Page 79 of Wolf's Mark

“Yeah. I feel something is out there. You know? Dad said there was a mandatory meeting, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was about. Maybe I’m crazy, but it’s like we’re being watched. Or sized up. Maybe for dinner.” She tried to laugh but she was serious.

She was also fishing.

“The meeting was just about a new pack coming online. As far as business, right now, we’re just concentrating on new contracts. Did something happen you were involved in?”

“No but I was awake when Dad left then returned home last night. He usually tells me where he’s going, but this time he didn’t. And when he returned, he smelled like blood.”

“Do you want to share with me what the hell is going on?” Parker was the only man I allowed to burst into my office without an appointment.

Or without knocking.

I didn’t even allow my brothers to interrupt me that way.

However, I’d expected him since he’d called me twice and left two texts.

“Within the company or something else?” I’d been standing in front of my window for the last half hour trying to determine how to handle asking Sedona what was going on. I also hadn’t pushed Daphne, but might need to if I couldn’t locate the woman I’d become far too interested in.

Being a medical examiner held a list of possibilities for what could detain her; maybe she’d been forced to autopsy a recent murder victim. If so, she’d been utterly terrified. No wonder she mentioned the wolf the night before.

I had a bad feeling that whatever she’d gotten herself in the middle of could place a target on her back as well.

“Don’t fuck with me, buddy. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve yet to say anything about your mother’s huge proclamation yesterday. That isn’t something I can just forget. War? What in the hell does that actually mean?”

“You knew what we were years ago, Parker. I never lied to you.”

“You only told me because I was freaked out one day playing football when your eyes were suddenly like big, alien saucers. You had no other choice but confess. Now we’re talking werewolves? Like man-eating creatures from the movies?”

“Apparently and you took the news well.”

“Do you know I researched that shit for almost a year? I came to the conclusion it’s all one giant story. I like proof. I like rules. I couldn’t find any so I started reading everything I could get my hands on that was fiction. It was like werewolf central.”

He could make me laugh harder than anyone. “Only we’re not werewolves.”

“There’s really a distinction?”

“Werewolves are the things nightmares are made of. Wolfen are creatures of the night hunters don’t like seeing. But we’re also now very human in our needs and wants.”

“But you can still turn into a wolf.”

“Any time I want.”

“Have you?”

“Do you really want to know that answer?”

Parker shook his head. “You’re minimizing this. If your family starts a war, it’s going to affect your stock.”

“Nice try, but we’re a privately owned company.”

“Considering going public. Think of that.”

At least my buddy had his eye on the ball. All I could think about was Sedona at this point. It was driving me crazy. “Look, all I can tell you is that werewolves have been around since the beginning of time like the Wolfen have. At least according to my mother and other Elders in our community, they’ve co-existed since the beginning of time.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic. I’ll sleep better tonight.”

“The difference is they were almost wiped out, becoming extinct in the way of our world. I don’t know why. Maybe disease or human growth with building dense cities. Hell, maybe smog. Now they’re coming back and they’re hungry. Not just for food but also for dominance.”

“Let me guess. They’ll stop at nothing to beat the Wolfen.” Parker flashed his smile, but I sensed his continued disbelief. Why should he buy any of it? Yes, he’d seen my eyes. He knew I was stronger than an ox, but I’d purposely kept many of my Wolfen attributes from him.

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