Chapter 12
1301 Words
Henry POV
I walk past the lodge, that sat at the edge of the neutral zone, half-swallowed by trees that belonged to no pack
I've had been to places like this before for non disclosure border meetings, trade pack disputes. The neutral ground where places where Alphas who didn't trust each other could sit across a table without either side claiming home advantage. The lodge was old wood and low ceilings and a fire that had been burning long before I arrived.
I was early, I had told himself that I was to be in control of the meeting with whosoever call me for merge.
But the man who called me was already there when I walked in.
He sat near the fire in a chair angled just slightly away from the door, his sitting position had let him see everyone who entered without seeming to watch out for.
His left hand was on his grey hair cut short and neat. His dark coat fit too well to be anything but expensive, though nothing about him shouted money. He had the stillness of someone who had been patient.
He didn't stand when I came in, that alone made me know that's aura had backing.
"Alpha Henry," he said to confirm i was the one he was expecting to meet. "Sit."
I sat, as i told myself it was because that was what made sense in a negotiation. I kept telling myself a lot of things because I don't know the man right in front of me.
"You have a name," I asked.
"Voss." The man poured something from a decanter on the table between the both of us without asking if i wanted it. He slid the glass across to me. "I work for someone with an interest in your current situation."
"My situation."
"Your former Luna," Voss said, "is now bonded to Alpha Ralph of Nightfang. Daughter of the Great Alpha of Redfang, no less. That's quite a lot for you to take in."
The words landed exactly where Voss intended.
My jaw tightened.
"You called me," I said. "Get to the point because right now because it felt like you're painting my losses to my face and I'm losing my patient."
Voss smiled thin and unhurried as he took a sip of whatsoever he was holding in the cup.
"Stonecrest's grain reserves are down eleven percent from last season," he said. "Your treasury covered the shortfall by drawing against the eastern trade fund three months early. You have forty-one wolves you'd consider personally loyal, though six of those have had private conversations with neighbouring packs about employment elsewhere should things at Stonecrest become….unstable."
I didn't move, I didn't trust his voice yet but he was actually getting through me.
"How," he said finally, "do you know that."
"Because to some of us we make it our business to know things," Voss said simply. "About packs. About Alphas. About situations that might become useful information to us." He leaned back. "You're not difficult to know, Alpha Henry. A man who lost something valuable without realising its value until someone else claimed it. That kind of man is — predictable."
"Careful!," I said with my voice already raging.
"I mean no insult," Voss said, in a tone that suggested he meant exactly the amount of insult he wanted to. "I mean it as an observation and I was just stating the obvious."
I drank from the cup he jad passed to me to cool my anger.
I hadn't meant to drink, the glass was just in my hand and then it was at my mouth and the liquid burned going down, sharp and good in a way that cool my anger.
"Of what interest will your conversation be for me" I asked.
Voss's expression didn't change, his composure was relax knowing to him that the conversation was still at his side.
"My employer has an old matter with the Great Alpha of Redfang," Voss said. "A matter that predates you, predates this current arrangement, predates most things currently standing. A duel. Decades ago there was a border territory feud between my employer and Great Alpha Gregory. It ended unsatisfactorily for my employer."
"I don't see what that has to do with me."*
"Gregory's daughter," Voss said, "marrying into Nightfang changes the balance of every territory within three days' travel. Redfang and Nightfang combined are no longer two powerful packs. They're one enormous problem. My employer would prefer that problem didn't exist."
I sat very still seeing this concern Alpha Ralph who had taken my Luna away from me.
"And me?" I asked with interest of what I'll be benefiting from this, if this will let me get Sera back.
"You," Voss said, "in return you'll be getting was so ever revenge you want to take on Alpha Ralph and Luna Sera.”
The fire popped with interest.
I set the glass down carefully seeing this is leading to my own interest as well.
"You're talking about going after Redfang," i said. "Or Nightfang. Or both."
"I'm talking," Voss said, "about an alliance with you in taking Redfang and night fang down"
"And if I say no?"
Voss spread his hands slightly without bothering about my disagreement with him.
"Then you go back to your pack," he said. "And things continue exactly as they are. Sera Redfang remains the Luna of Nightfang. Your pack continues drawing against next season's funds. And in a year, perhaps two, someone else sits where you're sitting and has this same conversation, because the situation that brought you here doesn't resolve itself."
Voss stood up smoothing his coat, "Think about it, Alpha Henry," he said. "You know how to reach me."
He moved toward the door.
"Wait," I stop him.
Voss paused.
"Who is your employer," I asked “I want a name before I agree to your alliance.”
Voss looked at me for a long moment, then he said it. Simply. Like it cost him nothing because the name itself was the weapon behind his aura and our alliance.
"Alpha Cassius." He walked out.
The fire burned down slowly while I sat alone with the empty glass.
“Alpha Cassius.”
The name meant nothing to me. There was no territory i could place it with. No Alpha had discussed at council meetings or border negotiations.
Just a name, dropped into the room like a stone into still water, and somehow I felt the ripples of it without understanding what had caused them.
I drove home in the dark.
Jennifer was at the window when I pulled in.
I saw her shape against the light before I got out of the car, watching, the way she'd been doing more often lately without either of us mentioning it.
I sat in the driveway for a moment still reminiscing on the name Cassius.
I turned the name over again. Tried it different ways. Said it once, quietly, to the empty car, like saying it aloud might make it mean something.
It didn't.
But it sat in my chest anyway. Heavy and cold and waiting.
I got out of the car.
Jennifer's hand dropped from the curtain as I walked toward the house, and by the time I opened the door she was in the kitchen, pretending to be busy with something that didn't need doing.
"Long meeting," she said. Light. Careful.
"Yeah," I answered her with no concern.
I didn't elaborate what had occur with me.
I went to my study and closed the door and sat in the dark for a long time with one word turning over and over
in my mind, looking for an edge to grab onto and finding none.
Cassius.
Whoever that was, I had just agreed to find out who he's.
- Writer
