Still… she watched him. She watched him and wondered what he was really like—or what had he been like at her age. There was something about him that pulled at her—something his bastard clone had lacked.
Reed nodded and listened to his people giving their reports about what happened during the attack. Like covert operatives from a TV show, the attackers had carried actual weapons, which they never used, not even when several of the Black Wolf males shifted to their wolf forms to defend the village.
Rather than shooting to kill any pack member, the attackers had instead used tranquilizers to stop the shifted wolves. They’d also used fire bombs to create a distraction the villagers had no choice but to fight. While the non-shifted wolves scrambled to constrain the damage from the fires, the attackers had run away like the cowards they were.
It had taken over five hours to put out the fires. A few of the defending wolves were still sleeping off the effects of the tranquilizers. Katarina shook her head. If they had only arrived sooner, things might have not gotten so bad.
After all she’d experienced since her abduction from her home in Russia, Katarina would never believe this situation was some random event. Someone had intentionally targeted Reed’s pack. And the attackers wouldn’t have been so merciful if they’d accomplished what they’d truly come to do.
When she finally caught Reed standing alone, Katarina went to confront him. If he wanted to yell at her for interfering, she’d rather get it over with than worry about it for days.
“Too bad Ghost of Nicolai Vashchenko was not paying attention today. Ghost of your bastard clone took advantage of situation,” Katarina joked, but then winced at the guilt flashing through Reed’s gaze.
Her hand instantly went to his arm to rub in comfort. The enormous Black Wolf alpha and his prehistoric-sized wolf irritated her nearly all the time, but that was no reason for her to be a thoughtless ass about what was not his fault.
“Forgive me, Temptation. I spoke without thinking. Is terrible flaw in my character—or so I hear.”
Reed shrugged off the apology with one shoulder as he stared at the still smoldering buildings. “I need to call Brandi and let her know about this. She warned me this could happen if Travis told the wrong people that he’d come from an entire village of werewolves.”
Katarina frowned as she looked at the damage done to the buildings along one of the two or three walkable streets in the center of the tiny village. She could see that two stores had barely missed being set on fire. There was a school with children of all ages who were peering from the windows, and an open-area community space wrapped in canvas that had been rolled up on all sides.
Though this place was only a fraction of the size of the Gray Wolf pack in Wasilla, the Black Wolf pack’s village looked far older and more established. No, that wasn’t the proper description. It was more proper to say Reed’s village looked like everyone in it all lived a much simpler life and had done so for a very long time.
Truth was, Reed’s home reminded her of her father’s village. Though she hadn’t lived there long, it was the only pack environment she’d ever known until she’d landed in Alaska.
“Okay. We tell Brandi, and then what? Do you move whole village to hide your people?” she asked.
Katarina’s shoulders grew heavy when Reed’s head dropped in contemplation of her question. Long ago, Nicolai Vashchenko found solace here in this tiny, secluded place of peacefulness. Now, Reed’s village was peaceful solace for no one.
“I don’t know what to do yet,” Reed reluctantly admitted.
When he stepped away, Katarina moved in front of him to block his exit. Her tongue ruled the moment. “Whatever happens, I will help you and your people. It is maybe why Nicolai helped save me from bastard clone, yes?”
“That’s some fanciful thinking, Katarina Volkov.”
Katarina lifted a shoulder. “Maybe—but no true Russian wolf would think being here was accident. Nicolai would be ashamed of me if I did not admit this.”
Chuckling dryly, Reed lifted a hand to the young alpha’s face. The woman had stupidly taken a tranquilizer dart for him—a tranquilizer dart that likely wouldn’t have affected him—at least not nearly as much as it had her. At nearly a hundred and fifty years old, Katarina wasn’t young by werewolf standards, but she was young to someone of his advanced years.
Too bad his wolf side didn’t see their age differences as the same kind of problem his human side did.
He tried to smile. “Once this village was the safest place on earth to be. I intended to offer you and Yana sanctuary and perhaps a new home here. It would no doubt make Nicolai’s spirit very happy to know some of his people found their way here too.”
“Okay. Make offer again later,” Katarina ordered, pulling his hand away from her face before she gave into the urge to wrap her arms around him. Telling Reed that everything would be fine was not a promise she could make. Or one he could make to her. “We call Brandi and Gareth. Then we have big meeting and talk to everyone who fought attackers. Yana is good at getting people to talk. She is friendly she-wolf—not like me.”
Reed pulled himself out of his funk and grunted in answer. Katarina’s empathy did not absolve her of interfering in his fight, but he’d deal with that later. “What are you good at, Katarina Volkov?”
“Being trouble—some would say,” Katarina immediately answered with a wicked grin that took all her effort to fake. She stepped away from the hurting male she badly wanted to comfort. “I hear I am also good at being pain in ass of Black Wolf alpha. It would be fun theory to test. Seems everything now must wait until later though, agreed?”
Reed nodded while inside his wolf howled about the challenge Katarina Volkov was potentially offering him and his beast. “Yes. Everything must wait.”
2
By the time Brandi and Gareth got to the village hours later, Katarina, Reed, and Yana had talked to everyone they could. A head count after the attack revealed two of Reed’s remaining grandsons were missing, as well as the pack beta that had taken Reed months to replace.
As Brandi went through her perspective of what happened, Katarina studied the nano wolf beta with as many alpha tendencies as she herself possessed. The woman was far more fierce than she let people know. Her mate, Gareth, didn’t seem bothered by Brandi’s need to be in charge.
Katarina felt a bit envious. It would be nice to be yourself and not worry about what the person sharing your bed thought. Such a relationship was one more thing she’d never had.
Brandi punched the table with a finger as she made her point. “We know there’s a group in Canada doing illegal human and animal experiments similar to what the two Crane siblings were doing. Diane Crane—the sister we recently took down—was working with that group in a top of the line lab they gave her. We’ve had their headquarters under surveillance, but they’ve been staying under everyone’s radar.”
Reed frowned at the news. “If it’s not the Canadian group who took our people, or the US group you’re working for, who else could be responsible?”
Brandi sighed and stared at the floor for a moment. Finally, she lifted her head. “I can’t confirm anything yet, but I have a theory about who your attackers were.” Her gaze shifted to Katarina. “And I think a group of Russians were the informants responsible for sending them here.”