26. Chapter Twenty-Six

Sitting at my computer, I wondered where to start. I opened my emails and decided giving the family a general update was as good a place as any. Keeping it short and sweet, I let them know the BSA and I spoke again, and I had a change of heart, wanting their assistance to find the leak and discover who attacked me, framing it as a way to prove their loyalty to clean negotiations. I scanned the tentative deal and attached it to the email, hoping for their opinions on it. It included exposing werecats to the public but not the identity of individual werecats. It would be similar to the fae, not the witches, but was better than what the werewolves had to deal with.

I hit send, then copy and pasted it into a separate email, but added extra, noting that Zuri needed to read this one, not the other. I included that I was attacked a second time, and one of the BSA agents had called in a helicopter for me. I was trusting her not to tell the family, to keep them out of danger, and made sure to add that to the email, making sure it was clear that I didn't want them to know I got shot.

After I hit send, I waited.

And waited.

I could have slept, but I knew one of them was going to be awake to see the email, eventually. I didn't think it would be Zuri, nearly an hour after I sent them out.

She didn't bother replying to the email. She called.

"You were shot?" she snapped the moment her face came on the screen. "Are you serious? You haven't told anyone in the family? How in the hell don't they know? Dirk—"

"Figured out I didn't have Heath send word and decided not to, either," I said, shrugging. "He's loyal to me, I guess."

Zuri shook her head slowly. "You know, when we talked just yesterday, when I specifically called you when I knew you would be up and hopefully in your office, I didn't expect you to get attacked. Not once, and absolutely not twice, in under twenty-four hours." She growled and leaned forward as though she was inspecting my image on the screen. "You don't look terrible, though. I take it neither of the attacks was too bad?"

"You probably know the details about the first one, broken hand, but that's…doing a lot better now. I've shifted a few times since it happened, and we made sure a doctor aligned the bones first. A graze on my shoulder, but the real loser was my car. The second…it was a cheap shot, Zuri. Wannabe sniper bullshit. Carey found out about Heath and me, so we decided to take her to the movies. I got out of the truck, and they hit before I closed the door. Luckily, I was smart enough to fall back into the truck, so they couldn't take another shot. Carey's screaming and the truck's tinted windows helped. They ran before they could verify if I was dead or alive."

"Definitely not professionals," she said softly. "I'm glad whoever shot you is stupid enough to fail twice, but it's also concerning."

"I'm convinced it's the BSA. They have a leak, and someone let slip that a lone supernatural is here. Finally, extremist humans have an ‘easy' target. Gave them my name, and the game was on, you know?"

She nodded. "Makes them unpredictable, though. Professionals are impressed when someone survives, but others get frustrated. There's no honor among those who are just looking to kill for sport. They aren't looking at the skill and perfection needed for two great powers to go against each other. They only want death, and you have escaped it. If Hisao was trying to kill you—not that I believe that would ever happen—he would respect that you evaded him twice. He might even step back and consider his options and if the kill was worth it."

"Has anyone ever evaded Hisao twice?" I asked softly.

"No one has ever evaded Hisao once, from what I know," she answered, shrugging. "I'm glad to see you alive. The cheap shot, tell me about it."

I explained the injury, a gut hit that missed my organs by a slim margin.

"They moved too fast. If they had taken ten more seconds to line up a shot, they might have hit a lung."

"I know." I didn't deny that. "But you agree with me about our family, right? They can't come here."

"Well, we could, but it's not practical. It would take at least two hours for everyone to get in the air, if Mischa even could. I think Hisao is still commandeering their jet, so he would have to pick her up. I'm not coming at all, and you definitely don't want me in your territory right now. Plus, you do have back up. I know we all want to protect the family, but you have the ability to talk like the wolves. Very useful when you're with us, even more so when you're with the wolves. You can pack hunt if you have to. They're both capable." She touched the screen. "I'm just glad to see you alive. I won't tell Father yet—"

"He'll find out, eventually. One of the Dallas pack saw me in the hospital."

"Word travels fast," Zuri agreed, "but I think you have a few days, maybe even a week if you need it. Callahan won't stupidly give Father his condolences about his daughter getting shot. They aren't that close. When Liza died, the only reason Callahan offered his condolences was he had to since she had been killed by wolves. If you get assassinated by humans, he's going to pour himself a drink and have a toast."

"Would Corissa? She's the important one."

"She is. She's smart, but she's like Father. What is best for the wolves is not always the popular decision. It's not war or fighting, but peace and prosperity, something hotter heads disagree with. She's only the dominant in private, don't forget that. She won't jeopardize her mate's position by slapping him down in public where other wolves might see. The werewolves of her personal pack are completely loyal to her, and her objective is to keep them both on top, so they won't tell anyone. You shouldn't either. The fact she did it in front of Heath was surprising enough, but don't test her."

"It never crossed my mind," I replied, lifting my hands. "You never answered my question, though."

"She would…maybe have a private toast to the death of one of our family. Maybe. Depends on the family member. I don't know exactly where you stand with her right now. You embarrassed her husband, but you and Heath exposed a travesty of a pack to her, which he had been hiding. Now, she's able to clean it up. It could go either way. She would toast my death or Jabari's, without question. Not Niko….Actually, only Niko. She likes that he thinks like a wolf sometimes."

I nodded and decided it was time to get to the important part.

"Did you read the deal?"

"I did," she said, clicking around on her computer, probably pulling it up. "I don't like it, but I don't hate it. I don't think you'll get better. Specifically, I don't like that they're going to have a press conference about their discovery of our kind, which tells other governments we exist…" Zuri shook her head. "But I think it's the only way. We can't ask them for everything and give them nothing."

"Blaming them for the attempts on my life has been an easy way to get them to act in my favor. They don't want to ruin their reputation."

"Oh, that was a very smart play," Zuri agreed, smiling. "I couldn't have done it better myself. I'm about to have a baby, though, and now everyone is going to know werecats are something they need to watch for on the full moon. In reality, it doesn't change much, but this is it, the beginning of the slow leak of information about our kind to the world. Eventually, we won't have a choice but to be part of their modern, unforgiving world. I want my child to be safe."

"I know. How are you? With the baby and the man? I know we only talked yesterday, but…I'm still trying to wrap my head around it."

She laughed. "Yes, well, it's been fairly life-altering. Werecats, I have learned, are not immune to morning sickness. That was lesson one."

"Wait. You had a son before." I was sure I wasn't misremembering that.

"I did. He was adopted. This is my first blood child, not that it matters. When the time comes, this one will know about their older brother and what he did, all of it. This is the first time I've gotten pregnant. The dangers for women concerning childbirth are the same across most species, so I had decided never to have a blood child, one from my own womb. This was a surprise I decided to roll with. I have the resources, a mother with lots of experience with it, and a man willing to be a father to the baby. He was surprised as well, but as you could tell, he's definitely not unhappy."

"Yeah. Where are those two?"

"Running errands, getting supplies. The birth isn't for months yet, but you know, stocking up in case I pop early. Plus, Mother wants to know him better, hard to do when I'm always around, and he's focused on me and this." She ran a hand over her baby bump. "Plus, I couldn't call you until I got them out the door. I couldn't let Mother know you were hurt before I heard more about it. She would have gotten hold of Father immediately. She gets incredibly angry when one of her children is hurt."

"That's really weird because I've only met her once."

"You don't need to call her your mother, but I recommend accepting that she thinks of you as her child, even if she can be a bit absentee." Zuri looked around, seeming to check for them. "I'm glad you're not too badly hurt, though. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"Actually…" I remembered the odd timeline of the event, how the pieces didn't fit. "Did you see how they tagged my bar?"

"Yes, I saw the picture."

"What do you think about it? Something…felt off. The timing was wrong. Heath agreed with me, but…it slipped my mind after he and I got a laugh about how it was probably just these humans being idiots."

"I think you might be paranoid, which is a natural response to what's going on. I'm scared for you. I agree our family shouldn't go to your territory right now and wish this wasn't happening, but I don't think that means anything. They know you survived and were warning you. You're the one who foolishly decided to go to the movies with a werewolf and a human girl after that."

I winced.

"Yeah, I was holding that one back. Sorry." Zuri sighed. "I understand why you did it. They don't deserve to force you into hiding, and after seeing you on our last call, I'm also glad you made the decision to get out of the house and try to reclaim your territory for yourself. I'm conflicted. You haven't told me anything that would make me think it's not humans, Jacky, but…if it continues to bother you, look deeper. The only thing I can think of is a werewolf leaking your information instead of the BSA, and no werewolf is that stupid. We don't play those games."

"What if we do?" I asked quietly. "What if I finally pissed off the wrong person, and they decided it was worth the risk?"

"Then someone is going to die," Zuri answered. "Hopefully, it'll be them before it's you."

I didn't disagree.