“Something like that,” Ruth said, nodding. “We’re so busy protecting the clan that existed twenty years ago that we aren’t paying attention to the clan that exists now.”
“Why the obsession with the past?” I asked. “What’s the appeal?”
“They were at the top of the pile back then,” Rose said as the fire popped, sent up a spark that blossomed in the air like a Roman candle. “The resort was basically new, the elders young and strong. Cash and Everett were married. There was money in the bank, and being a shifter was still secret. And because of that, sexy.”
“You’ve got a secret power,” I offered, “so you’re basically a superhero.”
“Exactly. Times were good—or seemed to be in hindsight. There was always the usual drama. Humans curious about the ‘cult’ that lived together in the abandoned resort, humans who came around to freeload or preach, someone’s wife runs off with someone else’s husband.”
“Or wife,” Ruth said with a grin.
“Or that,” Rose agreed. “Those were golden times.”
“So what happened?” Connor asked.
“An investment in some kind of restaurant lost us some money. Cash’s wife died, and Everett’s ran off, and they both got grouchier. Normal wear and tear on the resort evolves into shabbiness and dilapidation. That entire generation got older, had kids. And never stopped talking about when things were better. Kind of lived in the snow globe of those better days, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” Connor said. Brow furrowed, he looked like he was considering saying something else, but wasn’t quite sure whether to voice it. And lifted his gaze and looked around the shifters, considered. “And the newest generation. They want different things?”
“Different and better,” Gibson said. “They don’t much like the elders, don’t agree with how they’re running things. Unhappy with the resort’s condition, unhappy with how Paisley’s death was handled.”
“They have the strength to make a change?” Connor asked.
Gibson whistled low, and the discomfort the question had triggered was keen in the irritating prickle of magic. “Let me put it this way,” he said, “and I’m sure these ladies will disagree with me if I’m wrong.”
That elicited a chuckle of agreement.
“I don’t think Cash, Everett would survive a takeover,” he said quietly, voice barely audible above the crackle of the fire. He didn’t want his voice to carry beyond the circle. “They aren’t strong like they used to be, and they don’t train like they once did. Complacent, I guess. But I don’t know of anyone who’d challenge them. Who’d want the clan bad enough to take on that fight.”
“No other alphas?”
“Not at the right age,” Ruth said. “Teenagers who aren’t ready, young parents who aren’t interested.” She shrugged. “They thought they’d have better lives in town, so they went to Duluth, Minneapolis, Chicago.”
She sounded certain. But I wasn’t so sure. Not given what we’d seen . . .
“What about Georgia?” I asked.
“Female,” Rose said. “For better or worse, clan’s patriarchal, like most of the Pack.”
I could accept that that was the pattern, even if I disagreed with the necessity of it.
“So why do you stay?” I asked.
“Just look,” Ruth said, gesturing toward the lake. “And listen.” Quiet fell, revealing the songs of humming frogs, the sounds of water on the rocks, the crackle of the fire, the wind through the trees to our left. And somewhere beyond it, the sound of laughter.
I looked in the direction of the trees, half expecting to see lights or movement.
“It’s the Stone farm,” Connor said, gaze lifting to the thin tower of smoke that rose over the canopy. “Probably having a party over there.”
“Carlie’s family?” I asked.
He nodded. “She and her grandmother. The clan’s territory extends right up to their property line at the edge of the woods.”
“Technically,” Gibson said, “clan territory runs just past the woods, but the Stones are good people, and we don’t worry too much about that.”
“Now that you’ve grilled us,” Rose said after another quiet minute, and another sip of beer, “I feel like we should interview you.”
“All right,” Connor said. “That’s fair.”
“You’re taken, right?” Ruth asked. “I mean, I play for a different team,” she added with a grin, “but we have a younger sister.”
Connor slid me a glance, smile slow and sly. “I’m not currently accepting applications.”
Since we hadn’t discussed exclusivity, I figured that answer was more than fair.
“Damn it,” Ruth said with good humor. “Ah, well.” Then she cleared her throat, the sound a little nervous. “But that wasn’t the real question. We want to know about your intentions with the Pack.”
Connor watched her for a moment. He didn’t ask what she meant or that she clarify. Just considered the question like it was one of the most important he’d ever been asked.
And maybe it was.
“Apex,” he said.
“You want to be Apex?” Ruth asked carefully.
A tricky question, I thought. Did an alpha predator and presumptive Apex “want” to be Apex? Or was it just an unquestionable state of being?
“I am alpha,” he said, looking at each of them. “And my father is Apex. It’s up to him and the Pack when his tenure is done. Up to the Pack to determine whether I’m next. But I don’t intend to step away.”
There were considering nods. Ruth had opened her mouth to ask another question when screams cut through the darkness, echoing around us in a cloud of sound with no apparent starting place.
Silence fell again. We stood one by one, quietly and slowly, and we waited, bodies tense and still, for another sound to penetrate the quiet.
There was another scream. And this time, the direction was clear.
It was coming from the Stone farm.
“Carlie,” Connor said.
Clothes were discarded and light flashed as humans became wolves, shifters running full out toward the possibility their human friend was in danger. Or worse.
Connor looked back at me. “Go,” I said.
“You’re sure?” He searched my face.