36. Wyatt
THIRTY-SIX
WYATT
The mansion felt like a shitty reality show, the kind where they put a bunch of annoying people together under one roof.
“You’re going to wear a trail in the hardwood with all that pacing.” Valentina drummed her long red fingernails on the dining room table.
I didn’t stop. The guys we’d sent to Stirling County should’ve been back hours ago.
“How’s your head feeling?” Harper came to my side and rested her hand on my arm. “Did the electrolyte water help?”
“That’s quite the little nurse you’ve got there.” Valentina rested her head on her chin and raised her eyebrows.
“She is.” Joe had been standing at the back of the dining room, which had turned into our command center for the mission. “He’s lucky to have her.”
“I’m not sure lucky is the right word.” Valentina rolled her eyes.
A bolt of lightning flashed, lighting up the dark room. The French doors opened and the wolves tumbled into the house.
“Ugh.” Valentina wrinkled her nose. “C?o molhado.”
“Shut it, Princess. This wet dog bites – and understands Portuguese,” Bannon said, giving an actual growl and snapping his teeth at her.
Bannon and Connor had called in some more of their pack, and Valentina wasn’t wrong. A musty odor had wafted in with them.
“Are they housebroken?” Tank muttered.
This time, three of the burliest-looking bearded men snarled.
“Easy.” Harper stepped in between the wolves and the dining room table.
“Harper.” I pulled her behind me. “It’s best not to get in between these children. What are you guys doing inside?” The wolves had picked up on the tension in the house and had congregated on the patio.
One of the smaller men, a young guy with long silver hair and piercing blue eyes, pointed to the window where rain streaked down the glass. “It’s raining out there.”
“Oh, the poor widdle wolves are scared of the thunder and wightning?” One of the South Americans rubbed his eyes and pretended to cry.
“You’re right,” Harper whispered. “They are like children.”
I needed to get the room under control. Within these four walls were humans, sasquatches, wolves, and one hybrid. We all had one common goal – to stop Genocorp. But we also had another thing in common – we all hated each other. And if we couldn’t put aside our differences to stop the Carders’ hybrid militia, we were bound to eradicate each other.
“We may be like children,” the silver-haired man crossed his arms, “but at least we’re not centenarians.”
Valentina raised her eyebrows. “That’s a big word for a dog.” She snapped her fingers. “I thought you only knew how to ‘sit’ and ‘stay’.”
Connor growled. The tall black doors creaked open and Savannah stepped into the room. She had been on calls with her staff as they wrapped up the event at the gallery. “Connor.” Her eyes were wide as she gasped. “What are you doing?”
Out of all the wolves, Connor was the one with the most social grace. The other wolves could probably pull themselves off as human at a trailer park barbecue, but Connor could fit in with some of the CEOs I knew. Not to say that one group was better than the other. To me, they were both vile, and I highly doubted that Savannah had ever seen her boyfriend’s wilder side.
Connor cleared his throat and pulled his lips back down over his teeth. “Nothing, sweetheart. We’re just formulating a plan. Did you need something?”
Savannah gulped. Her throat pulsed as the blood rushed through her jugular vein. The girl was nervous, but she still stepped into the room. Any one of us could end her life as easily as squishing a mosquito, and she knew it. The girl was ballsy. “I just keep thinking. There’s got to be a reason that they’ve planned their attack for the eclipse. Do you think it has something to do with the light? Do the hybrids function better in the dark?”
“Maybe.” I chewed my lip as I thought about it. “We can see better than twenty-twenty in the dark, but human eyesight is better in the daylight. There’s no way that mixing the two together would help the hybrids see any better than us or…” I hated to say it. “A werewolf.” The wolves’ night vision was similar to wearing night-vision goggles.
“Wait.” Bannon stepped beside Connor. “The attack is happening during the eclipse?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re trying to figure out if there’s a reason.”
“Fuck,” Bannon muttered under his breath. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Valentina stood. “You were outside peeing on trees all night. You must have missed that part. Now, tell us why this is important.” She put her hands on her hips and steeled her gaze on the tall, burly man.
“We’re more powerful than you guys,” Bannon said.
A grumble swept around the room. Power was debatable. We each had our own strengths.
Bannon shrugged. “It’s true. The hybrids would have a tough fight on their hands against you…” he pointed to the sasquatch side of the room, “but the two of our groups together? Those freaks wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“I still don’t get what this has to do with the eclipse.” Valentina’s voice was heavy with exasperation.
Bannon glanced to Connor, who shrugged. The Alpha sighed, as if he didn’t want to speak.
Valentina crossed the room in three steps and grabbed Bannon’s leather jacket, her fingernails stretching the leather. “I’ve had enough of this stalling. Tell us what we need to know, or I’ll make some dog soup.”
Bannon chuckled and Valentina’s cheeks burned red. She was hot-headed and used to getting her way. She wasn’t used to defiance, and I stood back, amused at the power struggle between the two of them.
“Easy, honey pants.” Bannon laughed, but his voice squeaked as Valentina’s hands moved from his jacket to his throat.
It was time for me to step in. “Valley Girl,” I said gently. “Let him go.”
Valentina removed her hands from his neck and stretched her fingers. Bannon smoothed his leather jacket, but the crescents from Valentina’s nails had left their mark in the collar.
I stood beside Valentina and lowered my voice. “The eclipse, Bannon. What’s the significance?”
His eyes darted from me to Valentina and then back again, then lowered to the floor. I knew enough about dog behavior to recognize submission. “It’s the only time that we’re weak. If Genocorp knows that we’re helping you, then they already know that they can’t win with our combined powers. But if they do it during an eclipse, they might stand a chance.”
A silence fell over the room. Genocorp knew more about the wolves than we did. And it was no wonder that Bannon didn’t want us to know about the eclipse phenomenon. They had managed to keep that a secret for hundreds of years. If we’d known about that weak spot, we would’ve permanently erased the wolves from our forests years ago.
“This is bad.” Phoebe spoke from her seat next to Joe. She had been the only one other than Harper to even venture near him. “Wyatt, we need to go find the rest of our family.” As she glanced to the door, I realized that she wanted to be close to the door for when Atticus came back. “If Genocorp knows this secret about the wolves, what else could they know?” There was a rare quiver in the brave woman’s voice.
Thunder boomed, rattling the windows. I checked my watch. It was almost three in the morning. “We’ll wait another hour. If they’re not back by then, we’ll set out so that we’re in Stirling County by dawn.”
Phoebe bit her lip and nodded.
The door to the dining room swung open and Atticus’ crew tumbled into the room. Pools of water immediately formed beneath them. Most of their eyes were golden rimmed with red, and they grunted and panted.
“Shit, guys. How much red moss did you take?” I asked.
“L-l-l-lots,” one of them managed to stammer. “We n-n-needed it.”
Another fighter, whose arm was profusely bleeding, stumbled into the room.
Phoebe launched to her feet and ran into the kitchen, returning with a thermos. “It’s… white tea,” she said, glancing quickly at the wolves. “I thought you guys might need it.” She handed it to the men, who took turns chugging the hot liquid. The gold in their eyes faded to a dull glimmer, and their bodies almost instantly seemed smaller, their muscles contracting with the elixir. It would only take a few seconds until they’d be able to speak and tell us the whole story.
As soon as the tea was gone, Phoebe grabbed the guy closest to her, one of our villagers named Brett, and shook him. “Where’s Atticus?” She had remained composed until now, but I could hear the fear in her voice. I did a quick head count and realized that of the team that had broken into Genocorp, only Atticus hadn’t returned. My stomach knotted.
“They took him.” Brett clamped his hand over the cut in his arm. “They were ready for us, Boss. There was nothing we could do,” he grimaced. “The rest of us barely made it out alive.”
Phoebe dropped to her knees and wailed.
“We need to go get him.” Tank shot to his feet. “Forget waiting for dawn, Wyatt. We need to go. Now .”
The crowd murmured, and the adrenaline in the room was off the charts. We didn’t leave a man behind. It was unheard of, an unspoken rule. For them to leave Atticus, it had to have been bad.
“Stop.” Everyone turned as Joe yelled. “It won’t work. You’re lucky you even found a way in in the first place. And look how that turned out.” He held out his palm to silence the crowd. “It needs to be me.”
“Dad,” Harper whispered. “No.”
He smiled sadly. “Sorry, Sunbeam. But I’m the only one that knows Genocorp inside and out.” He turned to me. “I can get your man back. I know where to go, and where they’re likely holding him. And I know how to hack into their security systems.”
“No,” Harper repeated. She grabbed my arm. “Wyatt. Tell him no. He’s not as strong as you guys. He—”
“He’s right,” I interrupted. “Joe, may I have a word with you? Alone?”
Joe’s lips drew to a line and he nodded.
“Can we have the room please?” I pulled out a chair and gestured for Joe to sit. Everyone else filed out of the room, silent, except for Harper.
“You too,” I growled.
“Wyatt and I will figure this out.” Joe hugged his daughter.
“Promise me you’ll come back.” Tears streamed down her face. “I can’t lose you again.”
“I promise he’ll come back,” I said.
“Wyatt.” Joe held onto Harper’s hands. “You can’t make that promise.”
“I can. Because I’m going with you.”
Harper gasped, grabbing onto both my arm and her father’s. “No. It’s too dangerous. I can’t lose you both.”
Joe hugged his daughter one more time, then shook my hand. He pulled me in close and whispered in my ear. “If I don’t make it out, you have my permission to marry my daughter.”