Crave the Night (8 page)

Darak was absolutely right. They’d taken his
cell and the only other phone was on Lila’s desk. “What did they
find?”

“
My computer genius found Lila
Wilding’s name at a local business college. She graduated six years
ago and has been working in the area since. She’s volunteered her
talents for a lot of environment-focussed start-ups. Then she went
to work at a privately-owned corporation called the Masterson Group
almost exactly a year ago. When we checked into them, things got
interesting.”

“
How?”

“
Masterson has an interest even
greater than drilling in Wolf Creek. The forest at the north end of
Owl River has miles and miles of old growth as far as the eye can
see. They’ve made a move to acquire logging rights.”

“
Bugger that! It’s pristine land.”
Fury clogged Rafe’s throat, but he forced himself to stay on track.
“Still, what’s it got to do with Wolf Creek?”

“
It has a lot to do with your pretty
jailer. About a thousand of the light fey court live
there.”

Stunned, Rafe fell back in his
chair.
Lila’s people
. The
oath. The need to protect her home. He could almost feel the
connections as they snapped together in his mind. She’d thrown
herself in the path of Masterson’s corporate juggernaut and fought
with whatever weapons she could lay her hands on. The sheer
gutsiness of it stole his breath—but it hadn’t been enough. The one
thing the secretive fey sucked at was making allies, and this was
not a fight they could win on their own.

Rafe turned the problem over, looking for a
way in. “That forest is owned by the government. It’s parkland,
right?”

“
It is, but that doesn’t mean it can’t
be logged under the right permits. On top of that, the fey have
never acknowledged the rule of human law, so their standing in the
matter is very shaky, especially when the Masterson Corporation
allegedly has a few politicians on the payroll. The fey were
ordered to vacate a year ago.”

“
But they haven’t.”

“
No. It’s not like there’s a lot of
places for a thousand fey to go. Plus, not all of their sub-species
can live near human developments. They’re deadly allergic to
industrial pollution. The rest, even those who could survive city
living, won’t leave them behind. They’re big on clan
loyalty.”

Rafe groaned. “So what’s going to
happen?”

“
You have heard those stories of men
and women refusing to leave their cabins on the side of an erupting
volcano? Those are the fey of the Owl River forest. They’ll stay
there until they’re logged right along with the trees. It’ll be
genocide.”

Rafe sprang to his feet and paced the room.
“How come I haven’t heard about this? Wolf Creek is barely a
hundred miles away!”

“
You’ve been away. It’s a big forest.
The fey have done everything they could to stay hidden, including
using all kinds of shielding spells. It’s a silent storm. The only
reason my friend was able to find anything out is because a few
dark fey are willing to rat out their light fey
cousins.”

“
Still, it’s weird. Normally you say
“old growth” and at least twenty tree-huggers are there in five
minutes. Somebody should have heard something.”

“
Same with your situation. I know Wolf
Creek avoids publicity like the plague, but the takeover of an
entire town should still be attracting attention. If nobody speaks
up or drags the case to court, human law can’t do
squat.”

Rafe rubbed his forehead. Calling in the
humans made an Alpha look weak in the eyes of his Pack—and so was
something his father would never do. Still, Masterson Corp was a
human company. Nothing wrong with turning in their CEO and
president for breaking human laws.

Darak continued. “The interesting factoid
here is that the moment Lila signed on with Masterson, their
attention shifted away from the forest.”

“
To the oil under Wolf Creek.”
Which is why she needs the mineral rights.
She’s trading our oil for her forest.

“
Exactly.”

“
She’s trying to save her
home.”

“
By throwing Wolf Creek under the bus.
I wouldn’t waste any sympathy on her.”

“
I’d do anything to save the Pack. I
can’t blame her for doing the same for her family.”

“
Bloody noble of you. She could have
asked for help.”

“
Maybe she needs to know she can.” His
mind was racing. “But there’s still a lot that doesn’t add up. For
one thing, how could one employee, however talented, change the
course of an industrial giant? A company used to bribing
politicians to get their way? Why wouldn’t they just take both the
trees and the oil?”

Darak frowned. “Pretty smart questions for a
dog. What do you want me to do?”

Rafe was done with secrets. “You said you
have a friend in the media?”

“
Errata Jones. She’s a damned good
investigator.”

“
See if you can catch her interest.
Tell her to call all her reporter friends. We need to shine a good
bright light on Masterson. The only reason they’re getting away
with any of this is because nobody knows about it. The best court
in this case is public opinion.”

“
Are you so sure about that? You’re
not humans. That matters to some. Plus, oil and timber mean
jobs.”

“
Sure, but I doubt the average
taxpayer would be down with throwing entire populations out of
their homes. People can be greedy and stupid, but not on that
scale. Joe Average is a better guy than he gets credit
for.”

“
It’ll bring the press down on Wolf
Creek like a bunch of fleas.”

“
I’ll tell Dad not to eat
them.”

“
And the fey are going to hate the
publicity. They’ve been hiding out there for years.”

Rafe sighed. “Frankly, that’s just too bad.
They can hide or they can lose their forest. If we nail Masterson,
we’ll be saving their backsides as well as our own.”

“
Jawohl
,
captain. Anything else?”

Rafe thought a moment. “I’m running out of
chips in this poker game Lila and I are playing.”

“
So you’re telling me to move my
ass?”

“
Yeah.”

Darak raised his eyebrows in an expression
of innocence. It didn’t really work on the vampire’s craggy face.
“My friend’s already on standby. Full coverage on today’s late news
good enough for you?”

Rafe grinned. “That’s just about
perfect.”

“
You owe me a lot of beer for this,
dog breath.”

“
I thought the dead were
patient.”

“
Only for revenge and foreign films,
and they’re kinda the same thing.”

Lila had the sensation of falling, as if
she’d been clinging to the edge of a balcony miles above the
ground, and her hands had finally slipped. So much had spun out of
control.

She played with her pen, rolling it to and
fro on her desk. It was tempting to play the game of “if.”  If
she had not left home for school, if she had not fallen in love
with the human world, if she had not believed she could use her
business-world experience to negotiate on behalf of her people. It
had all put her on that balcony, in a position to fall. And then
had come Rafe, and a whole other kind of falling.

She couldn’t afford to think about that. She
had spent the last hours bludgeoning her brains for a way out of
the Wolf Creek mess, but Rafe’s kiss had complicated everything.
He’d melted her resolve when she could least afford it. When there
was no time for second thoughts.

She picked up the phone and punched speed
dial, her heart in her mouth.

“
Masterson,” grunted her boss. She
could hear what sounded like a truck motor in the
background.

“
It’s Lila.”

“
Progress?”

She heard a car door slamming. He was
obviously on the road. She decided to skip over his opening
question. “You’ve tried to buy this land before.”

“
Who told you that?”

“
The wolves.” It was a gamble,
bringing it up. Pushing him. He could back out. She half expected
it. On the other hand, she needed to take one more throw of the
dice and hope against hope for a reprieve.

Masterson made an irritated sound. “So what?
You said you could deliver their land. Do it.”

“
You said you’d told me everything.
This complicates things. You owe me a penalty shot.”

“
You’re out of time, Lila. The
deadline is tomorrow.”

The receiver felt slick in her hand. The vow
that had bought her a year and a day was ticking down the last few
hours. “Now the deadline is Friday, because I say it is. That’s
your price for hiding information.”

“
You can’t worm out of the
agreement.”

“
You bent the spirit of the rules,
Masterson.”

“
Whatever. Your rules, your problem.
No wonder you fey are going extinct. You’re bad business people.
You made a bad bargain.”

“
But not today. Today you take my
terms.”

She heard a babble of excited voices,
some of them angry.
Where is
he?

“
Okay. Fine. Gotta go.” The line went
dead.

She hung up, sucking in a deep lungful of
air. Two days. She’d bought herself two days of safety.

Is it enough,
Liliana?
Her sister’s voice rang sweet in her mind. Even
in private, her sisters stayed invisible and silent, hiding the
grotesque forms and voices they’d taken for the duration of the
vow. If they spoke, they used the power of their minds.

I don’t know
,
Lila answered.
It will have to be enough
time, I suppose.

You feel sympathy for
the wolf.

He is kind, Rosemund,
and strong of will like your bear. That is not to be
scorned.

It is his people or
ours. There is no third choice for us, and certainly not for
you.

Lila buried her face in her hands.
Masterson was right. She’d made a bad bargain. As foolish a blunder
as any human who didn’t know the rules of oaths and vows.
Go to bed, Rosemund. I need to
think
.

There was the rustling sound of wings, and a
rush of air that surrounded her like an embrace. And then silence
eddied around her. For a blissful moment, her mind was empty.

Then Rafe knocked and opened the door, not
waiting for an invitation to enter. His face spoke before he even
uttered the words. “I know.”

The breath left Lila’s body in a
single choked curse. “Know what?” She closed her mouth before she
could start stammering something foolish.
How much does he know?

“
Turn on the news.”

Lila was about to ask why, but his
expression stopped her. She pulled the remote out of her desk
drawer and clicked on the flat screen. What she saw made her gasp.
It was the entrance to Gilden Forest filmed from the air, right
above the spot where the main access road disappeared under the
canopy of trees. The scene was dark, but the lights of the news
chopper showed Masterson’s machines of destruction were poised to
begin chewing through the forest.
He
wasn’t going to give me one second longer than our deal
demanded.

The reporter was saying something, but Lila
was transfixed by the images. The view had shifted to footage taken
by a camera on the ground. Microphones bearing the letters of
various TV stations bobbed toward a man in a yellow hard hat. She
couldn’t see who it was, but she recognized a crowd of fair-haired
people in the distance who had to be fey.

“
This can’t be happening!” Lila said,
her voice just above a whisper. Shy, secretive fey showing
themselves on camera? Had the world gone mad?

“
It’s happening, Lila. It’s happening
as we speak.”

“
Sacred Titania!” She felt suddenly
sick.

“
I’m sorry about the press, but
publicity is the one medicine Masterson can’t stomach. If enough
people know what he’s up to, he’ll be forced to do the right
thing.”

“
You did this?” Her voice held a
universe of shock.

Rafe nodded, his face grave.

Lila was silent for a long moment. When she
spoke, her words were quiet. “Masterson made me swear to keep it
secret. This is the last thing he wanted.”

“
Too bad. I didn’t promise him
anything.”

“
My father . . .” She trailed off, and
buried her face in her hands. “You don’t understand. It’s not just
Masterson who wanted secrecy. This much attention will be like
death to the fey.”

“
They’ll get over it when they get to
keep their homes,” Rafe said bluntly. “It’s the only way to work
through this. The vampires and shapeshifters came out of hiding
when it became clear living off the grid just wasn’t possible
anymore.”

“
Tell me again how this will help us?”
She heard the tears in her voice, and winced.

“
There’s such a thing as squatter’s
rights. With the right lawyers, the fey can get the law on their
side.”

“
We don’t have lawyers. We don’t
recognize human law.”

Rafe shook his head. “You need to start.
I’ll give you the names of some legal firms. A lot of lawyers are
vampires, no pun intended. They’re used to working on inter-species
cases.”