Page 8 of The Reluctant Mate (Shifters of the Three Rivers #5)

Chapter eight

Derek

B y the time I’d made it back home, there was a BMW X1 parked outside.

It was the car all Wolf Council members drove.

What was he doing here?

Sam opened the front door before I got to it, stepping aside to let me in. My twin’s hair had grown longer since I’d last seen him, brushing his shoulders now. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Not that it had for months now. Whatever he was doing for the Wolf Council was changing him. My teasing, easy-going brother was almost gone. Now he was a secretive, serious Council man. I hated it, but anytime I tried to talk to him about it, he said what he was doing was worth a few sacrifices. He believed in his job, believed he was protecting all werewolves. I just wished he could do it as the old Sam and that it didn’t need this new Sam to make it happen.

“Didn’t text. Didn’t call. Just showed up,” I said, crossing my arms. “Some things never change.”

“Miss me that much?” Sam’s eyes scanned me with that new clinical gaze he’d developed. “You look like hell warmed over.”

“It’s my natural glow.” I moved past him and headed into the old dining room. I pulled up the feed covering the Bottley.

Sam’s eyes lingered on the screen showing Sofia. “Still playing spy?”

My wolf bristled at his tone, but I kept my voice neutral. “I never played spy, Sam. Besides, someone has to keep the Pack safe.”

“The Pack has Ryan for that,” Sam said, settling into my chair without invitation. “And Mai, when she’s back on her feet. And a whole team of enforcers.” He paused, studying the intelligence reports on the other two screens. “This seems more… personal.”

“Everything’s personal when it comes to Pack.” I leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

Sam picked up one of the photos I’d taken from the cabin in the woods, his lips quirking. “Especially when it involves a certain redheaded barista?”

“Don’t start.”

“What? Can’t a guy be interested in his brother’s love life?” Sam’s words carried an edge that hadn’t been there before.

“If you came here just to bust my balls about Sofia—”

“Relax.” Sam held up his hands in mock surrender. “Though, I hear talking to women works better than glaring at them through security footage. Just a pro tip from your more socially adept twin. Why don’t you try it sometime? Ask her out for coffee. Though I guess that’d be redundant since she owns the coffee shop.”

“She manages it,” I corrected automatically. “Lucian Black owns it.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. “Ah… yes, the elusive human, Lucian Black. He ever come back?”

I shook my head. Black had left with his wife, Darla Ash, a couple of years ago. According to the staff at the Bottley, they’d gone back to the city to try for a family and left the Bar under Sofia’s management. Neither of them had been seen in the Three Rivers since then.

“Not that I know of.”

If I wasn’t his twin, I would never have caught it, but I knew my brother too well. There was something in the way he breathed out, the way his eyes flickered to the left; he was interested in Lucian Black.

“You’re tracking Black. Why?”

Sam frowned, annoyance flashing across his face. “Council business. Forget I said anything.”

Right. Council business. Nothing he could talk about.

Again.

I realized just how pissed off he had to have been when I came home on leave from the army and couldn’t talk about anything I was doing either.

“How are things at the Council?”

He sighed. “Bad. We stopped the production of ripple in the north, but it’s being imported through at least twenty different lines that we know of. And down south, it’s becoming a shitstorm. The drug… it’s fucking evil, Derek. Driving Shifters to break their Pack bonds.”

Pack bonds were everything to us—they provided security and safety, kept us grounded, connected us to each other and our territory. They could only be broken by a werewolf or one of their Alphas.

“And now it turns out that about fifteen percent of those addicted get bloodlust. The media got hold of some footage of bloodlust werewolves attacking humans. It’s a fucking mess, bro. We got no cure. No treatment. All those in bloodlust have to be killed, along with most of those addicted to ripple. And look at this shit…” He pulled out a combat knife—wickedly sharp, silver-edged, designed to end a fight in one stroke. “Standard issue now to all Council members and those who work for us.”

Werewolves didn’t tend to use weapons. Some fucked up point of pride about a werewolf being enough of a weapon. Personally, I was all for using anything and everything that won the fight. But it was a hell of a message for the Wolf Council to be carrying around knives these days.

“They for defense?”

“No.” Sam got that grim look in his eyes, the one that had been appearing more and more every time I saw him. “They’re to put down any Shifter we find too far gone in their ripple addiction.”

Ripple didn’t discriminate. Men, women, teenagers, elders—anyone could get addicted to this stuff if they took it. I wondered just how many of us Sam had had to kill.

“Why? I thought the Council was working on a cure for it. I know Mason and Shya are over in Bridgetown.”

“Because it’s getting worse, and so far, there is no treatment. I’ve sat with them in the wards we’ve set up. They’re in pain, yet still begging us to give them more ripple. Out on the streets? There are gangs of drug-addicted Shifters with no Pack bonds to hold them back, to keep them under control. They’re attacking humans, trying to get money for their next fix, and seeing humans as easy prey.” His face darkened. “Some have even turned humans.”

Although folklore said we could turn humans into werewolves with one bite, it was only possible if we bit them during a full moon, when the breach pathogen responsible for our transformation was at its strongest in our bodies. It was absolutely forbidden. One of the key tenets of the Boston Peace Accord we had with the humans was that we did not turn humans. It was one of the reasons the Wolf Council existed in the first place—to police this rule and put down any wolf who broke it.

“The human governments are furious; they’re blaming the Council for not keeping control. Humans are starting to panic. There are fights breaking out all over the conclave cities.” Sam rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve heard of at least twenty-three towns that have kicked all Shifters out of their borders, shackled them with silver cuffs on their wrists and ankles. Families, kids, grandparents, everyone, Derek, even though they’ve been living there, side-by-side with humans for generations. They’re saying all Shifters are dangerous. And now,” his laugh was bitter, “now, if you can believe it, some cities have banded together. They’ve raised money to develop a vaccine. Not treatment for ripple but something that will ‘cure’ lycanthropy.”

Anger burned my throat. “They can’t cure lycanthropy. We aren’t a fucking disease. Being me isn’t something broken that needs to be repaired. This is who I am. It’s every breath, every heartbeat, every part of what makes me alive.”

Sam nodded. “Too fucking right. But I’ve seen the medical reports. The vaccine they’re working on is a blocker from the same strain they use in ripple. It permanently inhabits our ability to access our wolves.”

They were using ripple against us. Studying it, not to help us with a treatment for its effects, but to see what made it work so well on us.

Motherfuckers.

“What the hell is the Council going to do about it?”

“We’ve been so busy chasing our tails trying to put out every little fire that ripple causes, trying to stop every addicted Shifter from causing a major incident that we’re stretched thin. But we’re meeting with a delegation from the human governments. I have to be in Philadelphia in three days. We’ll demand they stop their research into their so-called vaccine and try to assure them that we’re doing everything we can to stop the situation from escalating.”

This whole fucking thing was spiraling out of control. My eyes flickered to the screens again. On one, Sofia was leaning on the counter listening to Ray Tidson. Ray was a roofer who lived across town, but I’d noticed he’d been making a twenty-minute detour every day to get a coffee at the Bottley. He passed three other coffee shops to get there. I knew because I’d checked. Ray was not normally a talker, but he came within five meters of Sofia, and he couldn’t shut up. How did she do it? Put everyone around her at ease, make them want to spill their secrets, and share all their news with her?

When I worked in military intelligence, I would have snapped up someone with those skills in a heartbeat. Ray said something that made her reach out and squeeze his shoulder for a moment. My wolf glared out through my eyes and growled. He was as unhappy as I was about her touching someone else. She was ours, not Ray’s, not anyone else’s. I wanted to run down there and put my fist repeatedly through Ray’s face. I’d get an earful from Sofia, but it would be worth it.

On the next screen, there were still the Project Dusk reports. If Kane was alive, ripple sounded like something he’d be knee-deep in. Ripple was spelled with magic, though. Could Kane be working with witches? I knew I should tell Sam my theory, but he had enough to deal with at the moment; I needed to be sure before I dropped this on his plate, too.

“When’s the last time you slept?” Sam’s change of subject caught me off guard.

“I sleep fine.”

“No, you don’t. You think I don’t know? You can fool Ryan, Mason, the whole damn Pack, but I’m your twin.”

My wolf stirred restlessly under my skin. “Back off, Sam.”

“How are the nightmares? Still bad?”

“I have them under control.”

“Bullshit.”

That was it. I’d had enough of him waltzing in here and having an opinion on my life. “You don’t know shit. You’re never fucking here, so just back the fuck off.”

“Not a chance.” He stood, moving toward me. “You’re my brother. Whatever you’re chasing, it’s killing you. You can’t keep doing this.”

“Like you’re one to talk.” I stood to face him. “What the hell has the Wolf Council got you doing, huh? It’s not just the ripple. You’re so twisted up these days that my joking, Star Wars -quoting brother has turned into… whatever the hell you are now! And you can’t talk to me about it. Me. Your fucking twin. You know exactly what I went through in the army. I’ve seen it all, Sam; fuck, I’ve done it all. So, what the hell is it you’re doing that you can’t even talk to me about?”

Sam flinched but held his ground. “This isn’t about me.”

“Right. Still not talking, huh? So, don’t stand there and lecture me about keeping secrets.”

He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so much like my own. He was my twin, the one person I thought I could always rely on, and somehow, we’d ended up on opposite sides of a wall neither of us knew how to break down.

“I came here to check on you, Derek. Not to fight.”

“I don’t need checking on. I’m fine.”

Sam’s laugh was hollow. “Yeah, sure you are.” He hesitated, then added softly, “Just don’t push everyone away, okay? Some of us actually give a shit about what happens to you.”

Sam’s phone buzzed, and his face changed as he read the message, that new hardness settling over his features.

“Council business?” I asked, not bothering to hide the bitterness in my voice.

He nodded, already heading to the door. “I need to deal with this. But we need to talk, Derek. Really talk.”

“Yeah, whenever you’re ready to tell me what’s going on at the Council, I’ll be here.”

Sam looked for a moment like he was going to say something. Then he shook his head and walked out.

I turned back to my monitors, my wolf restless and agitated. Sofia was laughing at something else Ray was saying. I picked up my coffee mug and threw it at the wall.