Chapter Ten

Iwhipped the car to a stop in front of my home, kicking up dirt and grass as my back wheels went off the driveway. Niko said nothing as he jumped out the moment it was at a full stop, and I was fast behind him. I tossed my keys at the first werewolf I saw, not paying any mind to who it was.

"Park that for me, please," I ordered, not even registering who it was that was now holding my car keys. Niko and I could have been leaving scorch marks on the ground for how fast we were moving.

"You heard her," Ranger said, but I had no idea if he was the wolf I had thrown my keys at.

"Jacky!" Heath sounded excited, but I saw him snap to a stop as I flew into the living room.

"I need you, Landon, and Dirk," I said quickly. "Meeting in my office, now. Have the werewolves leave the property immediately. We don't have a lot of time."

Heath nodded, and I turned away toward my office without needing any further confirmation and met Niko inside. I turned on my PC and waited while watching werewolves get herded away from the house. Heath was gentle about it, but there was no mistaking the orders he was putting down. Not a single werewolf did more than nod and start walking.

When Dirk walked in, Niko got to him before I could.

"Can you do a sweep on Jacky's car?"

"Of course." Dirk was gone before I even said hello.

I set up my screen and speakers for everyone to see and hear when the family meeting started. I even positioned the mic and camera to have the best chance of picking up everyone.

When Heath came in, Landon was with him, and Dirk followed close behind.

"Carey?" I asked Heath, knowing it was probably best she wasn't in the building for what might be talked about.

"I sent Carey with Teagan and his boys," Heath explained. "I take it the meeting didn't go well?"

"Well…" I huffed. "Callahan and company were there, but that's all politics. The BSA got an earful from me, and so did the werewolves." Pausing, I tried to find the best way to tell him the important part.

"They know Rainer is dead," Niko said for me.

"Yeah, they know that Fenris is gone." My words on it were considerably softer than Niko's.

"Okay…" Heath sat down slowly. "And?"

"I told them to respect my sister as the daughter of Subira that she is," Niko added, a vicious smile taking over his face, changing him.

"And the meeting itself?" Heath asked, eyeing Niko before looking at me. "How bad is it? We'd only be taking this many precautions if this was something ugly."

"You'll see," I whispered. "I don't want to repeat myself. Best to get all the facts we know out at once."

"Fair."

"Niko, any word?"

"Try Davor. He wasn't far. Everyone else can join."

I did just that, calling Davor.

"I'm here," he called out from beyond the screen. "I'm just putting away some expensive parts I was tinkering with when Niko texted."

"It's fine. We're waiting on everyone else." Right as I said that, Zuri's name showed up. When she entered and her feed appeared, it wasn't only Zuri. As expected, Subira and Jabari were there as well, with the twins flanking the matriarch of our family.

"Niko said this was bad news, and we needed everyone?" Zuri sounded perplexed and worried. "We don't really need another bad time right now. You both realize this, right?"

"We didn't do anything," Niko grumbled. "Jacky was called into a meeting by the BSA?—"

"Let's just wait for everyone to get here," I ordered, putting a hand up to stop my brother. I put the USB drive in and fiddled with making sure everyone would be able to see my screen so they could see the files I had been given. I hadn't even looked at all of them myself, but the pictures were the main thing to worry about. After that, we could get into the dirty details of the killings, but first, we had to establish this was exactly what we believed it was. I was certain. Niko and the werewolves had been similar, but the resident experts were on this call, not in the BSA meeting.

"Mischa and Hisao won't be attending. Mischa has been off the radar since she left Germany. I've had Hisao tailing her for her safety. He checks in regularly, but it's not reasonable to ask him to attend while he's keeping an eye on her," Subira explained. "Do you think this is a meeting that requires Hasan?"

Davor sat down finally, looking confused. I felt bad, the image of him sitting alone hitting me in the gut. We were all grouped up right now except him. Even Mischa, being the petulant, temperamental bitch she was, had Hisao looking out for her, even if she didn't want him or anyone else to be near her.

"I'll let you decide," I said, swallowing as I loaded up the image of the campsite and started to explain. "This meeting was sparse with the details before we arrived. Hasan might hear a few things from Callahan since he was there in his role as a member of NAWC. They know my name change now. You can thank Niko for that."

"Good. Thank you, Niko," Subira purred. "Continue, Jacky."

"Okay… Well, we were shown these images. The national reserve these were taken in has never had a bear attack before. It's in remote Alaska, which puts it in the BSA's jurisdiction. If it was in Canada, we never would have known. So, there's something to be grateful for."

"Something very small," Niko muttered.

"Get to the point, you two. I don't like when either of you dance around problems," Jabari cut in, his hard stare making it harder to do exactly that. Instead of speaking, I started clicking through the pictures. I had started with the destroyed campsite, and there were a few pictures of that, recording the damage, and the last few had the remains of the couple. When I reached the first print, the big paw of a werecat, Subira held up a hand.

"A werecat did that or found it?" she asked simply.

"Did that," I said, clicking to the next picture—the animalistic human handprint or human-like animal print, depending on how someone wanted to look at it.

No one spoke for a long time. I kept my nose to the room, judging the emotional reactions of those with me who were just finding out about this. I could smell fear off Heath, but also resignation. He had known something like this was coming, but it didn't lessen the blow of the information. I looked at him, wondering if he could tell what I was thinking. He had been to those meetings and knew why they were so secretive. Based on his grave, knowing expression, I knew I was right about that.

Both Landon and Dirk were afraid as well. Dirk's fear was greater than Landon's, but there were a couple of reasons that could have been the case. Dirk was a younger and weaker werewolf, which made sense but didn't match the depth and intensity of his fear. He also grew up with a werecat. Niko would have told him all the dangers of this particular situation. That made more sense to me.

Niko and I were already past the shellshock and paralyzing fear. It didn't reduce the underlying fear we had, but it didn't rush to the forefront again.

"Somewhere in Alaska, a werecat lost him or herself to the curse," I said, stating the obvious to break the silence.

"And humans discovered it," Subira said, leaning forward and not looking at the camera anymore. She was staring intently at the screen, the glow hitting her eyes in just that way to make me realize they were her werecat eyes.

"The BSA doesn't want this to be public information any more than we do," I said, running a hand through my hair to push it out of my face.

"Are you sure?" she asked, her face disturbingly bland. I was used to Subira with a touch of humor, affection, or even wrath, but void of all of that, it scared me more than her fury ever would.

"She's right to trust them in that," Heath said, his tone speaking to his years of experience as a werewolf Alpha and a public face of his people to the human world. "Having sat in those meetings myself, it's a very strict protocol, and the information is heavily restricted, even to those who need to deal with the problem. The fact that they let Jacky leave with the intel is probably due to Jacky. No emails, no phone calls. This sort of intel is collected and stored with only a handful of people allowed to manage it. The meeting was probably held in a secure room in the BSA that most of its own people don't even know exists."

"Two stories underground with a full layer of concrete between us and the building above," I confirmed. "Right?"

"That's the one," Heath confirmed, nodding. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. "How did you leave with the USB?"

"They insulted my intelligence and trustworthiness. I got snappy, and with Niko's help, we laid down the law about how we were going to be treated and how much interference we were willing to deal with."

"Which is none. I told the BSA and Callahan that if I catch a werewolf trying to be helpful, I will send them home in a bag," Niko growled.

"So, they gave us the USB, which I presume is all of their current intel, and let us leave. We'll handle this," I finished. "They know we're telling you three and a handful of others." I waved at the screen. "They know there's going to be a task force on this. Just not one of theirs… or Callahan's."

"Good job," Zuri said simply. "Now, we need to discuss our plan of action. With the werecat in the Americas, that places it in Jacky's realm of the world."

"It would be stupid to send Jacky out to kill this thing, even with Niko's help," Jabari growled over Subira at his sister.

"Of course, but Hisao needs to stay close to Mischa for her own safety, so they are immediately out of the picture. We're here with Mother building a house, which can't be postponed. We need this finished, and we've barely broken ground because you've been an ass about what we are going to build. Niko is capable. He's strong. He's smart. He's a great addition to help Jacky."

"It's just a house. We can leave it," Jabari snapped.

"It's our mother's house, and we're currently in a cave nowhere near the center of her territory. And I don't know about you, but I am tired of being away from my son every time something happens, and I certainly won't drag a toddler on this mission. I trust our younger siblings, and I won't mess with Jacky's position in the world by forcing her to stay off this mission. We can't, under any circumstance, project that weakness."

Before Jabari could respond, Subira lifted a hand.

"There's no reason to believe that Jacky, with proper support, can't be a valued member of this." She lowered her hand slowly, but when Jabari opened his mouth, she lifted that hand again. "If there were a werecat in that region that required you or Zuri, then I would know about it. To ease you, I will also ask Hasan about who he knows might be in that area, if it's any of the oldest werecats that we would never send our children. Yes, this will be dangerous, but it would be dangerous for any of us. I don't intend on sending out only Niko and Jacky, though. There needs to be a third. Three is a good number for this hunting party. Then I will feel completely confident."

We all waited for Subira to continue that. She was looking at the picture still, tilting her head to the side in interest.

"Are there any more pictures of this? Any way we can judge the size?" she asked.

"Uh…" I searched through the pictures. There were hundreds of them, and only the top fifteen or twenty weren't buried in folders. The choice images to show the meeting, it seemed. I found a folder dedicated to the prints and found two images that were exactly what we needed. Someone had smartly measured the prints.

Thank you to whoever took these pictures…

"Do you want the normal print or the…"

"The normal print would be the back leg. The disfigured print would be the front legs or arms, depending on how this werecat had adapted to its final form," Subira supplied me. "Can I see both in comparison?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said softly as I did just that for her, putting the images side by side. They were massive. She studied them, along with Zuri and Jabari. We all waited on them. They were the experts, the eldest.

"I want to say a male," Zuri said finally, frowning at it. "I don't know the terrain up there very well, though. It could be a deep print due to the moisture of the soil or a recent rain or the snow melted."

"It's not big enough to be anyone Hasan and I would need to handle ourselves," Subira added.

"It's definitely not someone like Father and me. Possibly male, but not like us. Do we have any record of the werecats in that region? That would help us narrow it down." Jabari crossed his arms and leaned back, and I tried not to take his furious expression personally. It wasn't. This had nothing to do with me, only to be dropped into my lap at a time when the family was dealing with enough on our plates as it was. This was exactly the last thing any of us would have wanted to be dealing with.

However, I was the one who could answer his question.

"Oh. I haven't had the chance to pull up my information on the werecats that far north yet. I know there's a handful in the Yukon. I know there are a few in Alaska. I need a moment to hunt down my list." The list. It was almost stupid to keep, but since I was young, I couldn't recall every werecat I ever met like my siblings could. They met other werecats over the years, heard their names through the grapevines, and even helped them or fought them. I barely knew anyone, and when I did invite werecats to visit me, not every werecat had come.

"She might not know this one. It's important to remember a lot of werecats moved into the Americas to intentionally disappear," Zuri commented. Niko nodded.

"We had many leave Europe. While the fae and witches are the strongest populations in Europe, the werewolves won't be driven to extinction like their natural counterparts in some nations. Europe is crowded, and even werecats born in the region weren't enjoying having supernatural neighbors right at their territory borders."

"I can draw up a list of werecats we knew left the region," Davor said quickly. "We can cross-check it with names Jacky has heard."

"Good idea," Subira said, clapping her small hands together. "And I think Davor would do the best going with them. There's no reason to think this werecat would be able to handle all three of you. If it's someone you and Niko knew before they left Europe, then you might understand what led to this."

"We could be making a fatal mistake. We're hoping this werecat has a territory," Zuri pointed out.

"Wait, this could be a rogue werecat that's running around with barely any way to know where it might be going?" Landon asked, breaking his silence.

"Yeah," Dirk muttered. "That would make this a lot worse."

"Holy shit," Landon growled, beginning to pace.

"Living that remotely, they have to have a territory," Jabari said. "They might not have a permanent residence, or it might be off the grid, but rogues require running across civilization sometimes. A werecat that remote probably counts on a yearly shopping trip in town then hiding in the wilderness again."

"Or a group of humans helping them. We saw that in Washington years ago." I couldn't forget the open secret that was Gaia and Titan, the mysterious couple living near each other in that park, and how the park employees knew about them.

"This is all theory until we know more." Subira stood up, her posture and tone telling all of us that she was in charge. "Davor, I want you to go to Jacky and Niko. Put your heads together and see if you can find out some names of who lives in that region and if Jacky has received any word from them or about them. While you do that and prepare for the trip north, I'll work with these two about gathering any sort of equipment you might need from us. We need to move swiftly, but not without proper planning and caution. If you rush up there and pick a fight without preparing for it, you're only increasing your chances of not coming back."

"I can be in Dallas in twenty-four hours," Davor confirmed, clicking with his mouse as he stared at a side screen.

"Perfect. I will speak to Hasan once we're done here. He'll probably have some things to say about the Tribunal's information on this as well. Callahan might already have gone to talk to him concerning this situation."

"I don't mean to cast doubt on the Tribunal, but are we sure Callahan will respect Hasan enough to inform him of this?" I asked cautiously.

"In this matter? I do," Subira said, though she also needed a few seconds to think about it. "This is a substantial risk, not just for us or humans, but for werewolves as well. It's a risk for most supernaturals. We don't need to hear of every Last Change werewolf, but… well, they aren't as dangerous as a werecat that's been lost to the curse. This situation is different, and I trust Callahan remembers how important that difference is."

"The Tribunal could also assist in helping keep others from entering the region or asking those they know there to leave," Zuri mentioned. "Maybe Father could work on that?"

"Yes. This is all good. I will bring it up to him. Now, I want everyone to take a deep breath. Two humans are dead. I hope there's some way to help bring their memories peace when it is said and done. There's nothing else we can do for them. If this goes well, they will be the only two lost. Preparations shouldn't take longer than forty-eight hours. We'll reconvene when Davor is in Texas."

With short goodbyes after that, we all started hanging up.