I’d never met this man before, although I’d heard his name in conversation. He had dark hair pulled back into a tight band, and his eyes were two different colors. From my end of the table, I couldn’t see what they were, but he was striking to look at. I guessed him to be one of the ancients—a nickname we sometimes gave to the older Shifters who had been around for hundreds of years. Some powerful Packmasters had a longer lifespan than the other Shifters. He nodded at everyone and winked at Maizy.
“Let me see what you drew, Peanut.” Denver distracted Maizy by reaching across the table, curling his fingers and asking for her picture. “Well, these are the prettiest Xs and Os I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s tic-tac-toe, silly.” She gave him an exasperated “duh” expression.
Austin’s voice lowered, but his tone became sharp so that everyone at the table heard him. “The reason I’ve invited our guests is that we’ve had some trouble on the property. Reno first reported a week ago that a wolf has been trespassing on our land.”
Everyone looked amongst one another.
Austin put his right arm on the table and turned toward Prince and Lorenzo, eyeballing Lorenzo directly. “Church, you’re the only neighbor I have a beef with, so I need to know if you’re sending someone to scout my territory.”
A strand of hair fell in front of Lorenzo’s eyes, and I had a strange urge to brush it away. Maybe it was because he did not. “Tread carefully, Cole. An accusation disguised as a question will not earn you any respect.”
“It’s a question so I can move on to the next half of this conversation. Care to answer?”
Lorenzo took a long sip of his tea and set the glass on the wood table. All eyes were on him, and he gave Austin a satisfied look. “Is your new title of Packmaster too much for you to manage, Cole? Perhaps you’re in over your head.”
Austin heaved a sigh. “Yes or no.”
“I have better things to do than send my men to sniff out that shed you live in.”
“Now you listen here,” Lexi snapped.
Prince sat up tall in his chair, and he was a man of towering height. “Let’s keep this conversation amicable. I can put your mind at ease that none of my men are—”
“No,” Austin quickly interjected. “Your pack is not in question. I’ve asked you here for the second half of this conversation. Lorenzo is the only one I have a personal grudge with, and if he’s given his word in front of two Packmasters that he’s not responsible for this wolf, then he’ll be held accountable if his words are lies. At first we thought it was a rogue on the property and dismissed it. Our territorial lines are marked regularly, so no one should have crossed them. But twice more when doing a perimeter check, the same scent came up.” Austin moved his eyes around the table. “We have a wolf who’s not only crossing onto our property but marking it.”
Wheeler rapped his knuckles on the table. “Fucking kidding me? Put me on guard tonight and I’ll catch the little bastard.”
The Breed world had laws to some extent, but we had a savage history and were hanging on to civility by a thread. I’d heard stories about entire packs slaughtered for their land. And the Weston pack didn’t have the numbers to defend against a major attack. A fluttering sensation in my belly made me hug my arms.
Austin scraped his bottom lip with his teeth. “Prince, you have the highest rank in the area, so I wanted to keep you in the loop in case this is something bigger. You might want to alert your pack and have them on guard. It could be a lone wolf, and it might damn well be someone who has his eye on our territory. If that’s the case, we’ll deal with it. But if it’s something bigger, like one of the northern packs sending down their scouts, then we could be looking at a war.”
“That’s just an urban legend,” Ben said, setting his glass down. “We’ve been hearing about a land war for years. Some of the ancients like to run their mouths after a few beers to rile up some of the new blood. Then it’s forgotten.”
Prince’s eyes looked as if he were memorizing every groove on the wooden table.
“You knew about this?” I whispered to Reno. “I took Maizy for a walk this morning up the private road. Why didn’t anyone say anything?”
He rubbed the skin below his bottom lip. “We weren’t sure until last night. Even still, it’s too soon to tell what’s going on. It’s probably just a rogue looking for a pack, or maybe a Shifter who’s gone mad.”
I shook my head, horror filling me to the marrow. “Still. You should have warned us. I would have kept Maizy closer to the house.”
While my wolf had never fought, I knew I could depend on her if she had to defend herself. But I couldn’t keep a human child safe. Most Shifters wouldn’t attack women and children, but they had no qualms about humans. Maizy and her mother added an extra element of danger to our family.