Page 64 of The SnowFang Storm

“So that happens? The state just decides they don’t want to deal with land anymore?”

“All the time. Want to buy a town? There are zipcodes for sale too. So what’s this about a doomsday vault?”

“I shouldn’t know this one. I found out by accident.” Why was I whispering? No one could hear us. “My father threatened to kill me if I ever breathed a word of it to anyone and—”

“And you keep trying to defend your father to me. I wish he was alive so I could kill him myself.”

“Well, he’s dead. Now pay attention. Nobody knows about this except the Elder Alphas and Lunas. No one. So if you even breathe you know, we’re both dead.”

“I’ve been threatened with my death so many times recently it’s starting to lose impact.”

“The actual Archives moved from Paris to a location in Norway thirty years ago. Whatever every Chronicler has is just copies, and no Chronicler—not even my father—has a complete library in their possession. The adjuncts usually only have the last hundred years or so. My father had much more, but even he didn’t have everything, and everything he had was a duplicate. That’s why Anais was willing to leave things behind. Once a quarter, my father would box up everything and have it shipped off. I pretended not to notice. When a Chronicler dies, everything goes back to the vault to be held until they’re replaced.”

Sterling processed this, ticking through all the permutations. “So you think this land might be for a new vault.”

“I don’t know, but it’d explain everything. It would explain why he’s willing to threaten your father’s privilege. The Elder Council will know the score and just railroad us.”

He sank back into his chair and stared at the screen. “You forget that my father and I no longer care about his privilege, or humoring AmberHowl. This is strictly about figuring out what he wants so I can fuck with him.”

“Sterling, you can’t declare war on Demetrius,” I said quietly.

“And how did Demetrius deliver on his end of our deal?” he replied.

I pressed my lips together. “Can you not pick a fight until we figure out what we’re fighting over?”

“Of course, but you can’t expect me to give Demetrius what he wants when we didn’t get our end of things.”

I sighed.

“Anyway, if I wanted to build a super secret vault, and keep it as private as possible, I would not even consider the United States.”

I nudged his thigh with my foot. “So, where does my purple map come into play?”

“Behold, my Luna. The Mortcombe Empire.” He zoomed out the map to all of North America and gestured grandly to the screen.

For about a nanosecond, I thought Sterling was being ironic.

For another millisecond, I hoped he hadn’t seen what I saw.

Then my hope disappeared.

I choked. “Is it supposed to be an empire?”

A sharp-edged sideways smile. “No.”

Sterling and Garrett individually owned swathes of land throughout Canada, the western US, and Alaska. The vast majority of it was held by Garrett, and most of it overlapped large portions of the known werewolf territories, which meant most of it overlapped with powerful packs I actually remembered. Especially in the densely populated—relatively speaking—high arctic.

Werewolf territory versus human title had not yet collided in a large-scale crisis. Human encroachment was a constant concern for ferals. The unspoken fear that one day a wealthy pack would start using their wealth instead of their fangs. It was such a fear that wolves didn’t even want to mention it above a whisper for fear of invoking the bad luck. In the past, humans and wolves settled things with armies and blood.

Up until a century ago, we’d all played by the same rules and with the same weapons. Now humanity used money and lawyers, while wolves still used fangs.

In populated areas, the law of neutral ground derailed territory conflicts. In rural areas wolves tended to own at least part of their territory and tried to keep their territory adjacent to public or protected lands.

“I’m going to take your reaction to mean you’ve never heard anything about this. I thought Demetrius’ statement about empire building had been ironic or hyperbole. So after I asked you to look into the Canadian deal’s survey, and I started looking at my father’s portfolio in detail, it occurred to me, perhaps, Demetrius was being literal.”

I needed a better look at the map. I slid off the desk. He captured me with his arm and pulled me onto his lap. “Ack, Sterling.”

“You can think from here.”

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