“Obviously there are differences, but they’re not readily apparent.”
“And you can’t tell me?”
“That’s for the Alpha to decide.”
“Sylvan.”
Sophia flushed. “The Alpha, yes.”
“She knew you on sight. Are you friends?”
“With the Alpha?” Sophia stared at Drake as if she had just said something terribly amusing. “No. She’s the Alpha. She knows all our names.”
Drake wanted to keep Sophia talking. She wanted to know more about Sylvan Mir. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way Sylvan had handled the teenagers. Her combination of discipline and tenderness had struck a chord in Drake, whose own adolescence had mostly been one of indifference bordering on neglect. The way Sylvan had attacked the poison in Misha’s body, as if it were a lethal enemy to be destroyed with claws and teeth, had taken Drake’s breath away. She’d been brutal, fierce, stunning in her wrath. The Were Alpha was an intriguing contradiction, and Drake was fascinated.
“I read there are hundreds in your Pack,” Drake said, figuring if she referred to public knowledge Sophia would be more comfortable. “That’s a lot of names.”
“We are the largest Pack in North America—only the Russian White River Pack rivals ours worldwide,” Sophia said proudly. “The other North American packs were hunted almost to extinction and are just now coming back.”
“Hunted.” A cold chill flashed along Drake’s spine and she leaned closer. “By humans?”
“We have not always had to hide, but we have always been hunted.” Sophia flushed again as if realizing she’d said too much. She stood up abruptly, averting her gaze. “I should get back to work.”
“I’m sorry.” Drake rose, recognizing Sophia’s posture as similar to the way the boys had reacted to Sylvan’s anger. She hadn’t meant to intimidate the medic and wasn’t sure how she had. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Your Alpha made an impression on me. When she was treating Misha—her power was amazing.”
“You felt that?” Sounding surprised, Sophia busied herself with collecting the charts.
“Yes. How could anyone not?” Drake hurried on before Sophia disappeared. “Why do you all seem to trust her so much?” Sophia frowned, giving Drake a cautious look.
“She’s the Alpha. Our leader. Without her, the Pack couldn’t function. There would be power struggles, rebellion, chaos. Many of us would not survive.”
“I understand the importance of her position, but the trust part?”
“She’d die for us.” Sophia spoke with simple conviction and absolute certainty.
Drake tried to comprehend the kind of strength and personal sacrifice required of one individual to safeguard an entire community, and couldn’t. If she hadn’t seen Sylvan with her wolves, she wouldn’t have believed it possible. But she had seen her, and her blood still raced from the excitement of their encounter.
Sylvan paced the small room in the infirmary where she’d brought Misha directly upon arrival at the Compound, three hundred square miles of fortified mountain ranges deep in the heart of Pack land. Her mother had built the protectorate almost a century ago when she had consolidated the many small, scattered enclaves of wolf Weres in the Adirondack Mountains of New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont into one cohesive Pack.
The nerve center of the Compound consisted of an enormous hard-packed earth courtyard ringed by a dozen log buildings, all enclosed within a twelve-foot-high fence. The main building was a massive three-story timber and stone lodge with Sylvan’s headquarters on the second floor. The barracks, a long two-story building, housed the young males and females who were in military training, two to a room.
A breezeway connected the barracks to the mess hall. Tall antennae and rooftop satellite dishes for long-range surveillance marked the communications center. In the center of the Compound, protected by an internal perimeter guarded twenty-four hours a day by some of Sylvan’s finest fighters, was a heavily fortified single-story building with two wings housing the infirmary and the nursery. Underground tunnels connected all the structures and led to escape exits in the surrounding forest. Sylvan’s private den was five miles farther into the forest, a simple three-room single-story log cabin whose location was known only to her personal guards.
“Any change?” Sylvan halted abruptly, fists on hips, and confronted Elena, the Pack medicus. The sight of Misha helpless and hurt was making Sylvan’s wolf rip at her insides in a mad fury to protect her own. Sylvan wanted to lash out, wanted to loose her claws and shred whoever had dared harm one of hers. She shuddered and silver pelt glinted beneath her skin, her wolf breaking free. Ignoring the pain, she held her back. “Elena?”
“She’s not going to wake up for a few more hours at least.” The petite brunette, perched on a stool next to the bed where Misha lay beneath a colorful knit afghan, cast Sylvan an appraising glance. Her lips thinned in concern. “You look on the verge of frenzy. Why don’t you take care of it?”
Sylvan narrowed her eyes, emitting a barely audible rumble.
Elena raised one dark brow in Sylvan’s direction. “Don’t growl at me, either. I whelped you, and I remember when you were just a mewling scrawny pup.”
“Is there any sign of the fever?” Sylvan chose to ignore Elena, knowing she wouldn’t win an argument with her. Their chief medic was barely two decades older than Sylvan, and in the centuries-long lifespan of a Were, that was negligible. Their relationship was as close to that of siblings as Sylvan could have with anyone in the Pack. Elena would never undermine that closeness by challenging her in front of others, but she didn’t shy away from nagging Sylvan in private.
“No sign of fever yet. In another few hours I can say for certain that she’s safe.” Elena traced her fingers tenderly along Misha’s pale cheek. She shook her head, her dark eyes filling with sorrow. “Who would do this to a child?”
“Jazz said they smelled like wolf Weres, but not Pack. Rogues.”
“But why would they poison her? It makes no sense.”
“I’m not sure they meant to kill her.” Sylvan regarded the broken knife tip she had dug out of Misha’s body. Elena had placed it in a safe, sealed container to be delivered to their technicians at Mir Industries—their medical and pharmaceutical research facility—in the morning.
While they needed a complete analysis of the chemical nature of the poison impregnated into the knife blade, she didn’t need a scientist to tell her it was silver-based. Only another Were would know that silver was lethal, even in very small doses. “Jazz said the rogues tried to separate Misha from the boys, and when all three of our adolescents fought back, the rogues panicked. Misha was accidentally stabbed in the chaos.”
“They intentionally targeted Misha,” Elena echoed bleakly, keeping her hand protectively on Misha’s shoulder. “Misha would make three, Sylvan. Three dominant females. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“No,” Sylvan said darkly, her canines lengthening as her wolf howled in rage. “Someone is abducting our females.” Two young Were females had disappeared in the last half year—the first had been believed killed in a landslide while hiking alone, but her body had never been recovered. The second had disappeared from a local campus after leaving a note in her dorm room saying she and a male from another Pack were eloping. The girl’s parents swore she would never have kept a serious romantic relationship from them, especially not one with a non-Pack male. Sylvan had ordered an investigation, but her sentries had found nothing. Although young wolves, males and females, frequently roamed before mating and settling down, Pack and family ties were central to every Were’s life. Runaways were almost unheard of. These females did not disappear willingly.