Page 287 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

“Oh, yes,” Claire agreed. “The schoolyard was the safest place for them to play.”

The memory of the Redwolfs lashing out whenever a child or a woman or an elderly wolf inconvenienced them pissed me off. I reminded myself that Troy would never get the chance to hurt my packs again. Night and I would make sure of that.

“I can only speak for myself,” Iren, a young mother from the Wargs, said. “But I feel safe for the most part. I’m just a little worried that the children might take on the animosity of the adults. I’ve heard that there have been fights at the schoolhouses in both territories.”

“Fights?” I repeated. It was the first I’d heard of it, but the nods from the others in the crowd confirmed what Iren had said.

Janet, an older Warg woman, spoke next. “Steph, my granddaughter, came home with a bruised cheek the other day. My daughter thought it was just typical pup roughhousing, but Steph told me that a King boy had told her that she was feral.”

I stopped spreading straw to look at the others. “Oh no. Does anyone else have similar stories?”

There was a chorus of agreements and nods. Apparently, these incidents were also happening outside of school while the children were playing. A leaden weight settled on my heart.

“I’m so sorry your children have been dealing with that,” I said. “I’ll see what we can do to make that less likely, but it should start by changing things at home. Make sure you remind your children that it’s important to be kind to everyone and that ifthey have an issue with another child, they should go to a teacher instead of handling things on their own?—”

“Did you say your granddaughter’s name is Steph?” a King woman, Inez, demanded. “She gave my son a black eye!”

Janet glared at Inez. “If you don’t want it to happen again, tell your son to watch his mouth.”

“What did you say?” Inez dropped her basket of straw and stormed toward Janet.

Janet dropped her basket, too, her lips pulling away from her lengthening teeth. She was older, but she was a wolf and a Warg. She would never back down from a fight.

I moved to get between them, but Tavi was faster.

“That’s enough!” she said firmly, her voice a low growl. “We arenotdoing this.”

“No, we’re not,” I said. I leveled my gaze at Inez, then Janet, and then looked at the others. “This is exactly the kind of animosity we don’t want you taking home with you. Telling your kids to be nice to each other will do nothing if you don’t lead by example. What if there were children here to see you acting like this?”

Inez had been the aggressor, so I was glad to see my words break through to her.

“I thought it was a long shot that Kings and Wargs would ever be able to get along,” Jasmine said. “Children have some of the purest, most accepting souls, and even they are finding it difficult to bridge that gap.”

Annoyance flared in my chest, and my wolf growled inside me. “Children are wonderful and very accepting, but they also pickup on the emotions of adults around them. They can’t hold back their emotions, as I would expect an adult to be able to do.”

Jasmine’s smirk leveled into a slight frown. She couldn’t beat me when it came to knowledge about children. I’d spent most of my life around children, and since being appointed den mother, I’d been reading literature about child development. I knew what I was talking about.

“If we are having trouble adjusting, then it’s natural that they would struggle as well,” I went on. “And just like your children, if any of you have an issue with another parent, you bring that to me or Octavia. We’ll help you, but we won’t be able to do anything if you try to take care of things by yourselves.”

That seemed to satisfy the group. Janet and Inez picked up their baskets. I was glad they seemed appeased that Tavi and I could help them, and I made a mental note to facilitate a meeting between Janet, Inez, and their pups.

“Now, back to my question. Does anyone else have any concerns about their or their family’s safety?”

At first, there was silence, and then a voice spoke out. It was Gladys Hera, another of the older women, but she was a King. I was surprised to see her there, as to my knowledge, she had no pups.

“I heard that Night was looking into the disappearances of the children that happened ten years ago. Has he made any progress?”

Recognition lanced through my chest at her question. Of course she had no pups—her son was one of the children who’d disappeared a decade ago.

“What disappearances?” asked a Warg, this one a father.

I spoke carefully, knowing there was at least one person here who had been personally affected by the kidnappings. “Ten years ago, dozens of children between the ages of five and seven disappeared from the Kings Pack. The forest was combed through, but there was no evidence or suspects, no bodies ever found. We still have no real leads about what happened to them.”

“It was so insane back then,” Claire said. “I was just a kid then, but my mom went overboard trying to keep me and my sister safe.”

“I remember it, too,” I said. “It was only boys who went missing, but the entire pack went on lockdown because everyone was terrified.”

Wargs glanced around at Kings with some sympathy, but I noticed that Jasmine had her arms crossed. She was still frowning, but the slight expression had become more of a scowl, as if she was thinking,Why should I care?I was seconds away from calling her out, but Gladys spoke before I could say a word.