“How much do you know about Clive?” Jane asked me, slowly opening up.

  I lifted my head slightly, intrigued at her words. This was not what I thought she was going to say.

  “A little. Only what I heard from Frank, and then Carter after I helped Frank…” I trailed off as she nodded.

  “After you helped him attack him and two others like him,” Jane offered flatly.

  I nodded unapologetically, “Frank’s a friend… I didn’t ask questions. I just trusted him.”

  Jane sighed and leaned forward, elbows on the outdoor table. She brought a tanned arm up to her face and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and pointer finger for a few seconds. She was stressed, that much was obvious, but more than that, she was worried… dreadful even.

  “It's not your fault for what's happening. It’s not even Frank’s. I think Clive came here with a clear goal in mind. He wants control of my pack… even challenged me for it a couple of times lately,” she admitted to me.

  I nodded, already knowing this through the grapevine.

  “He’s lost every time, skulking back to his den with his tail between his legs. I should’ve just fucking killed him…” she berated herself.

  I looked her up and down, seeing the obvious tension in her form. “What is it, Jane? Why are you so keyed up?”

  She clenched her teeth and breathed again.

  “Clive’s not just a meat-headed asshole… he’s become something of a politician. Even though he’s been challenging me for control and losing, he won't stop. Not until he’s dead. He’s been talking… talking to my pack when I’m not around. He’s gotten the ears of a few strays that are newer to my pack. He’s convinced them that following me will only lead to their death. It’s like a virus, once dissent crops up in a pack, it's only a matter of time before an exodus happens.”

  “An exodus?” I asked, unsure of her meaning.

  Jane leaned back in her chair, crossing her strong arms and gazing at me with a calm demeanor that was a stark contrast to her face from just seconds ago. It was so fast it was jarring. Her black hair lay flat against her collarbones as she leaned into a more relaxed pose.

  “You don’t know much about my pack, I know. Are you aware of how many of us are truly from the Talbot bloodline?” Jane asked.

  I cocked my head again, intrigued yet again by this strange shift in her tone and the direction of our conversation. I really didn’t know much about the Talbots. I only knew what I had learned from Carter’s family, the bestiaries, and my scant interactions with them. I knew a few by name, but I also knew that there were a lot of them out in the Rockwoods Reservation. More than I was comfortable admitting, I couldn’t name or identify.

  I shook my head in response to her question.

  Jane nodded, “I figured as much. What about size? Do you know how many of us there are?”

  Again, I just shook my head.

  “Thirty-nine. There are thirty-nine of us, Sam. Do you want to guess how many of us are Talbots?”

  I shook my head, knowing it would be a shot in the dark. I had never really paid too much attention to the inner workings of Jane’s family and pack.

  “Sixteen of us… There are only sixteen of us. We are outnumbered by strays that we have taken in over the years by over two to one. Now some of these strays have become family, not by blood, but bond. Take Allen and Eloise, for example. They’re not Talbot, but for all intents and purposes… they are. There are others like them… but the majority… they could get up and leave at a moment's notice if they wanted to.”

  I cut in at that point, “So, why don’t they?”

  “They want to be where the strength is. They need an alpha. It’s in our nature to be pack animals, so they flock to the strength of the pack. But, if they’re not bonded to the family, and they view us as weak, or see an opposing force that they view as stronger… it would be very easy for them to betray the pack. They could not only just leave, but outright turn on us like rabid dogs,” Jane explained with a rising tone of anger in her words.

  “But you said you already beat Clive… multiple times. Why are you worried about it?” I asked for the clarification I felt I needed. I thought that it would have already been a done deal.

  “This is where the problem resides. Clive has been very outspoken about a coming disaster. He keeps telling all of us that something bad is coming. It's almost here, and we need to join our packs and as many others as possible to face it. Claims it might even be something that's already here. He claims it will threaten the very balance and nature of our world,” Jane said, shaking her head. “I wished I could say he was just a fool, but it’s working.”

  “What is?” I asked with a growing sense of annoyance toward this man that I didn't even really know. But part of me did worry... could it be the thing Frank had almost discovered before I intervened? Was that person... or thing that I felt tainted by another Primeval, the very thing he spoke about? Or... maybe that was just a coincidence?

  “He’s turning some in my pack against us. Even though I beat him… kicked his fucking ass all over my front yard… others saw me letting him live as a weakness. Since I spared him, they saw a flicker of what they call weakness. Now they see strength in Clive. They admire that he keeps coming back for more, knowing he could get killed. There is a rising admiration for him within my pack that he is fighting and pushing towards something… right. That he is trying to stop something evil coming our way, and I am just too blind or stupid to see it.” Jane shook her head in a way that seemed beyond anger. It was a controlled fury that she was holding behind a wall. She was waiting to unleash it.

  I could tell this hurt her to admit, but it was also a key part of her story.

  “The dissent has already taken root. I’ve been away from the pack a lot lately. Once Frank and I got back together… I stepped away more than ever before. Once everything kicked off with Autumn and the curse, it only lessened the little time I stayed out on the reservation,” Jane admitted. “But as much as I wanted to be there to quell the rising dissonance in my pack… I just had to be here. I had to be with Frank… trying to do as much as I could for Autumn.”

  I nodded slightly and gritted my teeth. She was a good person… trying to do what she thought was right for the ones she loved. It angered me, the human side, that Clive was stepping into her pack and causing this chaos.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  “My actual family, the ones born of our blood, they’d never bow to Clive. They won't believe his words. They trust me… but the fact of the matter is that we have grown to be less than the majority. My power keeps them all in check… but when another pack comes with a potential alpha… even one who is not a wolf… it can cause a shift.”

  “How many have left for him?” I asked, getting the picture.

  Jane looked me dead in the eyes, no emotion, and said, “Seventeen.” Jane shook her head to no one in particular, just at the betrayal she felt. “They haven’t left yet, though. That would be too easy.” Jane sat up straighter, getting to the heart of the matter. “They don’t just want to leave one pack for another. They want to implant the entire pack into Clive’s amalgamation of monsters that have decided to follow him up to this point. They’re trying to convince my family that I've lost it. That I’ve got tunnel vision and can't see what's good for the pack anymore.”

  I nodded in realization. “So is that what you were feeling before, when you were inside, staring out that window toward these woods behind me?” I asked seriously.

  Jane paused for a moment, realizing just how much I picked up on. She nodded calmly. “Yes. I can feel it happening. The mass exodus I was talking about… It’s begun. My family remains, but the strays are forcing them into subservience.” Jane huffed a large breath in frustration. “They want to leave them with no other options. Clive has convinced the few that started this corruption within my pack, that once he gains enough of them, he’ll kill me, and the rest will have to follow; if nothing else but pure survival.”

  Jane really seemed at a loss for what to do. She was the alpha… I still felt that. But, I sensed a weariness in her words that was hard to place amongst everything that was going on in the house, and with her pack.

  “What do you want, Jane?” I asked her. “What’s the best-case scenario for you?”

  Jane stayed silent for a long moment. She didn’t answer right away, even though I could sense she had words cocked and loaded. She didn’t want to speak out of anger or some other charged emotion. Once she finally spoke, it felt distant and almost disconnected.

  “I want…” she struggled with her choice of words. “I want things to be simple again. I want my family to be my pack. We’ve spread ourselves so thin by accepting anyone who showed up in the area and submitted themselves only because we were the pack of the area. My family is bonded… that will never change. But… If I had one wish…” she really thought about it, staring up at the crescent moon as it sat high in the black sky beyond the trees. “With this surge of hunger… the beast is beyond ravenous,” she tapped her chest. “It's that way for all of us… the tempered and untampered alike. Part of me doesn’t even want to be the alpha anymore,” she leaned back in her chair again and let out a long sigh, like she had been hiding those words inside of herself for a long time. “I just want to… live with my family. The pack is second to my family…”

  I nodded as she spoke, letting her speak freely. I could tell that this was not something she ever did with anyone else. I think I had some kind of strange place in her mind. I was beyond her world, her strength, or her pack. I think she could relate to me because I was the closest thing to another “alpha” that she could relate to who wasn't a total douche… Clive.

  “The thing that worries me the most,” Jane began. “I can feel movement. The strays… they’re with Clive now. They’re moving… slowly, but they are moving. Werewolves are connected in ways that are hard to explain if you aren’t one. Similar to what I’ve heard about sire bonds with the vampires, but different. It's not a connection with the one who created you, but with the pack instead. I’m still connected with these traitors, and I can still feel them. They want blood… my blood. They want it so they can be fully assimilated into Clive’s hodgepodge pack of randoms.”

  I sat with that for a moment. “Does Frank know?”

  Jane shook her head, “No. I haven’t told him. Too much is going on here… I didn’t want to add anything to his plate; to any of their plates.”

  I nodded in understanding. “You say you feel movement. Do you mean like they are moving…” I couldn’t even finish my words.

  “Now…” Jane spoke coldly. “They’re coming now. It’s all happening so fast… by the time I realized it… Autumn was back, and everyone is here. I’ve been staring out at the trees, keeping my senses tuned out here so I can take care of it the moment they show up.”

  “Wait, wait, wait… how could they come here? What about all the warding?” I asked, knowing that the Chasse family home was built to keep things away from them. It could shield and hide them from supernaturals. There was no way they could be coming here… like literally right now to try and throw down in some kind of power play for Jane’s pack.

  “Clive has been here in his younger days. He already knows how to get here. As for the warding… if he doesn’t enter the wards… then they’ll have no effect. He can wait me out… or,” Jane trailed off with a thought.

  What was really telling was that Jane, knowing what was coming, was not scared at all. She was calculating in her thoughts, analyzing everything, and trying to understand possibilities.

  “He might try and enter the wards. He’ll assume all of us will be weakened by them, and he’ll just have the numbers to overwhelm us all. He could use that to make another challenge. Without our strength at full disposal… he could issue another challenge. A fight to the death inside the wards that strip us of most of our strength… it's genius…” Jane was lost in her thoughts again as she pondered the possibilities.

  I didn’t care what might happen. If that asshole showed up here and tried to threaten Jane… he wouldn’t leave. All the others might be following his lead… but from what Jane said… maybe it was some kind of corruption… or lies that he told to get them to follow him. I couldn’t just go around killing everyone. It would be… yet again… complicated.

  A quick click signaled the approach of others as the doorknob to the back door was twisted open. Frank and Allen came outside with Alex in tow. They had finally realized that Jane and I had gone somewhere.

  That in itself was something; it spoke to the magnitude of the reconnection of having Autumn back after all they had gone through while I hunted elders and a Primeval beneath the city. They had no clue we were gone for at least five minutes; they were so distracted, even Alex. Or maybe she did know I was gone, but she just didn’t feel the need to interrupt what I was doing.

  Frank looked happy again, but unsure as he said, “I was wondering where you two got off to. What’s going on?”

  It seemed so lighthearted… so easy in that moment, in the gathering of the family once another trial had been endured. I didn’t want it to end.

  But before either Jane or I could answer them, Martin came flying out of the back door so fast he looked like a ghost rushing through his haunt. He was quickly followed by Carter, Chris, Eleanor, and the rest of the Chasse family. I didn’t even realize it; I was so distracted, but Autumn had appeared beside Alex in the blink of an eye.

  Autumn and Alex’s eyes were primed to bloody crimson that almost glowed with intensity. Black lines slithered through the red irises in a way that set them apart from the bloodshot eyes of Martin. Their fangs extended from not only the top, but the bottom as well; a clear distinction that they were not mere vampires. All the vampires sensed what I was just now wrapping my head around. A fight was coming… and it would take them all.

  Off in the distance, way out in the woods, there was a crowd walking. They started together, but slowly spread out through the trees as they moved towards Carter’s home. Quick bursts of my Primeval senses told me there were about sixty-two of them. It was a walking army of supernaturals. I recognized the signature features of some of them as they moved: werewolves, werebears, and even a few human followers, which surprised me. Then there were others that I couldn’t place: a man walking with a charged power like lightning who walked alone, a group of women who all felt wispy and almost ethereal, and then there was someone who felt like they were made of stone. It was a smorgasbord of supernaturals that Clive had amassed for this final push to take the Talbot pack… and Jane along with it.

  From hearing Frank's side of the story… Clive wanted Jane with him. If he came here tonight looking for a fight, I'd bet my bottom dollar that he’d offer her a place with him first. If she declined… then, the slaughter would begin.

  “What is this?” Martin asked, sensing everything that I was. I could sense a shakiness in his voice, like he was afraid. Not for himself, but for what was about to happen… and what the collateral damage would be.

  I didn’t say a word. I just focused my senses and waited to see what was about to happen. As I focused, I felt something from within me… but not within me. It was a sound and shaking of thunder in my chest.

  In the darkness of the backyard, the entire family looked out at the tree line cloaked in shadow. As their eyes met the edge of the property, they gazed deeply into the shadows between the trees… and what they saw looking back haunted them.

  The shadows of the forest surrounding the Chasse home were illuminated by over a hundred glowing eyes.