Page 70 of Bitter Discord

“I mean, yeah.” Dirk went back to eating his breakfast.

“Did she… say anything—”

“It wasn’t good or bad,” I told Heath quickly, knowing he would ask if I had been able to ask her. “She doesn’t know how she feels about things yet. Once we’re done with breakfast, let’s just get to work and figure out where to go from here.”

“I’ve called the pack for a meeting. We’ll meet you in Dallas if you don’t want to wait for us.” Heath finally sat down. “Let me think for a minute… Whoever is doing this knew what to do to slow us down, stump us. They knew how both werewolves and werecats work. This shakes that up. Let’s hope they don’t expect us to work together. It might give us an element of surprise.”

“I need to get ahold of Zuri and Bethany to make sure everyone is in the right place. We have time for a pack meeting.”

We went silent, knowing what the plan was now. Eating quickly, I contacted my half of this party. When Heath and Landon were done, they took the dishes to the kitchen, then left the house. Dirk sat in the office with me silently as I sent out texts and got calls in return. Coordinating three groups was already difficult when we didn’t have problems. It had taken so long to plan this week, and now I was asking three groups to change all of their plans on a dime.

“Jacky?” Zuri yawned. “Why is there a text from Jabari saying you and Mother spoke earlier?”

“I tried to reach him, and she called me from his number. She gave me some useful advice, and I have a plan.”

“Oh…” Zuri groaned. “Let’s hear it.”

She was in a thoughtful mood when I told her I needed to call the BSA.

“I’ll speak to the other werecats. Give me a couple of hours to judge the mood over breakfast.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it could work. We just need it to work perfectly.”

“Did you have a plan? What were you thinking about doing? We don’t have to go that route.”

“I sat here to make sure no one wandered off while the sun was down. I cast a few spells to make sure no one came in without me knowing and checked your runes. Defending our remaining guests is a priority. Now, if they agree to help, their safety is in their own hands, but if they don’t, it’s my responsibility to keep them alive if anything else goes wrong. I didn’t… I couldn’t let myself be distracted from that. That’s one of the reasons I thought you were better in your territory. With your security, you would have time to focus on the problem.”

“You trusted me to figure out a plan?”

“Of course,” she said, yawning. “Now, you deal with the humans and the werewolves, and I’ll let you know how the werecats are feeling after breakfast before you introduce this plan.”

Hanging up with her, I called Bethany, who answered with a longer and louder yawn than Zuri’s. I made the call quick, telling her the BSA had the chance to help us draw the killer out if they followed my strict rules. She jumped into action as if I had given her an IV of adrenaline.

“Let me call the Director,” she said, then promptly hung up.

“Wow,” Dirk mumbled.

“Right?” I shook my head as I put my phone down. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be in the pack meeting?”

“No. I was asked yesterday to keep my eyes on Teagan’s phone to see if he gets a hit from Arlo’s using that ‘find your phone’ feature. I’m also on camera duty for all the properties.” He made a face. “Ranger too, but we’ll have Benjamin with us.”

“Benjamin couldn’t stop a fight,” I pointed out.

“Benjamin is a young werewolf who can and will call Heath if Ranger and I so much as look at each other funny. ‘Alpha, they’re fighting, and I need them focused on saving my brother.’ Heath would kill us. He’s using Benjamin to guilt the shit out of us to keep out of trouble. Plus, I don’twantto fight Ranger. My werewolf urge and my human moral code might not match up, but I’ll be damned if I hit an amputee. If he doesn’t act like an asshole, I can handle it.”

“I believe in you,” I said, reaching out to pat his hand, which he didn’t pull away. “And tell Ranger if he picks a fight, he’ll be banned from his Alpha’s house permanently.” I liked Ranger, but I didn’t have time for a repeat of what had happened only a few short days before, with him lashing out to pick a fight with Dirk.

“Can you do that?” Dirk leaned in, smiling.

“It’s my house,” I reminded him. “And you’re my nephew.”

“Thanks for looking out for me.”

“I’m looking out for Ranger, too,” I admitted. “He needs to remember his pain doesn’t give him the right to hurt people to make himself feel better.” I let go of his hand and stood. “Time to get to work. Can you get me another cup of coffee?”

“Absolutely.” He grabbed my empty mug and walked out. I followed slowly and locked my office, something I hadn’t thought to do the night before.

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