Page 48 of Heart Broken Mate

“Isn’t he a werewolf?” Pique asked.

“Yes, but he’s eccentric. Just crazy.”

“Well, there must be a way we can get to him. If he’s untouchable, then there must be something he owns, loves that isn’t so untouchable.”

“He has a wife,” Lenny said. “A human wife and a sickly child. He’s close to ascension, and it’s a very touchy period in the home.”

“Well, there you have it,” Pique said and stood up. “Things get ugly. People start to talk. That is how to rule.”

“Sit!” I told him, putting as much gusto as I could into my voice. “We are not done. There is still the other issue to discuss.”

Pique held on to the table for a while and glared at me daringly. He looked like he was going to defy me and then head out of the room. Oh, I wanted him to. I wanted him to give me a reason to kill him. But then he just shook his head and sat down.

“Of course, we have to talk about that. But what is there to discuss? The shipment will be delivered as promised. Won’t it?” he asked.

“We might have a little trouble regarding that,” Lenny said and sighed. He looked around at them, scared to talk. It was brave to be the only human among three very powerful werewolves, but it was also stupid. Lenny had always been safe when it was James in charge. James had strict rules and enforced them, and no one dared to cross him. But I was new to this, and people have been trying to cross me since my first minute in charge. I could see Lenny was worried about the possibility that I had pent-up anger, and he didn’t want me to take it out on him.

“Go on, Lenny. What is the problem?”

“We can’t move on with the shipment,” he said, and Pique’s head snapped around, a little growl coming out of him. Lenny swallowed and looked at me. I nodded at him. Pique wouldn’t dare. He is here to represent Tarloux’s interest, and the family needed that shipment. Without Lenny, there is no shipment. When James fashioned it all out, he did it such that the least powerful of the council members held the greatest power. We needed Lenny alive for smooth operation.

“Why not?” I asked him.

“With James’s death, there’s been some rumors flying about and uncertainty within my men. They don’t want to be caught with a truckload full of kids that have been reported missing in the past year.”

“You’re the police,” Pique said. “Who’s going to catch you?”

“Federal agents,” Lenny said.

“Are they around?” I asked.

“No, but there’s been talk, and these people run a deep underground system. They might be here already, and we don’t know. Going on with the shipment is a risk. We need to let things cool down for a while. Maybe wait until Hayley and the lone wolf have been captured, and people aren’t talking much about it anymore.”

“There is no time to wait,” Pique said and turned to Lenny, his eyes glowing and his claws extracting gently. “We had a deal with James. He promised us that merchandise, and we have made plans for its use. Plans that are time-sensitive. The family has been considerate regarding James’s death, and they think enough time has passed. It is time to resume the deal.”

He looked away from Lenny then and at me. “You’re the new alpha. James kept the Tarloux family from this place by making that deal with them. You are not going to rescind the deal now because if you do, you will have a large number of Tarloux soldiers on your doorsteps, and when they do, they wouldn’t just be here to collect what they are owed. They will be here to make a statement that you do not own the family and default on your debts.”

Klint looked at me again, but I closed my eyes. I wasn’t going to do that. There will be no difference between refusing the family their debt and that. I would be destroying all that James had worked for. The efforts he had put into keeping this place safe. I couldn’t do that, which brought me back to the only other option available.

I focused my attention on Lenny.

“The shipment will go on just as planned, Lenny,” I told him, and he moved to object, but I moved my hands up to stop him. “Do not argue with me. There are a thousand other Lennys out there, and I can go pick another. The shipment moves on and if your men are too scared to do it, tell them they can find a new home with their family. The deal goes through. Nothing changes.”

Chapter twenty-two (Hayley)

We’ve been at this for over a week, and we were slowly approaching the end. Bonne had made a very detailed map for us, and we had no trouble finding the tribe. The trouble we had came from hunters still looking to take us down. It was easy dealing with them, but they were relentless. Even now, I can still sense them behind us. We had put so much distance between us, but they were beginning to catch up.

Besides the hunters and the not-so-friendly vegetation this deep into the woods, it has been splendid. I was spending time with Luke, and I’ll take a thousand adversaries just to be with him.

“We are getting close to them,” Luke said as we cut through some more vines. This thick into the woods, there were fewer trees and more vines wrapped around each so tightly it was hard to go through them. Movement was one step per minute, and it made sense that the tribe had hidden itself this deep. No one would stumble across them by mistake, and even for those, like us, who were seeking them out, it would be hard to get them, and they would have measures in place to stop people.

I sniffed the air, and Luke was right. I could smell werewolves. But they were different. They weren’t like the ones that had been on our heels since we left Nillport. These had a more distinct smell. They smelled like the earth itself.

I shrugged through a web of vines and came to the other side of what had wrapped itself like a gate. There was a long row of the normal forest before us again, and beyond that, we could seeanother layer of vines. The map says we have arrived, but there was nothing here. Except, of course, the smell of werewolves, but we couldn’t see them.

Luke and I pushed on, seeing no other thing to do. We would cross the other thicket of vines and see what lays behind it. I didn’t know what to expect. A village of some sort? People living in trees, like cavemen, or maybe even something cruder. All I knew about the lost tribe was what I heard from people and the stories James used to tell us. But he had always insisted they were gone, and news we get now and then of lost tribes out there was all speculative. No one had ever seen them in centuries. But here we were, going after one of the lost tribes. People that were supposed to have information about the moon stone. The moon stone that was a heritage of my mother’s family and Luke’s, apparently.

A gentle crack of a twig filled the air, and I stopped. Luke stopped in front of me too. The sound would have gone past us had we not been werewolves, but we picked it up and stopped to see who might have caused it. For a while, no one came forth, and then the leaves moved and slowly, camouflaged against the woods and the leaves, people started to step out. They surrounded us.

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