“What now?” Katy demanded, growling a little.
Dante’s eyes caught mine. “Damien and Trace are headed for Windale with a massive army.”
Cold seeped into my bones, turning them to lead. “They know Griffin joined us.”
“Yeah,” Dante replied. “And if they take Windale, they’ll have more ground than we can ever cover. Windale’s too connected to the middle of the country and Canada. Griffin joining us meant we had just under half the continent on our side. With the other packs, it would have been a no-brainer.”
“Damien would have to surrender,” Rhodes mused. “He’d never have the numbers to beat us in an all out war.”
“But with Griffin’s pack, and the other’s they currently are aligned with, he will. He could drag this fight out indefinitely,” Dante finished grimly.
“We’d never get Maren back,” Katy whispered.
“How soon until the rest of the planes can get here?” Skye asked Nikolai.
“Another two days? Perhaps a day and a half if we push things,” he replied. “But we’d have to get them off the ground in the next few hours.”
Skye and I exchanged a heavy look before she turned to her father. “Do it. We need them.”
Nikolai nodded and spun, stalking from the room with his phone in his hand.
Dante hissed out a breath. “Damien will be in Windale by tonight. Remy, if we lose Griffin …”
We might never recover from that. Norwood would control two-thirds of the country’s shifters.
“How far is it to Illinois where the Windale pack is?” I asked absently.
“By plane? Seven hours,” he replied.
“We sent our plane back a few hours ago,” Lulu added softly. “To bring back another group.”
Which meant the only plane we had was the Blackwater one that held a max of forty-four people. We would have to fly commercial and hope that our pack war didn’t catch the attention of any humans or charter a flight, which would also have its own set of complications.
I rubbed my jaw. “And driving?”
“A day, at least.” Dante’s lips pulled tight.
That wasn’t an option.
Nikolai stormed back into the room, his dark eyes burning. “We have another situation.”
“What now?” Skye asked, dread in her tone.
“Norwood has gotten to some of the packs in Europe, Asia, and Africa. They’re causing issues for us trying to fly our allies out and causing chaos back home. ”
“Dammit,” I hissed.
Skye stared at him. “I thought we had their support.”
“No,” Nikolai grit out, “I have the support of my allies, which is slightly more than half the packs in those three continents. But there’s over forty packs spread across those lands and not all of them are amenable to our ways. And our allies can’t afford to send people to help at the risk of their own packs falling.”
“Translation?” Dimitri added. “We have our own enemies, too. And it looks like they’ve decided to back Norwood by causing holy hell on the other side of the world.”
“Well, that’s fucking awesome,” Rhodes sighed, his jaw clenched.
“Even if we leave now, we won’t make it in time,” I realized, the truth sending a shockwave down my spine.
“And we won’t have the people we need to match up to theirs,” Skye added quietly.
Everyone was quiet for a minute, and then Katy exploded.
“Dammit!” She dropped onto the edge of the other couch with a choked sob, and Skye quickly sat beside her.
“There might be another way,” I said quietly.
“How?” Nikolai demanded.
I exhaled. “Damien wanted a truce. It’s why he called a few days ago. Him going to Windale right now is only because we took Long Mesa.”
“You can’t give him what he wants,” Skye said sharply. “Even if we agree to stand down or whatever, what happens to all the women they’ve taken?”
“It won’t be enough,” Lulu added. “He’ll get more desperate when he doesn’t get the results he wants.”
“This is probably less about Long Mesa and more about those buses of people,” Dimitri commented. He gave me a wary look. “You two are changing the entire game. He can’t compete with bonded mates by offering up child brides to the highest bidders.”
“So, we don’t call a truce,” I said calmly, keeping my tone even as my heartbeat thundered. “We make it a challenge.”
Skye lifted her head slowly. “A challenge?”
I stared back at her. “Winner gets control of all the packs.”
48
Skye
All the air in my chest left in a rush that made me lightheaded. I was glad I was still sitting next to Katy because my legs might have given out.
“You want to challenge Damien?” Rhodes said slowly, speaking the words churning over and over in my mind.
Remy nodded, but his gaze was still on me. “Yeah.”
“You think he’ll go for it?” Dante asked, looking uncertain.
Remy sighed and started to nod slowly. “Yes, I think he’ll take the challenge, but I also think we need a backup plan to make sure he doesn’t take Windale.”
“So, what exactly are you proposing?” Nikolai stared at Remy, his gaze thoughtful and inquisitive.
“We stall,” Remy said. “Damien isn’t an honorable guy, but he’ll like the idea of having Blackwater too much to overlook. He thinks he can beat me in a challenge.”
“Which he very well may be able to,” Nikolai replied coolly. “I’ve done my research on Damien Valois. It isn’t by luck that he’s managed to take so many packs and convince men to his way of thinking. His command over his people is every bit as strong as yours, and he has decades of age and wisdom on his side.”
“I know,” Remy agreed reluctantly.
True fear, the kind I hadn’t felt in ages, clawed up my throat. “Are you saying you could lose?”
He gave me a steady look. “I’m saying I’m not invincible, babe. It’s stupid to think beating Damien will be easy.”
Katy’s hand covered my knee in support, but it was obvious she was as shaken by what he had said as I was.
“Even if you win, they’ll still have more people than we do,” Dante pointed out. “He might take the challenge and then have his people attack when it looks like you’re winning. And he’ll have the numbers, Remy.”
“Not if we set the challenge for two days from now,” Remy said firmly. “Damien’s had a hard on for this pack for decades over the shit that went down when my parents were our age. If he thinks there’s a shot of making me look like an idiot, his ego will make him take it.”
“Two days,” I mumbled. “That’s not much time.”
“But it’s enough time for Nikolai’s people to arrive,” Remy replied. “Your people, Skye.”
“You’re buying us time to get more people here,” I said slowly, catching on.
He nodded grimly back at me. “We call Damien and throw down the challenge. We can say Griffin is hosting it in Windale since their pack is in the middle of the country. That even gives Damien access to the pack to be inside and not have to fight his way in. We set it up for two days from now, which gives us time to get everyone in place. We can even pull in some of the shifters from the west coast packs.”