Abandoned Treasure

Beta Vic Knightly’s POV

Arrowhead Pack, Near Two Harbors, MN

January 1, 2019

It had been a busy ten days since the CIA drone strike on the Mexican leadership of the Sons of Tezcatlipoca. The US and Mexican governments were cleaning up the last vestiges of the Club, and guilty pleas were coming fast to avoid lifetime prison sentences. The Steel Brotherhood was thrilled with the result; they’d stayed lily-white during the war. Chase and Rori’s reputations in the Club couldn’t be better.

I was glad Spider Monkey was still closing up business in the Bay Area. Her condo was on the market now, and she’d quit her job at Google. We were still kicking around ideas for where to live, but her preferences were decidedly warmer than mine. I had a Pack and an important job, and I couldn’t tell her why it was so critical for me to be working at Arrowhead. She wanted a tropical vacation with beaches and sunshine and didn’t understand the wait. Chase and Rori were her friends, thankfully. I could get by for now, saying they were still in danger, but that wouldn’t last forever.

Spider Monkey had done us a favor, arranging for a convict who looked like Warrior Meghan to confess to the drugging of the cop outside Harleigh Ryder’s Orlando hospital room. In exchange, we’d provide for the woman’s child and family. Of course, the Sons took the blame for the kidnapping and murder since they were too dead to object to it. Harleigh is dead, Heather Rhodes remains.

My job as Arrowhead Security Beta was all-consuming, even with the threat from the Sons gone. I was training the Omegas as a reserve force, focusing on rifle and sentry skills. Long-range shooting was a force multiplier; we needed everything we could get with the frozen lake just feet from our homes.

That wasn’t my current headache. No, that was the trial of Alphas Chase and Rori for exposing our kind to humans that would start tomorrow morning. Arrowhead had to host the visiting Council and Alphas and guarantee security, just like Oxbow Lakes did a few weeks back. Our allies brought dozens of men along to assist, and I had each of them paired with an Arrowhead member. Today’s fun was more logistical. We had people flying into two area airports, plus the main airport in Minneapolis three hours south. Everyone had to be picked up, brought here, settled into rooms, and fed. Thank Luna that we had lots of extra space!

The stakes were high, and the whole Pack was nervous. We had both allies and enemies in the Council and among the Alphas. No one believed they would execute the Blessed One, but having them removed from the Alpha position and replaced by a more ‘traditional’ Alpha pair was on the table. They might even dissolve the Pack, which many were afraid of. It was all about power and politics, things I tried to avoid.

I was afraid of losing the little paradise we had built here. Our Pack wasn’t like the others, and I didn’t want it to be. We’d seen in Bitterroot and Denali how bad things could get.

Beta Ron and I were alternating shifts in the Security Control Center. We had Oxbow Lake wolves on the perimeter of our lands.Council Enforcers paired with our security teams around the housing, and the trials would occur at the Pack House.

The one good thing for me was that there were no likely targets of the Council other than my Alphas at Arrowwood. If they executed Rori, Cheryl would be the most valuable wolf in the world. The wolf who mated the next Blessed One would gain power, influence, and respect. Men wiped out an entire Pack to try and kidnap baby Rori, so she wasn’t taking chances with her daughter. Rori sent her parents, Cheryl’s bodyguards, and Harleigh Ryder into hiding. She’d also warned the other Trusted Agents, her lawyer, and bike club friends to stay away and watch out for trouble. There were those Alphas who wanted to kill all humans who could expose them, after all.

The only ‘human’ left at Arrowhead was Frank Grimes, and he wasn’t human anymore. She was keeping him out of sight, though.

The next day, as the trial began, I listened to the feed in the security control center while we watched the cameras and coordinated patrols. Everything was quiet except the courtroom. Chairman Coffey banged his gavel. “The trial of Alphas Rori and Chase Nygaard is called to order.The Prosecution will read the charges.”

Alpha Kirk filed the charges, so he was the Prosecutor.“Count One, that Alphas Chase Nygaard and Rori King unintentionally revealed the secret of our nature to a human, Frank Grimes.Count two, the Alphas failed to follow a direct order by the Council Chairman to separate from humans, which led to the reveal.”

“How do the defendants plead?”

“Guilty,” Rori replied. “It happened, and we won’t apologize or show regret over it.”

“Is there a plea deal in place?”

“No, Mr. Chairman. I attempted to conduct negotiations with the Defense, and they refused to entertain my offers.”

“Alphas Rori and Chase, you realize the charges you plead guilty to are subject to penalties up to and including execution?”

“We do, Mr. Chaiman,” Rori said.

“Very well, I have entered guilty pleas into the record, and we will proceed to the sentencing phase.”

Rori spoke up out of turn. “Mr. Chairman, if I may suggest a change from normal procedures. Allow me time to explain the reasoning for my actions and to answer questions about them, as those reasons will be key to arriving at the appropriate sentence.”

“Any objections, Alpha?”

“No sir, provided the Prosecution is allowed time and latitude to question them, and other witnesses that may be called.”

“Then the Council has no objections. The floor is yours to make your statement, then we will entertain questions.”

Rori and Chase addressed the Council and the Alphas, laying out her experience and reasoning for trusting the humans in their lives more than the other Packs. “The majority of my interactions with the Werewolf Council and the Alphas have been negative. Unlike many of you, I don’t assume them to be inherently good or acting in my interests. My mate understands more of our culture, but his faith in government has been shaken by what he has seen and endured.”

“Still, your Pack joined the Council, and you vowed to follow our laws,” Councilman Kirk replied. “You cannot pick and choose which laws you will follow and which you ignore. We cannot have anarchy.”

“We cannot have idiocy either,” Rori replied.

“Shit, that’s going to leave a mark,” one of the other wolves told me.

“Keep your eyes on the screens,” I replied.

The Council didn’t take well to that. “You will RESPECT this Council and its decisions!”

“I do not mean disrespect, Councilman. My argument is a logical one, informed by my upbringing which was quite different than yours. My father was a Captain in the Minnesota State Patrol; his wife was an Emergency Room nurse. They saw humanity at its worst and its best; they raised me to understand right and wrong from the human perspective. It is THIS world that you must understand and live in, because it is no longer possible to live apart from it. The rules you lived by when you ruled as Alpha will not continue to work now,” Rori countered.

Chase took over the discussion, talking about Frank Grime’s case, how he’d proven himself in defense of the Pack, and his sage advice about how a reveal was inevitable. “Frank Grimes isn’t our enemy. He’s an asset to my Pack and to the Council.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Councilman Nemmers said. “The last time he was with us, he nearly died.”

“And his werewolf friends saved his life. Frank understands your fear of humans and doesn’t hold the actions of one dead man against the rest of us. Now we have an ally with contacts high in the Government instead of a missing man who would be the subject of an intense investigation. The deal we made because of Frank stopped our secrets from coming out. How many of you have questionable business dealings, insurance fraud, identity theft, or other crimes? What happens if your existence comes out the wrong way, and people start questioning the disappearances of women in the area? Past Alphas would kidnap and impregnate women, then kill them and bury them in the woods. Have none of you watched CSI or true-crime TV shows? How long would you withstand scrutiny if the FBI shows up with cadaver dogs, ground-penetrating radar, and satellite surveys?”

“They wouldn’t DARE!”

“You have hundreds of bodies and no explanations,” Rori replied. “By the time they are done with you, all of you will be in prison. Or you fight, and they kill you. We cannot allow our traditions to get in the way of our survival.”

“So you would what? Throw our lives open to them?”

“If done in the right way, I would consider it. It is better to expose ourselves in a planned way than to be exposed in a bad way. When it happens, we will need our human friends to stand with us and vouch for us. I have hundreds of them, a select few who are Trusted Agents and already know my secret. And do you know what? Four of those women knew what I was before I did. They didn’t expose me or take advantage of me; they protected and helped me. They showed more loyalty to me than I’ve seen from my kind. Yet with all they have proven, I sent them away while you are here.”

“Your humans are not here?”

“Of course not. I sent my parents and my human friends into hiding. I told them I didn’t want to know where they went, and they were not to contact me. I sent more than them, though. I sent my CHILDREN with them. In a sad state of affairs, I trust humans with my babies more than werewolves. ”

“Your children are not in danger from us,” the Chairman said dismissively.

“My dead Pack members would argue that. So would the dead Alpha and his Betas, who wanted to kidnap and rape me when I was sixteen. Can’t you understand my hesitancy to trust you knowing my past? I didn’t know how this trial would go, and I still don’t. If I die, the last thing I would allow is for my children to end up with men with power and money on their minds. Kill me, and the Blessed line will end.”

“Your daughter is still alive,” Millner said.

“My daughter will never see or mate another werewolf. More than that, do you remember the Council meeting where you voted to arrest me and imprisoned my Beta? Do you remember what I threatened that day?”

“A video and documentation of what we are and who we are, including names and locations. A dangerous gambit, but one you played well.”

“It wasn’t a gambit. The video and documentation are in a double-blind hold. I don’t know who has it, and the person who has it doesn’t know what it is. Nothing has changed; if I die, it goes to the press, and Luna help you all then.”

Fuck. My Alphas hadn’t told me THAT little nugget. Rori was playing with fire.

“YOU DARE THREATEN US?”

“I’m informing you. It’s my little insurance policy of Mutual Assured Destruction.”

I heard the Chairman banging his gavel to restore order. “I have a question, Alpha King. I understand you do not like the rules as they are now, but surely you want some limits on human interaction and knowledge of us? As you say, the more people know, the more inevitable our exposure is.”

“Zero tolerance laws don’t work because they are zero intelligence; there is no allowance for circumstance, character, or relationship. Human membership should be like we treat applicants to our Pack; we evaluate how they would fit in and contribute to the overall good. Frank is a perfect example, and there are others I would add without hesitation if I could.”

Alpha Kirk wasn’t impressed. “I can’t believe what I’ve just heard. To summarize: our laws are stupid, I openly defied you and will do so again, and if you do what the law requires? I’ll ensure you’re all killed in return. Killing her is too easy; she should be imprisoned and forced to reproduce, with the children adopted out to the Packs to help with our population. At least then, we would have the blessing without the risk this reckless she-wolf brings.”

“Our Goddess Luna would never allow that, nor would I.”

“Oh, so now you speak for the Goddess? Do you hand out her blessings and curses now?”

“Alpha Kirk, how many females of breeding age are in your Pack?”

“Forty-two.”

“And how many children under eighteen are in your Pack?”

“Two.”

“Two, and neither of them are yours. You and your mate have not produced an heir in thirty years of mated life.”

“It is not uncommon for us. We all know how difficult it is to get pregnant as werewolves.”

“So you would agree that pregnancy is a blessing from Luna?”

“Of course.”

I smiled; Rori was moving in for the kill now. Their strategy was risky, but I liked it. "My Pack has fewer females than you, yet we have four children. Add in that I am pregnant, no shock there, but so are three other females in my Pack. My aunt, Luna Margaret, is pregnant. So is Luna Ashley Nygaard. Alpha Coral has a young baby at home. Add in the members of our Pack who are finding themselves pregnant, and we have a real baby boom coming. So yes, Alpha Kirk, children ARE a blessing from Luna, and Luna is blessing those on my side.”

The rest was posturing until the jury could reach a verdict. Rori’s defense was that if she was wrong, Luna wouldn’t be showering her blessings upon them. If you vote against Arrowhead, you’re against what the Goddess is doing.

The jury couldn’t agree on a punishment, and no one was happy. Chairman Coffee announced the resolution. “Since the Alphas cannot agree on a sentence, I am continuing the trail for three months. We will reconvene the Alphas here on April the third to resume deliberations.” I thought that was a good deal; it would give the Alphas time to bring others to their side. I was less happy that the Alphas would remain restricted to the Pack lands, but at least they weren’t leaving Enforcers to keep them here. The other change was that the next jury would include all the Alphas, not just North America. Since the European Packs were more conservative, this wasn’t a good deal for us.

On the good side, the guests we didn’t trust couldn’t get out of Arrowhead fast enough. We stayed on Condition Yellow, heightened alert, for three more days until we were sure they were gone. Chase didn’t put it past someone who disagreed with the Council to attack us anyway. With the Alphas dead, they’d get their wish.

Things calmed down and mostly returned to normal a few days later. We all missed the babies, and others had to cover the facility duties that Roadkill had taken.

Spider Monkey returned a few days after that, and I had a realtor meet us that afternoon. We bought a lakefront home a few lots away from the back entrance to the Pack lands, near the beaches and picnic areas. It was close enough for us to be around the Pack while not staying on Pack lands anymore. We waited for the truck to arrive with her stuff before heading to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.

She wanted a beach wedding, and she got one. It was a private family affair, with my daughter as the matron of honor and my son-in-law as best man. Spider wore a tiny white bikini and a veil, which showed off her tattoos and tanned skin.

She was so beautiful, and the whole week was perfect. I returned to my duties at Arrowhead while she focused on getting our house together and her daily snowmobile runs. All too quickly, guests started arriving in early April for the deliberations in the Alpha’s trial.

I was in the security center when I saw her. She was walking into the dining room where the Pack was celebrating the mating between Greg and Tatiana Barks. “What the fuck is Heather doing here?”

“What? She’s supposed to be in hiding,” the Oxbow Beta replied.

“FUCK! I’m heading over.” I ran out of the control center and into the party, arriving just in time for the train wreck I couldn’t prevent. I didn’t even warn Chase it was coming.

“GREG,” Heather yelled as she ran towards her former lover at the head table. He stood up in shock, and she jumped up and wrapped herself around him, but he pushed her off. “Greg?”

“I told you we were over, Heather. You need to move on.”

“What?”

“I broke up with you in that letter three months ago. You need to accept I’ve moved on and found someone else.”

I’d never seen anyone get emotionally destroyed before. Heather didn’t react well to being dumped. “YOU FUCKING BASTARD, YOU KNOCK ME UP AND SEND ME A FUCKING ‘DEAR JANE’ LETTER?”

Oh, FUCK! It was not going to end well. I started moving down the side of the room towards my Alphas. They were my first responsibility.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Twins,” Heather said as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Nobody knew what to do, including me. Surely things couldn’t get more awkward than this.

And just like in the movie Airplane? Yes, they can, and don’t call me Shirley.

Tatiana picked that moment to walk into the room, wearing a little black dress and a murderous expression. “YOU BITCH,” she yelled as she ran forward. “HE’S MINE!”

I put myself in front of Alpha Rori as the fight began. She couldn’t shift while pregnant, so she was my priority.

Heather turned enough to take the punch on her hip, breaking Tatiana’s knuckles. She did a spinning kick next, knocking the Russian girl to the floor. Damn, she’d been practicing! “He was mine first, but you can have his lying ass.”

Tatiana exploded into her shift, shredding her clothes before her grey wolf leaped for Heather’s throat. Heather used her left arm to stop her while drawing a Glock with her right and getting off a shot. She might have killed the jealous werewolf, but Greg intervened. He knocked her arm away, then picked her up and slammed her down on a table. Her gun bounced away as Greg rushed to tend to his injured mate.

Heather was human. Tatiana had shifted and attacked her before taking a shot in the shoulder.

The implications moved through the room at lightning speed. Some shifted, others shouted, and groups of wolves faced off against each other. “SHE MUST DIE,” a man yelled from behind a line of snarling wolves.

“LEAVE HER ALONE,” Rori yelled back. Others surrounded our Alpha to keep her out of the fray.

It was Alpha Carson who got to Heather first. “Friend,” he said before picking her up. “I’ve got you, Heather.” He ran with her out of the room as Rori tried to avoid an open melee. I had our Pack members block the exits after Carson left.

“Ron, protect Rori,” Chase linked as he rushed to tend to Tatiana’s gunshot wound. “Vic, get back to the security center and watch the border. Do what you can to help them escape before the Enforcers or the Russians catch up.”

“On my way.”

I moved to the exits, leaving the shouting and posturing behind. A minute later, I was back at my post. “What’s going on?”

“Carson is running south with her on his back. They should hit the Pack border in eight minutes.”

Shit. That was enough time for other patrols to make it. Luckily, the Council didn’t have Enforcers at the far borders. We had to keep the Council from ordering Oxbow Lake warriors to capture them. The Oxbow Beta ordered the patrols to go the wrong way. This subterfuge ensured they couldn’t get back in time when new orders arrived.

The pursuers were less than a minute behind when Alpha Carson’s driver picked them up outside the border. I didn’t envy Rori’s situation; here we were in a trial about exposing werewolves to humans, and dozens of wolves changed in plain view of a pregnant human. It was a shitshow as things calmed down.

The Council called for immediate action. They wanted Heather dead, but Alpha Carson didn’t let that happen.

Another Nygaard was defying the Council.