threat to them as shifters—it was potentially a threat to the entire world if someone successfully created a super-army of beings with the strengths of shifters.
Only with the goal of taking over and conquering the world.
And the only way to eliminate that threat was hands-on.
And head-on.