Werewolves and Chocolate (6 page)

Ellie was nauseated and her heart was
thudding. “We can’t just leave you here, Kyle.”

“If they need someone to help them fight, I’m
willing to do it.”

Ellie turned to Kyle. “I’m not leaving you
here, dammit.”

“It’ll be fine,” he kissed her forehead.

There was more pounding at the door. Jake
pulled on his sweater. “We have to get over there.” He grabbed the sandwich in
the plastic bag from the dresser. “Here, we made this for you if you’re hungry.”

“I’ll eat it later. I’m too pissed.” She
stuffed it into one of her large coat pockets.

Kyle opened the door and they walked outside.

Liam took one look at them and couldn’t hide
his smirk. “Sorry I interrupted…important matters.”

Kyle gripped Liam’s arm and stared him down. “Someday
you’ll be mated and you’ll understand. Until then, shut up.”

Ellie was somewhat gratified to see Liam
blush and actually clamp his lips together. She was still shaking mad at how
they had been perfunctorily summoned, and how Jake and Kyle were expected to
just drop everything in their lives to do the will of the pack. And her, by
extension. Even just from their brief meeting, she could already tell that
Matthew was a lot like her stepfather. He was arrogant and always expected to
be obeyed instantly. There was a reason she didn’t ever go home to visit her
family.

“Are you all right?” Jake asked her in some
concern. She knew he could probably feel the rage boiling inside of her.

Realizing that it would perhaps be imprudent
to gripe about their Alpha in front of Liam, she thought of one of the many
other things that was agitating her. “I really hate this whole thing where
everybody can smell everything we’re up to.” Ellie was more bothered than she
had expected that she had absolutely no privacy around the wolves. Worse, that many
of them seemed to find it completely appropriate to tease her about it. She’d
never been good with teasing.

“Sorry about that, baby.” Jake took her hand
in his.

“Let’s just go get this over with.”

CHAPTER SIX

Jake and Kyle guided her through the snow and
trees to the larger meeting room. The sun was setting and the room was brightly
lit with a roaring fire in the hearth. There were enough chairs around the edge
of the room that all the residents of the colony could meet together. Matthew’s
big frame filled up the large wooden chair on the far side of the room.

“Seriously, a throne?” she muttered under her
breath.

Kyle made what Ellie thought of as his
strangled wolf sound, and everyone in the room went silent.

“Ah fuck,” she whispered.

Matthew gave her a grim look. “Still not used
to our hearing, I see.”

“Not exactly.” She felt the color burning in
her cheeks.

“Have a seat,” Matthew gestured at several
available chairs. Kyle and Jake flanked her, which Matthew noted with a raised
eyebrow.

She was so cranky she wanted to punch
something. Between her thighs she was ripe and pulsing. At the moment she wasn’t
even horny; she was just tense. Her shoulders ached, she had a headache, and
she couldn’t get her heart to stop palpitating.

Would they really try to force her to stay?

Cassia stood once they were seated. She gave
Ellie an apologetic look. “I spoke with the wereleopards. They confirmed
several of the Hagalaz mercenaries were killed during a struggle with a Fae
lord. Well, part Fae. What he lacked in magic he was trying to make up for in
muscle. He had been embezzling money from a company, and using the money to
hire the Hagalaz and other creatures.”

“So we still don’t know why they wanted the
money,” Matthew said.

Nodding, Cassia continued. “What we do know
is they were willing to die to help the Fae lord. One after another the Hagalaz
fell and they kept their contract.”

“The Hagalaz won’t run from a fight but they
aren’t stupid either. The Fae must have promised them aid, or something equally
valuable.”

“Agreed. The Hagalaz were, a year before the
conflict last summer, doing contract kills to allow the Fae to continue
embezzling. So their arrangement was going on for at least a year, likely more.
The wereleopards have a Truthspeaker who has been trying to unravel the whole
plot.” Cassia sat.

Felicia leapt to her feet. “This can only
mean they plan to attack us and dominate us. It’s always been their plan.”

The room erupted with shouting.

“Why do the Hagalaz want to dominate the Uruz
pack?” Ellie asked Kyle. He leaned over and tried to speak into her ear so she
could hear him over the uproar.

“Over the past hundreds of years our birth
rate has declined. The Hagalaz had certain ideas about how to handle the
situation. Uruz and Hagalaz used to be closer allies, but our Alphas fought.
The Hagalaz have, on occasion, tried to force us to their way. They’ve even kidnapped
a few Uruz wolves, solitaries, and even wolves from other packs.”

“For what?”

Jake gave her a stricken look. “Mating.”

“Oh. But I thought that couldn’t be forced.”

“It can’t, but it’s complicated. Those
without mates get to a certain age and start to panic. And you can only tell if
someone’s your mate if you have sex with them.”

Ellie’s jaw dropped. “So what, they were just
passing people around to see if—”

“Exactly.”

“That’s horrific. Also, I didn’t know it was so
desperate.”

“We didn’t want to worry you, sweet.”

The shouting died down for a moment.

“We should plan an attack now,” said Taggert.
“While they are still hurting from their losses.”

Cassia shook her head. “It’s been months, Taggert.
It’s not like this happened last week.”

“Aye, but how many of the wolves that died
were mated? How many of their mates went mad or died of grief? This has to have
devastated their whole pack.”

“Then they aren’t likely to be planning any
major offensive, are they?”

“On the other hand,” Matthew said, and
everyone quieted. “If they are so devastated that their backs are to the wall, they
may also be motivated to attack us. Let’s not forget, Taggert overheard the
Hagalaz making a deal with an unknown shifter from another pack. They could be
planning something even now. Even if they simply step up their kidnappings, it’s
bad for us.”

“They haven’t kidnapped anyone in years.”

“No, but they have used any excuse to harry
us.”

“If the mating situation is so desperate, why
did they try to kill you, Kyle?” Ellie asked it softly, but Matthew turned to
her.

“You’ve articulated the difficulty with the
Hagalaz, Ellie. They don’t always make good sense. Bane, their Alpha, argues
for bloodline purity but they kidnap humans who don’t agree to a mating and
force them into it. They didn’t like Kyle in part because he’s Uruz. And he’s
perhaps not pureblood enough for their standards. Though, if he and Kara had
mated, they’d likely have gone the other way and forced him to stay at their
clanholding whether he wanted to or not. The real problem is they put us all in
danger. Hiring out as mercenaries, kidnapping people…there’s a tremendous risk
of them blowing our cover, and that we do not need. It would help if they were
at all predictable, but the only thing predictable about them is we know they’ll
do something to put us all at risk.”

“Which is why we need to stop them before they
do something stupid, Matthew.” A wolf Ellie didn’t know spoke. “We’ve never had
as much muscle as they do. Their losses last summer even up the odds a bit.”

“I am opposed to an all-out attack,” Cassia
said. “These are our cousins. We should not be killing our cousins without dire
need.”

“Not as if it ever bothers them to kill one
of us.”

“I’m inclined to agree. They’ve taken
potshots at us the past years and we’ve never had the strength to do anything
about it. They’ve kept the neutrality…mostly. But if we strike now, we have a
chance to end this conflict and bring our groups together.”

Cassia smacked her hand on her chair arm. “The
losses we will suffer will be devastating!”

Matthew let out a growl “In the long run our
losses will be worse if we don’t.”

Everyone started shouting again, and Kyle and
Jake both looked stricken. “What does this mean?”

“Basically, war.”

“A stupid war.”

“It’s not a conflict I want any part in,”
Jake said.

“Then we leave,” she said. “We don’t need to
get wrapped up in this.”

The room fell quiet again at some gesture Matthew
made, and his gaze focused in on her like a laser. She noticed his eyes were
glowing and his teeth were already a little run out, and he wasn’t the only
one. “That’s not a decision you get to make, Ellie. When you mated Jake and
Kyle, you became part of the pack. And if the pack does this, we do it
together.”

Ellie found herself standing, her fists
clenched in anger. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’ve been in that
position before and it’s not something I’m ever going to do again. This war of
yours sounds ridiculous. You don’t even know what the Hagalaz are doing. You
haven’t talked to them, you’re just making assumptions. Yes, they’ve been
assholes in the past, but before you go and try to kill a bunch of people and
get killed in the process, you should perhaps try to talk with them first. I
bet Moira would be happy to mediate and help keep the peace if you asked her.”

Matthew made a dismissive gesture. “Moira has
no say. She has no power over us—”

“Moira makes bolts of lightning fall from the
sky, and the Hagalaz mostly respected the SpiralStone boundaries. She could enforce
the peace.”

“If the Hagalaz would ever talk mediation
would be useful, but they won’t.”

“Try it again. It’s better than killing each
other.”

“Your little bitch is pretty mouthy,” said Taggert,
his face gone a little feral. “Particularly mouthy for someone who isn’t doing
her part.”

“My part?” Ellie asked, genuinely confused.

“Your bracelet,” said Felicia “Do you know
how long my mate and I have been trying to conceive? Decades. We’ve been trying
for decades. And there you are, actively trying to prevent pregnancy. It’s
disgusting. You revolt me.”

Ellie blinked. She had no idea, and she was
stunned by the pain in Felicia’s voice. But she also was appalled at the idea
of being pressured to have children when she wasn’t ready for it. Before she
could stop herself, she said, “Well, you’d kind of be like the Hagalaz if you
tried forcing me to have kids, wouldn’t you?”

The woman launched at her and Jake barely
caught Felicia around the middle in time. Kyle put Ellie behind him until the shifter
had calmed down.

“Lay off me,” Felicia finally said, and Jake
released her.

“I had no idea it was that bad,” Ellie said,
looking at her bracelet.

“It’s all right,” Kyle took her hands in his.
“We have plenty of time. There is no pressure from me or from Jake for kids.
None. I swear it. You said you might want kids someday, and that’s great. And
if you don’t, we’re fine with that too. Truly.”

“Kyle,” Matthew growled. “I can’t believe I’m
hearing this. There are so few of us mated…how could you betray us like this?”

Ellie’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. “What
I do with my life and my body is my choice, Matthew. It’s not Kyle’s decision
for me, so don’t talk to him about my choices.”

Matthew took a step closer and she felt Kyle’s
muscles tense. Jake moved closer on her other side. “You mated them which means
you are a part of the pack, and it means you will obey the will of the pack.”

“I didn’t make that vow. I promised to
protect the pack’s secret. And I promised to love both of them. And I’ve done
that. What Jake and Kyle and I do is a conversation for the three of us. If
Jake and Kyle decide to join you in your fight, I’ll still love them. I’ll
disagree with them, but I’ll still love them when they come home. But I won’t
join it. And if they die in your fight, then I’m left alone and insane, unless
I am mistaken. I don’t know if the lot of you are brainwashed or what, but this
sounds like a really bad idea. But hey, I’m just a physicist.”

“Silence your mate,” Matthew growled, looking
at Kyle.

Kyle growled and she felt him on the verge of
shifting right there. She could feel the ache, the urge, almost under her own
skin. Ellie trembled in rage. “Do not speak to me like that. I am not anyone’s
property.”

“You will stay here if I order it.”

“No, Matthew, we will not,” Kyle said,
growling. “I made a promise to Ellie. To my mate. I am going to honor my
promise.”

“Kyle, you do not want to do this. Not here,
not now. You are Uruz and you will do as I say.”

“No,” Jake said. “We won’t.”

“We’ll leave the pack, if you require it. Though
that is not what we want. But our vow to our mate comes first.”

“You’re making a mistake. This is where you
belong, with your tribe.” Ellie felt his low rumbling growl and he stepped
closer.

Kyle pushed Ellie back, his claws
lengthening.

“You want to challenge me for Alpha right
here, boy?” Matthew bristled, getting into Kyle’s face. Kyle’s claws and teeth ran
all the way out and he let out a low growl.

“Kyle,” Jake whispered.

Ellie held her breath, stunned. She’d never been
so furious in her life. Her skin tingled with the hot, livid surge through her
blood. After a moment, she snapped into focus and found she was dead calm
though her heart hammered in her chest.

“I won’t be a part of this,” she said
quietly. They didn’t even look at her. She stepped closer. “I won’t be the
cause of this. You fight out whatever you need to, but I’m going. None of this
has anything to do with us. Or with me.”

Ellie strode to the closest door and went
outside, and then began to run.