I dedicate this chapter to all the coffee that was sacrificed in it's making.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The police representative came to the pack house the next day. She was incredibly apologetic about the ambush on the pack house and managed to take our statements smoothly.
Before heading into a private meeting with Alpha Leyton to discuss reimbursement for damages the pack obtained in the raid. The lieutenant informed everyone that Saffron's parents had not only been arrested for fraud, but after they interviewed them they also added the charge of attempting to sell their daughter for profit, otherwise known as slavery.
Apparently they had been very adamant in telling the police that they needed to bring Saffron home, so she could do her 'duty' to the family by marrying whom they picked for her. The fact that Saffron is a mated and sired werewolf is proof that they basically want to sell their daughter for the success of their family. I grew up as a natural wolf and even I knew how medieval that was.
I was also told that as Saffron's sire, I was expected to give testimony when the case went to court. I knew basically nothing about the human justice system other than, if you do bad things then the cops show up to take you away for a while. Although I'd been told that the justice system was unnecessarily complicated. Needless to say I was quite nervous about having to go to the court. At least the date had been set for a few months from now and not tomorrow.
Over the next two days the excitement of the police raid disappeared and we settled back into our routine of training and preparing for war. So far we haven't heard anything about any potential locations of Prince Rodney or his army. Although every werewolf and even a lot of humans had their opinions of where the enemy was holed up.
At least today was the day that Beverly and Dasir came home from their stay at Beverly's parents place. Even though she'd only been gone for a few days and missed the raid on the pack house, I knew that Derrick and I were really looking forward to her coming home so she could distract Saffron for us.
Derrick, Saffron, myself and both of my mates were waiting on the front steps of the pack house as Beverly's car, being driven by her father, finally came into view. At the sight Saffron finally stopped bobbing up and down on the spot so she could run at her incoming friend.
Beverly barely had time to exit the car before she had a face full of newly minted werewolf catching her for a hug before grabbing her under the arms and spinning her in a circle.
"I'm glad you're home." Saffron informed her friend before rubbing her cheek along Beverly's, causing everyone except Eva to groan.
"What's the big deal?" I asked in quiet confusion to the group around me.
"When we are young, werewolves spend a lot of time being taught how to be 'civilized'." Grace informed me as Detsy decided to stand behind me and pull me into her. "What that means is we're taught how to suppress some of our more animal-like tendencies so we can relate to the human population better. However when we see another werewolf not following those teachings, it makes us want to revert to our animal tendencies as well."
"Ah," I responded to my mate in sympathy. "I suppose that makes sense. Does that mean that Saffron will need to be taug-."
My question was cut off suddenly as a sky blue dragon, now the size of a medium sized dog, came flying at me so fast I couldn't make out more than his general outline before Dasir crashed into me at full speed.
It was only a combination of my strength, reflexes and Detsy holding me that allowed both my mate and I to keep our feet and not get barreled over.
"It's good to see you too Dasir." I half gasped at the young dragon. He managed to hold onto my front where he landed, before extending his neck around Detsy and I in what would be the equivalent of a hug. "Although I think we need to work on your landing young man."
"Sorry," Dasir said apologetically and shyly to the both of us as we unwound his neck. "I was just so eager to see everyone."
"Well in that case I definitely think you need to greet Grace as well." I said before using my above werewolf strength to casually throw the sky blue dragon at Grace.
Detsy and I broke out laughing as Dasir collided with her and unlike Detsy and I, didn't manage to stay on her feet. My poor mate landed on her rump with a laughing young dragon giving her the same hug he'd given us.
"Oh, it's greet the dragon in midair, is it?" Grace said with a twinkle in her eye once she'd gotten over the momentary shock of being knocked on her feet.
Derrick knew what was coming and tried to run, unfortunately for him he wasn't fast enough and had a thrown Dasir crash into his back. Somehow he managed to fall forward and the momentum from his attempted escape carried him into a full front flip before he ended up on his back with a pleased Dasir on top of him.
"Are we quite done playing like children?" Beverly asked as she came up the steps to the pack house. One of her eyebrows raised to the group of us.
Beverly didn't give any of the chance to reply before her attention turned to me.
"My father wants to have a quick word with you about what you discussed the day I bonded with Dasir." Beverly informed me. While that might have sounded mysterious to others, I clearly knew what Beverly was telling me.
"Can both of you see the three stogies and Dasir inside?" I asked my mates. "Beverly's father just has some questions about dragons and the bonding that Beverly went through."
"Ok," Beverly replied. "But don't be too long, you know that we're having a small party to celebrate Beverly officially moving into the pack house and I wouldn't want you to miss it."
"I wouldn't miss it for the world." I promised my mates before bidding them farewell with deep kisses, which they returned enthusiastically.
Beverly's father looked to be deep in though as he stood leaning against the trunk of his car. In fact he was thinking so hard that he didn't even notice my approach and jumped out of his skin when I gently put my hand on his shoulder to get his attention.
"Is everything ok Sir?" I asked gently as the man tried to get his heart rate under control.
"Everything is fine Princess." Beverly's father replied after a few seconds. "Although calling me sir definitely makes me feel much older than I am."
"What would you like me to call you then?" I retorted. "Also, please call me Eva. You are the father of one of my dear friends and I'm honestly uncomfortable with titles, I think it comes from spending most of my life as a natural wolf."
Beverly's father gave a good natured laugh. "Ok Eva. Although I'm sure no one at work would believe me if I told them I was on a first name basis with werewolf royalty." He said still with a smile gracing his lips. "You can call me Ian. Please don't call me Mister or Sir anything."
"Ok Ian." I agreed. "Beverly said you wanted to speak to me, I'm assuming it was regarding my request last time we spoke?"
The smile fell from Ian's face as he shifted into business mode. "Yes it is." Ian replied as he popped the trunk lifted a metal case out of it. Popping it for my inspection I saw the high powered dart handgun and six darts filled with an orange liquid.
"Using the samples you provided I've managed to engineer a tranquilizer that should attack the host species of the samples." Ian the bio engineer started explaining. "Although I'm quite frankly amazed at the resistance of werewolves, there is enough juice in each of these darts to take down several elephants."
"Thank you Ian." I said closing the case after my brief inspection. "This should do nicely as a presentation to the King and Queen. I'm sure they're going to jump at the opportunity to be able to disable instead of outright kill the enemy in the upcoming war, seeing as how the soldiers are our stolen children."
Even though I'd already informed Ian of the peculiar's of the looming war in order to secure his help, the poor man's face went white at the mention of what had happened to those children anyway.
"Are there any risks of death for the victim?" I asked the man seriously.
"There are always risks when a tranquilizer dosage can't be tailored to the individual." Ian explained. "Unfortunately those risks are made worse because of how high the dosage has to be to overcome the natural werewolf resistance. However if it was Beverly that had been kidnapped and turned into a soldier against her will, I'd take the risk of shooting her with a tranq over outright killing her any day."
"Thank you Ian." I said putting my hand on his shoulder. "I really do appreciate everything you've done to help us and in such a short time frame. This should make a huge difference on the battlefield. I'll contact you once I have the go ahead from the King and Queen to produce these as quickly as you can."
"You are most welcome." Ian replied seriously. "When someone starts stealing children, it doesn't matter what species you are. Everyone needs to come together to stop the sick baste'd." Ian just managed to catch himself before swearing.
I gave Ian's shoulder a squeeze before grabbing the case and heading back to the pack house. I heard Beverly's car pull away as Ian went home.
As I entered the pack house I didn't need enhanced hearing to be able to sense the absolute racket coming out of the dining room. Upon entering I realized that aside from our close group of friends, there were over 20 werewolves, 5 natural wolves and over 10 wolf pups all welcoming Beverly and Dasir home.
Detsy sat in a corner and had four of the pups crawling over here while Dasir played gently with another four. Both Beverly and Saffron were holding the final two pups. The mothers of the pups were taking this opportunity to socialize without having to worry over their offspring.
The fact that the natural wolves and the werewolves got along so well that it was difficult to tell where one pack finished and the other began had not gone unnoticed by not only everyone in the pack, but by other Alpha's as well.
It was rumored that some of the Alpha's had considered reaching out to the nearby natural wolf packs to see if alliances could be made. There was also another rumor that Lunar Kate and Alpha Leyton were in discussions about potentially merging the packs in the future. I knew there were lots of werewolves and natural wolves alike that would happily welcome the news that their newfound friends didn't have to leave in the future.
After stowing the case I was carrying I went and sat down next to Detsy just as Grace came over and flopped down on her other side. Extending one of her arms around her mate in one smooth action.
"You look adorable with children." I commented to Detsy as I watched her play with two of the pups, the other two decided that Grace and I were more interesting and started to move over to us.
Detsy flushed a deep red at my comment and Grace gave a short, light laugh.
"It's a good thing we all want children in the future then." Grace said while grinning like an idiot. "Could you just imagine little us's running around."
I groaned as Detsy smiled, still flushed and playing tug of war with the two pups. They were not old enough to communicate yet, but that didn't stop them going to town on the old bit of rope while trying to get it away from Detsy.
"Considering how much trouble the three of us manage to get into regularly, I could only imagine trying to keep up with our offspring." I said while still shuddering.
We were interrupted as Grace's cell phone went off, the ringtone indicating that it was her dad. Grace groaned unhappily as she was forced to remove her arm from her mate.
Grace elegantly detangled herself from the pup that was climbing her before stepping out into the quieter foyer to take the phone call. During her absence I just lay my head on Detsy's shoulder and looked warmly at all the people that had become my family.
The beautiful moment was broken when Grace bolted back into the room looking frantic. She ran over to Detsy and I before quickly, but carefully, removing all the pups and pulling us to our feet.
Grace took both of our hands and led us out of the dining area, up a floor and toward Alpha Leyton's study without a word. However there was grim determination in her actions, something had upset my beautiful mate.
Once at the door to the study Grace knocked firmly once. Judging by the look on Grace's face it was a good thing that Alpha Leyton didn't hesitate to call out "Come on."
Upon entering Grace wasted no time in shutting the door and standing between us on the opposite side of the desk to Alpha Leyton before jumping into what she needed to say.
"The three of us will be going back to Iligan immediately." Grace said matter of factually, even though the statement left me confused.
"What is Iligan?" I quietly asked Detsy beside me, trying not to interrupt Grace while I was at it.
"Iligan is the home city of the royal werewolf palace. As well as Grace's and my home." Detsy replied just as quietly.
Alpha Leyton looked confused for a second before asking. "I thought you were meant to stay here for at least another couple of months. May I ask what has happened to cause this sudden change?"
"The natural wolf Luna Maya, who is newly mated to Alpha Adam of the Bloodhound pack, has managed to track down Prince Rodney's encampment by following the scents of her old pack." Grace said with a straight face. "The announcement will be made in a couple of hours that everyone is to mobilize for war."