Chapter 288

“Absolutely not.” Toya shook her head and crossed her arms.

“Toya…”

“No, Amy. I’m with Toya. You politely, graciously turn them down.” Wendy sidled up next to Toya, and then so did Micca and Hanna. I felt a burning behind my eyes as I shook my head.

“We don’t agree.” Hanna pulled her shoulders back and had this defiant look on her face.

“You guys.” I started turning to them, but Micca stomped her foot.

“No.” Her brows furrowed, and she glared at me. “You are our friend, our alpha, and we refuse, dammit. I love the Moon Goddess in all her glory, but she can’t take you from us.”

I sighed. “I love you. All of you. And I will be your friend and alpha until the end. But when the goddess—goddesses,” I corrected, “when the two goddesses you descend from come knocking, you answer.” I watched their faces fall. “They haven’t asked for anything I wasn’t already planning on doing. We have discussed this many times over.”

“But you have a kid now,” Hanna murmured, and I nodded.

“Just another reason to do what we have to do.” I turned back to the fire and felt them move closer. “The people behind these attacks need to be stopped. The world, our world, needs to be able to thrive, and to do that, we have to stay hidden. These attacks, the moves that certain people are making, will expose us sooner or later. The humans will eradicate us if they find us.”

“You can’t know that for certain,” Micca offered.

“Yes, we do.” I shook my head. “We have all seen their movies, their shows. They are showing us exactly how they would act if the world found out about us. One or two close to us might accept us, but they would either abuse us, study and dissect us, or try their very best to kill us off. Humans don’t accept the unknown or things they don’t understand.” I waved them off. “It doesn’t matter. Humans aren’t really a threat right now. What matters is that we need to find out who is behind these attacks. Is it one person, or more than one, pulling the strings? And, more importantly, we need to know who the next targets are. My father was one, obviously. I haven’t figured out if your father was a target or more collateral damage.” I looked at Toya.

“Why do you say that?”

“I have been thinking. Your father’s pack was attacked, but it wasn’t like a full-scale attack. It was smaller attacks, one right after the other. Since Rowan sent me the information about the scale of the attack that took out the pack, I noticed there were a lot more wolves there.” I looked at the fire. “Now, the smaller attacks could have been just the preamble, like they were in my father’s pack. But it could have been for supplies. They live out of caves; supplies aren’t really abundant. They attack to steal, to survive. I can show you later.” I waved my hands again. “I’ve been piecing it all together over this last year. But your father’s pack could have been a target for stealing, and to weaken our forces, and then he moved onto my father’s land and became collateral damage.”

“So you’re thinking they are targeting big packs?” Wendy gripped her hands.

I nodded. “Since the king died, the largest packs have been disappearing and their survivors have been reabsorbed into other packs. Vince’s pack is one pack that has exploded with wolves for the last twenty years. It went from being in the bottom of rank and size to one of the biggest. I think the year before I was born it was rank ninety-six. Now it’s top ten.”

Wendy pulled out her phone and clicked a few times. “Actually, they went from one hundred and thirty-sixth to eighth in less than twenty years.” She clicked a few more times. “We used to have almost a hundred and fifty packs around North America. Now, it’s dwindled to just under a hundred.”

“Fuck.” Hanna grabbed the phone. She clicked a few more times and turned the phone. “You know I told you we moved here from Japan, but I didn’t tell you why. My father’s clan, our pack, was the last pack of Japan. Our wolves are a mimic of the Honshu wolf, native to the area, but it was hunted down. We assumed the packs were being inadvertently hunted by the humans, but what if it wasn’t?” I took Wendy’s phone and looked at the information on the screen. It was the census information, and it was a steady decline since the 1900s.

“What do you mean?” Toya grabbed the phone.

“We are all pledged to the Lycan King. All packs used to sell wolves to train and integrate into the Royal Pack.” Hanna started to pace. “If Amy is right and there is a person or people actively trying to get rid of the Lycans and the king, what would be the first thing they would do?”

Chapter 289