16. Zeke

Chapter sixteen

Zeke

I was sincerely going to need a vacation after this week. Just between last night and this morning, I felt like I should've also gotten combat pay. For the wedding. Seriously, the shifted wolf pack had been easier—and more fun—to handle than a gaggle of drag queens in full regalia and their lumberjack counterparts. Not to mention the rowdy-looking guests and…bystanders? Why were so many pack members crowding around the groom's side of the aisle? And was that guy growling at Matt's cousin?

Rushing over to try and put out whatever fire this was, I ended up getting caught by Sacha. "What's going on?" he asked urgently.

"That's what I'd like to know! Why is everyone looking like there's about to be a brawl?" I sidestepped away from Matt's cousin when he literally hissed at the other guy. "What the fuck?"

"They're cats," Sacha said as he practically dragged me even farther away.

"What?"

"Cougar shifters."

I looked to the tree line. "Where?"

"Most of the groom's side of the aisle."

"Excuse me?" I spun around and stared at Matt standing up near the officiant and couldn't believe my eyes. That sweet man was baring his teeth at a few of my pack members, who were doing the same right back at him. "What the actual shit?!"

"That's why they're here," Sacha said and ran a hand down his face. "Oh for fuck's sake. They came for the wedding ."

"No. Are you kidding me? Matt's a…" I gulped the word down as I surveyed the situation again. Guests who'd been sitting down a moment ago were getting to their feet now. It was about to be on, and cold fear washed through me. Grabbing Sacha's shoulders, I shook him. "Stop this! I swear to god, you need to stop this right now. Fabian will kill every last one of us if there's a fight at his wedding!"

I looked toward the archway of the vestibule where Fabian was waiting and saw him suddenly peek out. We were late, and he knew. Oh god, he knew .

"Sacha!" I screeched in near panic.

He flinched. "Okay! I've got it."

I watched him walk over to the growing crowd of wolf pack members and hold out his arms. He was shooing them away, and they were reluctantly going. The guests were sitting back down, looking at each other with worry and confusion on their faces, and Matt was waving for them to calm or something.

A new panic hit me. Did Fabian know what Matt was?

Part of me thought he must know. Sacha hadn't been able to keep it from me, so how could Matt have managed it? Sure, he could've spent last night apart from Fabian using the excuse of it being the night before their wedding and tradition and blah blah blah, but to pull that off every month? Or maybe cats weren't forced to shift with the moon like wolves were? Still, the mate-claiming thing might apply. It was possible cougar-Matt hadn't been able to resist pinning Fabian to a wall at least once in all the years they'd known each other.

But it all boiled down to whether or not I should say something to Fabian.

The string quartet started playing Pachelbel's Canon, and that ended my dumbfounded paralysis. I sprinted through the curtains and into the vestibule only to come to a sudden halt so as not to run Fabian clean over. I froze a little inside as he glared up at me. His drag persona had always been intimidating and seeing Ida Slapter in full bride mode was enough to make me cower.

"What is going on out there?" he said through gritted teeth.

I swallowed hard and flicked a glance at the bridesmaids as they filed out one by one. "Um, cats and dogs don't get along."

He blinked at me.

I blinked at him.

"And is something being done to…shift…the problem into a solution?" he asked with a perfectly arched brow.

He knew. Thank god.

"Sacha's moving his people away right now."

Fabian nodded decisively and grabbed my arm as the last bridesmaid left through the curtain. "Then let's get me married, and we can worry about integrating our furry families afterward."

Yep, he knew everything. Holy shit.

I was a little bit on autopilot as I walked him down the aisle and handed Fabian off to Matt the Cat. Dear god, this was more surreal than finding out Sacha was a werewolf. Lycan. What the fuck ever! My god, this was all so weird. And I couldn't even freak out because I had to stand there smiling and holding Fabian's bouquet—which had actually turned out very nicely—so that he could get married in the most perfect wedding that had ever wedding'd.

To a cat shifter.

In wolf territory.

At least it was a short ceremony, so it wasn't long before everyone was on their feet and clapping for the new couple as they led the way to the reception. There was a big brunch all ready to go with mimosas for everyone. I would definitely be having a few. Or maybe just a whole bottle of champagne.

Sacha was there at the entrance when I arrived, and I grabbed his arms and wanted to word vomit all of my questions and OMGs all over him, but I knew I shouldn't. I couldn't tell who around us was in the know and who wasn't. Sacha chuckled at me.

"Do you have things to do right now?" he asked with a grin.

"Uh… I literally can't remember."

"Come on, then," he said with a grin. "We have some alpha pair duties to fulfill."

I followed him out of the reception area and up some stairs, my mind whirring with possibilities. How accurate was the fiction I'd read? So far there'd been a lot that those authors had gotten right, from fated mates to instalust to knotting. Wait, were those authors shifters? Mates of shifters? I fanned myself and tried to stay in the moment because, wow, was that too much to think about right now! Especially if I was about to become part of some kind of wolf and cougar negotiation team.

The first person I saw was Fabian, and I ran over to him immediately. He grabbed my hands and bounced as he squealed, "I've wanted to tell you for so long!"

"Oh my god, are you serious? This is insane!"

"You're a wolf's mate!"

"You're a cat's mate!"

"Ooo, hold on there," Matt said. "It's cougar. Cat's a slur."

"Oh." I cleared my throat and smoothed down my tie. "Okay. Yeah, sorry about that."

Sacha put his hand on the small of my back and said to the room, "Let's everyone take a seat."

I realized there were ten of us in this conference room. Sacha sat at the head on one end, so I sat beside him with Titus opposite me. I recognized Matt's dad, Mister McGuire, sitting at the head of the other end of the table. Matt and Fabian were kind of in the middle on one side with my new pack members opposite them. As hierarchy went, I thought I understood who was who.

"I'd like to start with an apology," Matt's dad said. "We'd heard that there were wolves in the area, but hadn't known you own this resort."

Sacha cocked his head. "Rand didn't tell you about assaulting my mate?"

Oh shit. I stared at Matt's dad with wide eyes.

"Pardon me?" Mister McGuire looked to the men sitting on either side of him. Both of them seemed just as shocked.

"Oh, um," I started, "I don't want to…press charges? Against him or anything. He knows what he did was wrong and all that." I patted Sacha's hand, hoping it was alright that I did this. "And you whooped his ass, so I'm satisfied justice was done."

"If that's the case," Mister McGuire said, "then thank you, but know we'll question him and dole out an appropriate punishment for his silence just the same."

I nodded and looked to Sacha. He sighed and flipped his hand over so he could hold mine. "Then it's done," he said, but I could hear the disappointment in his tone and it had me thinking my mate had wanted to beat Rand up again. "Since you're not guests of the resort, are you local to the area?"

"No, we're from McCoy. We've been camping on the land to the west of here, surveying it as the final step in purchasing it."

"Excuse me?" Sacha leaned forward, letting go of my hand. "What land west of here?"

Mister McGuire looked startled all over again as he glanced around the table at the many frowning faces aimed his way. "The eighty acres the resort is selling. We've been in negotiations with Elise Zizian for the past month."

Our end of the table erupted with each person suddenly speaking…not English. I stared at them all, Titus looking especially irate, with Marius a close second, as Sacha barked things back at them. Mister McGuire and his people were completely quiet as they watched, looking more and more like they'd really stepped in it but weren't sure how. I caught Fabian's eye, and we shrugged at each other.

Sacha sighed and waved his hand, quieting everyone else. "Mister McGuire," he said, "it's my turn to apologize because the pack was completely unaware that my mother was negotiating the sale of any land."

Matt's dad shifted in his seat and glanced toward the closed door. "Can we send for her? Ask her to explain?"

"Her whereabouts are currently unknown."

Mister McGuire nodded and visibly deflated. "Was she authorized to sell?"

"Have you paid anything to her?"

"No, nothing. The two million is still in escrow."

Sacha relaxed back against his chair. "Good. We've locked her out of all resort and pack accounts and, when she's found, we'll investigate her as a suspect in the murders of my father and my uncle."

Fabian gasped and stared at me as I bit my lips together and nodded. There was so very much drama that I could finally tell him, I was almost giddy with wanting to spill it all right damn now.

"I…" Matt's dad seemed totally thrown by all of this. "Good god, son, if there's anything we can do, just ask. All of our communications with her were done via email, so we can provide copies of every message. Whatever you need."

Sacha thanked him, and I was so glad that none of what had been swirling around regarding the encroaching cougar shifters had been bad. It wasn't an invasion. No one had to be afraid—well, Rand probably did, but he wasn't our problem. This had all been a business deal between a psycho and a man who hadn't known he was dealing with a psycho. And just some folks attending a wedding.

Fabian suddenly stood up. "What I'm hearing is that there's a lot more that you all need to talk about, but there's also a wedding reception happening downstairs that I'm not going to miss. We have things to do," he said with a look at Matt, "and we're going to dance in about an hour," he said with a look at Matt's dad, "but mostly I'm starving to death, and you don't want to see me when I'm hangry."

There might be wolf and cougar shifters at this table, but the most dangerous person here was the drag queen bride in need of a snack.

Thankfully, Mister McGuire chuckled before grinning down the table at Sacha. "How about we discuss this more after my boys here have their reception?"

Sacha nodded and stood up. "Absolutely. And, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to attend."

"Perfect!" Fabian grabbed Matt's hand and towed him toward the door. "Let's go already. I've been smelling the bacon since we got up here and if there isn't any left for me, I'm going to tear off someone's arm and…" I couldn't hear the rest as he stomped down the stairs, but I had a feeling a beating would be involved.

The rest of Matt's pack… Pride? What was a group of cats—cougars!—called? Whatever. They filed down the stairs, while the wolves all looked to Sacha. He looked exhausted. I hadn't seen him in the pool or doing yoga, so I didn't know if him being so tired was physical or emotional. Though finding out his mother had been selling pack lands on the sly could be seriously draining.

"Once McGuire hands over the emails," Sacha said, "see if Elise gave him any account information. She might have something private that we don't know about."

"Alpha," Titus said quietly, "you need to decide if we handle this internally or pass it over to the humans."

Sacha leaned his elbows on the table and sighed heavily.

"Both deaths," Marius added, "were investigated by the human authorities. We could give them what we know at this point and let them reopen the cases."

To the tabletop, Sacha said, "Gavril will be a witness."

"We can coach him," I said, "not to mention wolves."

Titus shrugged. "Kids say the darnedest things. No one will take him literally."

"But what if Elise says something?"

All three of them looked at me, and I nodded. "Right. Who'd believe werewolves are real?"

"Lycans," they said together.

"Yes." I didn't roll my eyes even a little bit.

Sacha stood up, and the rest of us did, too. "She's human, so let's have the humans investigate. Make sure one of ours is involved just for my own piece of mind. Carly made detective, right?"

"She did," Marius said with a nod. "She'll keep us apprised of every step."

Sacha took my hand and walked around the table for the door. "I'm going to go have second breakfast. Don't need me until after I get some cake, okay?"

A few hearty chuckles followed us down the stairs before someone up there closed the door. I made Sacha stop on a landing about halfway down.

"Hey," I said, crowding him against the wall. "You're really good at this stuff."

He looked at me through his lashes. "Am I?"

Poor baby. I cuddled him up and kissed his forehead. "You prevented a war, got more evidence against the bad guy, and Fabian is genuinely happy. I'd say it's a gold star day for you."

He chuckled and looped his arms around my waist, leaning a bit. "You've got a lot to talk about with him, huh?"

"Right? My god, it's going to be insane. I have so many questions."

"Just please don't tell him about the dog toys."

I hugged him a little tighter because that wasn't a promise I could make.