Rogue Alpha (Jacky Leon Book 7), page 12
I felt something land on my shoulders as the fur receded.
“I’ve got you,” Carey whispered. I leaned toward her voice. This Change was excruciatingly slow for me. The injuries were numerous. She tentatively wrapped her arms around me, and I finished Changing, my head against her shoulder.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“It’s you and me, right?” she asked with a small hysterical laugh. “To think I could have normal human friends who wouldn’t have to see all of this.”
“I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes at that.
“This… this wasn’t your fault. Dallas shouldn’t have done this. You and Dad will fix it. You two fix everything.”
If we’re not the ones who broke it in the first place.
She helped me to my wobbly feet. Tightening the robe, I looked at the devastation with human eyes, but it didn’t change. Heath was already carrying another wolf out.
“Carey, can you find me a change of clothes?” I asked softly. “I keep spare stuff in your father’s room. The middle two drawers of his dresser are mine now, and there’s nothing embarrassing in them.”
“Okay.” She moved quickly. I didn’t care that I was in a robe. It covered enough for me to help Heath, at least for one wolf. As I picked up a wolf, Bethany came toward me, moving slowly.
“I’m safe now,” I said, shifting the wolf to my shoulder.
“Who’s dying?” she asked softly.
“Dirk went down,” I explained, trying to sound calm and detached. There was so much to do. “He was guarding the top of the stairs to keep them from breaching the safe room. He’s my head of security…” I stopped talking as tears filled my eyes and dropped the wolf to stop my hands from shaking. Before I could fall to the ground, Heath was there. He caught me and held on.
“He’s tough,” he whispered. “He’s tough, Jacky.”
“He was supposed to go into the safe room,” I growled, grabbing his shirt.
“He made a choice. He knew what he was doing.”
“He and Landon… Oh, god, his father,” I cried, my knees going weak.
“Go take a shower. Clean off the blood and put on something fresh. Take a minute to breathe, Jacky. It’s been a long evening.”
I nodded against his chest. It would give me time to cry alone, which was what I really needed. I collected myself and walked out of the room with my head held high, knowing it wouldn’t last.
14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I found Carey sitting in front of her father’s dresser, not looking for what she had promised to get. I could hear her tears as I walked up the stairs. They were quiet, but they were there, just like mine. I closed us in Heath’s room, knowing if he heard, he would be even more on edge. Landon was already murderous. He didn’t need his lover potentially dying and his sister in tears. He’d likely kill someone for looking at him wrong.
“Hey,” I whispered, going to her side. “I’m going to take a shower. Why don’t you lie down?”
“I can’t…” She wiped her eyes. “I need to know if… Dirk is going to be okay. Landon was finally happy, and…”
“I know,” I said, knowing the tears were going to come back for me any moment. It could take hours before we knew if he would survive the Change. There was a chance he’d wake up and scream until the brutal end or a chance he would stay unconscious as I had, but there was no beating time.
“Can I just… sit in here and wait for you?”
“Yes,” I said, kissing the top of her head. Helping her stand, I put her in the middle of Heath’s bed, giving her the remote to the TV. I found a change of clothes and got the water started, leaving the door open just enough in case she needed me.
I looked at myself in the mirror. Now out of my feline form, the blood made me look like a raving lunatic. It was everywhere. Since I had taken no silver damage or silver in my system, the wounds had healed well without scars, but the blood… the blood was still there.
On closer inspection, I found redness and swelling at some of my injuries, even a couple of scabs. My legs and stomach were bruised. The damage had been bad enough, some hadn’t fully healed, even without silver involved.
“Well, fuck,” I muttered. I had known the damage was bad. The slow two-minute Change had told me that.
I washed off and put on fresh clothes, feeling a bit more human. By the time I left the bathroom, Carey was asleep. From the red around her eyes, she must have cried while the water was running when I wouldn’t have heard her. I lifted the blanket, making sure she was tucked in. Coming down from the adrenaline rush, finally feeling safe, then getting hit with exhaustion was probably how sleep grabbed her. It was better this way. I didn’t need a fifteen-year-old to be more put together than me, and it kept her from the eyes of the BSA. Quietly, I left her there, closing her in until Heath decided what they were going to do about their living situation.
I’ll take her for the night if Heath needs to stay with Landon. They can’t move Dirk at this point.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, all the werewolf bodies were gone, and only blood and destruction remained. There were also six new BSA agents standing with Mahoney and Bethany. I recognized one of them from a previous CPS and BSA visit to check on Carey. Luckily, it wasn’t the bitch with a werewolf problem, but his name escaped me.
“Good evening.” I knew Heath was outside, but he wasn’t moving. I couldn’t hear him, which made me think he was taking a private moment of his own. I didn’t want to bother him, so I stayed focused on the BSA in the house. “I’m sorry for not being down here for your arrival. Dirk is… he’s not just my head of security. He’s my adopted nephew, my family. As Dirk and I explained to someone earlier this evening during Carey’s birthday party, he was raised by my brother. No, I won’t tell you anything about my brother or anything else about Dirk. That’s all you need to know.”
“I’m sorry,” Bethany said sadly.
“If he lives, he’ll be a werewolf,” one of the agents said, staring me down as though he was trying to prove something.
“He’ll still be my family.” I moved closer, stopping five feet from them, and crossed my arms. He continued to stare at me, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what this guy was doing. “I’m a werecat, by the way. The need to dominate and prove myself over someone doesn’t exist, so you can stop looking at me as if you’re trying to challenge a wolf and lose.”
The agent frowned. “Then how do you deal with things? The wolves do it, so they know who is in charge.”
“As a werecat? I don’t need to deal with who is in charge in the room. I already know.” I frowned at him as I felt Heath walking back to the door.
“Really? Care to enlighten me?”
“I am,” I said, not changing my posture or my stare.
“Jacky is like any cat,” Heath said as he came into the house. “They run the show, or they think they do, and there’s not much that will convince them of anything else. Better to try being a partner or a subordinate. It’ll get you further, Agent Rekve. Werecats are different from house cats, though. This might be my house, but it’s her territory. She’s the one in charge of everything that happens within her borders and has the power to back it up.” He stopped next to me. “She’s not joking or exaggerating. It’s not a question to other supernaturals. A werecat rules their territory. They are the law of the land. If we don’t want to deal with that, we stay out of their space.”
“You make a pretty good partner. I actually wanted to ask you what you want to do for the night. We can’t move Dirk, and Landon is going to want to stay with him. Carey fell asleep in your room while I was in the shower, but I can take her to my house for the night or,”—I looked around—“until we figure out what comes next.”
“Until I know Dirk’s status, I don’t know if she can live with Landon,” Heath said, sighing. “If Dirk makes it, Landon and I will have to teach him to be a werewolf. If he dies… I’ll have to focus on Landon.”
“Carey has a room in my house,” I said gently.
“Or we can take her,” one of the agents cut in.
“No,” Heath and I growled at the same time.
“I already tried talking to them about it,” Mahoney muttered.
“I can kill you just as effectively in this form as I could in the other,” I snarled, feeling the violence rise back up. “What do all of you want?”
“We need to know why this happened,” one of the two new women said. “For national security.”
“We don’t know,” Heath said, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that. I have suspicions, one that I’ve already shared. Beyond that, this doesn’t concern humans. Carey is alive, unharmed, and will remain that way. Dirk isn’t an American citizen, and he was in the employ of a supernatural being. Both things remove your jurisdiction beyond interviewing us about the event, and you know it.”
“Carey was in the epicenter of a major werewolf attack,” another agent snapped. “She might be alive and unharmed right now, but you can’t make promises about her safety, Alpha Everson.”
“Through it all, her entire life, my daughter only had one injury from a werewolf, and that was a broken wrist,” Heath said softly, slowly taking a step closer to the humans. “Which her eldest brother gave her by shoving her to the ground. He died for it, as any supernatural or human would die for hurting my daughter.”
“I killed him,” I said, smiling and showing teeth.
“So, don’t come into my house and tell me I can’t protect my daughter,” Heath rumbled as a growl built. “There’s not a person in this house who wouldn’t die for her. There’s a young man upstairs paying the price the rest of us are willing to. He’s the only thing keeping Landon from coming downstairs, and you certainly don’t want to tell my son that you don’t think he and I can defend her. That’s before we even get to Jacky, who single-handedly killed a third of the werewolves tonight.”
One agent stepped to the front and glared at Heath but backed down when Heath stepped closer, a growl vibrating his chest.
“Don’t cross lines for things you’re not willing to die for,” I said with a hiss. “The Dallas pack crossed a line tonight, and they will die for it. Your best option is to stay the fuck out of the way. This is old bad blood.” I glared at the other agents. “Don’t make new bad blood or I’ll treat you the same as I’m going to treat the Dallas pack.”
“We’re human—”
“When humans try to play games with supernaturals, they’re held to the same rules,” I snarled viciously. “That’s one of our laws. Hell, it’s one of yours, too. You don’t give protection to humans who work with our kind. Why do you think you should have them? Your entire job is to play games with us. I’d be willing to remind your bosses of that when I hand them your bloodstained badges.” Heath glanced over his shoulder at me, and I caught something in that look, something I couldn’t read.
“Either help us clean up the dead or leave,” Heath finished when he looked at the BSA agents again. “Leave the Dallas pack to us.”
“What are you going to do to them?” Mahoney asked.
“Destroy them.” Heath was back to his casual role as if these things were simple. “The actions tonight were of a desperate, dying pack. We’re just going to finish the job.”
“But why this?” an agent asked softly. “Why would they do this?”
“Because Jacky and I are going against an ancient feud by being in a relationship. Someone was bound to want us dead, eventually. My best guess is they think killing us will put them back on the map with some reputation.”
“Idiots,” I muttered. Heath nodded but kept looking at the agents.
“I explained this earlier,” he said, shaking his head.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” the one agent said, frowning.
“It’s some Romeo and Juliet bullshit if it’s true,” Mahoney muttered.
“When you have a bunch of immortals, these things take a long time to die. That's all I’ve got.”
“We’ll handle the bodies,” Bethany promised. “We’ll follow procedure and have them cremated within the next twelve hours.”
“Thank you.” Heath nodded his head to her. “They picked well when they found an agent for Jacky.”
“Right? Bethany is the best,” I said, feeling glad we had her. She wasn’t perfect, but she treated us with decency.
“We should know your plans about Dallas,” Mahoney said, stepping into the middle. “Heath—”
“Alpha Everson,” Heath snarled. “I might not have a large pack, but I have one, and my position demands respect. As for Dallas? They were once mine and are mine to deal with. I don’t have to tell you anything. We have no intention of killing humans unless they try to kill us. If humans get involved, we’ll call. If not? At the end of this, maybe we’ll talk. Just stay out of the way.”
“Listen to Alpha Everson, Anthony,” another agent said quietly, leaning near Mahoney’s ear. He was massive compared to the others, all muscle and over six feet in height. He even made Heath look normal. “Now is not the time to push around the angry supernaturals. We can talk another day. We’re running out of jurisdiction here. If they make it into a private fight, it’s not our business unless innocent humans are in clear danger. Since Heath isn’t going to walk his daughter into Dallas, we can assume she’ll be protected here while they deal with things.”
Mahoney cursed, then walked out of the room, leaving the big guy frustrated.
“We’ll keep some agents on standby to help protect her if you need it,” the soft woman added.
“I would take two agents, but not now,” Heath said, looking up at the ceiling. “We can’t do anything until we know Dirk’s fate, then we can make some decisions.”
“Then we’ll get out of the way for now. Considering the rural area, it’ll be easy to explain away the gunfire to the press if anyone bothers to ask.”
“Target practice,” I said softly.
“A bit of werewolf tactical training,” Heath added. “The humans we got out of the house before the attack saw nothing. They’ll know it was worse, but they have no details unless the sheriff or the local PD say anything.”
“They’re not allowed to explain anything, but we can do a follow-up,” Bethany said. “Call me in the morning?” she asked me.
“Sure.” I could do that if I was awake. “Sometime tomorrow.”
“That works for me. We’ll wait outside for the cleanup crew.”
We watched them file out. Heath and I didn’t move or say anything for another thirty minutes, listening to them load bodies and leave. He checked around the house, then inside the house, destroying no less than four listening devices planted around the downstairs.
“God, I hate them,” he snarled, throwing away the pieces.
“Want to talk in your office instead of… this?” I asked.
He nodded, and I led the way.
15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I didn’t sit down.
“Where do we even start?” I asked, rubbing my forehead.
“I have Ranger. He’s got a mangled leg I’ll have to amputate once I know he’s under control. There’s something wrong with him. There was something wrong with all the wolves, probably.”
“What do you mean?” I dropped my hand and watched as he paced behind his desk.
“They… looked like there was nothing in their eyes,” he said softly, shaking his head. “I looked one directly in the eyes, and I recognized his wolf, but there was nothing intelligent there, no sign of the human inside. I don’t know if you see it when you look at a werewolf or a werecat, but…”
“I mean, possibly, but I’ve never looked that hard,” I said carefully, finally sitting on the couch.
“I see it. I’ve seen it in every werewolf since…” Heath stopped pacing. “Since I became an Alpha, that’s when it became really obvious. Even with werewolves that aren’t mine, I can see into them, see who they are through the fur and know.” Heath ran his hand through his hair again. “I’ll get in trouble for telling you that. It’s an Alpha thing, and we guard those secrets even more so than any other. Landon can’t do it either.”
“We’re already in trouble,” I countered. “Dallas just declared war and tried to wipe us off the face of the earth. We’ll be in trouble when I get to Dallas and kill all of them. You can join me, of course, but nothing, not even you, can stop me.” Every time I repeated it, I grew more confident and comfortable.
“You’re not wrong. You could let me handle it on my own.”
“No, I can’t. I might be on the bad side of my family right now, but I am still Jacqueline, daughter of Hasan, his representative in the Americas. An act of war against me is an act of war against him. I can’t step back now.” I huffed, angry that was what I felt the need to say. It was far beyond politics at this point. “Even if I wasn’t, Dirk is my human, and they…” I growled. “Dirk, Carey, Oliver… our humans. They could have all died tonight. The attack already justifies it, and even if it didn’t, I’m still going to destroy that fucking pack for tonight.”
“Wow,” Heath whispered.
“What?”
“Sometimes, and this is by no means an insult, but sometimes, you can be just like him,” Heath said softly. “I can see the years you spent with him. I can see why he picked you as a daughter.”
I flushed. “God, I’m going to turn into a terrible person.”
“No,” he said gently, coming around his desk to sit next to me. “I don’t think you’re that much like him. It’s… it’s just sometimes, it can feel as if you’re channeling him. A power, a presence in the room like he has all the time. Then you come out saying something like, ‘I don’t need to deal with who is in charge in the room. I already know the answer.’ Maybe it’s a werecat thing, the ability to walk into a space and own it, but Hasan was always a master at it, and he’s your father. Then you went and threatened them, just like he would have, using their own rules against them to remind them of the power structure between us and changing the status quo at the same time. They were acting untouchable, and you changed their minds about it in an instant.”
