Chapter 111
Daniel POV
I felt Charlie shut down the link, my concerns still plagued me as the door to the room opened and Lander entered. I stood to welcome him, walked around the table and embraced him.
“It’s good to see you, it has been a long time!” I said as I clapped my hand on his back.
“Too long, and I’m sorry it is such a strange thing to bring us together again!” Lander replied.
“Strange? Don’t you think you’re undervaluing the seriousness of the situation? War is a terrible time to see family.” I stated sadly.
“War? What are you talking about?” Lander asked shocked.
“The vampires are declaring war, on wolves, on witches, on the world cousin. How could you not know this?” I asked just as shocked as he was.
“Hyacinth said to come to discuss the threats of dissent in my pack, nothing more. She told me nothing of vampires or war, just that she had received a vision that was important. Which is why I came. After that business with the email from you, I assumed you would be here too, but war? I had no idea!” He exclaimed as he sank into a seat at the table.
“We should wait until the other Alphas are here, we don’t want them thinking we have been plotting behind their backs,” I said, I retook my seat on the other side of the table.
“Which other Alphas are coming?” Lander asked, his eyebrows knitted in confusion.
“Just the other Alphas from our state,” I replied with a huff.
“You mean behind Eric’s back, the man sees conspiracies against him everywhere,” Lander muttered darkly.
“Regardless, we will need every pack in the country to commit to fighting against what is coming. Disrupting the leadership of the packs is just their first move.” I argued, to stress the seriousness of the situation.
“And how exactly are we going to do that?” Lander asked incredulously.
“By starting with our state and expanding from there. Hyacinth will explain everything when the other Alphas arrive.” I stated flatly, to bring our conversation to an end.
“Then someone should warn Kasa to keep Eric on his leash,” Lander murmured, determined to get the last word in. We sat in silence until we heard another car in the drive, I trained my ears on the front door, I could hear Hyacinth welcoming the Alpha, but not a name, or the Alpha’s voice. A few moments later the door opened, and Kasa entered the room.
“Gentlemen.” He nodded, it always tickled me, a man as wild looking as Kasa, with his long black hair and bronze skin, made his pale green eyes eerie looking under his thick back eyebrows, always spoke like an English nobleman.
“Kasa, how’s things over in Sycamore Pack?” Lander asked, he too got a kick out of Kasa’s formal education in England, before he took over his pack from his father.
“Things have been better, I must admit. I hear you have a theory that the issues our packs have been having are related somehow. And that vampires are involved? I thought vampires had all but died out now, their numbers must be tiny.” Kasa exclaimed.
“We should wait for Eric,” I said softly, if anyone knew how volatile Eric could get it was Kasa, they had almost come to blows when Kasa met his mate, Eric’s sister Astrid.
“We may be waiting a long time. I tried to get a hold of him before I left, to make sure he was coming, but he refused to answer me. I tried again this morning before I left my hotel, but he’s switched his phone off.” Kasa sighed, he was clearly tired of his brother-in-law’s behaviour.
“If he isn’t here soon, we will ask Hyacinth to begin without him, maybe you could pass on the message if you get in touch with him?” I suggested to Kasa, with a shrug.
“Yeah, why not?” Kasa said with an audible sigh, as he took a seat at the table. “Can you at least explain what all of this has to do with vampires? How can they be the cause of our issues when there aren’t many left?” He asked looking between the both of us.
“You knew about the vampires? Is this because I killed that vampire a few years ago?” Lander asked confused as his focus shifted between the both of us.
“Maybe, a small part of it at least,” I replied, I was unsure what to say at that point.
“What part?” Lander asked, his face paled.
“They used it as a recruiting tool,” I replied, sadly, though I knew that in the same situation, I would’ve done the same thing.
“Lycans working with vampires?” Kasa asked perplexed.
“More like vampires working with family members who happen to be Lycans?” I offered, the realisation dawned on them both and I could tell they both had pack members who were part vampire, possibly like me, they were closer than even the Alphas were aware.
“But why try and disable our packs? What does that achieve in the long run?” Lander asked, still confused.
“We think it is the first step in a war to take over the planet, convert enough packs with leadership controlled by you, and the Lycans will be too busy fighting each other to form a collective army to fight the vampires, it’s the same with the witches. Hyacinth has heard rumblings from other covens, witches have been asking to come here because they no longer feel safe where they are, and she’s had a vision. Which she shall tell you all about, when Eric gets here, or she gives up on him arriving and joins us.” I grumbled; I was getting tired of Eric myself.
“But how are we even supposed to fight the vampires if they’re cooperating with each other and attacking as a group? They can teleport and their bites are toxic!” Lander argued, panicked.
“We have contracts here ready for you to sign, for our proprietary silver nitrate bullets, and I can personally attest to their effectiveness. After we arrested the leader of the coup in our pack, the vampires tried to break him out. Two escaped the prison, three vampires were destroyed by those bullets, one in front of the man the coup would have placed as Alpha of my pack, my uncle Owen.” I said, the bitter taste was back in my mouth, as I remembered what he did to our family.
“I’m sorry cousin, no man should ever be betrayed by family the way you were,” Lander said sadly.
“Thank you, but I feel my father bears the brunt of that heartbreak, it was his brother after all that plotted against his family,” I replied but nodded my appreciation for his sympathy.
“And what are you asking for? In return for these bullets?” Kasa asked sceptically.
“You will have plenty of time to look over the contracts, we will have a shipment delivered to your packs when we agree on the best way to train our warriors together,” I replied, but breathed a sigh of relief, the conversation was going better than I thought it would.
“How many warriors do you plan on sending to my lands?” Kasa asked, still doubtful of my intentions.
“First, we need to agree on how we will train our warriors, then how many will be sent to each pack, if any. My Beta has drawn up a few ideas, I have them for everyone to look over.” I explained as I retrieved the substantial pile of printouts from the machine. I separated the copies into three groups and handed the Alphas one each, then gave them a chance to read through everything.
“You’ll sue me?” Kasa asked, somewhat amused.
“Only if we find you recreating our design after you have access to our bullets,” I replied with a smile, I knew Kasa knew it was a perfectly normal condition in a contract with proprietary devices, but he wanted to see my reaction to him questioning it. And I was happy to play along with any game they wanted, as long as they listened and agreed to join us in the fight. Both Alphas were almost halfway through the stack of documents I had provided for them, when we heard a car pull into the driveway, all three of us looked up in surprise.
“It looks like Eric did make it after all,” Kasa said with an exasperated sigh.
“And only an hour late to the meeting we were all on time for, and yet still we will be the ones he accuses of stabbing him in the back and excluding him.” Landers said with a humourless chuckle.
“That’s enough of that now.” I snapped at him; I prayed Eric would be in the mood to listen to reason.
“Yes, this is going to be bad enough. We don’t need your mouth making it worse for anyone, let’s avoid the shit completely hitting the fan, shall we?” Kasa sighed, as he stood to welcome his brother-in-law.
“Then Hyacinth shouldn’t have invited Eric, or have you forgotten the last time we were all in a room together?” Lander asked, invoking the same memory in all three of us instantly. We were at the funeral of Eric’s uncle and cousin. His aunt was my mother’s cousin, and my father wanted us all to pay our respects to the fallen Alpha. Lander was a new Alpha and went for the same reason, his father was abroad with his mother, and as the Alpha, it was appropriate for him to go, but Eric took it as an insult that Lander’s father Magnus didn’t show up. Lander left, but it wasn’t long after that Eric started making threats to my father, my pack and to Lander, he even challenged Magnus to combat, to defend his uncle's honour, or so he claimed.
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