Chapter Twenty

Heath decided to talk to the pack in Landon's home. He waited as they arrived, standing in the middle of his son's living room. He knew Jacky wouldn't have minded him having this meeting at their home, but he wanted to help her continue the separation she needed, even while she was gone. He wasn't as worried as the pack, which was a positive. He could help talk to them from a reasonable place instead of feeding into their worries that they were on the way out. He had his concerns, but he knew all he could do was be there for her until she was ready.

She would never throw them out because of what happened. I know it. I just need to make sure they know it. Doing this is a good diversion. With only one update in three days, I need to keep busy and stay on track. Jabari warned me this could be a long hunt for them with the news of it potentially being a rogue werecat.

Landon held the door open as the pack began arriving while Dirk handed out bottles of water to everyone so they had something to drink. Simple for the hosts, but Heath didn't ask anything more from them. Landon and Dirk enjoyed the privacy of their home, and he was allowing this invasion to happen for his own reasons.

With a somewhat forced chuckle, Heath noticed that every wolf in the pack avoided sitting on the notorious couch, leaving it open for Landon and Dirk once everyone arrived. He did a head count. Ranger and Shamus had arrived the earliest, and Heath gave a quick shake of his head. This conversation wasn't about where Jacky was with her brothers or why. They both nodded and leaned against the back wall, giving them vantage of the room as well from a different angle than his own.

Stacy and Kody came in seconds after their father with their heads down like they had just scuffled and were told to knock it off. They grabbed two chairs from the dining room and sat on either side of Shamus and Ranger. Teagan, always prompt, brought both of the boys, though it was getting harder every day to call Arlo a boy. Benjamin, however, still had a dutiful boyishness to him. The younger boys sat on the floor, with Arlo pointing to an armchair to tell Teagan where to sit. Teagan sat without an argument. Piper and Roselyn were next, taking the loveseat together.

Finally, at the last minute, were Carlos and Jenny. Jenny took Carlos's hand the moment they came in and tried to find a place to sit. As they looked around, Landon and Dirk got ahead of them. Landon closed and locked the door, then went to grab two dining chairs. Dirk handed them their water bottles and pointed to where Landon had put those seats down for them. Once those two were settled, Heath waited for Landon and Dirk to get seated as well, right on that infamous couch, getting the entire thing to themselves. Dirk sank a bit, stretching his legs, and Landon put an arm around the back, possessive over Dirk. It was the most possessive display in the entire room. Heath studied his son for a moment to consider whether it was intentional or not.

Landon's smile grew a little.

Intentional, then. Well, son, you've done it. You found a mate, and now you get to revel in it. I'm happy for you.

Heath returned with a flash of a smile before looking around the living room once again, schooling his expression into benign Alpha, waiting for the pack to settle down. He didn't have to wait long.

"Welcome. First, I want to say thank you to Landon and Dirk for opening their home for this meeting. We're going to keep emergency pack meetings here for a short time until the pack house is completed. If you want more than bottled water, feel free to donate to the hosting by bringing what you would like to see. Don't feel any need, however."

"It's the hosts' job," Shamus said with a chuckle.

"You ask him," Heath said, chuckling in return as he gestured to his son.

"Yeah, Shamus, ask me," Landon taunted with a toothier grin now as he looked over his shoulder between him and Dirk to Shamus, the werewolf directly underneath him in the pecking order.

"Kids, you two are going to bring over things for Landon and Dirk to host pack meetings here with food and drinks," Shamus ordered, staring at Landon while he said it, still smiling like everything was fine.

"Yes, sir," they both promptly replied, not looking up.

"Was there a fight?" Heath knew that while Shamus was their father, he was the one in charge of the entire room. Shamus didn't often order his kids around like that.

"Yeah. They'll be fine with some chores," Shamus answered, rolling his eyes as his children, both adults now, sank further. "Old enough to be werewolves and part of the pack. Young enough to be stupid."

"Everyone goes through it," Heath reminded him.

"Not everyone puts their siblings through the walls right before we're supposed to leave," Shamus countered.

Heath immediately put together a plan to fix that.

"The pack will cover the cost, and they can get on-the-job training with one of my crews about how to repair that sort of damage… without pay, considering I'm willing to cover the cost. If Landon is willing, he can supervise if you don't want to."

"Willing," Landon said with a vicious smile through a chest-vibrating growl. Willing but not happy about two young werewolves giving him a babysitting job for the summer.

"Thank you, Alpha. They're both taking the summer off from school, so feel free to keep them for as long as you like. I'll make a schedule with Landon so he's not watching mine all the time."

Heath nodded, then gestured to Landon, who pulled out his phone and made a note of that. Just another thing for them to deal with.

"Well, with that… handled, I'll get right to the meat of this meeting. It's not a Monday, I know. It's not a real emergency, either. Jacky is out of town with her brothers, so it seems like a good time to address something. I've heard the brewing whispers and felt the shift in the mood of the pack. I was going to let things play out how they were going to until others came to me and pointed it out as well." He looked back, grabbing the barstool his son had placed nearby for him without him needing to even ask. He positioned it and sat down, looking over the room as he got comfortable. "There's been some icing out from Jacky toward the pack recently. Everyone's noticed this, I assume."

Heads nodded, and Heath looked around to see their expressions and smell the emotions in their scents. Nothing stood out to him.

"Let me start with something simple. Jacky has no intention of forcing anyone to leave. What happened with Fenris is not the fault of the pack. Fenris was a complicated, mad werewolf, and we knew that when we let him into this pack. In fact, it was Jacky's call that Fenris was allowed to stay." There was some surprise from a few faces, which was expected. "She wanted to give him a chance. If he had just been the Fenris we knew, he would have taken that chance and run with it. He was doing very well. No one expected, not even Fenris, what would unfold. She doesn't blame any of you for that. She doesn't blame any werewolf for it."

Landon snorted. Heath inhaled deeply, realizing he had accidentally lied.

"She blames one werewolf that I know of who is not here," Heath corrected. "Callahan knew who Fenris was, his true identity, and he carefully covered it up for several hundred years as Fenris grew madder and further from his original identity and totally forgot himself. I won't put words in her mouth about any other high-ranking werewolf outside of this pack, but I can say she blames no werewolf here."

"Why is she avoiding us?" Arlo asked, his chin up, his eyes full of defiance.

Heath glanced his way, nailing the young man with a hard stare, and waited. It took all of two seconds for the young man to drop that chin and lose the defiance. Another second and his eyes dropped.

"Grief is complicated. She's grieving, and so is this pack. While we, as werewolves, often grieve together, werecats aren't like us. She's handling her grief and trying not to worsen ours." Heath didn't let someone else throw out another question, only taking a second for a breath and to collect his thoughts. "She thinks that by being near the pack, she'll only remind you all that… she put him down, and that may make things difficult. I can't convince her otherwise; she has to realize on her own that there are no hard feelings against her for that."

"There aren't, right?" Landon said, not moving, but the question was for the room.

And it was a threat.

Heath let it happen. He could have quickly shut down his son's attitude, making sure everyone felt comfortable, but Landon was doing it for him. He was doing it for their family, and that family included Jacky.

"Not from anyone in my family," Shamus said carefully. "I've never caught any sort of behavior that would make me think that about anyone here, either."

"Why would we? She was fighting to save two members of the pack and one of her siblings," Penny said softly, only giving off confusion and sadness.

"And regardless of any prior feelings we might hold about werecats, particularly that werecat with his moniker, he raised Dirk, another member of this pack, and accepted that he's a werewolf now. If he can do it, so can we," Roselyn added.

"And Fenris was mad," Jenny pointed out. "Only Teagan and the boys really could spend time with him. It only makes sense that he was fucked up by some fae magic and lost it. He was a strong werewolf, but truthfully? I feel for Jacky more than anything. She really seemed to believe in him. When you believe that hard and it goes wrong… Yeah… I was worried Carlos and I would need to leave. I couldn't imagine moving on from that sort of betrayal even though we know that Fenris was messed up." Jenny lowered her head, guilty because of her fear about the potential of being pushed out, but Heath couldn't deny how she had gotten to that point. She was also committed to a werewolf that had nowhere else to go. They would have to go rogue, and it would be disastrous for them if they were ever caught out. Carlos sighed.

"She's right. It's only reasonable to avoid us or distrust us," he said softly.

Heath took a deep breath, staring at Carlos. Carlos was a complicated addition to his Dallas pack when he offered refuge to the werewolf. He was less complicated now because the rest of the world was slowly forgetting about him, and they weren't in the loop with other werewolf packs. Carlos had been blackmailed, but in the eyes of the supernatural world, that didn't absolve him of what he had done. For Heath, it hadn't just been the blackmail. He had been a young werewolf himself, not capable of trusting his own latent abilities, not entirely trusting the pack to help him.

Heath saw it all the moment he met Carlos and decided the traumatized man deserved a chance, even when every other Alpha in the country disagreed with him. It was nearly thirty years ago, and the pain was still evident in Carlos.

"Jenny isn't wrong, but I wouldn't go so far as to say she's right," Heath said, staring at Carlos, holding the werewolf with his gaze, keeping it between them. "It implies every werewolf here is the same as Fenris. That's faulty thinking. I would bet a lot of money on the fact that Fenris was a highly unique situation with the odds of it happening similar to winning the lottery."

"We should buy a ticket," Landon said, huffing.

"We don't need the money," Heath retorted calmly. "But, do you understand, Carlos? Jenny?"

They both nodded, relaxing before him.

"Good. Is anyone here scared Jacky will hurt them?" he asked plainly, looking around. A lot of confusion was returned to him except for Landon and Dirk. Dirk squeezed Landon's hand as his son stared straight ahead.

Heath had his suspicions about that. Landon had been worried about that. Landon would always worry about that because he was often feared by the werewolves around him for only doing his job as second in the pack. Landon was different and, in a pack, that made him more like Jacky than like Heath, werewolf or not. Different set people on edge, even if that difference wasn't dangerous.

To his relief, Heath had no reason to worry about that. Everyone in the pack was truly confused by him even suggesting it. Arlo even started to chuckle.

"Really? Jacky? She's tough, Alpha, but she's Jacky." Arlo snickered louder until Teagan put a hand on his head. Teagan only smiled, tilting his head to Arlo, indicating he agreed with the young werewolf.

"We're not scared of her," Piper promised, and that was another voice Heath needed to hear. Piper was a less dominant werewolf, one of the lowest-ranking pack members outside of the literal children and Teagan, who would always be on the bottom. "She fights for something, and everything she's shown us is that she fights for us or people like us. People who need help. She's not one to commit violence for violence's sake. She's stood against her own kind for us. Why fear such an obvious friend?"

"Thank you for those kind words," Heath said with a gentle smile to the soft-spoken werewolf before looking over the room again. "With those points settled, just give Jacky time, everyone. She's taken the loss of Fenris and how it happened very hard. There's nothing else to it."

"Is there anything we could do to help?" Benjamin asked softly, peeking up before looking away again.

"Let me think on that," Heath said quickly, knowing if he gave any sort of advice, it would be taken. Some of the werewolves would take it to the extreme by accident. He had to be careful about it. "Does anyone else have anything to talk about?"

Landon was suspiciously still and quiet, but Heath didn't push his son. Something was clearly on his mind, but Heath tried never to put his son on the spot in front of the pack for anything potentially personal.

With several no's in response, Heath stood from the stool, which gave the pack permission to start moving. Ranger and Shamus immediately started whispering, Kody's and Stacy's heads going lower with each second.

Heath ignored that. They were probably discussing what the fight was about, and he wasn't going to get more involved in that unless he was asked directly. Landon and Dirk stood awkwardly in the living room as Piper and Roselyn approached, asking what they would like brought for pack meetings.

Heath paid very close attention to that, only faintly registering that Teagan was leaving with the boys. Jenny and Carlos left quickly as well.

Nothing odd happened, but Landon was so stiff, it was out of character even for his son.

Once everyone was gone, Heath was still standing where he had been the entire meeting.

"Is something wrong with you and the ladies?" Heath asked softly, causing Landon to snap his head to stare at him.

"No, why?" Landon asked, a frown beginning to form.

"Don't lie to me. You know better," Heath said with a soft growl. It was a very soft lie, just a hint of it entering the air, but it was distinctly Landon's.

"It's not her," Landon said, grumbling, his entire demeanor changing to something far more normal, making Heath relax in turn. "The lower-ranking werewolves have been touching me more. Leaning. That stuff. Jacky told me that I'm allowed to say something, I'm not required to bear it, but I know it's easier for them if I do."

"Ah…" Heath nodded, trying not to laugh at how Jacky had already said the exact right thing for him. Heath was a fairly normal werewolf. It was only because he was an Alpha that he even registered that those sorts of behaviors happened. Landon was more sensitive to them. He'd been denied the comfort of more dominant wolves outside of Heath and Richard when he was younger, and he was uncomfortable with it now.

"So, yeah, I'm just…" Landon huffed. "Trying my best, you know?"

"Don't," Heath said softly. "Don't try your best. Just be comfortable, and if you're not, tell them. They won't be hurt by it. There's a higher number of stronger werewolves in this small pack than weaker ones. They can find someone else and respect the space you need."

"But—"

"Don't argue. Next meeting, have something prepared to say to the pack about it. They might be missing that you're uncomfortable and probably don't want to do that to you." Heath knew this with certainty, but everyone could be dense when it came to themselves. Landon was being dense when he already knew the right course of action.

"All right, Pa, fine," Landon said, and while he sounded annoyed, he was smiling. It left quickly, as though something must have crossed Landon's mind. "When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow morning," Heath answered, putting his hands in his pockets. "That's why I did this so quickly. It felt like it was something I had to address before flying out."

Heath was leaving the next day to see the families of the victims in Alaska. He had their details now and was going to make the necessary reparations for their deaths. He already had a cover story if he was questioned by any humans who didn't know supernaturals were involved. These humans wouldn't, so that cover story was important, and he had the documents, if necessary, to make sure no one looked too closely at his presence.

"Yeah, it probably was," Landon agreed. "Well, get out of my house, please. I'll see you tomorrow before you leave for the airport."

"Of course." Heath patted each of them on the shoulder as he went to the door.

As he got in his truck, he no longer had to hide everything, letting go of his Talent. Longing filled the air around him. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, trying to focus on driving, as he fought the urge to turn to the airport and book a flight to the wrong state and find her. Talking about her with the pack had only made it worse, and it was already the worst level of fear and protectiveness he had ever felt. Maybe it was from the problem she faced or maybe it was how they had only just begun recovering from what happened in Germany, but this time affected Heath differently.

Just stay alive, Jacky. Just stay alive and come back.