I glanced at Liam then Isaac as the crowd turned around to see the speaker.
Stella stood in the back of a pickup truck equipped with large speakers. Some of the biggest shifters I'd ever seen surrounded the truck. These weren’t the runts she normally had doing her bidding. She’d been saving up her big guns for this moment.
She moved to the edge of the tailgate for one of the shifters to help her down. She moved through the crowd up to the Alpha table.
A few of her guys aimed dart guns at the Alpha table. When Stella leaned in close to me, Philip was behind me without my even seeing him move. He rested his hands on the back of my chair, a low growl coming from his throat. I really hoped he didn’t shift. We didn’t need him revealing himself to all the packs.
“I told you I’d have a surprise for you. If you try to stop me, they will shoot you all and you’ll all wake up in cages.” She smiled and winked at Philip before turning back to the crowd as a spotlight lit her up.
“What the hell is going on?” Wallace asked when a cameraman moved in front of her.
“Hi everyone. We are live on all the TV stations and all the live feeds on every social media platform in every city of every state in the US, from sea to shining sea!”
“Oh no,” I breathed when I realized what she was about to do.
She snapped her head around to look at me. “Hush or I’ll have them shoot you now. You will not ruin this for me.” She plastered a shit-eating grin back on her face before looking back to the camera.
“I have a surprise for all of you out there watching us right now. You’ve all heard of werewolves or shapeshifters. They are in movies, TV shows, books… They seem to be everywhere! But they’re make believe, things of legends, myths, right?” The camera zoomed in on her. “Well, folks, I’m here to tell you they’re real. They exist. They look like you, eat like you, live like you. In fact, you may be sitting next to one right now!”
She motioned for her men to join her at the table. They lined up on either side of her and stood like stoic zombies awaiting their next order.
“See these beautiful specimens? They look like any other well-built man.” She leaned forward to look at them. “Well, maybe they’re a little more built than most men, but my point is if you saw them on the street, you’d check them out without thinking there was anything different about them… Oh, but there is!”
She snapped her fingers, and they shifted. Right there on live TV for the entire fucking country to see. The shock of what was going on and the threat of attack had everyone in the crowd shifting.
“Fuck,” I said. “We need to do something.” As if we read each other’s minds, all four Alphas, me, and Philip attacked the guys holding the guns. After a brief struggle we shot them with their own darts knocking them out.
“Porter, Wallace, do not shift yet,” I called out as I tackled the cameraman.
The two Alphas were bigger than all the others. We had enough problems with the exposure of regular shifters, we didn’t need people knowing there are even bigger ones out there too.
Though not as big as the Alphas, Stella’s wolves were unusually large. I didn’t know what she had given them, but it had worked like shifter steroids.
Philip shifted, knocking me aside as he took care of the cameraman for me. Liam crushed the camera before joining Isaac at the TV van to ensure the live feed had ended.
Even outnumbered, Stella’s shifters were doing a decent job of mauling their way through the crowd. When I saw the damage they were causing, my power emerged and for the first time, I didn’t push it back down.
“Stella, end this now!” I called out.
“Oooh, look at you,” she said. “You’re magnificent, all amped up like this. You are so going to be a hit! Agree to come with me, and I’ll call them off.”
“Never.”
Liam and Isaac flanked me while Philip’s wolf stood in front of me, growling at Stella.
“Never is a big word, Em. There’s even that whole saying about never saying it. People change their minds all the time.” She leaned toward me a little, ignoring Philip’s wolf when it snapped at her. “I think I have a way to change your mind.”
She whistled and one of her wolves ran to her side. He growled at Philip’s wolf who responded by sitting down and exposing his fangs.
Stella placed her hand on her guy’s head. “It’s time.”
I watched as the wolf moved through the melee and grabbed Isaac’s mom’s wolf by the scruff. She yelped, and I saw blood on her fur.
Without hesitation, Isaac shifted and ran to his mom. Isaac’s wolf pounced on Stella’s guy, knocking him from his mom. He fixed his focus on the wolf in front of him, leaving himself open for two others to attack him from behind. I heard his wolf’s yelps and cries, and something snapped inside me.
It is forbidden to bring weapons of any kind to the Cabin, but I knew there were swords that had supposedly once belonged to the Vinur on display inside. At a speed I’d never thought possible, I ran into the Cabin, broke the glass, and grabbed two swords.
I was back at the spot where they’d attacked Isaac within a minute. I separated Stella’s wolves’ heads from their bodies only a few seconds later. More of her men came in, attacking our packs without hesitation. I threw a sword to Liam, and we ran into the middle of the ruckus.