Page 27 of War Games (Jacky Leon #11)

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

HEATH

H eath prowled around for twenty-four hours, hoping for Subira to bring him word about Jacky, but she had gone to sleep, doing something none of them understood. He received reports from Dirk and Niko about how Olivia had healed his fiancé, using Subira’s blood to power the delicate process. While Subira was doing something only she understood, he was grateful there was some progress thanks to Olivia, the witch he couldn’t do anything about. He didn’t want to trust the witch, but with Dirk standing in his way, he just had to let it be. Subira’s immediate trust in Olivia was a good sign.

After talking to Landon about what they were facing, he and Landon had intentionally slowed everything down. With Teagan, Shamus, and Ranger all proven to them, along with the younger members Arlo, Benjamin, Stacy, and Kody, they had most of the pack.

It left four options. He hated all of those options.

Roselyn, Piper, Jenny, and Carlos.

Ranger was digging into their accounts, trying to find transactions, emails, secret accounts, anything to give them a clue which one it was.

I want all of it, not just the confession from whichever one is going to disappoint me. I need all of it.

Landon was looking around their homes. Fenris had secrets in his home, and there was no reason to think the traitor wouldn’t have the same.

Heath prowled, knowing he wasn’t in the right headspace to calmly look through things without potentially destroying the very evidence he hoped to find.

He paced as he plotted his future moves, knowing there were decisions only he could make. Not Landon, not any of the pack, not any of Jacky’s family. Only him. There was something important only he could do, but it required steps, and each one was going to be harder than the previous.

With everyone working on their parts, it’s time for me to get my part started.

He made a call on Jacky’s computer, using her account to reach out to the only person who could get him where he needed to be when he needed to be there.

“Everson,” Hasan greeted.

“Hasan.” Heath looked up to see the tired gold eyes of the Tribunal member, patriarch of Jacky’s family. Subira’s mate. The father of some of the most dangerous individuals in the world. He himself was in the top ten of those types of supernaturals.

There wasn’t a werewolf in the world who wasn’t afraid of this type of conversation.

“I know what’s happened,” Hasan said before Heath could find a way to start the conversation. “I… can’t tell you anything. I can only pass along information that can help Jacky, and that can only go to my family members.”

Heath caught the hesitation, wondering if Hasan did want to tell him and regretted being unable to.

Surely not. He hates me with his daughter. He wouldn’t want to help me with much of anything. I know this call is a gamble just for that alone.

“I have no contact with the Tribunal outside of you. I’m not calling as your daughter’s lover. I’m calling as a supernatural needing to speak with our ruling government,” Heath explained, dancing around the issue of their connection through Jacky into the political space he knew Hasan thrived in.

“Oh?” Hasan tilted his head to the side, everything about his expression changing into something more cunning and calculated as he seemed to take in everything Heath was and could ever be. There was something haunting about those gold eyes in Hasan’s face and not Jacky’s. He wondered how Subira handled it, knowing they shared such an exact match.

“I need an appointment with the Tribunal as a whole in twenty-four hours. That is my formal request.”

“I can make that happen without getting into trouble…” Hasan sighed. “For better or for worse, I need to know why you want this appointment.”

“I plan to challenge Callahan for his position as the Tribunal Alpha.” Heath was giving himself a deadline. He wanted to wait for Jacky to wake up. Truly, that was all he needed to find some semblance of peace and control.

But Callahan needed to be challenged. Heath needed to make sure nothing like this could ever happen again. It didn’t even have to be Callahan, though Heath was certain it was. He needed to do this no matter what.

“He could kill you,” Hasan said softly, leaning back in his chair.

“I could kill him,” Heath retorted. “Either way, it needs to happen. You aren’t allowed to meddle in the affairs of werewolves, but you still have a duty as a member of the Tribunal to facilitate the meetings of supernaturals who approach you. You can’t protect him nor hide him from me. If you can’t reasonably involve yourself and schedule this meeting, you need to give me the contact with another on the Tribunal who can.”

“Protect him?” Hasan raised an eyebrow. “Hide him?” Hasan looked like he was about to laugh. “What makes you think I would ever do that?”

“He’s a member of the Tribunal and stable leadership is important to the Tribunal. Neither moon-cursed species has ever seen a change in that leadership.”

“Fair, but consider for a moment that I don’t care,” Hasan said, spreading his hands. “I don’t care which wolf sits in those seats. I don’t care what’s going on with the packs and the loners. I don’t care. You wolves will do what you wolves do best. Adjust and figure out your ranks on your own. You always have. You always will.”

“That’s it? You’ll just schedule this and let me go through with it?”

“There’s no reason I can think to stop you. I hope you’ve thought this through.” Hasan drummed his fingers on the desk, considering something, his expression thoughtful. Finally, something was decided. “How is she?”

Heath rocked back, surprised by the sudden question.

“Subira is with her now, but… she seems to have just fallen asleep and not woken back up, either,” Heath explained. “Niko is with both of them upstairs. Dirk found a witch he and Jacky met, who has training as a healer, to help with Jacky’s injuries. She’s been able to heal all of them so far, thanks to Subira.”

“Did she give the young witch blood to help?”

When Heath nodded, Hasan sighed.

“That’s my mate. She must like the witch. That’s a good sign.”

“How did you know she was young?” Heath dared to ask.

“They’re all young.” It seemed like such a simple answer to the ancient werecat. “As for Subira sleeping…” Hasan’s gold eyes looked away, seeming to focus on something far beyond the screen. “You just have to trust her.”

“I do…” Heath said, but he was still unable to settle on the idea that Jacky would be okay. He couldn’t live with an assurance. He couldn’t tell this werecat that, though. His mate was the one helping Jacky. It would look badly on Heath to question Subira’s abilities to Hasan. He knew Hasan would catch the disbelieving tone he couldn’t stop, but Hasan didn’t point it out, the same way Heath hadn’t pointed out Hasan’s hesitation earlier in the conversation.

“Someone will let you know when the door is ready. Twenty-four hours. See you then.” Hasan hung up on him.

With that, Heath checked his phone. The wedding had been on Sunday. Subira arrived on Monday morning. It was now Tuesday morning.

Wednesday morning… I’m either going to be the most powerful male Alpha werewolf in the world, or I’m going to be dead.

It wasn’t the first time he’d faced the odds and come out on top. He’d fought a gauntlet to kill six strong werewolves back-to-back to keep Landon alive. He’d walked away from those fights as the new Alpha of the Dallas pack.

He checked his watch, smiling as he saw the time.

He had a meeting with his werewolves. It was time to do the rest.

Every instinct in Heath told him to move this faster. He walked slowly out of the home Jacky shared with him and his family, touching the door frame as he considered how it was possibly his last day in it. He wished he could make the most of it.

Justice for her will have to be enough of a goodbye if I don’t come back.

He walked to Kick Shot, shut down for the entire week thanks to the events of Sunday. Half the staff had quit, and there were lawyers calling them about it. Heath refused to talk to the BSA, telling them he would be available on Friday to discuss it.

Everyone was moving on his schedule. Except Subira and Jacky.

Werecats don’t move on anyone’s schedule but their own. This is what I get for falling in love with one of them. One little piece of my life I truly have no control over.

He found it charming from the werecats, especially Jacky, even if it made him feel like he was going to have a heart attack.

He was grateful he had more control over the werewolves. Nearly perfect control. Whoever betrayed him and Jacky had found loopholes or had something that would give them a reason to fight his long-standing orders of loyalty. He didn’t like taking away a werewolf’s free will, finding it difficult to maintain. It could be cruel. He’d seen other werewolves do it. It was all too easy for an Alpha to become a dictator, robbing someone of even the power to speak up for what they needed. Heath knew all too well that if he ordered a werewolf to starve to death, there were many who wouldn’t be able to fight that order.

He’d been lax. He’d hoped and believed in his werewolves. That hadn’t been entirely misplaced. Most of his pack had remained loyal.

However, most wasn’t all. It hadn’t been perfect. After everything Jacky had sacrificed for them, at least one of them had betrayed him and her. He’d been able to reconcile what happened with Fenris. He’d always been as mad as a hatter, and knowing there was fae magic and a relationship with another werecat only added to the problem of tenuous sanity. Those secrets had been kept from everyone, even him, who had known Fenris for years. Through all of that, the best reason he had been able to reconcile that was because Fenris wasn’t the one who betrayed the pack. Rainer hadn’t been a member of his pack. Hadn’t been Jacky’s friend.

Whoever betrayed them was. He knew this wasn’t going to be a case like Fenris and Rainer. They had betrayed the pack for entirely selfish reasons after everything she had done for them.

He had to fight the urge not to punish all of them with the sort of control and domination that went against his morals. Landon would kill him for it, but that wasn’t enough of a threat to stop him. Landon wasn’t one to like packs and other werewolves, but Heath knew Landon would hate him even more if he did it.

What really stopped him, though, was the woman who couldn’t speak up for these werewolves. Jacky would never look at him the same. He wouldn’t be the man she fell in love with. If she lived, that was really important to him. No matter how much the urge came to him, he just had to think of her and know she would hate him for it. It was the best protection he had from losing himself to this.

He walked into Kick Shot, continuing to take his time. He found Landon, Shamus, and Ranger sitting together, each of them with everything they needed to present to him.

“How is everyone today?” he asked, sitting down with them, his tone cool, but not because he was upset with any of them anymore.

“We have a lot,” Landon said, pushing forward the first file. “Ranger reviewed the footage. There are two places of note where someone might have tampered with either the bottle of bourbon or Jacky’s glass.”

“Which two?” he asked, pulling the first file closer and flipping it open to see the printed frames.

“Roselyn and Jenny,” Ranger said, clearing his throat. “Roselyn with the bottle of bourbon. Jenny with both the glass and the bottle.”

I still can’t take one of the couples out of the equation, then.

“Jenny’s is more suspicious. Neither are caught by the cameras pouring anything in, but she was there longer, and there are some strange movements.” Ranger reached out slowly, but Heath didn’t need him. He flipped the pictures on his own, seeing the chain of events of how Jenny messed with practically everything on the table, pretending to clean it up while there was no staff around. Everyone was dancing and laughing, no one looking her way, not for long.

“I see,” Heath said, knowing with all the movement and what Jenny had worn, it would be too easy for her to sneak whatever she needed into the bottle of bourbon. “She’s good.”

“She is,” Ranger agreed.

“I want the rest,” Heath said softly, closing the pictures.

Jenny… Oh, I know what Callahan would have promised you…

“I couldn’t find anything suspicious in either home. Jenny, though, has a fire pit in the back,” Landon said. “And her neighbors said she likes going out to grill hotdogs and shit regularly.”

“You talked to the neighbors?” Heath was surprised his son would go that far.

“Neighbors are human and know they live next to a werewolf. They’re all too willing to pay too much attention in case the monster next door does something they might find strange. Roselyn and Piper have no notes from their neighbors except for the fact that everyone was almost disbelieving that they couldn’t think of anything to say about the couple. They know how to stay out of sight and out of mind for the humans near them, just like they are supposed to.”

“Good job. Carlos?”

“Nothing about Carlos from his and Jenny’s neighbors. Only her.” Landon snorted. “She’s good, but not that good. No idea if he’s involved or not.”

“Shamus, how have they been acting in their cells?”

“They all have a reasonable amount of fear. None of them are acting guilty, not even her. They’re all waiting like we did while you were clearing us. They know they are the last options, that one of them is a traitor. They haven’t spoken, but the distrustful looks have been thrown around by all of them but Carlos.”

“I hope he’s not involved,” Landon said softly.

“Agreed.” He couldn’t put it on Carlos. It would be real madness if Carlos had done this. “Bring me Roselyn first,” Heath ordered.

Shamus went to get her. Landon and Ranger moved to another table. Heath kept the printed pictures from the security cameras, ready to show them to Roselyn.

When Roselyn was sitting in front of him, Heath smiled, opened the file, and pushed it to her.

“Explain,” he ordered, letting the power roll through him.

“I really wanted to get a taste, but I thought better of it. I like bourbon, a lot, and I’ve never seen a vintage that old, much less had it accessible to try. It was very childish of me, but my mood was good from the party, and no one was looking, so I could be sneaky about it. Everyone else had been going and touching the bottle a little to read it. I knew my scent would be covered.”

“You didn’t place anything in it?”

“Of course not, Alpha.” Roselyn’s nostrils flared in insult. “I know I’m one of the last werewolves you think might have done it, but I will die before I betray you or anyone else in this pack.”

All the truth.

“Go upstairs. We’ll do Piper and let you both join the ranks.”

Roselyn stood up slowly, wary, just in case. She was a smart woman.

“Thoughts?” he asked.

“Carlos wouldn’t do this either,” she murmured. “He’s quiet and broken and?—”

“I know,” Heath whispered coldly, making his thoughts clear about what that meant.

“Yes, Alpha, of course.” She bowed her head fast and walked out.

He cleared Piper quickly enough, sending her and Roselyn home. He didn’t give them a status update on Jacky but caught Landon texting a second later. He showed Heath his phone before he sent that update.

“We don’t need to interview Jenny or Carlos right now,” Heath said, leaning back in his seat.

“We could be done, though?—”

“I want her to sweat more,” Heath said with a smile that held no joy or mirth. “She knows we know. With just the two of them left, I want to see if she’s willing to admit it to him . I want to see if she’s willing to destroy herself before I am forced to tomorrow morning. She’s going to the Tribunal with me.”

Landon’s eyes went wide. Ranger and Shamus were beyond shock, horrified by what Heath had just said.

“Landon, I’ll need you as my second. A challenge has been issued. You’ll probably be talking to Corissa. She’s his mate. She’s allowed to stand as his second if he doesn’t want to bring his second from his proper pack.”

“So, you’re going to do it. You’re actually challenging Callahan for the Tribunal spot,” Landon said, seeming excited and afraid. His son loved a good fight, but this was going to be one of the hardest Heath had ever faced.

“I already have.”