Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Rory

That annoying saying, up to the elbows in this or that, was so often true if you were a butcher. Up to your elbows was a nice way of putting things. Generally, when he really got into it, Rory was more like up to his eyeballs and wasn't that just even more cliché.

Classical music had been playing from the ancient turntable over by one of the large windows that lined the butcher shop's back. When they'd built the place for his father, Zacharias hadn't opted just for a nice storefront. He needed light to work. Much of his time was spent in the back. He'd said a good butcher shop needed to be properly equipped and that meant more than just drains, stainless steel counters and easy cleanup. It meant letting the outside world in.

"Dad!" Fraiser burst through the back door, slamming it shut and leaning hard against it. He was panting and had that chased, ghostly look about him like a monster was stalking him.

Rory immediately raced to the door, cleaver raised in his hand, ready to save his son from whatever demons were at his back.

"No!" Fraiser grasped his bloody forearm and shoved his other hand into his heavy black leather apron. "No, nothing's out there." Fraiser always had been a sensitive child.

Just turned seventeen, Fraiser was a product of the old ways, born to a human woman who Rory met briefly during the summer. He'd been one of the lucky ones who hadn't had to bribe or steal back his own child or get a doctor to lie to the poor mother and tell her that the child hadn't survived the birth. He'd contemplated leaving the clan for Giselle before she ever found out she was pregnant. They'd met while she was working at a resort, but she got weekends off and often passed through Greenacre. She'd stopped in one day a few weeks into their season because something had gone wrong, and they hadn't received their meat shipment. She knew there was a butcher shop in Greenacre, and she wanted anything they could spare.

He'd been instantly smitten, but she was the kind of woman who'd easily make any man take notice. She'd been a natural beauty and Fraiser had inherited her jet-black hair and dark eyes, shades darker than Rory's. Giselle was twenty to his thirty-one. Her plans didn't include children until much later. When he'd offered marriage and promised himself he'd later explain everything to her about who he really was, she'd politely declined. She told him straight up she would have the baby and put it up for adoption if he didn't want to raise it, but he certainly did. She'd given birth with him right there with her, but she hadn't wanted to look at or hold the baby she was going to lose. He understood. They'd had paperwork drawn up by a lawyer he'd hired weeks before.

"There's no one after me," Fraiser clarified. "The twins are fine. They're still at school. It's been locked down and the whole place is on high alert."

"What?" Rory stumbled back. How the hell had he not known about this?

"It just happened. Err, twenty minutes ago, I guess. Kier and Tavish and a few of the other men came to the school and took us older kids with them to alert the rest of the clan. They need to be with Sam and Lily right now."

The cleaver fell from his fingers, which had suddenly gone numb. They got their meat from local farmers. Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens. He could butcher anything. They'd had a few cows come in and since the cooler attached to the back of the shop was massive, he'd had all three hanging in there, aging for the past ten days. His job might be unsavory to most people, but he'd inherited the shop and position from his father a few years before his death. He'd been at home in the shop since before he could even toddle around. Back in the old days of the clan, there were far fewer females. That was a problem before they opened up. There was no one to watch him and so the job had fallen to his father.

"What happened?" Rory choked out. The mess of blood and gristle and bone still topped one stainless steel surface while the other long table was more neatly ordered with packaging supplies and fresh cuts of meat.

"Two women drove into town. They thought they were tourists at the gate, and they went down main street, so they weren't followed."

Rory didn't curse as a rule, but he closed his eyes and said a few silent fucks in his head. If it had been Tavish and Kier at the gates, it never would have happened, but they'd been training a new wave of guards. Even so, those men were responsible for the protection of their clan and had been for years now. They should have known to at least alert those in the clan to keep an eye on the clan.

Is this what happened when they opened up and allowed more and more tourists through every year since their clan and the number of businesses had grown dramatically?

"They went straight to Sam and Lily's cabin and one of them challenged Sam."

Rory grasped the edge of the table. His bloodied knuckles turned white. There wasn't much that could turn his stomach after decades of butchering, but this did. Sam was their alpha, but he was also one of Rory's closest friends. He and Sam, Kier, Tavish, and Trace—they were all just a few years apart and they'd grown up together. With Fraiser, Rory had watched all of their kids for years when they were young. Now, there was enough help at the school that even the smallest kids could go.

"The twins." Words trickled past the terrible lump lodged in his throat.

"They're fine," Fraiser assured him again, moving away from the door like he needed to hold his dad up. Fraiser was now as tall and strong as Rory was himself. "Everyone is fine. Sam and Lily included. The two women are at his cabin right now."

"Being detained?"

"No. Lily is making them tea and they're discussing-"

"No." Rory slammed his palm down on the bloodied stainless steel. "No, they are not discussing."

"They are…"

Rory ripped off his apron. He didn't even stop at the sink to wash his hands before he stalked to the back door and flung it open. Fraiser trailed after him, coated in the black cloud of rage he was throwing off. He knew his son didn't understand his reaction. He made that obvious when he grasped Rory's arm and tugged hard on it, trying to get him to stop.

"They're not discussing," Rory sputtered. "Because that's insanity. We can't just let outsiders come to this clan and challenge our alpha for leadership just like that. Do you know what that would do to the sanctity and peace of this place? I know Sam wants Greenacre to be a haven for shifters seeking refuge, but that was not the intent here. The intent was to murder and steal and probably displace us all."

"Dad!" Fraiser tugged hard, which forced Rory off balance. For a second, he swayed, and then came to a complete stop. He whipped around to his son, who wasn't the least bit afraid. His dark eyes glittered and his fingers only bit harder into Rory's flesh. "Dad, stop. Don't you think Sam knows what he's doing?"

"I think Sam and Lily are too kind, and one day someone is going to take advantage of that."

He couldn't say that one day, Sam was going to get himself killed. That was wrong. It was bad luck to even think it, but there it was, and with it, another rush of dangerous anger and grief. Sam was the best man he knew. He was the best man, let alone alpha, that anyone had ever known. He was more than just protective of his alpha and good friend. He was going to save Sam from himself before the unthinkable happened.

"Tavish and Kier are there. Sam told them to go to the school first, and there are the other men who are already in action, locking everyone down and keeping everyone safe. I said they're talking, but it's more than just a nice conversation over tea and cookies. You know how Sam is. He's still dangerous, even when he's being nice."

Rory heaved a long breath. Fraiser wasn't just his equal now in height. He was growing up in every way and that included intelligence and wisdom. "I suppose it wouldn't do to burst in and throttle a woman."

"Or anyone who might be our alpha's guest," Fraiser added.

Rory shook free of Fraiser's hold again. He swiped a hand through his hair, realizing his fingers were sticky with dried blood.

"I suppose not, especially looking like I've just left a murder scene either."

"I don't think that matters, but if you're going, you should go as a concerned member of this clan and act with decorum. Others will likely end up there too. Having a mob at the front door isn't something Sam is going to appreciate."

"A woman," Rory repeated, mulling over the unthinkable. "Came to challenge. A complete stranger?"

"I think so. We don't know much, but no one knew who she was. She was a bear, though. They fought and Sam won just about immediately. He had his teeth over her throat when Lily made him stop. He wasn't going to hurt her. Sam would never kill someone, especially not a stranger who might have god knows what kind of connections out there."

"It's not just unthinkable." He ran his hand down his face. He was probably caked in blood there too. No wonder people hated the word butcher and reserved blood baths for horror films. At the same time, he'd like to look at this woman—this bear and put the fear of god into her. "It's bizarre."

"Shifters don't just come here to risk their life to challenge our alpha. This has never happened before. It's unthinkable because it is beyond comprehension. She must have had a reason. She must know something we don't and if there's more like her out there, then it's a good thing Sam is sitting down with her to figure that out. He needs to know how to protect us and how to guide us as alpha."

Rory chewed that over too. He didn't like it, not a single bit of it. He didn't like that someone had just walked in and got at his alpha. He didn't like that they might have had some kind of prior knowledge that allowed them to put together a plan that allowed them to do so. They were careful about being watched, but the clan wasn't impenetrable. With so many new shifters joining, it was now not beyond the realm of possibility that the animals around them were more than just that of the forest and mountains and sky. A drone was easy to pick out and they could stop cars at the gates if they chose. They patrolled their borders, but they didn't know how to guard against every animal populating the earth. They'd go crazy if they did.

He didn't like that there were new enemies out there, new and those not so new but new to them, cropping up out of dust and thin air. They'd almost lost Greenacre itself to one such enemy, before he learned he was part of the clan. There were scientists who'd chased some of them right to their doorstep. Opening came with the dangers they expected and all those they hadn't foreseen, and it was still happening.

"Dad?" Fraiser's hands hovered near his side, ready to grab for Rory again if it looked like he was going to take one step back on a thoughtless warpath to Sam's cabin.

He turned back around. "I'll wash up and we'll go together. You're right. I'm sure the entire clan has questions. We'll go wait for answers like everyone else."

It went unspoken that should he be needed to defend his clan or his alpha, he'd be ready. It didn't matter that he was the least likely butcher, since he'd always been quiet and honestly, quite sensitive, so it didn't matter either that he was the least likely member of the place to vote on vengeance or carry it out. He'd summon whatever it took, and he'd do whatever it took. He'd fight, if it was required. To the death, even, if the situation demanded it. Greenacre was everything to him. To all of them.

They couldn't lose it.