Page 18 of Scarred Resolve

“They could always just come to my house. They have before,” I muttered. I was just complaining at this point, but it felt good to complain. I had to get it out of my system before I walked into their building.

We finished our coffee and loaded back into my car. I knew the trip well enough to get there in good time, arriving five minutes before five. I parked in the main parking lot instead of going to the nearby parking garage. As we got out of my car, there was already someone walking up to us. A man, his pressed suit and stiff demeanor telling me he was an agent, there for something official.

“With me,” the agent said quickly, waving for us to follow him.

I glanced at Niko, only to nod, letting him know this was okay. He fell in step beside me as we followed the agent, who was hitting that walking pace that almost broke out into a jog. He didn’t slow down until we entered the building, and then it wasn’t by much. Looking around, I couldn’t see Beth, which left me wondering if she was invited to the meeting or if I was going to have to deal with agents I didn’t know.

We were led into a back hall, one of many I had seen before. He turned and scanned his card, unlocking a door into another hall. There were only two doors, and the hall wasn’t particularly long, ending at an elevator. The agent stopped at the end and hit an elevator button that only had a down arrow.

“Where’s Bethany?” I finally asked, looking back down the empty hall and not seeing anyone else. Everything smelledsuspiciously clean, as if they had just come in and neutralized anyone else’s scents with heavy cleaners. The ventilation must have been top of the line as well because the heavy cleaners weren’t offensive to the nose like they normally would be.

“Already down below, Miss Leon,” the agent said quietly, not lying to me. “She’ll be in attendance for the meeting as well.”

“Good.” I wouldn’t go into a basement without that confirmation, and I couldn’t smell any evidence of her having come down the same hall before me.

As we got into the elevator, Niko stood close to me. He was presenting himself very carefully this morning. He was also casual in his clothing choice, with the exception of throwing a blazer over his own tee, which had a German band, I assumed, on it. He had a rockstar look to him, but it was undercut with a seriousness in his attitude that wasn’t cavalier or nonchalant.

It felt like we went down two stories, and with the classic soft ding, the doors opened to a security checkpoint, metal detectors and all. Beyond that was another security door that would probably require someone to use their ID to unlock.

“We’ll need the name of your plus one, Miss Leon,” an agent said as I approached slowly, looking at me as she held a pen to a pad of legal paper. Our guiding agent held the elevator until Niko and I had stepped out then went back up with it. Everyone was looking at us, but many were trying their best to look curious and casual instead of nosy or wary. My nose told me that every single one of them was wary and afraid.

“Nikolaus Brandt,” he answered. “I go by Niko.”

“Relation?”

“Her brother,” he continued.

The agent’s eyes went wide, and I smiled as I nodded in confirmation of his information for them. It also made everyone else drop their acts, their wariness now coming through clearly on their faces as well.

“He’s recently moved to the United States and lives near me. I was planning on setting up a meeting myself very soon with Bethany, but then I got this call, so…” With a shrug, I let them put the rest together.

“I see,” the agent said as she scribbled down notes on her pad. “Do you have any weapons, illicit substances, or anything else we should know about?”

“Nope. Only have my bag to hold my wallet and keys. Niko?”

“Nothing at all,” he said, smiling innocently. The fact of the matter was neither of us needed weapons.

“Good, right this way.”

We were led through the security, my bag searched, and both of us were pat down, even after we cleared the metal detectors. She lifted her ID and scanned it, making a little light go green, then grabbed the handle.

“It’s unlocked from the inside, so you can leave at any time,” she explained as she pulled it open for us.

That was when I realized how big of a deal this meeting was.

The BSA had snuck the entire North American Werewolf Council into the building already. Their scents hit my nose before I could see anything or anyone else in the room.

With no small level of pettiness, I decided to look around the entire room before I looked at the werewolves. There were two rectangular boardroom tables on each side of the room, with chairs only on one side of them, toward the outsides of the room looking to the center. An old laptop hooked up to a projector sat in the middle of the room, already turned on, and was the source of the majority of the light in the room. Two agents hovered around the laptop, and a handful more were scattered around the room, Beth included.

We were entering behind the projector, and I cut right to the empty table, allowing my entire back to be turned on the werewolves as I found where Niko and I could sit on our ownside. The humans were tense, but I was paying attention to the werewolves. There was wariness, and seeing my back shocked them. I knew the moment Niko was visible to them as that shock escalated into surprise and outrage. They made no sound, giving the humans no idea that the entire mood of the room had shifted, but I knew. The scent of Niko’s own wariness was obvious, but it wasn’t as saturated as the wolves’. His wariness was also accented by humor. Something about this was a little funny to him.

I looked at the werewolves fully as I pulled out a chair and sat down. In the center was a face I forgot I could possibly see, but not a complete surprise with the council there. Callahan was more composed than I normally saw him, his hands closed together on the table, his eyes on mine. All of them were wearing several-thousand-dollar suits as I broke eye contact with him to look at the others. When I reached him once again, I locked eyes with him and didn’t let it go. He was, in public, the Alpha of the LA Pack. He was just one member of the NAWC. To humans, he had no more power than anyone else at their table, not politically. However, every supernatural in the room knew otherwise. He was Callahan, a member of the Tribunal, the secret government of the supernatural world. He controlled the NAWC fully, all of them loyal to him and his mate, Corissa, the female werewolf on the Tribunal. The only person in our family who ranked as high as him in the supernatural world was Hasan, and Hasan wasn’t in the room.

Fuck it. He’s here as a member of the NAWC, and that’s how I’ll treat him. He can complain to Hasan if he’s offended by it.

“What a surprise,” I said, quite honestly, but with a snappiness that wouldn’t go unnoticed by anyone in the room.

“Agreed,” Callahan said, his displeasure coming through just as clearly.

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