45. Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Four

Locke

I firmly struck the gavel on the polished wooden pulpit, its sharp thud reverberating through the room. The restless chatter persisted, and my impatience grew. No one knew when to shut the fuck up.

Idris wasn't dead.

Bram explained it simply that since there was no body, a necromancer was still alive.

Of course he was, Idris was a damn cockroach.

Later, we were having a meeting to discuss further but right now I had another issue to deal with, and it was a bunch of naggy pack members that had the attention span of a goldfish.

I had no MC members strong enough to go through the ritual to become bonded to the pack and be given a link. Only the mated were sealed to the pack. Their souls were strong enough to take the magic that Tajah had weaved, bonding the pack together with Emm and I.

The few that were strong enough were the prospects. They were freshly rejected, and they fought alongside us dealing with Idris and his followers.

"What the fuck do we do now?" I said, as Morpheus stood in the middle of the crowd.

The pews were a little worse for wear now. The roof was collapsing, holes let the moon shine in, and bats had taken up home in the attic. I guess, since we were staying here longer than any of us ever planned, the bear shifters might need to get in here and fix the place up.

I sighed. More money out of our pockets.

I dropped the gavel, rubbed my hands together and pressed my index fingers to my lips. "If you don't sit the fuck down, I'll give you something to do, Morpheus."

The crowd shut up after that, the pews groaning under the pressure of the added weight.

My luna, who sat beside me, nudged my leg. She gazed up at me, shaking her head. Emm was a leader now, and she was trying to keep me grounded - ey word was trying. I usually hid behind a mask of indifference, or a smile that would ward people away from me, but now I was just irritated.

Q and A was not my forte and everyone had questions.

"We don't know what we are going to do." My claws lengthened, and I scratched the end of the pulpit. My pack watched on as I let the curls of the wood fall to the floor. "I'm meeting with Bram and Tajah, and they might have some insight into what we are dealing with."

We hadn't had a debriefing from the fight. I was too busy taking care of my mate, the pack rebuilding and healing. None of that was as important as dealing with the right now.

"Any other questions?" I raised an eyebrow, but the fidgeting in the pack's seats was enough for me to know that they didn't want to tick me off further.

I didn't have a lot of answers, I just knew we were safe. Idris wouldn't fucking step foot here again. He wouldn't be as stupid as to lose his memory again, like he did the first time. We were a pack. The strong ones had mind-links. We had the fae here. If there was any fighting going on, we would have to go to them.

A small hand raised in the crowd, it waved high as it stretched. A smile came to my lips, and I nodded in its direction. "Yes, Luis, you got somethin' to say?"

Luis stood up beside Surkash, and put a hand on the naga's shoulder to steady himself. He stood up tall, not giving a damn that everyone in the room wasn't human. He knew of everyone's past, that most of them were broken, just like his new father was.

And that was why he latched onto all the men here.

And, he was one of the only humans, who may never be mated, who could know that shifters were real. Damn the Royal Council if they found out, because he had a whole pack that would fight for this kid. Rogue, rabid, mated, didn't matter.

Luis pushed his shoulders back and saluted. Everyone chuckled while Emm's fanged smile spread across her face.

"I was just wondering when everyone was going to hurry and find their mates, so they can do that link thing. It makes everyone stronger, too, so you can kick that Idris dude's butt, right?"

The crowd murmured, shoving each other. Surkash adjusted his shirt and cleared his throat.

"Well, some men and women here haven't met them yet, it takes time. And when they do, they'll claim ‘em and make them theirs." I smiled down at my mate, rubbing the mark on her shoulder.

"But Surkash keeps starin' at one girl's butt and won't do nothin' about it!" Luis yelled over the crowd.

The pack roared with laughter as Surkash covered Luis' mouth and had him sit down. He whispered in Luis' ear whose face lit up. "You'll give me your old snake skins! Cool!"

Ahh, way to shut up a kid.

We adjourned the meeting. Luis joined Emm and I on the stage and I picked him up, to settle on my arm. He played with the patch on my cut, staring at the logo embroidered into the fabric.

"Why do you call your vest a cut?" Luis asked, when we went into the old bishop's office.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know, that's what bikers called them. I just picked up on the lingo."

Satisfied with my answer, I set him down and he ran to Beretta, who had a handheld video game contraption in her hand. He climbed on her lap and grabbed it, as she put a set of headphones on his ears.

"You know, you're hot when you take care of kids." Emm nudged me when I sat down at the round table.

The inner circle was here, with their mates sitting in their laps.

"Yeah, you wanting some pups soon?"

Emm's face went pale and she shook her head. "Ah, uh, no, I haven't—"

I placed a tender kiss on her lips and rubbed my hand over her soft belly. "It's alright, I never saw myself as a family man. If you ever want them, I'll give you a pup and be the best father. If not, I'm happy with that, too."

Emm physically relaxed and leaned into me.

"I'd like to take things slower. I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no."

I got it. Hell, she went from a loner to a luna of a pack in a month. But fuck, would she look good with a rounded belly and milk dripping from her tits.

When she orgasms, I bet they would just leak and I could lick every drop that ran down the underside of her—

"Alpha!" Sizzle snapped and ran his hand down his face. "We are all here."

I looked around the room and saw Bram pulling on his collared shirt and clearing his throat.

"My bad, my mate is just stunning today." I lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to it.

Delilah nudged Hawke and whispered in his ear, "You like the way my milk tastes, right?"

Oh fuck, did I say all that shit out loud?

"Yes, you did," Emm linked, "and have you ever heard of induced lactation?"

My body sat up straight in my chair when Bram pulled out a notebook from his back pocket. He twirled the pen in his hand, but all I could hear was lactation.

"Alpha Locke, you know that I can still hear inside shifters' minds, right? I'm not that far gone, yet."

My eyes narrowed, and I grabbed hold of my mate's breast. Emm squirmed in her seat when all the eyes were on her. "I don't mind you looking, but touching and drinking from my mate is a big no-no."

"Goddess help me," he ran a hand down his face. "No, Alpha, I'm trying to explain how to kill Idris."

Oh.

"Right, yes, uh. So, you did figure it all out. How to kill him? Properly, I mean?"

Bram cleared his throat again, his back leaning against the wall. The room was silent while we waited for him to begin.

Bram was old, and no one really knew just how old. He was rejected like the rest of us but, somehow, his power had kept him alive all this time. He was Tajah's professor and mentor. Having two sorcerers on our side was great, well, until Bram found his mate.

"I've gone through every scroll and parchment I own about necromancers, specifically ones with dark fae. There are several routes you can go to become a necromancer and I think I've discovered the path that he has taken, and which way to destroy him."

You could almost hear a pin drop, besides the buttons clicking in the corner where Luis was playing his game in Beretta's lap. She engulfed him, petting his hair, grooming him like a feline, licking her palm and then his hair.

"Necromancers can take several paths to grow and use their powers, but I will name just a few. One is to bring the dead back to life, take the soul once departed, and bring it to the living plane. Another is to bring demons from the underworld and have them possess a body. They can do up to five demons at once."

Nadia shifted in Bear's seat, and he held onto her tightly.

"The third and final one I want to talk about is the ability to bring oneself back. If Idris dies, then he will come back to life himself."

"And that, is the one he has learned to use," Tajah added. "Idris is powerful. He can take the hits. The venom weakens him, putting him in a weakened state. Such as with Journey's bite the first time. Once the fire consumed him, he died." She put her fingers in air quotations. "The next time he was weakened with Alpha and Luna's bites, with their venom. It was enough to drown him in the water with Anaki."

Sizzle put the Glock he was holding on his lap, onto the table. "It takes that much to weaken him enough, to be killed by a weak element." He shook his head. "That makes little sense."

Bram chuckled and looked at his paper. "But it does. He's weakened enough so an element can consume him. Even a necromancer has its limits, he cannot be brought back an infinite amount of times."

I leaned back in my seat and ran my hand down my face. "So, when he wanted me to push my hand into his chest, to take out his heart—"

"Your signature move," Grim grumbled.

"-it wouldn't have killed him?" I asked.

Bram huffed, "No, it wouldn't have counted as a kill. He needs to be killed by an element for it to count. His body would have dissipated and regenerated in his respawning designation."

Beretta growled in the corner. "I'd love to know where his respawning spot is. We could attack right when he bounced back."

Oh, that would be devilish.

"Alright, fire, water. What else?" Emm asked.

"Earth and air," Bram said.

Hawke shuffled Delilah and their daughter in his seat. "That's why we could get those humans out of the mansion so easily. The fae were all over the place." Hawke tapped the table with this knuckle. "Then he had his men trap all the fae before the fight. When they got loose, he retreated into the woods. He was scared of getting choked by a vine or something. Earth—the soil, the branches, anything that extends from it."

Bram and Tajah nodded.

"But he ran straight toward the lake," Emm said. "He was right there."

"He didn't know," I growled. "Idris didn't know the lake was there, and he was hoping we wouldn't figure it out, either. He wanted me to rip out his heart and crush it, and he could disappear. Then, he would have another chance."

"Damn him!" Grim growled and slammed his fist on the table. Journey jumped, then rubbed her hands over his face to calm him down.

Grim settled his nose into her shoulder to calm himself. He was pissed and hell, I was too, but no sense in losing our shit now. We couldn't do a damn thing about it.

"But what about that demon," Bear barked. "The one that messed with Nadia in her head?"

Bram looked at Nadia sympathetically and lowered his shoulders. "It was Idris that either ordered it or helped summon it, but it wasn't all him. He had help, and with enough sorcerers, they all could have used their magic to pull that demon out of the underworld."

Nadia swallowed, but she didn't show any fear. She looked relieved. Bear, however, looked crazed, like was ready to fuck her all over again to stake a claim.

Which was a great reason to end the meeting.

"Right," I said standing. "We need to kill the fucker. We know how, just when and where is the question. I say we take some time. It would be better if we could get more couples mated."

I wanted to call out Journey. Her connection with the Goddess was the one that would make all this shit go away. My mate nudged me and shook her head.

Fuck, I should have never taught her to crawl into my mind like that.

"Yeah well. People we need to look out for?" I raised an eyebrow and people spat out some names. Names I already knew. Bones, Surkash, Bram and Sizzle, who was pissed I even brought him up.

He flipped the bird and left in a huff.

"He'll come around," Emm rubbed her hand up and down my arm. "When he's ready."

"Well, the rest of us are," Bram mumbled and shoved his notebook in his back pocket.

Surkash was holding back taking his mate and Bones? Hell, I didn't see any prospects for him at all.

I rubbed my hand down my face while I watched everyone file out.