22

paladin

WE'D GONE THROUGH and discarded four or five different strategy ideas. We could not rush the house, because there were too many of them, and it would be a slaughter. We could not sneak in, because there were too many of us. Plus, after I'd snuck in today, there was probably tighter security. The best idea we had was a siege, all of us surrounding them with guns, but we felt like this could go on for a really long time and it wasn't ideal.

We were all together in a room in the top of the farmhouse that had a pool table and dartboard. There were some mismatched easy chairs all gathered together in a semi-circle in one corner. That was where we were all sitting now. Me, Liam, Greg, and several other wolves who'd lost mates the night before.

"I mean, we're taking a risk with this," I was saying, "because if we say that we'll lower the siege if they let our mates out, what's to stop them bringing our mates out and threatening to shoot them if we don't lower the siege. Two can play that game, so I think we need to think of these issues as distinct. The first step needs to be getting the mates back and the second step needs to be worrying about the leadership in this region, toppling Red, whatever."

"Well, if you want us to support your bid for wolf boss," Liam said, "then you get us our women back, Paladin. "

I blinked at him. What had he just said? "Wait, you don't think that I'm trying to be boss."

"Well, who else?" said Liam.

My lips parted, and my mind went entirely blank.

The door to the room opened, and Kestrel came in, walking toward me with a purpose.

I let out a laugh. "Kestrel, tell them I could never be wolf boss."

"You couldn't," said Kestrel immediately. "Can I talk to you?"

"I mean, I need a chore chart," I said with a little laugh.

"Alone," said Kestrel.

Liam eyed Kestrel. "You got your girl back, but the rest of us are not so lucky, so if you don't mind, that's priority number one right now."

"I need to talk to you," said Kestrel, glaring at me.

I got up, lifting a finger. "I'll be back, guys."

"But we're in the middle—"

"He's pack," I said. "And he's my pack leader, so…" I gave Kestrel a grin. What about him running the place? What about him as the boss? Huh. It had possibilities.

Kestrel yanked me out into the hallway, and he shut the door to the room we'd been in. "We need to think about what's best for Clementine."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, if you were the boss, that would—"

"Lazarus and I think we should run."

"Run?" I was stunned.

"Take her and go. Far away, where no one knows us. We'll start over."

I scratched the side of my neck, not saying anything at all. Then I wandered down the hallway to look out the window. It was evening now, and the sun was starting to sink on the horizon. I gazed out at the rolling farmland, at the sky turning purple.

There was a car approaching.

"Look, I know you're enjoying pretending this is some game or something, Paladin, and it's probably fun when everyone thinks you're the shit, but I want you to remember what happens when you go all-in on this side of yourself, and how bad it can get and—" He broke off because there was a gunshot, one of Liam's guys firing a warning shot at the approaching car. "Jesus."

I leaned forward, touching the glass, trying to make out that car. Was that a car that had come from Red's compound? I turned to look at Kestrel. "Hold this thought, okay? I issued an invitation to the wolves at Red's, and I'm thinking some of them have taken me up on it."

"An invitation?" said Kestrel.

I grinned at him. I pressed in close and kissed his jaw. "Hold that thought, please?" And then I scurried down the stairs and out onto the front lawn, running to intercept the car.

I waved up over my head at the shooters at the windows to hold their fire.

I hurried over to the driver's side.

The guy inside was one I recognized from the steps today, when I pulled Noah down with me as my shield. "You going to balk on your word?" he said. "You said if we came to your side by nightfall, you wouldn't retaliate against us."

"I did say that," I said.

He yanked out a pistol and put it in my face.

I laughed. "You don't have a lot of faith in my word. That much is obvious."

"Well, I don't even know," he said. "If you really can trigger a shift at will, I imagine that shooting you does nothing."

This was… wow. I had not anticipated how mythic I had become in these wolves's heads, thanks to rumor undoubtedly. They were fucking terrified of me.

My mind was working overtime, thinking about how to use this. "Okay, okay, hold up. Let me ask you a question. Did you advertise the fact you defected to Red? Was it a big blow-up, like you giving him the finger and riding off into the sunset?"

"Do we look particularly stupid to you?" said the guy with the pistol in my face .

"So, no one knows you left?" I was grinning really wide.

"I mean, the car's gone, so they're going to figure out—" He broke off.

I opened up the door to the backseat of the car. "Scoot," I said to the guys sitting back there. "We can work with them figuring it out, as long as someone can get back inside." I thought about it. "Uh, probably two someones, maybe three."

The others scooted. I climbed inside and pulled the door shut.

The guy who was driving turned around to look at me. "What the fuck?"

I leaned forward. "Look, life on this side of the walls is shit, and we all know it. Except for the gatherings, it's basically constant pain and suffering. You got wolves above you ordering you around and wolves beneath you demanding you look out for them and you have the punishing elements of fighting nature itself for basic survival demands. It's hard. I can't do anything about the elements of nature, of course, but what I can do is take all that pressure from the top off of you."

"What do you mean?" said one of the wolves next to me.

"I run this place, the goal is for every wolf to have his own space. You choose to live with a few other guys like I do, that's on you, but no one is forced to do that. Your own house, a chance to mate someone, a chance to forge your own destiny."

It was entirely silent in the car.

"What did Red promise you?" I said.

"You know what Red said," said the guy from the driver's seat. "I'm guessing you want us to go back there now?"

"I do," I said.

"Are we spearing your armed insurrection against Red?" he said.

"No," I said. "We're rescuing the mates. If we can pick up some more of Red's supporters on the way, that's not a problem, though." I paused. "So, Red promised unlimited pussy?"

They all just snorted.

"But is that what you want, really?" I said. "Unlimited variety of pussy, but all of it unwilling, all of it terrified, all of it something you wake up the next day and sort of regret, because you want, once, just once, someone to want you?"

"You can't promise that," said the guy in the driver's seat, as he pulled the car out and pointed us back in the direction of the compound.

"Are you that unwantable?" I said with a little laugh. "I'm fucking Paladin Gilman. You think if I can find a mate, someone who wants me, you think that doesn't mean it's not possible for anyone? "

We drove in silence, and none of them said anything for a while.

"What's the plan?" said the guy who was driving.

"All in good time," I said, because I did not exactly know what the plan was yet. I was still working on the plan. I probably shouldn't have just jumped in this car like this, but I was going with it. It felt right even if I couldn't quite make it make sense yet. My rational brain was going to catch up, though, I was positive. Leap, and then make it work, that was my current working plan. Fuck.

This had every chance of blowing up in my face.

"Griff says that the tithes are mate potentials," said one of the guys. "He says that by sharing them amongst a ton of wolves, it diminishes the chance of bonding. But that means that every gathering, it's first come, first serve on the tithes and some wolves get left out with nothing to fuck."

"All those tithes who stop being tithes at the full moons are mates who never found their mate," I said. "If each one of those mated a wolf, then that wolf wouldn't even need to come to the gatherings anymore, because he'd be set."

"So, after we mate, we're punished by being confined to one pussy forever," said one of the guys sarcastically.

"No, it's not like that," I said. "After you mate, you get that one pussy forever."

"You're just like Griff," said another of the guys. "What is it, like, you get mated, and then it zaps your brain in some way and it makes you dumb?"

"Makes you soft," countered another of the guys. "Even Red now, he's soft."

"We should have just let Griff out instead of coming for Paladin," said the guy sitting next to me.

"Wait," I said. "Griff's alive?"

"You didn't know that?" said the driver.

"Okay," I said. "New plan. Here's what we're going to do."

kestrel

HOLD THAT THOUGHT , he said.

Hold that thought.

And then he got in the back seat of some car and drove the fuck off without a goddamned word to anyone about what he was doing, including Liam, who he was in the middle of scheming with.

If Paladin did not get himself killed, I was going to kill him myself.

As night fell on Liam's farm, Lazarus pushed for us to go back to our farmhouse, pack what we needed, and get ready to leave.

"But if we can't get Paladin on board, then what?" I said.

Lazarus didn't say it out loud, but we both thought about leaving without Paladin, and I rejected it immediately. No way, not without Paladin, never without Paladin.

It was hard to say what my feelings were for Paladin or which Paladin it was that I had fallen in love with—the hurt and scared Paladin, the guilty Paladin, the fierce and vicious Paladin, the whipsmart Paladin who had a plan to solve anything (except, of course, getting his ass into the chicken coop every morning). Whatever it was with Paladin, it was complicated.

But leaving him behind?

Not an option.

I guessed I shouldn't have been surprised when he showed up two hours after he left with all of the mates piled into two different cars and four other cars filled with defectors from Red's compound.

They were all chattering about what he'd done.

He'd let Griff out—who even knew Griff was still alive, right?—and sicced Griff on Red. While the two of them were in the middle of yelling at each other, he'd used that as a distraction and gotten all the mates out of the compound. While loading them into cars, he was making threats and promises, telling all of the men there to leave Red and follow him.

Follow him .

After he just got done saying, not very long ago, that he could not be the werewolf boss of this place.

I finally got to him, and I took him by the shoulders and shook him. "What the fuck?" was all I managed.

He kissed me.

In front of everyone, which… there was a point in time where maybe I would have cared if it looked like I had a homosexual relationship that was like that , but he was now whatever he was. The Paladin, and they were all following him and talking about him like he was some hero. I guessed if he wanted to kiss a man like that, he could do what he wanted.

I rested my forehead on his shoulder and groaned. "What the fuck?"

"There's more coming," he said into my ear. "We ran out of cars, but almost everyone left."

"I thought you couldn't be the boss."

"I was thinking you'd do it," he said.

I lifted my head from his shoulder and shook it furiously. "No. For fuck's sake, no."

He considered. "Okay, well, we'll work this out."

"Paladin," I growled. "Do you think before you act?"

"I'm realizing I do my best work on the fly," he said with a little grin, and he was gorgeous.

I kissed him again.

He clutched both sides of my face and looked into my eyes in that desperate way of his.

"Fuck," I muttered.

"Clementine?" he said.

"With Lazarus," I said. "You want me to take you to them?"

"Yes," said Paladin. "But I need to find Liam first, tell him what's coming down the pike."

clementine

I WORMED MY way closer to Paladin, despite whatever it was that Lazarus was saying. I needed to get to Paladin, because it had come to my attention that Lazarus and Kestrel had lost their damned minds.

I wasn't sure why Paladin would be on my side, but I knew he would be. I didn't want to run, to leave the farmhouse, to strike off into the unknown wilderness, far away from the gate. I didn't want that at all.

We were outside on the lawn outside Liam's farmhouse. It was dark. There were swarms of people everywhere. Men were reuniting with their mates, holding them close. But for every beautiful reunion, there was another woman who was finding out her mate had been killed the night before, and she was sitting on the grass, sobbing into another woman's arms, someone who'd also lost her mate.

Added to that, there were a ton of other wolves appearing. They all seemed to be defectors from Red's compound, and they were showing up now on foot, walking towards the house in groups of three or four.

"I just don't get why you brought them here," Liam was saying. "I never wanted to erect myself as the de facto focal point for the rebellion against Red. If Red comes here, if he hurts Wendy, I'm putting that on your head." Wendy was his mate. He had his arm around her, even now, and she was gazing up at him with a look of pure adoration on her face.

"Okay, I get that," said Paladin, "and I see your position. But Red is busy with Griff right now, so it's not a big deal. And anyway, maybe Griff just takes back over, who knows."

"No one wants Griff," said Liam. "They want you. Take them to your fucking farmhouse. They can sleep on your porch and in your bathtubs."

Lazarus tugged on me. "Paladin, we need to talk," he said.

I pushed Lazarus away and vaulted myself at Paladin.

He lit up when he saw me. "Clementine," he breathed.

I pressed in close to Paladin. "Hey," I said.

He caressed my face, all of his focus entirely on me. "Hey."

Liam sighed. "I mean it. I'm going to start shooting into the air and yelling that people don't have to go home but they can't stay here. I don't know where you want the new compound to be. Maybe you should just go occupy Red's compound—Griff's compound—"

"I don't want there to be a compound at all," said Paladin, but he said it to me, tracing the lines of my cheekbone. "I don't think there's any reason for people to live like that. It's no good for us. We need community, yeah, but we need individual freedom, too."

"So, then how does that even work?" said Liam. "Where will they all live?"

"There's like fifteen huge houses in that subdivision," Paladin said. "I mean, how many guys does he have in that monstrosity of a house he built onto now? They could spread out. Two or three of them to a house out there, and it'd be fine."

"Sure, but they won't organize themselves into that," spoke up Lazarus, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Tell them that and they'll just start fighting amongst themselves."

"This is to say nothing of the fact," said Liam, "that there are packs all over this area who still think they're loyal to Griff and have no idea that Red staged a coup or that you just staged another one, or—"

"Okay, sure, but the problem right now is where everyone sleeps tonight, isn't it?" I said .

Everyone looked at me as if they were shocked and horrified to hear my voice.

"They're not sleeping here," said Liam.

"Yeah, but if I jostle them around right after they defected from Red," said Paladin, "then…"

"Then," I supplied, "it will make them think you don't know what you're doing, and they'll doubt that they're supporting the right guy."

"Exactly, sweetheart," said Paladin, grinning at me. He looked at Liam. "We lose them. And we need to create an environment that is safe for our mates. You don't want to be constantly on guard against someone coming to take Wendy, do you?"

Wendy buried her face against Liam's shirt.

"Who's left at the compound?" I said.

Paladin thought about it. "Well, when we left, Griff and Red were yelling at each other in the kitchen, but they weren't trading blows. Yet, anyway. Madge and Noah were just watching. So, those four are in the house. We took four cars of people—two of them were full of the ten mates. There were twelve more guys that came and probably there are twelve more who've walked. That could mean we left five guys loyal to Red back there?"

"So, we go back and let them sleep in their own beds," I said. "Because that many guys can handle five stragglers."

Paladin scratched his chin. "I just made them leave, Clementine."

"Yeah," I said, "and now you rally them all up together with a big speech about how they picked the right side, and now, together, you're going to go back and take what is theirs. You know, ‘You going to let Red keep you from your own bed tonight?'"

Paladin considered. "You know, that could work." He kissed my temple. "You're smart."

"And I'm coming with you," I said. "Because I have to make sure that you don't fucking hurt Noah."

"Who's Noah?" said Lazarus.

"Red's mate," said Paladin.

"He has a mate?" said Lazarus, and now he was seething. "How could he have done this?"