Escaping Wildfire

Cristian

I rolled over as the sun broke through my window. The light made my head throb worse than it was already throbbing. I must have had way too much to drink last night for me to have a hangover as wolves could handle their liquor fairly well. I went to get up, but I was stopped when I noticed the arm draped over my waist.

Fuck! I can’t believe I let Evie back in my bed.

‘You and me both.’

‘Really, Ax, I’m not in the mood for your commentary right now...if you’d control your anger a little better, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘Hey, don’t blame me for not being able to keep your cock in your pants, you dickhead.’

Ax could be such an ass sometimes, but other than his anger outbursts, we usually worked well together. That is until Wildfire attacked my pack and we found out my dad betrayed us.

Ax had never minded me sleeping around with girls who weren’t my mate, which was unusual for a wolf. He sure didn't like me messing around with Evie, though. Unfortunately, having Evie in my bed seemed to be the only thing that calmed the overwhelming feelings of anger coursing through me.

I thought things would get better by talking to Gema more often, but that just made me feel shittier than usual. Noah and Jordan had been busy with their siblings, while I was left on my own. It wasn’t fair that my sister was still stuck with the enemy…and all because of our dad.

The Full Moon run last night didn’t help any either as it should have been Gema’s first run with us…with her family. When the guys took off with their siblings, it made me feel alone, so when Evie offered to keep me company, I took her up on the offer. We headed up to my room with a couple of bottles of tequila, and she let me have her a few times. She was good in bed, so it wasn’t exactly a chore being with her, but waking up next to her was a whole different game that I could have done without.

“Babe, come back to bed.” She tried to pull me back down to her as I got up.

“Actually, I’m good. You should probably head out now.” I walked to my bathroom and started the shower, hoping she’d be gone by the time I got out. I closed my eyes and let the warm water run down my body as I brushed back my hair. It had gotten longer over the last few weeks, but I had been too preoccupied to even think about getting a haircut. I didn’t mind it, so I thought maybe I’d leave it.

I heard the door to the bathroom open and opened my eyes to see that Evie had let herself in. She walked into the shower and bent down in front of me before grabbing my cock and wrapping her mouth around me. I had already told myself to stop this, but I seemed to forget all about that as the feeling of her tongue and mouth on me erased all other thoughts. I rammed into her mouth hard and yanked back on her hair, putting her mouth right where I needed it. She let me fuck her mouth until I got my release, and then she stood up and tried to cuddle me and get her own release, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I didn’t want Evie, I just wanted to forget about all the crap going on right now.

“Get out,” I told her coldly as she tried to wrap her arms around my neck.

“Oh, but, babe. Didn’t I make you feel good? I can keep doing that if you’ll let me.”

“I need you to go. Last night shouldn’t have happened, and I don’t want my friends to see you coming out of my room.”

I stepped back into the water, hoping she’d take the hint. I know I sounded rude, but I didn’t have the patience for her and her emotions right now. Hell, Ax and I barely had the patience for our own emotions.

“Whatever then. You’ll be crawling back to me anyway, just like you have been these last few nights.” She got a towel and wrapped it around herself as she huffed out. The feelings of self-loathing started to pop up, and I hated that I was losing sight of myself in all of this mess with my dad and sister.

I finished up my shower and got dressed. Luckily, Evie had left just like I had told her, but I still felt like shit about everything.

I heard a knock on the door just as I finished tying on my shoes. Noah stood there, waiting for me on the other side of the door.

“Hey, Alpha wants to see us in his office.” He suddenly stopped, looking past me and into my room, with its disheveled sheets. “Really? Again? I thought you said you were done with her?”

“I was,” I shrugged, “But things changed.” I tried to make it seem that I didn’t care, but Ax and I both knew I did care and hated myself for just falling into bed with Evie again when I told myself I wouldn’t.

He let out a deep sigh as he shook his head, clearly disappointed in me.

“Let’s go.”

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t reprimanded me, but I knew him keeping his thoughts to himself was never a good thing. He was always the most honest out of the three of us. The one we could count on to tell it like it is…but if he wasn’t doing that, then that left me a little clueless about where I should go with all of this.

Alpha Kedrick

I was leaving for a Shifter Council meeting this afternoon and wanted to touch base with the boys before I left. They were hard workers and had been doing great with every task I gave them, and while they were a great addition to my pack, I knew they belonged back at Cobalt Falls, leading their pack.

“Come on in guys,” Isaiah opened the door for them and we all sat around the conference table.

“I don’t have anything too big to discuss today, so I just wanted to see how you were all doing. Are the kids all settling in well?”

“Yeah, I think they’re doing better. I talked to my sisters about taking over as their guardian, and they’re on board with it.” Jordan was all business as he talked about his sisters. The kid was going to make a great Alpha.

“Good, good…I’ve been in touch with Olivia. She’s made contact with most of her cats, and they’re ready for an attack as soon as we give them a time and date. We’ll just have to give them plenty of time for travel as they are spread out over the country. That woman has some serious connections all over the nation.”

“Do we know how many there are?”

“A couple hundred so far, but she’s still trying to get in touch with some of the more secluded shifters.”

“That’s good right?”

“I think so, and we also have Brown Claw. They’re a smaller clan, but that still gives us another 100 or so.”

“And then we have about 7 wolf packs willing to help, so far?”

“Yeah, I think we’re doing great, but I'd like you to reach out to Cristian’s sister again and get an idea of how things have been going since the others left. We need to get a feel for when it would be best to strike.”

“Are we going to be able to get my sister out before we strike? I don’t want her getting hurt if anyone thinks she’s Wildfire.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for, Olivia’s been working on a plan, but we need more information from your sister before we proceed.”

“I’ll text her and see when she can call next.”

“Good. Gabriel’s in charge while I’m away, so bring anything urgent to him. I’m going to try to feel out the Council again. I doubt anything will change, but we want to know that the bears don’t know about Alpha Tate wanting to help us.”

My wolf, Rainer, had been going on high alert whenever we spoke with Alpha Keenan, and the feeling had gotten worse since he decided to put a hold on his retirement. It just rubbed me the wrong way that he wanted to block Tate from taking his place just because he had voted to help us.

“I’ll be flying out in a few hours to Mistwood, and be back on Monday. I’d like an update on your sister, and hopefully, I’ll have more news for you guys by then.”

The Shifter Council had a monthly meeting, mostly over video conference. They’d meet in person two or three times a year, and this go around Mistwood, Alpha Dawson’s territory, was hosting our weekend-long meeting. They tried to even out the location between Council members so that the same packs wouldn’t have to be traveling all the time. Mistwood was in California, just north of Wildfire Pack’s territory, so I didn’t have too far to go from my pack in Arizona.

I had stayed the night at their packhouse and was expected downstairs for breakfast before we started our meeting. I sat next to Luna Beatrix. She was from the Riversong pack in Washington and had been helping a lot with gathering the other wolf packs against Wildfire. We had agreed to not speak of our work during the weekend just in case any of the foxes and bears overheard.

“Kedrick, how are Ellis and that adorable little boy of yours?”

“They’re good, Oren is excited about starting kindergarten this month. We’re just hoping he doesn’t drive his teacher crazy with all of his antics.”

We chuckled at my comment and shared a moment of levity that was, unfortunately, marred by Alpha Keenan’s entrance into the room.

“Beatrix…Kedrick…” he greeted as he nodded his head our way. “I got word that you’ve been talking to Tate. I hope you aren’t still trying to convince us bears to join your ridiculous fight against Alpha Marek.” His voice was dripping with condescension, and Rainer was on the alert inside my head.

“As a council, we have already decided not to involve ourselves in the matter, so you can go against the decision but understand there will be consequences.” He took a drink of his coffee and smiled as if what he said was just part of an everyday friendly conversation.

“Look, Keenan, you’ve made it quite clear that Wildfire is strictly a wolf matter, so how about you stick with what you originally said and keep out of our wolf-only matters? What's more, we’ll do you a favor by not talking to you about it.” I had never had a problem with Alpha Keenan, but the more time I spent around him, the more I disliked him.

“You make a good point Kedrick, we should keep the reunion strictly to Council matters." Luna Beatrix spoke up," I believe we have a few border changes to discuss today. One of those being Shadowpaw, which I believe is your territory, Keenan, if I’m not mistaken.” Luna Beatrix picked up her teacup and looked at him over the rim as she drank. Alpha Keenan just narrowed his eyes at her without responding.

‘This bear is definitely giving off shady vibes.’

‘I agree, but I don’t remember him being this big of a jerk until recently.’

‘I don’t either, but maybe he’s finally letting out his true self around us.’

My discussion with Rainer was cut short as Alpha Dawson entered the room to start our meeting. As expected, we spent most of the morning discussing border changes before moving on to pack requests and mediation between packs. All in all, it was a busy day, and I was beat by the time I headed to bed.

Unfortunately, my day wasn’t over yet. I pulled up my email as I got to my room, and sent out a message to Olivia. I had a bad feeling about Keenan, and if anyone could shed more light on him, it would be Olivia. I asked her if it would be possible for her to look into him, so now I just had to wait for her to get back to me about both Alpha Keenan and our continued plan to get Gema out of Wildfire.