10. Cannon

Nikan lookedat me as the pile of shifters finally stopped growing. “You think that’s all of them?”

Surveying the bodies of the fallen, I glanced over my shoulder at the two wolves. Kris had tried to get to his feet, but he was too weak and was lying back on the ground, his body as close to his mate as possible. “No, there will be more. Once they’ve realized we’re not moving from this cage, they’ll have us where they want us.”

“We need Doc,” Nikan muttered.

Turning, I looked at the locked cell that held the two wolves. It was sealed shut with a chain wrapped around the door and the bars. The chain was made of silver, but the cell door was not.

“That look sturdy to you?”

Nikan eyed the heavy silver chain and then me. “Yes. It does. Don’t even think about it.”

He was right, what shifter would try to open a silver lock…when you could kick the door down instead? You needed strength to kick the door down. Not much strength in you if you were wearing a collar made of silver.

“Cannon!”

My brother’s cry of protest was lost in the noise of my kick against the bars of the cell. I aimed my kicks at the iron hinges. They were sturdy, but nothing spectacular, in a cell that had been created in the tunnel of an old mine. When Nikan saw I wasn’t going to stop, he joined me.

I grinned at him when the metal warped, and I grinned even more when the force of our kicks loosened the bolts, and then between us, with more luck than strength, we managed to pry the door open, enough that the she would get out. I had my doubts about Kris, but where there was a will, there was a way.

“Strip them,” I commanded my brother, jerking my head towards the fallen members of Bale’s pack.

“Why?” He was already doing it. That was his way—he followed orders, asking his questions as he did so.

“We’ll use their clothing to shield our hands,” I explained. “The collars are wide, but they don’t look that thick.” Stretching my arm through the gap we’d made, I tried to reach for the fallen she. “What’s her name again, Nikan?”

“Cass,” he answered, throwing shirts at me. “This is weird by the way. I mean, I know why, but I don’t like undressing unconscious people.”

“Would you prefer them dead?”

“Shut up.”

Kris was on his feet again, and between the weak shoves with his head moving his mate across the dirt floor, I managed to snag a hold of her leg. Gently I pulled the young wolf towards me.

“She won’t fit,” Nikan murmured.

“I know.” With great difficulty and extreme care, I managed to maneuver Cass into a position where my hands would fit around the collar at her neck. “Keep an eye on that tunnel.” Wrapping a shirt around each hand, making sure they were as thick as possible but still allowing me to move, I reached out for the collar.

Even with the protection of the shirt, I felt the burning on my skin. Painful but not enough to stop me. There was no way to tell where the catch was; the clothing didn’t allow for such intricacies. Instead, I hooked one hand under each side of the collar and pulled.

The she whined pitifully at the pressure on her neck. I knew it would be hurting her, and I tried to soothe her with soft words. Kris was hovering protectively, and I knew that had he had the strength, he would have been pacing to and fro in this cell.

“Is it working?” Nikan asked from behind me.

“I think I loosened it.” Grunting, I pulled again. “Goddess, I thought it would be easier using these shirts.” Gently I rotated the collar and pulled again. The warped silver wasn’t loose but was definitely not as snug around the wolf’s neck. Sweat gathered on my brow as I tried to stretch the metal again. The little wolf opened her eyes and met my stare. “Hey there,” I murmured. “You’re feeling better already, aren’t you?”

Pulling my hands free of her collar, I drew my hands away, discarding the shirts I’d been wearing for protection. Scorch marks marked the clothing. Nikan and I exchanged a wordless look while I rewrapped my hands.

Four shirts later, and I had enough room made for Cass to almost get her head free. She was on her feet, her eyes a lot brighter, her concern for her mate getting stronger, which was making her careless. Gripping her snout, I pulled her head down to meet my eyes.

I was not her alpha, but I was an alpha. “Cass, look at me, I need you to focus. I almost have it, but this last bit will hurt, okay?” A low whimper in her throat, and I was reassuring her even more. “I’m going to hold it as steady as I can, and I need you to back up. Do it slowly and steadily.” A huge ask when she had been almost dead a short while ago. “When I say now, I need you to jerk your head back with everything you have.”

“If it hits her eyes, you’ll blind her,” Nikan murmured behind me.

“You must keep your eyes closed, Cass.” I saw her wariness as she looked at me. “Trust me, okay? It’s a big ask, I know, but Kris trusts me. Trust him if you can’t trust me.”

As she dipped her head slightly, I inhaled deeply. Carefully, slowly, I maneuvered the distorted collar over the wolf’s neck. Cass held perfectly still, muscles taut from tension. During my time in the army, I’d watched children on the base engaging in a game involving a buzzer. Participants used tweezers to extract items from simulated human cavities, and touching the sides meant triggering the buzzer, and you lost your turn.

This was very much like that game. Only a red-nosed buzzer didn’t sound. Instead, the wolf in front of me either flinched or whimpered when the collar touched her. Firming my grip on the collar, I braced myself.

“You ready?”

She looked back at me, apprehension clear in her gaze.

“Close your eyes, keep them closed. On my count, Cass.” Nikan was practically on top of me, ready to offer support should I need it. “One, two…three!”

She jerked back as I pulled forward. Stunned, I looked at the empty collar in my hands, then immediately flung it away from me.

The wolf shifted to human immediately and then back to her wolfskin. Three times, she did it before turning to us and accepting a shirt from Nikan. It had scorch marks, but Cass donned it quickly. Dropping to her knees, she pressed her forehead against Kris.

“You’re next, my love,” she whispered. Looking up at me, she glanced between us both before getting to her feet. “Help him.”

“That’s the plan.”

Nikan handed me a pair of pants. “You used all the shirts.”

Kris stumbled closer, his ears pricking upward as he looked past me.

“Shit, they decided to come and investigate.” The pants were thicker, so I didn’t need as much protection against the silver, but they were harder to grip.

“Sounds like a few,” Nikan muttered.

Kris held his head up, and I saw the collar and the lock on it. “Thanks.” The running was getting closer. More than my brother could handle. They weren’t coming closer, and I prayed they took the other tunnel away from us, but I knew our luck wouldn’t hold much longer.

“Fuck.” Ripping the leg of the pants off my hands, I tossed them aside. “Come here!”

“Cannon! No!” Nikan shouted just as I wrapped my bare hands around the silver collar and pulled against the locking mechanism of the collar.

The pain was excruciating. I tried to keep the agony contained—I didn’t want to encourage our enemies to move faster. Strong hands wrapped around my wrists as Nikan crouched over me, adding his strength to mine, and the two of us pulled. Curls of smoke rose from the palms of my hands, and just when I thought it would never work, the collar snapped in half.

Kris danced backward, careening into his mate as he tried to regain his strength. Nikan was already grabbing my damaged hands, mumbling so fast I couldn’t hear him over the roaring in my ears.

“Fuck, that hurts.” Gritting my teeth, I let my brother help me out of my shirt. Kicking off my pants, I shifted to my wolf, a yelp of pain escaping as my damaged paws hit the packed dirt. Shifting once more, I knew I had no more time. The footsteps had slowed on their approach.

Give the clothes to Kris. We protect them at all costs.

“I’ll shift too?”

No. Stay as you are. You protect them until they are stronger. I called for my beta. Hearing his answering call, I charged down the tunnel.

When we made it out of the tunnels, Kris was almost half-recovered, and seeing my pack weary but intact, I ordered the retreat. We had what I came for. There was no reason to overstay our welcome.

We met Doc halfway down the mountain. He was on a dirt bike, and one of the younger males of the pack was on another. The young one shifted to his wolf as soon as he saw Cass and Kris. Nikan took over his bike, and Cass climbed on behind him, with Kris taking up position behind Doc.

We raced down the mountain. There was no sound of pursuit, but just because I didn’t hear it, didn’t mean it wasn’t coming.

Back on packlands, I waited until every shifter who had gone with me had passed me, returning to the shelter of their home.

My beta brought up the rear, along with three others of my pack. He gave me an angry scowl, and I knew I would be getting yelled at later. But I got what I wanted from Anterrio—Kris was safe and that was all that mattered. I’d need him soon to help find his sister.

My hands were still troublingme, but they were better than they had been. I rubbed the ointment that the shaman had made me into them while ignoring Doc’s scowl at my use of the shaman’s salve. We were in my study—Nikan, Royce, Doc and myself—waiting for the shaman to join us.

“You really hate this salve,” I mocked, enjoying Doc’s flush of annoyance.

“I’ve given you hundreds of medicines and remedies, and you’ve never used them once. He gives you a watery thin lotion, and you use it religiously twice a day.”

“Your lotions don’t soothe the burn of silver; the shaman’s does.”

“The shift isn’t helping?” Royce asked me curiously.

“It does, but the ache, it’s deep… It’s hard to describe.”

The sound of knocking on the study door made me turn my attention to our visitor. When Kris walked through the door with the shaman, I smiled widely on seeing him.

“Two days in a row you’re up,” I noted. “Better?”

Kris inclined his head to the others, letting out a slow exhale when he met my eyes. “I can’t explain it, I feel…”

“Weary,” the shaman told us all. “It aches down to your bones and feels like it will never stop burning.”

I saw Doc frown, and he caught me looking. “You got a lotion for that?” I asked him.

“The salve will work,” the shaman told me. “Shift at least three times per day too. Find someone who can rub the salve in your wolf form. It will help.”

“My wife’s been doing that for him,” Royce told him. “Your mate aiding you?” he asked Kris.

“She’d have to be talking to me first,” he muttered, sitting beside Nikan on the couch.

“Our next steps are not your decision,” I reminded him. “This is my pack, and it is my choice how we proceed.”

Kris was already nodding. “I know, I told her. But she thinks I can overrule you. She just wants us to rescue her twin.” He didn’t meet my gaze this time, looking past me to the window.

“I’ll believe he needs saving either when he’s in a silver collar like his sister was or when my mate returns and declares his innocence.” I had more chance of the moon falling from the sky than my mate returning to me anytime soon.

“Shaman?” Kris asked his old friend.

“This is not my pack,” the shaman spoke in a reasonable, calm voice. “You know better, Kristoff, than to use the Goddess to overrule an alpha.” The old man turned his head to look at me. “I have thought over my most recent conversations with Landon as you asked, Alpha.” The old shifter looked puzzled. “He spoke with clarity.”

“Was he lying?”

“I have known him for a very long time.” The shaman paused. “He was always skilled with strong conviction and?—”

“Showmanship,” Kris grunted. “He’s a skilled performer. Don’t believe a word he says.”

Royce’s eyebrows rose upward in surprise. His look to me spoke volumes. “Your mate is his sister.”

“I know.” Kris was on his feet. Making his way amongst the outstretched legs, he walked to the bookshelves. “Luna, Kez would have died when she saw these.”

I moved over to see what he was talking about. “Crime novels?”

“She loves this author. Goddess, I don’t know how many suppers I’ve sat through, listening to her retelling me the entire book.” He looked at me over his shoulder. “No wonder you’re mates.”

I wanted to tell him it was more than a shared love of the same genre of books, but when I saw his look, I knew he understood that it was so much more than that.

“If she ever comes back, I’ll gift her the whole collection.”

Kris gave the books his back as he looked over the occupants of the study. “I need to hear it all again.”

And so I listened to the retelling of Kezia leaving the pack and the return of Moonstar. I sat silent throughout it.

Some would call it brooding. Some could kiss my ass.

When they were finished and Kris had asked the same questions, silence fell around us. Looking up, I saw the shaman looking right at me.

“Shaman?”

“You have been quiet for too long, Alpha.” Leaning back in his seat, he tilted his head to the ceiling, his stare so focused it was as if he could see through it. “The anger burns deep. Not all that scorches your bones is silver.”

Bowing my head, I heard what he said. “I need to know where she is,” I admitted quietly. “I can’t think, I can’t focus. All I can feel is her absence.”

“Yet you sit here,” the shaman chided, “with the books.”

“I committed an act of war on a neighboring pack. We have one of the pack leader’s children, his beta, and the pack’s shaman in my pack. It could be said that I kidnapped them. Bale has not retaliated, why? Why? Because he is within his rights to call for Pack Council. And I lost the advantage when…”

“When you rescued me and Cass.”

It wasn’t fair to blame Kris. It was my choice to get him and his mate to safety, and I would make it again. Even if it meant I had lost my advantage. Which I had.

Kris shuffled his feet. “I could go back.” He met my stony glare. “She’s my mate, he’s her twin.”

“And they would take you prisoner again.” When he went to argue, my temper rose higher. “You will stay in my pack until we have a better plan than you going back and handing yourself over for that limp dick little shit.”

Kris stared at me, his body still. “I will stay?”

My gaze swept over my mate’s brother, reminding myself she would kill me if I put him in the cells, even if it was for his own protection. “You are my guest.”

“Am I?” We held each other’s stare until Kris looked away. “Sorry. But…”

“There should be no but.” Royce’s glare was just as hard as mine. “We offer you shelter; don’t fuck it up by betraying our alpha’s trust.”

Kris was pacing again. “Just listen. Okay?” When no one spoke, he looked at the shaman, who gave a slight nod. “Right. Well…so, I’ve been digging. Ever since we knew…things.”

“What kind of things?” Royce asked warily.

Kris tugged at his ear. “For years, we”—he gestured to the shaman and himself—“have suspected that Bale has been bribing the Pack Council.” I noticed that my own wide-eyed shock mirrored those of the others. “As I dug deeper… He’s not bribing them, he owns them.”

“Owns them?” That was Doc. “What does that mean?”

Kris was shaking his head. “He owns them. He’s got so much dirt on them, and they’ve earned so much money off his extra income, they’ll do whatever he wants.”

“What’s the extra income?” Nikan asked, glancing at me.

“I didn’t know,” Kris blurted. “Landon told Cass. Just before we were taken. I see no reason for him to lie about it, not to her.”

“Told her what?” I asked. “That he knew they were going to put a collar around her neck?”

“No, he’s a dick, but he would never have rested with his sister locked up. Definitely not with silver on her.” Kris looked at me, his eyes begging me to see reason. “He’s a dick, but he’s not that kind of dick.”

“So just their father, then?” Nikan quipped sarcastically.

“Then what is it he did know?” I snapped irritably, and I saw his face and I already knew. It made so much sense. So much fucking sense. “The fights.”

Kris nodded. “Bale organizes the fights that Kezia was fighting in. It’s where all the extra men have come from. He sends his shifters there to train and to earn money for the pack.” He cleared his throat. “His other pack.”

“Other pack?” Royce demanded, his attention on me now.

“He knew where she was the whole time?” Nikan asked at the same time.

Kris was nodding, his anger evident. “He was keeping tabs on her. I think it was Bale who covered up the death of those humans.”

“It was Bale who gave the order to kill her. He told them to shoot her with silver.” I was on my feet, rage rolling off me in waves of fury. “Why her? Why Kezia?”

“I don’t know, but I think…” Kris’s head was lowered, and he raised it to meet my anger with his own. “That he’s always wanted her…us? Dead.”

“There’s a woman here; she knew your parents. She told us Bale was obsessed with your mother.” Kris looked interested, but my thoughts were already racing. “But that makes no sense for him to obsess over Kezia.” Running a hand through my hair, I closed my eyes. “What am I missing?” I was asking myself more than them.

“A psychotic break.”

Opening my eyes, I looked at Doc in question. “It’s a human term. Who knows, it may occur in shifters too. It’s when a person has a medical condition that affects the mind, or experiences something so traumatic that their mental health deteriorates.” His eyes flicked to mine. “They lose touch with reality. It makes them delusional. Sometimes dangerous.”

“And this is relevant to who?” I asked cautiously.

Doc shifted in his seat. “What if Bale isn’t fixated on Kezia like we think?” He looked over at Kris. “What if it’s you?”

“Me?” Kris turned to the shaman as he spoke to Doc. “I’ve known him most of my life. Why would I be the reason he’s suddenly gone mad?”

“Cass.” Royce rubbed his jaw as he thought about it. “His daughter. You turn up at his pack as a child, when you’re supposed to be dead, and you have a wild untamed sister with you. He takes you in, the son of his former obsession. He keeps you close so he can watch you.”

“And you hide the fact you’re an alpha from him.” I knew where Royce was going. “I did it with Rek; I understand why you did it. But then his daughter has her first heat and finds her mate. You. Alerting Bale that you’ve been lying to him all along, and now the son of his enemy?—”

“Enemy?” Kris questioned.

“Your dad got Bale’s girl. I was told he sent his pack to fight him the night your dad and mom went back to see her family. Doesn’t sound friendly to me.” I waited until he had a moment to think about it. “And then you’re revealed as Cass’s mate. Because you are an alpha. And she’s his only daughter. And he…breaks.” Nikan looked at me with a what the fuck look. I agreed with the sentiment entirely.

“That would do it,” Doc agreed.

“You think we’re right,” I realized as Kris stared wordlessly at the shaman. “Don’t you?”

“I think so.” Kris’s concern matched my own.

“He’s been building this for years,” I mused. “That compound, those males there, they don’t happen overnight.”

“The mate bond accelerated his plan?” Royce asked doubtfully.

I sighed long and loud. “I don’t know,” I admitted, banging my hand off the wall in frustration. “But it feels…right. He’s been building and preparing for something, but what? Just to feel prepared as he isn’t an alpha?” I looked around at them all. “And if we’re right, none of us are safe. Plus, he has the Pack Council in his pocket.”

Kris’s hands were in his hair. “We’re fucked.”

“And Kezia is in even more danger out there alone,” I added. “Because he won’t rest if she’s free. She’s your sister, so she’s your weakness.” She was mine too, but I saw her brother’s eyes harden, his jaw clenched.

“Yeah, she is.” He began to pace. “Fuck it all to hell.”

The study was once more in total silence until the shaman snorted in a most undignified manner. “Well, there will be none of that. Alpha Cannon, isn’t it time you found your mate?”