Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Peyton
That could have gone worse, although I’m not sure how.
He stared out the airplane window, ignoring the flight attendant giving the pre-flight safety talk.
Gillian had, understandably, blown up last night when he told her he was flying out today.
She’d even angrily taken the baby, locked herself in the unoccupied guest room, and refused to speak to him.
He’d finally given up, packed, and left a little after midnight after trying to speak to her one last time.
Trent drove him to the Spokane airport. Other than covering a few details he needed Trent to stay on top of regarding mundane pack business, Peyton didn’t feel like talking.
Fortunately, older brother Trent wasn’t a ball-buster in this way.
He knew this wasn’t a journey Peyton wanted to take, especially given the timing and circumstances, but Trent was the only one who would understand.
He’d dropped Peyton at the airport and left to return home.
Peyton retreated to an all-night coffeeshop and worked on his laptop until the airline’s ticket desk opened and he could check in and make his way to the gate for his commuter flight to Seattle, where he’d catch his flight to the UK.
Gillian wouldn’t respond to his texts or calls. Not even after he landed in Seattle.
He’d hoped to talk to her at least one more time before departure, but as his plane prepared to take off from Seattle, she was still giving him the silent treatment.
He sent Ken a text.
About to engage airplane mode. Please have Dewi check on Gillian for me. She’s not happy with me.
Ken responded a moment later with a thumbs-up emoji.
Peyton tried one last time and opened his ongoing text thread with Gillian.
I love you, baby. I’m sorry I have to take this trip. It’s Pack Alpha business.
He sent it and waited for a reply for as long as he could before switching his phone off.
No, he absolutely couldn’t have used his Prime on her to calm her down.
For starters, he swore he’d never do that to her.
That he would never violate her consent.
He hadn’t done that when he first met and immediately claimed her, either.
Despite knowing he’d want to chew his own arm off if she’d said no to him, she threw herself at him, dragged him outside the restaurant she’d worked at and into their back alley, kissed him, and made the point about consent moot.
Thankfully.
Secondly, all that would accomplish would be to piss her off even more, because she’d know he manipulated her.
Third, it wouldn’t work to change her feelings about the situation, and she was rightfully entitled to those feelings.
How did Dad make this shit look so easy?
Then again, back then Peyton was young and busy with college and had his head stuck up his ass with typical youthful arrogance.
He honestly hadn’t paid much attention to how their father had finessed the finer points of not pissing off his mate while balancing his duties as father and as Pack Alpha.
He didn’t think he’d need to pay attention to that kind of stuff for a while. For years, even.
I wish I’d paid more attention. To a lot of things.
He felt torn about agreeing to a baby now.
Obviously, he loved their daughter and would do anything for her.
But had he realized they’d be the better part of a year on and still trying to find that goddamned corgi asshole—and now dealing with all the other known and potential issues—he would have asked Gillian to delay getting pregnant.
Again.
He definitely would put his foot down about having another baby right now, even though Gillian was already talking about when, not if, they’d have a second.
Then again, she might want to divorce me, mate or not, when I get home. If she doesn’t rip out my throat.
Or rip off my balls.
He hated feeling like their pack was vulnerable.
He couldn’t send Dewi in his place because she was a new mom, for starters.
Secondly, because he worried about Dewi having an even larger target painted on her by people whose identities they still didn’t know, because she was the only known female Prime Alpha.
To be honest, he didn’t want to send Duncan or Badger because if something ever happened to him, he knew the two of them, with Dewi and Trent and Gillian, could run the pack without dropping any balls.
He didn’t want to send any of their other Primes for this task because of the sensitive nature of the issue.
He didn’t feel comfortable reading them into the full complexities of the situation or the identities of the other pack leaders involved.
Keeping that knowledge siloed for now was for everyone’s protection.
Peyton understood that, in this situation, he was—ironically—the expendable one.
Despite being Pack Alpha for twenty-six years, it sometimes felt like he didn’t know anything. Like he looked around in an attempt to find an adult and realized with growing horror that he was the adult.
And the only adultier adults he could turn to, like Badger, didn’t want the job.
He’d dealt with plenty of issues as Pack Alpha, sure. Serious issues. Dangerous people and situations that kept him up at night or awakened him in a cold sweat from nightmares for fear of fucking up and destroying the pack.
But nothing like this. Not existential threats of this nature and scope. He’d heard plenty of war stories about how Badger, their father, and others—and Duncan before him—had dealt with those kinds of problems.
In Peyton’s world, up until now he’d rarely met a problem he couldn’t throw money or an indebted government official at for a quick resolution.
Or throw Dewi and her Enforcers at it.
Trevor Clarke had seen a lot in his life, too, and had over a hundred years on Peyton. That Trevor and other pack officials around the world felt so shook about the problem meant it was absolutely dire.
Another reason Peyton needed his paws on the ground was the increasing number of Pack Alphas in Europe and elsewhere approaching him, wanting to merge with the Targhee Pack for protection, the way the Staffordshire Pack had. As word spread, it triggered a cascade effect.
Including packs of shifters from non-canine races. Which…
Before now, that was practically unheard of unless there’d been an intermarrying of members from the two packs. Canines of various species and wolves? That was fairly common.
But canines and non-canines, many of whom were prey species shifters, and even other predatory shifter species?
That rarely occurred in the past.
That growing level of responsibility—no shit—terrified the fuck out of him. Unlike the crazy asshole in Australia—and Faegan Lewis—Peyton never had dreams of world domination. Keeping their pack healthy and growing and financially secure? Absolutely.
But not…this.
So far, he’d heard from bears and lions who’d reached out seeking more than merely a peaceful working alliance with the Targhee wolves. And he’d been passed messages via intermediaries from several prey-race shifters wanting to join with them, too.
There were deeper levels to this Peyton didn’t want to reveal to Gillian for fear of her accidentally letting information spill to someone like Dewi, Badger, or Duncan.
He also didn’t want her to worry, meaning he couldn’t reveal any of that to her when he was apologizing for leaving right now.
Trevor Clarke would meet him in London. The next morning, the two of them, along with three of Trevor’s people, would fly to Trondheim, Norway. From there, they would take a train all the way north to Bod? to investigate leads they’d received.
While on the train, numerous representatives from other shifter packs and groups would meet with Peyton and Trevor.
A little old-fashioned subterfuge to throw anyone off the scent who might be watching them, enabling them to talk in privacy.
They could have flown to their final destination, but they wanted the extra time to see if anyone was following them, so they could take care of them instead of leading them directly to their destination.
Upon arrival in Bod?, as long as no complications arose during the journey, they would quickly cover ground in the vast wilderness.
The longer this situation dragged on, the more convinced Peyton felt that there was a connection between Faegan and the missing shifters.
Whether Faegan was a victim of or in cahoots with the people abducting and experimenting on shifters remained to be seen.
Either way, Faegan was a dead man.
Once the plane reached cruising altitude, Peyton was able to use the internet connection on the plane to check messages, but Gillian still wouldn’t reply.
I need to ask Badger if Dad ever pissed Mom off this badly.
Finally, his lack of sleep caught up with him, and he managed to stretch out and nap a little. The only problem was nightmares kept awakening him to the point he gave up three hours before they were scheduled to land.
In London, when Peyton emerged from Customs, Trevor stood waiting for him.
They grimly shook hands. “Good flight?” Trevor asked.
“It would have been better if the reason didn’t suck.”
They took a shuttle to the hotel, where Trevor had booked two large, adjoining suites for them. Peyton had met and worked with the other three men several times on previous trips, although they now all looked as weary and aged as Peyton felt.
“Do we have any ideas who or what we’re dealing with yet?” Peyton asked once they all had drinks and were settled in the living room of one of the suites.
Trevor shook his head. “The report is that a reliable human contact recalled spotting a man hiding out in a primitive camp to the east of Bod?. Within easy human walking distance outside the town. But since they’re not a shifter, they couldn’t confirm if the man was a shifter or just someone living in the woods.
But there has been an unusual uptick in reports to local police of petty theft incidents—laundry stolen from lines, food missing, et cetera—that leads me to believe it could be Faegan.
We put a notice in the local paper about a lost corgi, offering a substantial reward, and have received a few tips. ”
“That’s an awful lot of coincidences,” Peyton said.
“Exactly,” Trevor said, pulling out a tablet and opening a map of the area.
“Too many to ignore, but we must rule them out. I’ve highlighted the most likely places to search.
We’ll confer with locals once we’re on the train and can go over detailed maps.
” The men gathered around the tablet as Trevor explained.
“Any chance we can get a plane or helicopter in the air to help with the search?” Peyton asked.
“That’s difficult due to the terrain and foliage,” Trevor said. “Not to mention unpredictable weather. And our quarry’s particular senses.”
Peyton sighed. “If he starts hearing aircraft activity, it might spook him.”
“There is that,” Trevor agreed. “I have a contact working on obtaining drones, but they also make noise.”
“Do we have someone watching for missing boats?” Peyton asked.
“Yes, but it’s unlikely that he’d steal one.”
“He reached Northern Ireland like that, didn’t he? And how’d he get from there to fricking Norway? Why would he double back east when he was heading west?”
“We don’t know,” Trevor said. “Maybe because he knew he’d soon run out of land?
I can’t believe even he’s daft enough to tempt fate by crossing the Atlantic in a small boat.
There are several ferries all through the region.
Large ones that transport vehicles and passengers.
Meaning, despite our people watching for him, he easily could have slipped past security while shifted and then hid on board, either in a vehicle or perhaps by shifting back and pretending to be a passenger.
Or maybe by crewing on a fishing trawler.
It’s not uncommon for them to hire people without too many questions. ”
“Or, again, he could have shifted and swam out as a dog,” one of the others said.
“Exactly,” Trevor said. “Unfortunately, while he is larger than the average mundane dog, a corgi in this region draws little to no attention. Whereas a wolf might have people in an absolute panic. Especially around livestock. So be careful about where and when you shift.”
That would be the ultimate in tragic indignities—to get shot by a clueless human while hunting the murderous bastard they were trying to kill.
“Noted,” Peyton said.