Page 105 of The Wolfing Hour
I sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry. When did this happen?”
“La Paloma was around three this afternoon. Smokethorn was about an hour ago, so five, five-fifteen. Maya Reeves agreed to go sit with the families. The omega’s presence will help to calm them. Damn, I wish she’d let me bring her into our pack. We could all use her natural calm right now.”
After the way she’d reacted to Bronwyn’s deception, I was surprised Maya was still in town at all. “Why would Floyd go after the rats now?”
“Something must have set him off.”
Visions of dead wolves on the floor of Floyd’s basement swam into my brain.
“It wasn’t only us, either,” the alpha continued. “He’s hit every shifter group in the county today—except Sundance, of course. He’s not stupid enough to go after Alpha Blacke’s group—Blacke’s shifters keep their town locked down. Their security teams are constantly patrolling.”
“Again, why attack other shifter groups?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” She let out an impatient sigh. “I keep forgetting you aren’t an alpha leader.”
“I’m not even a shifter,” I said, “and I’ve been buried for half a day. So, please tell me what I’m missing.”
“Buried? Oh, right. Earth witch,” she said, answering her own question. “It’s a battle strategy. Shitty, but effective. Burn it all to the ground, so even if Ronan Pallás wins, he loses. Floyd Pallás is turning the county shifters against his wolves, so they’ll feel emboldened to attack them.”
“I’m not getting it. If Floyd destroys the pack, what willherule?”
Her first response was another impatient sigh, her second a calming breath, and her third was, “Think about it. The non-wolf shifters won’t go after the strongest alphas. They’ll pick off the betas and weaker alphas first. Another battle strategy.”
“Ronan’s allies,” I said, understanding dawning.
“Look, you don’t have worries from the rats. I’ve communicated to them what’s going on, and they’ve scattered. But we’re not the only shifters in town. There’s a pack of coyotes ten miles outside Smokethorn, there’s a reptile group on the other side of La Paloma, and there’s the buzzards. Their residences are harder to pinpoint, since the wake lives all over, but Pallás’s wolves managed to hit a bird in East Pluto, along with an unaffiliated rabbit shifter. Both are dead.”
All the blood drained out of my head, and I sat down hard on the top porch step. “Do you have a way to contact the other groups who’ve been attacked?”
“Ronan is already talking to the reptiles. The coyote alpha leader contacted me after the wolves hit a couple of their people in La Paloma. They’re on standby, but aren’t exactly standing down, meaning they haven’t ruled out retaliation. The buzzards are more complicated—I was only able to speak with their third alpha. The bird they killed was the wake leader’s goddaughter. He’s out for blood, and as long as it tastes like wolf, he doesn’t care if it’s from a beta or alpha.”
There wasn’t much to say after that, so we ended the call. I was two steps into the house with Ida when my cell rang again. It was Ronan.
“Two of his alphas went after my workers. Burned down Karen’s house.” His voice was like the bottom of the ocean, deep and cold. That, and his sharp-edged, declarative sentences led me to believe he was at least seventy-five percent wolf.
“Is she all right? I was just talking to Alpha Lydia.”
“She’s good. Just happened. Alerted Alpha Vincent before calling you. You’re healed?”
“Yes. I’m sorry it took so long.”
He grunted a response that I couldn’t decipher. “Convocation is bullshit. He’s not going to wait until Wednesday.”
“I pushed him too far,” I said.
“No, this was too intricate. He planned this shit ahead of time. If anything, what you did this morning might’ve slowed him down.” He cursed. “Should’ve known he wouldn’t play by pack rules. Proved it by killing Charlie Hannigan. Trey. Attacking Gladys. Kidnapping Rory. Now Karen.” His voice wavered ever so slightly. “He’s coming to the Siete Saguaros next.”
That’d been my thought, too. “The gloves are off. The blackmail I have on him is worthless, so I don’t have a sword of Damocles to hang over his head.”
His voice smoothed out, became more articulate, more human. “Its greatest value was in keeping his murder of Zuri from Rory, and there’s no point keeping that pretense up. Even the pictures showing him using silver on his own people won’t matter to his alphas. They already know, and it’s not a deal breaker. They applaud the brutality.”
It was infuriating that I’d had all that information on Floyd and the only thing he’d been worried about was a short, low-contrast video sent to me anonymously that I’d only hinted to him about, because I couldn’t show him the actual footage.
“You think Rory knows Floyd killed her mother?"
“Maybe notknows, but you can’t tell me a person as smart as she is didn’t have doubts over the years. And now that Floyd has proven he’ll hurt her to keep his power…”
“She knows he’s capable of anything,” I finished.
