Chapter 15
15
REMY
I wiped a hand down my face as I dropped my phone onto my desk. Everything in me wanted to hit redial and keep myself tethered to Skye in any way I could. Frustration burned in my gut.
This was brutal. Thank fuck it was only a week because I couldn’t keep going much longer without her.
The restless pacing of my wolf burned in me as his agitation twisted and tangled with my own. I hated that she was so far away, and I was here. Completely useless to her if she needed me.
I balled my hand into a fist, barely resisting the urge to smash my fist into the drywall.
Someone knocked on my door.
“What?” I snapped, whirling and glaring at the door like it had personally offended me.
It cracked open, and Katy stuck her head in. She took one look at me and frowned. “Are you okay?”
I raked a hand through my messy hair, jerking on the ends roughly before sitting heavily on the edge of my bed. “No.”
She stepped inside before she closed the door and leaned against it. “What can I do? Want me to wake the others?”
The house was definitely full right now. Ryder and Dante were in one guest room, Larkin and Rhodes in the other. It was definitely easier to get more shit done with everyone being close by. Will had also offered to come up and stay in the house if I wanted, but we were out of extra bedrooms.
The Alpha house had been built decades earlier by my grandfather, and it was the largest residence in Blackwater. The sprawling cabin had a massive finished basement that served as meeting spaces for the council and had an office for the Alpha and his beta. Michael, my father’s first beta, typically used it.
The main floor was spacious with a massive kitchen, formal dining room that had enough seats for twenty people, a formal sitting area, an informal sitting room where we usually watched TV, and the master suite. The top floor had six bedrooms, which should have been plenty of room for the Alpha and his family... unless the Alpha had four kids, which was almost unheard of.
Blackwater was already growing as a pack, but the addition of the Brooks Ridge pack, and the possibility of needing to house more packs, was going to be an issue in the coming weeks. It was a good thing we had already begun construction on a new housing development outside of town.
Blackwater itself had a lot of land, and the outlying farmlands were owned by pack members. Space wasn’t the issue, but residential and commercial buildings required permits that went through human channels and took time.
Time we probably didn’t have.
Everything was pressing in on me to a level of suffocation I wasn’t used to. And, to top it all off, the person I needed most was on the other side of the damn world.
The man who I went to with everything was currently in a coma, and I didn’t want to bother Mom with shit I should be able to handle as Alpha.
This was on me, and I was already feeling the weight of choices made and decisions yet to come.
Katy pulled out the desk chair across from me and sat in it, pulling her knees up to her chest. “What’s going on?”
“What if I can’t do this?” I asked quietly, finally putting that question out into the universe. It had been plaguing me since the wheels of the plane had touched down in Blackwater.
She rested her chin on her knee and watched me curiously. “What makes you think you can’t do this?”
I spread my arms wide. “I’ve been Alpha less than a day and someone already challenged me. What if I’m doing the wrong thing by bringing in more packs?”
“Wrong by whose standards?” she countered calmly.
“Maybe the smart play is to seal the borders and let things fall wherever outside our doors.” The idea of doing nothing while Norwood ran around, unchecked, actually soured my stomach.
Her nose wrinkled. “You don’t believe that.”
No, I didn’t.
“Is it fair to make the pack pay for my choices?” I shrugged, not sure what the right course was. “What if I’m making a mistake?”
“What if you are?” she agreed. “What’s the worst that can happen? We save lives? We offer people hope or an alternative to being owned by Norwood?”
I stayed silent, digesting what she was saying.
She lowered her legs to the floor, leaning forward. “Norwood took Maren. They took Kit and Jayla, too, and who knows how many others. I highly doubt it’s some sort of pack exchange program.”
I rubbed my jaw and nodded.
“Norwood blew up the Summit,” she said quietly. “They killed dozens of men and women. They killed Luke, and almost killed Dad. They tried to kill you . Who else will hold them accountable if we don’t? We could close our borders, lock ourselves in and probably hold them off. But what about the smaller packs? Are you okay with letting them be overrun by Norwood or Long Mesa?”
She narrowed her eyes, fire sparking in their depths. “How many more little girls have to grow up being molested by grown men or listening to their mom being raped on a daily basis?”
Fuck me, that hurt.
The air whooshed out of me. Katy was right, of course.
What Skye and her mom had endured, what Zara and Bella had survived, was proof that Norwood, Long Mesa, and their allies needed to be stopped. And the honest truth was, Blackwater was the only pack that had enough power to attempt stopping them.
“When did you get so smart?” I asked wryly, shaking my head.
“I’ve always been brilliant,” she replied smugly as she stood up. “You just finally started to notice it.”
I got off the bed and smiled at her. “You’re wrong. I’ve always known how smart you are, Kit-Kat.”
B y the time I showered and came downstairs, Larkin was halfway into making breakfast for everyone. Sam stood next to her, watching as she explained the right time to flip a pancake over.
Rhodes was perched on a barstool, his gaze intently watching Larkin as she moved. His fingers tightened around his coffee mug as Sam’s shoulder innocently brushed Larkin’s.
He looked over as I approached, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Hey, man. How’d you sleep?”
“Shitty,” I admitted, walking to the coffee pot and pouring a cup into a mug. I joined him at the barstools. “Skye called me this morning.”
Larkin spun around so fast she slipped on the hardwood floor. Sam caught her before she put her hand down on the hot stovetop and helped her regain her balance.
Despite saving her from a burned hand, Rhodes growled at Sam, his expression darkening until my brother let go and took a step back from Larkin. He held up his hands innocently, eyes wide as he watched Rhodes warily.
“Is she okay?” Larkin demanded, coming around the side of the island until she was within distance of Rhodes. He snagged her around the waist and pulled her to his side, resting his head on her shoulder as they both looked at me.
“She’s good. I’ll fill you guys in on everything later. It’s late where she is, so she was going to go to sleep.”
Larkin kissed Rhodes before stepping away and moving back to the stovetop.
It was so natural, so effortless.
And it made me miss my mate all the more.
Rhodes cleared his throat, pulling me from my thoughts of Skye before I could spiral too far down.
I took a drink of the bitter liquid, flinching as it scalded my tongue.
“Where are we with Griffin?” he asked quietly.
I blew out a long breath. “He’s thinking about joining us, too.”
Rhodes’s brows went up. “No shit?”
“No shit,” I confirmed, taking another sip and praying the caffeine would somehow make things clearer.
“Would they come here, too?”
Larkin glanced back at us. “They have over a six hundred people in their pack, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Getting them would be big.”
She bit her lower lip, worrying it between her teeth. “But if they come here, that’s a lot more people we need to find housing for.”
“I don’t think they would come here,” I admitted. I didn’t see Griffin leaving his pack lands. His family had been there for hundreds of years. “But we need their numbers, and they need our support.”
“Joining us might be their only play,” Dante said as he entered the kitchen from the stairs, followed by Ryder.
Ryder sat down in the stool next to mine, but Dante stayed standing behind him, settling his hands on Ryder’s shoulders.
“Norwood has taken the packs in Missouri and Louisiana,” Dante explained, his gaze meeting mine with a type of seriousness that made my jaw clench.
“That was fast,” Rhodes grumbled.
Ryder leaned back against Dante’s chest. “That means even with us and Windale, Norwood now has more pack members than we do. If this turns into a dog fight, we’re seriously outnumbered.”
“But not outmatched,” Rhodes remarked darkly. “We could still take them if it came to it.”
Larkin put a loaded platter of pancakes on the island, but none of us reached for them. Her worried eyes met mine. “Will it come to that?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly, frowning into my coffee mug.
“What about the GPA packs that are our allies?” Sam asked, bracing his hands on the granite of the island. “We can count on them, right?”
“We’re behind the eight ball, kid,” Ryder told him grimly, drumming his fingers on the counter. “Norwood knew this was coming, so they’ve had time to plan. They have footholds across the country. Even if our allies don’t join them, Norwood has enough power and people to isolate them until they either give up or die unless we can move quickly.”
I steepled my fingers, thinking. “We need to lock down all the packs in the Pacific, especially the smaller ones.”
“It won’t be enough,” Katy said as she and Dax rounded out our group in the kitchen. “We need the Canadian packs, too, and we might want to look into some of the Southern packs.”
“Long Mesa is a Southern pack,” Larkin pointed out. “I don’t see them offering us much help.”
“And we wouldn’t fucking take it,” I retorted coldly. Once I was finished with Norwood, Long Mesa would be next. I would dismantle that pack shifter by shifter.
“But Long Mesa has a pretty significant enemy in the south that we could use,” Katy pointed out, pulling a pancake off the top of the pile and taking a bite. “Stone Valley.”
“But with the history they have with Addie, do you think they would join us?” Rhodes asked reluctantly.
“Maybe,” I said, thinking that over. Stone Valley was a decently sized pack based in Texas, but they were also friendly with most of the Mexican packs. Those packs had been their allies when they were warring with Long Mesa.
“But they may just see it as joining us means they’re against Long Mesa,” I mused, rubbing my jaw. “There’s still a lot of bad blood between those two packs.”
“Again, because of Addie,” Dante pointed out quietly. “She’s from Long Mesa, and the reason their feud started.”
I shot him a dark look. “Addie is Blackwater now, so it doesn’t fucking matter.”
“It might to them,” he said slowly, playing devil’s advocate.
“It might not,” Katy countered, leaning against the island. She reached for my coffee and took a drink before making a face. “Seriously, Rem? You can’t even use sugar?”
I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker. I was drinking it now for the caffeine buzz I needed thrumming in my veins, not for taste the way Sam and Katy did.
I scowled at her and grabbed the mug. “Get your own.”
She rolled her eyes and headed to the coffee pot.
“What’s the plan for today?” Dax asked, finally speaking up.
I glanced at my brother, frowning. “Don’t you have school?”
He snorted. “Dude, it’s the end of the fucking world and you want me to worry about school ?”
“You’re a kid, so yeah,” I snapped, glaring at him and then Sam.
“We can help,” Dax argued.
“You can help by getting your asses to school,” I replied archly.
Dax opened his mouth to argue and I cut him off.
“Dax, I don’t know what’s going to happen next week or next month,” I admitted, letting the weariness of the last few days into my tone. “So for now? Just... be a kid.”
Larkin turned to both the twins and gave them a soft smile. “Actually, it’s probably for the best if you two are in school. It will help the younger kids see that there’s nothing to worry about if they know you guys aren’t missing.”
Dax sighed, still annoyed, but Sam seemed to understand what she was saying.
The two of them should have been finishing out the last months of their school year with the pack before going to GPA in the fall. The school for the pack covered grades kindergarten through ninth in one building.
Sam and Dax were Holts, part of the Alpha family. Like it or not, the kids looked up to them.
“Let’s go get ready,” Sam said finally, coming around the other side of the island and motioning for Dax to follow him.
Katy waited until they were upstairs before she snorted. “Are we supposed to go to school, too?”
I frowned. After GPA had closed, a makeshift school was set up for those students. I had been doing a hybrid version of it at home since I needed to go over plans for the Summit. But looking around the room, I realized none of us had any idea if or when we would be going back to school to finish our senior year.
Shit. I hadn’t really stopped to consider that pulling my friends into council duties might be fucking up their college plans.
“I already talked to Amanda,” Larkin said, lifting her chin as she mentioned one of the teachers from GPA. “She’s going to compile all of our assignments on a weekly basis so we don’t fall behind. They’re giving us a lot of leeway to get them done, and counting a lot of what we’re doing for the pack as independent study. Anything you guys fall behind in any of the basics, I’ll tutor you or she will.”
I smiled at her as Rhodes grabbed her around the waist, kissing her neck.
“I love when you tutor me,” he said playfully, nipping at her throat.
Blushing, Larkin ducked her head.
I cleared my throat. “Thanks, Lark.”
“What’s on the agenda today?” Ryder asked, leaning forward.
“Larkin and I are meeting with the architect for the new houses,” Katy spoke up, sipping her coffee. “We’re hoping we can expedite the timeline and have the first houses done this week.”
“Is that even a possible timeline?” I knew shit about building houses, but ten days to have a house built seemed kind of fast to me.
“We have all the materials on site,” Larkin replied with a nod, “and they broke ground while you were at the Summit. We have the permits and everything already in place, and several men have volunteered to help out.”
“I can come, too,” Ryder offered. “I can probably bring another fifteen or twenty people from our pack to help.”
“That would be great,” Katy said with a smile.
“I guess we’re on the phone tree again?” Rhodes asked, looking at me. “Calling packs?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“If you want Stone Valley, you’ll have to make that call personally,” Dante told me grimly.
I finished my coffee. “Let’s get to work.”