A half mile down the new channel four airboats were roped to some trees on the side. Rourke cut the fan and maneuvered in behind them. On the bank there were several wolves in human form who I wasn’t familiar with. One shouted and my father emerged on what looked to be a man-made wooden walkway.
I hopped out of the boat as soon as I could and ran toward him, which meant I had to scamper over the cypress roots, but it had been too long since I’d seen my father and I was excited.
“Jessica,” he said as I jumped into his arms for a long hug, feeling like a little girl for one perfect, tiny moment. “I was so worried about you. It’s such a relief to see you home safe. Going to the Underworld was no small thing, and when I found out you went unescorted, you gave me several gray hairs, which on a werewolf is a hard thing to do.”
I laughed and hugged him a little harder. He engulfed me in his arms, not letting go. We’d always had a strong bond, but once I’d become a wolf, it had intensified. Swapping blood during an oath had made it even stronger. I was aware of him on a different level, and being this close made our internal connection burst. His love for me zipped along my veins, like a mini hurricane of emotion, making me feel content and happy. A wolf needed to be close to their Alpha at regular intervals.
I finally pulled back, feeling a little sheepish I’d held on for so long. My brother cleared his throat behind me while I kissed my father on the cheek.
“Some of us are waiting here,” Tyler said.
“Sorry about the gray hair,” I told my father, “but I survived Hell, so there’s that. We have a lot to discuss.”
“Yes, we do. We’ll talk immediately after everyone gets situated.” He turned to embrace my brother in a wolfish hug, which meant a quick pull followed by a few back slaps on the back. No deep emotional words were spoken, but I felt their affection for each other and it made me happy once again.
Rourke came up behind me and placed one hand on my waist and reached around with the other to shake my father’s hand. My dad took it and gave him a warm smile. “You went after her to the Underworld and kept her safe. I owe you my life.” My father inclined his head down.
“You owe me nothing. She was the one who kept us safe. Your daughter is a natural leader, and a very powerful one at that. She did your Pack proud in the Underworld.”
My father’s head angled toward me, and I could tell he was trying to process my new signature. “Lots of changes, I see,” he said, a single eyebrow raised. “Let’s head over to our less-than-adequate headquarters and discuss it then, shall we?”
We followed him on the skinny wooden planks that ran through the trees. “How did you do this?” I asked, noticing the pathways branching off in a few directions.
He shook his head. “It’s been as tough as hell to live here, let me tell you. We had to take multiple trips to get the supplies we needed, and once they were here, we had to build a sustainable place to live, which as you can see, isn’t easy in a swamp. When we were done building, we had to employ two witches to spell the area from humans. This is a national park, so we’re breaking many human laws, but it was necessary. We have three small areas like this staked out around the priestess’s perimeter. The Made wolves are a danger to every human they meet, and they also pose a threat to exposing our secret. Supernaturals are cloaked from humans for a reason, and allowing this priestess to break that law is unacceptable. So we’ve done what we saw fit to contain this dreadful situation.”
“What about the fracture pack?” Tyler said, glancing around us. “I can’t believe those deserters live like this in the swamp.” Tyler was referring to the wolves who joined together to move against me. I took out their leader, but they were still operational, which is why my father had come here in the first place.
“No, they set up shop in a nearby populated town. We took out almost all of those wolves when we arrived three weeks ago. They’d already been largely leaderless, so it wasn’t hard to do. Once they were gone, we figured we’d erased the threat. But then we found two Made wolves lurking on the periphery and chased them, and they ultimately led us here.” He spread his arms. “We tracked them all the way in, through this godforsaken swamp, but they disappeared before we could get to them. But we waited them out, and it became clear that was their home base. Since we’ve set up shop, surrounding her, she has struck against us four times, kidnapping our wolves in the middle of the night. I have a total of eight men gone. We have no idea how she’s taking them, but in the process of going up against her, we’ve figured out how to efficiently kill the Made wolves without getting cursed.”