Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1 (44 page)

Do not fret so. We are together. We are pack. We are one. The others will challenge us, but we are strong. We will protect the pack, protect the den, protect Stephen and our She.

Stephen was still talking and David tried to concentrate on his words.

“Do you not agree, Lawrence?”

Lawrence nodded. “I don’t think there’s much choice.”

“Wait, what?” he said. He had lost the thread of the conversation.

“The little packs in Stephen’s...
our
territory need to be folded into the
Blood Drinkers
.”

“By force?”

“If necessary.” David didn’t like that and his expression gave him away. “It’s kinder.”

“How can force be kinder?”

“They will face challenges. We all do, but until now no one has bothered with them because they lived in Stephen’s territory. They were considered his, and were left alone for fear or respect for House Edmonton. His threat was enough to keep them safe, despite his disinterest in them.”

“I was not disinterested in them,” Stephen qualified. “I just didn’t see the benefit of trying to negotiate terms with so many individual groups when I was strong enough without them. Besides, they would compete with each other to see who could gouge me the deepest!”

Lawrence grinned.

“You’re saying that if I don’t take them in hand, outsiders will? Who, Pederson?”

“Not Raymond,” Stephen said. “His pack is big enough already. I doubt he wants to add more uncertainty into the
Alley Dogs
right now. New recruits have to be brought into a pack under controlled conditions. You don’t want too many challenges all at once; it would destabilise your power base while the hierarchy reorders itself. It takes time for newcomers to settle in and find their place within the pack’s power structure.”

“But the territory is yours,” he protested. “The
Blood Drinkers
will share it as we agreed, but we both know who really holds it. You do. Why won’t the status quo remain as it always was?”

“You don’t actually want that.”

“Why?”

“He’s right,” Lawrence said. “You are too, but Stephen is more right. The
Blood Drinkers
needs to make its rep. A new pack has no threat at all. Stephen could do the work for us by keeping things as they are, but that won’t be good for the pack. We need to make our mark before other packs start thinking they can take our territory.”

“I would not allow that,” Stephen said, “But Lawrence is essentially correct. To outsiders it should seem that shifters living in our territory are your responsibility, while vampires and my business holdings remain mine. The reality can be whatever we decide it is privately, but my preference would be a full partnership, not just an alliance based upon defending the territory. It’s in both our interests for outsiders to see a strong House allied with a powerful pack, not a strong House propping up a weak pack. Weakness will be exploited.”

“And leaving shifters unaligned in my territory will be considered a weakness?”

“Outsiders will see it that way. They won’t consider your preferences. All they’ll see is a pack unable to exert control over its territory. They will nibble around the edges, trying to erode the borders. They do it now and always have. It will get worse for a time as you set your own pack in order.”

He turned to Ronnie. “You agree?”

She nodded.

“And you?”

Lawrence nodded as well. “Challenge and counter is a way of life for us as individuals, but it’s true of things in general too. Vampires do it and call it the Game of Houses. Outside of LA it’s a way of life for them and not questioned. Actually, they probably enjoy it. They look at us here in LA and want to take us over, but they’re also puzzled by us because of the way we live together. We have our moments, but not like what you’ll find outside our borders.”

“Understatement of the millennium,” Stephen said dryly. “And he’s right, we do enjoy The Game. Not much else can hold our attention for centuries or millennia. The four Houses of LA are unusual in that we do not play against each other, but we do still play against the rest of the Republic. We have little choice when outsiders insist upon coming here and trying to establish themselves. We keep their Houses out of our combined territories, and police the occasional individual who is either too stupid or new to know why he should stay away. House Lochlain is especially important in that area. Gavin’s reputation and age is a strong deterrent.”

“This challenge and counter thing extends to packs?” he asked already guessing that it would. It would make his vague plans harder if it did, so of course that would be the reality. “There’s no way around it?”

“None,” Ronnie said.

“There’s conclave,” Lawrence disagreed. “Challenge and counter is part of The Way, but conclave is a counter too. War is banned in LA and enforced by all members of the conclave not just the shifters. We still have our feuds over the borders—little skirmishes kept out of sight of humans—but wars? Absolutely not; not anymore.”

Stephen nodded at that.

No war was a good thing, and it might open a way for his idea to work. He considered revealing it now, knowing Ronnie would ridicule him for it, but she had to know eventually. Besides, she wasn’t just going to be his future mate, she was co-ruler of their pack too.

“You said at the meeting you would release everyone from your service to join my pack.”

Stephen raised an eyebrow. “I did.”

“I don’t want you to do that. Their loyalty to you is extraordinary. At least it seems that way to me. I’m new, I know that, but looking around I haven’t seen devotion like it anywhere else.”

“I’m gratified you think so, but I’m not sure I see the purpose in perpetuating a fiction.”

David frowned uncertainly. “A fiction?”

“A pretence then. Why pretend they remain in my service, when in fact they will be in yours from now on?”

“I don’t want anything to change at the club, and I have some ideas that I want to try.”

“Such as?”

“I want to set up an NPO for shifters,” he said and Stephen’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “Survival isn’t enough. I don’t want to live from one day to the next wondering if I’ll still be breathing tomorrow.”

“It’s his damned crusade,” Ronnie said and sneered. “The pack is all that matters; the pack and survival.”

Lawrence nodded.

“And I told you that day I don’t believe that. I will change it.”

“There’s no changing it. You’re a fool to think otherwise. We’ve lived this way since the first of us turned furry. Ask the elves, ask the dwarves or even the dragons. They’ll tell you there’s no way to change the fundamental nature of things. We are what we are.”

“I’m a man first.”

Ronnie’s voice lowered and she said almost kindly, “Don’t lie to yourself, David. I felt you while I fought in the arena. I felt what you were feeling.”

He flushed and faltered under her knowing gaze. He glanced at Lawrence and received a sympathetic grimace and a nod. Stephen smiled and nodded as well. Well... damn! So they felt him getting off on Ronnie’s fight. Big deal. It didn’t make his idea unworkable. Maybe it needed refinement, maybe there were things he hadn’t thought through, but he had time to fix snags.

“I still want to try.”

“Exactly what are you proposing?” Stephen asked. “You don’t want things to change at the club; I have no objections to that. It makes things for Edward infinitely easier if he continues overseeing my interests as before, but what about this NPO? What purpose will it serve?”

“I want to create something a bit like the Y,” he said and flushed as Ronnie burst out laughing. “Shut it,” he growled, his voice deepening and his eyes flaring to amber in the dark of the car’s interior.

Ronnie’s eyes flared golden, but she did quit laughing.

Taking an interest now are you? About time you got with the program!

Our She tests her boundaries,
Mist said with pride and approval clear in his thoughts.
We must let her run, but not too far or fast. We are Alpha to her as well as the pack. She must respect us, as we must respect her.

He could agree with that at least.

“You want to create a YMCA for shifters,” Stephen said carefully, not laughing but obviously wanting to. “And you feel this would be beneficial, why?”

“I do. I even know what to call it.”

“Oh?”

“NSPCL. It stands for the National Society for the Protection and Conservation of Lycanthropes.”

“National? Getting ahead of yourself aren’t you?”

“No point in thinking small. Obviously I can’t roll this out nationwide overnight, but I can start here in LA and fold other cities into the network over time.”

“And start a war with those cities in the process,” Stephen pointed out. “The packs won’t let you get this idea off the ground.”

“They will. When they see the benefits the Society will bring to all shifters. I’m not interested in empire building, or creating a super-sized pack. This will be an entirely opt in, not for profit organisation. Like a guild.”

Lawrence snorted. “Your experience with guilds differs from mine then. They’re definitely in it for profit. Political profit, financial profit, but profit.”

“Hmmm,” Stephen agreed. “I can’t think of a single guild that doesn’t require paid membership.”

“The Society will tithe,” he said reluctantly. “But the books will balance to keep its NPO status. The income will be redistributed to members as loans and used to provide the services they need like cheap insurance, medical, and other stuff. There will be some overhead. No way around that but I’ll employ non-humans to run most of it, so that’s employment for quite a few people.”

“Fine. Let’s say you do this. What is your goal?”

“Helping shifters and making their lives better,” he said and Ronnie rolled her eyes. He pushed on. “We can’t get loans, we can’t get decent insurance, we can’t start businesses without either one. Most companies can’t or won’t employ us, and those who do take advantage of us with low pay and bad conditions. I want to change that.”

“A noble goal, but hard to achieve. Shifters have few rights, and my people have none,” Stephen said. “How do you intend to address that?”

“Politics isn’t on my agenda.”

“Then you will fail. As long as it’s legal to discriminate against non-humans nothing will change. The law as it stands supports those who take advantage of us. What will your society do for us on a practical level?”

“Start businesses and employ shifters, offer loans to them to start their own. I want a chapter of NSPCL in every major city in the Republic eventually. There will be a call centre and free advice. Representation provided by us in the courts and attorneys to sit in interview when the cops hassle us. Did you know the guilds won’t accept non-humans? If you’re in one already and then catch lycanthropy they kick you out without compensation!”

“I was aware of that, yes,” Stephen said dryly.

“So if the cops arrest me, I can’t even have a guild rep in with me. The attorneys they offer us on their so generous preferred credit terms are sub-par shysters in it for the consultation fees.”

“Lawyers are the lowest form of life,” Stephen agreed sombrely. “Demons in human form.”

David frowned. “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? You think I’m being stupid.”

“Not stupid. Naive. You don’t think we know how badly we’re treated? You go on as if you’re the first person to realise our inequality and are revealing it to us! I can’t vote or own a business in my own name. I can’t instigate a lawsuit or protect myself from one. After all, dead men can’t own property, can they? Without proxies and front men like Edward, I would have nothing in this world. You think I haven’t dreamed of changing that? Of course I have. I would give almost anything to change it!”

“Then help me.”

“We are allies. Of course I will help you, but I must know what form that help is to take. You need money? Not a problem. You need influence with the Mayor?
Definitely
a problem.”

Ronnie snorted.

“There’s nothing anyone can do to stop us. The Mayor, the cops, the state government... none of them can legally prevent anyone from setting up an NPO. It’s the lack of funds and insurance that really hurts shifters, and causes their businesses to fail.”

“And a lack of customers,” Lawrence pointed out.

“That won’t be an issue. If we do this right, our customers will be the non-humans that everyone currently rips off. If we offer fair dealing, they will flock to us. Stephen is known for it. With him backing the Society no one will doubt us.”

“I’m so glad my reputation will be useful to you,” Stephen said dryly.

David flushed. “I didn’t mean for it to sound so cold-blooded, but you have to admit my reasoning is sound.”

“It
is
sound. This project is long term, you realise? It will take years. Before you can start, you’ll need to take matters in hand at the club with your own pack and then expand rapidly with the unaligned shifters in the city. We must secure the borders and my power-base, or I won’t be around for my reputation to be of help to you.”