Page 71 of Bitter Discord

I went to the front porch, and he brought me the coffee as I stood there, looking at Heath talking quietly to the werewolves who had arrived, all sitting on the damp grass. It wasn’t quite cold enough for it to frost yet. I was waiting for him to tell me how the pack took the plan, though I could see and smell the emotions in the morning breeze. I was waiting for Zuri to tell me how the werecats were feeling today and Bethany to tell me how the BSA felt about helping on my terms.

It was a practice in patience, but I waited, knowing I needed all the pieces if this was going to work.

This has to work.

26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Three hours later, I was in Dallas, Landon driving my car with me in the passenger’s seat while Heath followed in his own. We met Director Rhodes, Bethany, and a handful of agents I didn’t recognize at Heath’s offices in the city, ones he rarely went to in recent days.

“Good morning,” the Director said, lifting a cup of coffee. “Bethany told us what you’re thinking. I was hoping to see if we could—”

“The terms won’t change,” I said, lifting a hand to cut him off. We had skipped introductions, which annoyed me, and that he wanted to offer some suggestions annoyed me more. “You do this my way, or you don’t do it at all. You will assign a watch on each werecat who agrees to it, a wire or a bug, it doesn’t matter. Something that can pick up audio and their location. Video would be nice as well. You’ll monitoronly,and at any sign of danger, you’ll report it to Heath and me. We’ll respond. You will not. If we catch BSA agents there, you’ll have broken your side of the deal, and you will never work with me again.”

I smiled as his face went blank. He slowly put his coffee down on the conference table.

“You won’t hear any sort of suggestion?” he asked, eyeing me.

“There’s only one person in the room who has all the information, and that’s me. While I’m sure you could offer some great suggestions for this situation, many of them might put you too close to some who would rather you leave them be. This maintains distance and keeps one of your agents from shooting the wrong supernatural.”

“There’s a killer on the loose, and that’s what you’re worried about? My agents wouldn’t shoot the person they’re charged with defending. I think if you put two agents as personal bodyguards—”

“There’s another potentially innocent party involved,” Heath snapped. “And I won’t risk him.”

Director Rhodes narrowed his eyes on Heath.

“Everson… I knew you were engaged to Jacky, but I’m confused why you’re here and why we’re using your offices. Why does the pack want to help? What do you get out of it other than helping the woman you want to marry?”

“Alpha Everson and I get back one of my pack who went missing the night of the murder. He’s seventeen. There’s no chance he’s the killer, but he was the person who called in the murder of the werecat on Tuesday morning, so we know he’s with the killer. I don’t trust the BSA not to shoot him. If you can’t agree to keep your agents away from the werecats who will play bait, this is off.”

Rhodes glared at Heath, and I wondered if there was too much bad blood to move forward. Bethany, when I looked her way, only shrugged.

“My agents would be more effective—”

“You’ll take the bargain, or you’ll be cut out,” I said evenly, reinforcing Heath’s declaration.

“Why? To protect your relationship?” Rhodes turned his glare on me now.

“No, I have my own reasons. The privacy of my werecats is more important to me than your suggestions. We can make this work. We just need your manpower and technological resources. You have Bethany under orders to bug my home or bar every time she steps in the door. I know you have all the tech we need. You have the people who can keep an eye on those feeds. We have the hunting party. At the end of the day, you won’t be charging this killer, anyway. You’ll go to your boss and say you supported the two members of the werecat ruling family in catching a killer of supernatural origin and saved the life of a werewolf teenager. Take it, Director Rhodes. You’ve been very gracious and helpful so far, and I’m thankful. This is what I need, and it’s all you can give me that I can safely take.”

Sighing, he sat down and pulled his coffee close to him again.

“Fine. I see your reasons and can accept them. I was only hoping there would be more discussion. I don’t like being dictated to. I reached the spot of Director of the Dallas office so there would be few people who could order me around.”

“You would be a good werewolf Alpha,” Heath said, sitting as well.

“As you’ve said before,” Rhodes said, turning a sharp gaze on Heath.

“What is this? What is going on between you two?” I demanded, pointing a finger between them. “I need everyone to work together, so if there’s bad blood here, I need to know.”

“Just a long history,” Heath answered. “When I was the Dallas Alpha, Rhodes was an agent, then the Director of the Dallas BSA. Everything the BSA does, Rhodes has his fingers in, giving them approval or not. Every time my family was harassed, every child taken away from their parents, every tracker left on our vehicles, every instance of wiretapping… the cameras on your property.” A low growl filled the room. “Rhodes approves it all. He’s actually the top strategist of the BSA in this region, not just in the city boundaries. Now, his agents have some free will, but their directives, they’re handed out by him.” Heath gestured to the man at the table with him.

The growl filling the room was violent. My chest shook, then I realized… the growl was mine.

“My assistant director handles some of it, but…” Rhodes gave me a guilty look as I curled my hands into fists. “Bethany has been given special dispensation to treat you more delicately than we do the werewolves. We’ve had to change our approach with you and yours from how we’ve dealt with werewolves. You made that clear from the beginning. I’m sor—”

“Don’t apologize,” I ordered, forcing the growl to end. “It’s done... in the past. Let’s look to the future. Heath, coordinate with him. Pick the two werewolves you want to place with his monitoring agents—”

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