Page 33 of War Games (Jacky Leon #11)
HEATH
“ B efore we begin, I need to say something to the Tribunal,” Heath said loudly as Landon closed the door behind him. He finished the walk down before speaking again, glad his son was behind him in the face of the Tribunal.
He looked at Callahan and Corissa. While Callahan was normally the one with an easy expression to read, now it was blank. Corissa seemed less put together than she normally did. An odd switch.
He reached the bottom of the circular viewing room, all seats higher than those who would speak to them. They only accounted for a quarter of the circular room, while the rest was seating for others who wished to see proceedings, depending on what was happening. There were some placed for those speaking to the Tribunal to stand, and he found one, not yet going into the center of the room, where the open floor was used for more intense interrogations, judgments, and the like.
“As I was the Tribunal member you asked to call this meeting, I shall be the one to ask… what do you want to say?” Hasan was leaning forward in his seat.
“You called a meeting for a werewolf?” Corissa said, her expression pinched.
“I’m the only one he has access to on a regular basis to make the request,” Hasan said, smiling viciously. “Though to hide that I did it, I asked Alvina to pass the meeting along to the both of you.”
Did he not tell them what I intended? Does Callahan not know I’m here to challenge him?
Hasan continued to smile as he gestured to Heath to talk.
“Hasan, this is the werewolf who betrayed my pack and poisoned your daughter, knowingly taking the risk that it would be Jacky, daughter of Subira, who ingested it and suffered the consequences.”
Hasan turned slowly to the werewolves of the Tribunal.
“No,” Corissa gasped.
Callahan closed his eyes as if he was accepting something.
“Because I was the intended target, I will handle it.” Heath reached out for Jenny, who didn’t see it coming. He grabbed her jaw from behind and twisted.
Her neck broke.
Neither he nor Landon tried to stop her body from crumpling to the floor.
After a few minutes, Hasan gestured to someone and Corissa nodded quickly, confirming something. A large male werewolf came forward, having been standing at the end of the Tribunal’s seats near a door Heath hadn’t cared much to look at for long. An aide for the day, possibly, or a guard ready to jump into action in case the Tribunal members themselves were outnumbered. In what world would the members of the Tribunal be fighting in their own chambers, Heath didn’t know, but he knew all of them were the type to plan for the potential. It would have been an early security conversation for this group.
“Leave the body. She’s not important,” Landon said, stepping around Jenny’s corpse to stand next to Heath once again. Heath wanted to question his son about the callousness, but it was a small urge, overwhelmed by his coldness at her betrayal and his focus on what he had to do next.
The werewolf growled softly at Landon, but Corissa shook her head slightly, and the werewolf backed way.
Landon dared to growl back.
“Before Landon and my pack start picking fights with each other, why don’t you tell us what is going on, Heath,” Corissa said, glaring at him.
You don’t know, but you have a feeling.
“I am here to challenge Callahan, member of the Tribunal, for his position,” Heath announced loudly. In a room full of warriors and politicians, most of them had near-perfect poker faces, but they couldn’t hide their scents.
Corissa was angry and scared, the latter being something Heath had to focus on for a second to catch. Hasan was impressed, amused, angry, and frustrated. It grew so complicated and unbelievable, Heath had to ignore Hasan’s scent. The vampires were bored, barely amused, clearly distracted, and looked as if someone had interrupted their beauty sleep. Alvina was more expressive than Brion where they sat next to each other, the current King and Queen of the fae. Brion was responsible for the only other two times a change of leadership had happened in the Tribunal. First, when he disappeared and abdicated the throne in the process, and the second, when he needed to step up, kill his brother, and take the throne back, along with its position on the Tribunal. Heath had been there for the second, at least part of it.
The witches, Johann and Matilda, were humored.
While he judged their reactions, ignoring anyone not on the Tribunal, he walked into the open area, knowing this would be where he and Callahan fought. He wouldn’t take this back to Jacky’s home, nor would he go to Callahan’s city or some random place where he couldn’t reasonably get home if something turned sideways. He wanted to do this here. If that meant painting the walls of the Tribunal’s main chambers red, then so be it.
“You think your moon cursed are going to war, and here we are, watching the infighting,” Matilda taunted softly.
“Challenge accepted,” Callahan said, ignoring them as he stood.
“Now, wait. We can talk about this,” Corissa snapped, grabbing Callahan’s arm as he tried to step away from his seat to meet Heath. “Callahan, we had a plan!”
“I won’t deny Everson the pound of flesh he deserves,” Callahan said, gently pulling his arm away. “You shouldn’t either.”
That made Heath narrow his eyes. Callahan looked at him, sighing.
“Jacky wasn’t the target,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “And I should be furious, but you killed the werewolf who decided to gamble with lives unnecessarily, as any of us would. When someone takes a job, it should be done right.”
“You’re talking about poisoning a rival Alpha who hasn’t acted against you,” Landon snarled.
Heath held up a hand, telling his son not to speak out of turn again.
“He hasn’t?” Corissa, not nearly as calm as she normally was, turned her hard glare on Landon. “He has, though. Going rogue was acting against us, but we let it go. However, we can’t abide by a werewolf stepping around us, working for other supernaturals in a position of power. Like Heath did in Oregon, using his reputation among humans to do something for the werecat ruling family without going through us. We would have done it, but it undermined us and our position on the Tribunal.”
“And other werewolves noticed,” Heath concluded, speaking up to get her attention off Landon, her hard eyes turning on him as he hoped. Corissa nodded, putting her hands in front of her on the table.
“Oh, yes, they did,” she said. “Some have been wondering why more packs can’t be rogue and handle things their own way while we’ve been trying to work with Hasan and the rest of the Tribunal about the idea that witches are taking control of our kinds. It clearly worked out for you, and we haven’t done anything about it. Some of them are using your position to say that if you can decide your own allies outside of the werewolves, like powerful forces like Hasan and his family, then they should get to decide their own allies and who they would rather just kill.”
“I knew I would be a target one day. I expected a different route, but I knew I would be one,” Heath said, removing his blazer slowly. “But we can talk about what plan you had after the fight.”
“Callahan, just step—” Corissa was turning to her mate again.
“We both knew this could go wrong. We didn’t expect this way, but it was one of the things we considered. We thought the risk was minimal, hoping that little werewolf would just do what we needed her to do.” Callahan smiled at his mate, and Heath could see the sadness in it, smell it from across the room. “I will be fine, my Venus. Will you stand as my second to discuss with his?”
“I will,” Corissa said, losing the battle with Callahan that Heath didn’t fully understand yet. He would get to the bottom of it if he was alive to do so after the fight.
“I’ll make sure we have the space for this,” Brion said, standing up. With a strain that Heath had never seen from the fae king before, he pushed his hands apart, and the room literally stretched, making the open space half the size of a football field.
“Thank you,” Callahan said, nodding to the fae king. “I’ll take this end, Everson.”
Heath went to the far side, where the werewolf had been. That werewolf was finally getting Jenny’s body off the floor, taking her to the rooms away from the main chamber, most likely to dispose of her.
As he and Callahan took their positions and started to strip, Landon and Corissa met in the center. He was immensely proud of his son for a moment, the fearlessness of Landon helping him stand tall in front of the strongest werewolf in the world. Corissa was the most dominant wolf, but the fact that she was having issues with problem packs now was actually a positive to Heath. She also didn’t wish to rob the will of other werewolves, and she could certainly try to force everyone in line. She could shut down dissidents by using an iron fist, but she hadn’t, and Callahan hadn’t tried that, either.
Instead, they had a plan to deal with me, the real source of their problems. It’s better for all werewolves for them to have gone this route. But Jacky got hurt, and it seems Callahan understands that no matter what, this fight is happening.
It was a fight that had been brewing between them for some time now, but Heath had to give the challenge as the lower-ranking werewolf, and he hadn’t wanted to. He never thought of taking the Tribunal seat until this. He had never wanted more werewolves to deal with. He wanted to protect his family. He thought he could do that from the position he’d been in, keeping out of the way.
I should have stayed out of the Alaska situation. I know I should have, but Jacky and her family weren’t playing nicely with Callahan and Corissa after the truth about Fenris came out. Jacky had spearheaded that, her grief in the way, and no one faulted her for that… but I should have stayed in Texas.
“So, what the fuck, Corissa?” Landon asked boldly.
“Watch your tongue with me,” Corissa snarled in reply. “Your father gives you too much leash sometimes.”
“My apologies. You go first, then,” Landon said, bowing gracefully, backing down but still with all the typical Landon attitude he was known for to all the werewolves from other packs. With his utter disregard for their positions, he intentionally robbed people of their supposed power because he didn’t care about pack structure or rank outside of his position to Heath.
“Can you convince your father to have a reasonable discussion right now instead of this challenge?” Corissa asked, crossing her arms.
Landon looked at him, and Heath could only shake his head. Whatever real game these two had played, he would learn later. It didn’t matter what their intentions were anymore. Jacky got hurt, and he was going to make sure no other werewolf every thought to act out of line and put her in danger ever again. If being on the Tribunal gave him that power, he was going to take it. It also solved their problems. No one would wonder anymore about the direction of the werewolves, wondering if they could follow Heath’s path and go rogue or if they should stay loyal to the Tribunal werewolves. He would be able to forever change the direction of the werewolves, one that worked in his favor, just so he could be with her.
It only made sense to Heath that he had this fight, and he wasn’t willing to back down.
I can do the job better than Callahan.
That small, arrogant thought ran through him as he faced down his last few minutes before he changed the supernatural world or died.
“No,” Landon said, smiling, though he was showing enough teeth that it was more threatening than mocking. “Jacky got hurt. Don’t care what you two were planning or why. Don’t care that this will rattle all the other little werewolves around the world with a new power dynamic. All we care about is making sure no one from the werewolves ever touches Jacky or anyone else in our family ever again.”
“Please listen,” Corissa whispered, looking from Landon to Heath.
Heath turned his back to her and began the Change.
“No,” Landon growled. “You played your games. They didn’t work, whatever they were. Now, it’s time for us to play ours.”
Five minutes passed, and as Heath stood as a werewolf, he turned to Callahan, who was also finishing. Heath pushed to Change faster and faster as he got older, trying to be the best, learning to push through the pain of it quickly. Callahan had age and experience, probably learning the same lessons as Heath over his years. They were both fast in the process, while most werewolves took at least ten to fifteen minutes, if not longer.
Callahan was probably six inches bigger at the shoulder and had twenty pounds more muscle, a truly giant werewolf, and Heath was well beyond their average size already. Landon was somewhere between them, just thanks to what he was. They were probably the largest werewolves in the world at this point.
It’s been a long time since he’d been the smaller one in a fight… After today, it will probably never happen again.
No one had to tell them when it was the right time to start. Both were experienced Alphas who had fought to the top. They knew the timing, making sure Landon and Corissa were fully clear and no one else was about to jump in. It happened sometimes—spouses trying to save their mates and the like or worse, children thinking to save their parents. Since this was an organized fight, there was no real rush to launch into the fight.
Until the switch flipped, and they both did.
Teeth slid off muscles through fur, unable to gain purchase. Aiming for vulnerable areas like the back of each other’s legs or, better, bellies. A debilitating injury like a broken or maimed leg would end a fight decisively.
Most of the fight was precision attacks dodged by experienced fighters. Callahan was as good as Heath could have imagined with his roughly two-thousand years of experience as a werewolf. Heath was scrappy, knowing if Callahan killed him, he wouldn’t be able to protect his children or Jacky ever again. Heath thought his own motivation would be fiercer than Callahan’s, but the Tribunal Alpha was taking him seriously. Heath knew if he was caught, there would be a killing blow. Callahan was fighting for his own life, and he wasn’t going to give Heath even a moment of respite through arrogance to take an easier victory.
Heath slipped up once, teeth sinking into his back leg. He had an answer for it, though. Spinning, he ignored the bone cracks of his leg and grabbed Callahan’s tail. Callahan, with more muscle and a better grip, tried to shake Heath like a toy, but Heath used that to rip Callahan’s tail clean off, much easier than removing a back leg.
There was blood everywhere, thanks to those injuries, causing the marble floors to grow slick. Fights like this were meant to happen in the grass and dirt, out in nature, where the blood would soak into the ground. Instead, both of them were now fighting to keep their purchase, and at their size and speed, it led to more mistakes.
Callahan lost an ear next, Heath ripping it off when he’d hoped to get the back of Callahan’s neck. Heath felt teeth hit his ribs and break at least a couple. Callahan was unable to get a good bite, but the force of the hit was enough to do real damage.
Heath made some distance, knowing the ribs and the back leg were going to be the death of him if he didn’t get something better against Callahan. They prowled in a circle, knowing they were both trying to think of a way to finish this without dying themselves. Heath was slowing down because of his injuries, but Callahan was bleeding out because of the ripped-off tail. Both of them looked bad.
Heath went for it head-on. Callahan faced him, but Heath stayed lower than Callahan was expecting, perhaps the blood loss taking more effect or expecting Heath to be bolder in the head-on charge. Heath got right under Callahan, whose teeth tried to get onto his back, but Heath got to Callahan’s belly, and he got the bite he really needed.
With a howl of pain as Heath pulled him down by his belly, Callahan hit the ground with a resounding thud. He didn’t completely gut the other werewolf. Knowing he did severe internal damage, it would be enough. Heath released Callahan’s belly to rise over Callahan’s head, ready to take out his neck instead. Ready to kill him the way he saw Jacky kill, just to drive the point home, for people to talk about later. Callahan fell unconscious, slowly dying.
“STOP!” Corissa screeched as Heath set his mouth on the neck of his fallen enemy.
“Don’t interfere!” Landon roared.
“He did it for me!” Corissa screamed. “He never wanted to be on the Tribunal. He never wanted any of this! He was planning on stepping down to you! When you survived Oberon’s Test, he was going to step down for you!” The smell of her horror, the escalating realization that her mate was dying, overrode the smell of all the blood on the floor.
Heath heard the words but felt distant from them, felt distant from human thought. A fight like this could bring out something primal in the moon cursed, and he was deep in it. He growled, trying to listen, trying to fight the urge to just finish the fight and never have to worry about Callahan again.
“He was protecting me! All of it! He only ever took this position to protect me!” Corissa’s pleading made Heath think of his enemy differently.
Something human, the cunning of a ruthless man, came back to Heath.
He’s useful to me alive, for control over her and keeping things as stable as possible for the NAWC…
“Tell her if she kneels, I’ll spare him,” Heath said to his son mentally, the first time he’d used the werewolf communication ability the entire day.
“Heath Everson, member of the Tribunal, will spare Callahan if you kneel, Corissa,” Landon called out, already giving Heath the title he had just won.
Corissa was running. He growled as she tried to get closer to him and Callahan. She went to her knees and inched forward slowly.
“Please, just let me save him,” she whispered, giving up her position as the strongest werewolf Alpha in the world. “I can’t lose him.”
Heath released him and took two steps back.
“There will be a meeting once Callahan’s condition has stabilized and Heath’s injuries have been tended,” Landon announced.
“I better be at that fucking meeting,” someone snarled. Heath turned slowly to see Jacky standing at the door at the top of the tall stairs, glaring at the room. Behind her, Subira hovered, smiling. She was staying only inches out of the Tribunal space she wasn’t allowed to enter without very specific permissions.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Landon said, grinning as he turned to her as well. “Good to see you up.”