I smirked. “Flint, some day you should come try it. Trent knows how to party.” I nodded to the two of them and turned my attention to the third. “Armand, always a pleasure to see you out. Now the question is how did you get away from Drake? He keeps a tight rein on his warriors.”
The air was charged with power and tension and then? We all burst out in laughter.
“Enough of the formalities. There is no bad blood between us. Noah actually sent us to try to see if your pack had come across anything of late?” asked Armand.
Colt flanked me and reached out a fist with his knuckles bared, the others held out a fist to meet his and then Colt turned towards the back of the bar.
“The Hidden Falls pack is over there, perhaps we all sit down together?”
The males from Silver Lake exchanged looks, and we all headed to the back of the bar. Too many things had happened lately. I’d been happy to busy myself with pack politics, but today I had fucking had it. My father’s plans felt like a damn disease that was slowly killing me.
“Triad. Devon,” said Price the future alpha of the Hidden Falls pack.
“Strange we’re all here in one place is it not?” I said, not believing in coincidences for a second. Fate’s a bitch, and I was sure she had her hand in this.
“Perhaps not,” Price said.
Several other wolves got up from tables surrounding us.
“Rogues have been crossing our lands and causing problems. Every one of us is at our wits end. This morning there was a fuck load of movement and there are plenty of unmated female scents that the rouges aren’t covering well.”
The triad nodded in unison.
“Same. Devon? You too?” Price added.
I nodded. Just another reason my father was trying to create bigger alliances, or that’s what he said. I think it was to reign in the crazy of one southern pack. The rogue issues were becoming problematic on a good day.
I took in the group around me. This should have been enough alliance alone, the fact we weren’t all pricks. Most of the time.
“Yes. Aside from my personal issues, the rogues are one more thing that brought me here. We chased four off our lands this morning. Figured we’d stop in for a drink,” I said.
Price nodded. “We also had a couple. They all seem to cross in the areas annexed by the neutral territories for us. But Triad? Your lands a bit further in. Are they making it that far?”
Armand spoke first.
“Yes. We tracked several as far as Black Creek’s most southern border and then we caught a mix of scents. We were able to capture one alive.”
Every damn wolf in the place sat up straighter in their seats. His words were an ice-cold bath on the last of my haphazard buzz. Maybe that was what I needed. A good interrogation.
“What did you get out of him?”
We all exchanged looks and waited for the bomb to drop.
“Females, being traded and sold off. Again.”
The air in the bar seemed to disappear as every fucking wolf in the place sucked in a breath.
“Fuck,” I said.
They all nodded.
“Are the females all wolves?”
I followed more shrugs than nods.
“We couldn’t get that much information from the wolf we had. He said that the only females he worked with were ones from decimated packs. If we don’t stop this, there won’t be any more of the small packs left,” said Armand.
My knuckles cracked as I flexed my hands against the need to shift. Decimated by who was the question.