Chapter 2 - Rick #2
He didn’t miss the small frown tugging at the corner of Felix’s lips.
He hadn’t liked that.
Rick didn’t care. They needed to tailor their argument to win over the other shifters, those on the fence. He would always go for the winning strategy, personal politics be damned. What did the method matter when the outcome remained the same?
“As always, Rick,” John said amid the roar of the alphas, “you put your arguments so elegantly. I fail to see how anyone could outwit you.”
Rick grinned at John’s tight expression, ready to rub salt on the wound, but something stopped him. Perhaps it was the gleam in John’s eye, Felix’s darkening mood, but something told Rick to accept his win with grace.
Someone called the meeting to a finish, and Rick ran a hand through his hair.
It was about time for a drink.
***
“It’s a bad idea to rile up the Black Claws like that,” Felix murmured as the two leaned against the polished wood of the Round Robin Bar, sipping whisky.
Rick huffed. “I wasn’t riling them up. I was responding to their arguments.”
“You were riling them up,” Felix repeated with a stern look. “All that business about them fearing the humans? How do you think they’re going to prove they’re not scared of the humans? Because I guarantee it will involve brutality of some sort or another.”
“Are you forgetting the new Accord legislation?” Rick asked. “If they harm humans beyond the protection and defense of their pack, they’re breaking the law. Your law, if I remember the proceedings correctly.”
“You’d incite a war?”
Rick’s brow quirked. For all his power, all his influence, Felix would always do all he could to avoid direct combat. It wasn’t to do with weakness; far from it. It was that he was all too aware of his own strength and bore it like a responsibility rather than an asset.
Rick had no such foibles.
“It’s going to happen sooner or later. And the more groundwork I can lay now to diminish their power, to undermine their reputation, the easier it will be when things finally do come to a head.”
Felix’s lips thinned. “War isn’t inevitable.”
“War was inevitable the moment you took your father’s head. The moment I usurped my father’s seat and instead of taking power for myself, bent the knee to you.”
Felix growled, his eyes misting over in the memory of those dark times.
They had all been so young. Felix was only twenty when he led the revolution against the Old Guard.
Nicolas and Dane had been eighteen. Rick was slightly older, twenty-three when he threw his lot in with the New Guard and relinquished any claim he had to the title of alpha.
Now he was thirty-one. He had had years of experience dealing with pack politics and alpha egos. And if there was one thing he had learned, it was that his species was every bit as ruthless as the beasts they turned into.
“War isn’t inevitable,” Felix said again, brushing his hand through his hair, “and we will do everything in our power to avoid it.”
Rick bowed his head. “Understood. But at least allow me to continue working on a few contingencies in case the Black Claws decide to do something monumentally stupid? Word is, they think Red Teeth’s attack weakened us. They’ll be looking for any excuse now more than ever.”
Felix cursed. “Will that male ever stop causing issues for us?”
“He’s dead, Felix. His ashes are soaked into the mud.”
“You can continue whatever political games you want,” Felix said, “but do it subtly. If they catch wind we’re trying to weaken them, they will attack.”
“When am I ever indiscreet?”
Felix chuckled. “I think your problem is that you go from being discreet to downright…shadowy.”
“Shadowy?”
“Yes, shadowy,” Felix repeated, waving his hand at Rick’s general form. “Secretive. Sneaky. Closed off.”
Rick tutted. “Utterly ridiculous.”
Felix glanced past him, eyebrows raising slightly. “Oh, hello.”
“What?”
Felix jutted his chin towards the entrance. “John Heath and his lot. A couple of the bears are with him. The mountain lions, too.”
Rick didn’t bother turning around. “No doubt slobbering over that female he brought with him.”
Felix hummed. “His daughter, apparently.”
Rick lowered his drink. “Since when did John Heath have a daughter? I didn’t even know he was mated.”
“She died some twenty years ago,” Felix said, his eyes darkening. “By all accounts, it wasn’t…the happiest union.”
“I’m not surprised,” Rick said, swirling his whiskey around his glass. “From what I’ve gathered, John leads his pack in the…traditional way.”
Felix sneered. Traditional was just the polite name they gave to the disease that infected far too many packs these days. Ones that lacked balance, harmony, and trust. Ones where the alphas ruled over everyone else without giving a singular damn about actually protecting them. They just used.
It had been like that in the Iron Walkers under the Old Guard.
No longer.
The rambunctious noise behind him quietened as a sharp, smart click of heels cut through the guffaws and shouts of alphas having a good time. It was accompanied by the soft scent of amber and iris.
Rick couldn’t help but turn.
The girl really was a pretty little thing.
Slender and refined, with gently sloping curves and delicate ankles and pale, creamy skin.
Her hair, nearly black, fell in artfully styled voluminous waves around her shoulders, and sparkling diamonds at her ears and throat caught the light as she turned her head towards her father, blinking her wide, green eyes at him.
Every movement was calculated. Careful. Precise. A beautiful performance of a dutiful daughter raised in wealth and opulence. A glittering prize.
“He shouldn’t have brought her here,” Rick said, turning back to Felix. “If he had any good sense at all, he’d have locked her in her room under guard the second the sun sank and the drinks began to flow. Surely he’s aware of the danger she’s in?”
“John Heath is our ally,” Felix responded, his eyes trained on the girl. “Everyone here knows it. If anyone lays a finger on her, we’re duty-bound to intervene. I doubt that, even drunk, any of the alphas here would be stupid enough to test us.”
Rick glanced back at the girl. John Heath had a hand on her back, roaring with laughter with a cluster of other alphas.
She had a serene smile painted on her ruby-red lips, but even from across the room, Rick could see the tightness at the corners of her eyes.
The slight bob of her throat as she swallowed.
She was scared.
He took a sip of whiskey. Good. She wasn’t stupid, then.
John Heath glanced over, catching his eye, and Rick nodded in greeting. Apparently, John took that as an invitation, as he bade goodbye to the group of alphas who all groaned and whistled after him as he guided his daughter towards where Rick and Felix stood.
Rick pushed off the counter, straightening his jacket, schooling his features into his usual impassive watchfulness. Felix had no such reservations. He strode forward, clasping John’s forearm in greeting with a wide, warm smile.
“John! Good to see you.”
“Felix,” John inclined his head. “May I introduce my daughter, Rosalia.”
“Of course,” Felix accepted Rosalia’s outstretched hand, pressing a polite kiss to her knuckles before offering her a grin. “Lovely to meet you, Rosalia.”
“Likewise, Alpha,” she replied in a soft, elegant voice as she dipped into a curtsy.
Rick raised an eyebrow. Of course, the girl knew her courtesies.
“Congratulations on your win, Rick,” John said, glancing past Felix.
Rick smiled, letting his teeth show. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, John. These debates aren’t to be won. They’re to decide the best course of action for all of us.”
John returned his predator’s smile. “As you say. I don’t believe you’ve met my daughter either, Rick.”
“I haven’t had the pleasure,” Rick said, his voice silky as he stepped past Felix and accepted the girl’s hand.
It was soft, impossibly soft. As he raised it to his lips, he could practically taste her sweetness on his tongue.
It wasn’t just her perfume, although he noted with pleasure that she clearly favored subtle, expensive notes over the bawdy, cloying fragrances that many women preferred; it was something uniquely her. White rose and vanilla.
As his lips brushed over her skin, her breathing hitched, and her pulse jumped beneath her skin, the rush of blood roaring like ocean waves.
He looked up, offering her his most charming smile.
Her features were carefully schooled into a polite greeting, but Rick knew the effect he had on females.
He could smell her curiosity raging like a tempest just below the surface.
But what he didn’t expect, nor did he relish at all, was the sharp spike in fear. His eyes twitched as he tried to read her face. He was more than used to making people uneasy or wary, even females who found him attractive, but not scared. Not when he didn’t intend to.
And this girl, for all her skill in hiding it, was terrified.
His jaw clenched as he stood back to his full height, eyes flicking to John’s serene face.
Ah. It wasn’t him she feared.
It was her father.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Rosalia?” Rick asked, cocking his head at the girl, giving her a dazzling smile. “Is your father here teaching you the ropes of diplomacy? I have always believed the best way to learn leadership is to immerse yourself in it from a young age.”
“Leadership?” John repeated, barking a laugh, “Good heavens, no. She’s not an alpha! She’s not—”
“Yes?” Rick asked, raising an innocent eyebrow.
John shut his mouth, his thin lips pressing together tight.
It was a mistake most made at some point or another. Assuming that just because Rick was the heir to one of the most ancient, powerful bloodlines in the world, that because he was an open champion of the old ways, he venerated all of the old traditions.
John would find no ally here to his narrow-minded, short-sighted, human-taught foolishness.
“Actually, Rick, you’re the reason she’s here. You and your alpha,” John said, smugness reeking from his every pore.
“Oh?” Rick asked, casually inspecting his nails.
John’s teeth ground together, rage flashing in his eyes. Rosalia winced, glancing at her father in alarm.
“Come on, Reinhardt. Surely you’ve worked it out?”
Rick sneered, dropping his charming act, eyes narrowing at the upstart alpha. “Apparently not.”
John turned to Felix, puffing up his chest as he pushed Rosalia forward. The girl glanced between them with clearly increasing alarm, her heart audibly thundering in her chest. Rick glared between her and her father, any trace of amusement gone.
“Felix, as Alpha of the Green Mountain Pack, I would like to officially claim my boon for services given in your fight against Red Teeth.”
Felix was silent for a moment, his jaw working. “Speak it.”
John smirked. “I demand the marriage of my daughter, Rosalia Heath, to Frederick Reinhardt of the Iron Walkers.”