Legacy (Blackwater Pack Book 3) Page 3

  Judging by the way he glowered, my barb landed exactly where it was aimed.

  Behind him, Alexei outright laughed. “Oh, I like this one,” he said, his rough voice accented and bemused. His smile made him seem less menacing and almost boyish.

  “Shut up,” Dimitri grumbled, shoving him back a step with an open palm to his friend’s massive chest before looking back at me. “Fine. I’ll carry Tate. That means you stick to Alexei’s side, got it?”

  I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

  “We’re on pack land, but I’m not taking any chances. I didn’t save you only to have you kidnapped an hour before I bring you home.”

  Home.

  Something about that rankled, but I let it slide. Russia, this place, this pack, wasn’t my home. My home was an ocean away, and I needed to get back to it as soon as possible.

  Dimitri missed nothing, and noticed the way I stiffened when he said home.

  “As soon as we get to the pack, we’ll find out what’s going on back there,” he said, his tone gentler. “If anyone could survive that explosion, it’s Remy.”

  I knew that. I did. I believed it with every broken fragment of my heart.

  But the not knowing was the worst sort of torture.

  I pushed down the rising tide of anxiety that was cresting, physically shaking my head to knock the thoughts away.

  “You think we’re not safe here?” I asked softly, watching as he bent and gathered Tate gently into his arms before lifting her and cradling her against his chest.

  “I think the shifter world is currently being thrown into chaos,” he admitted. “It would be stupid for someone to attack us, and the likelihood is pretty non-existent. Then again, I never expected Elias and his pack to blow a hole in the middle of Wyoming and kill dozens of Alphas either. Until we’re with our—”

  I flinched and stiffened up.

  “—my pack,” he corrected easily, “I’m not taking any chances.”

  I nodded reluctantly and waited for Alexei and him to turn and head down the aisle before slowly following.

  The air grew cooler as we moved to the now open door, but I wasn’t expecting the frigid blast of arctic air that slapped me as I stepped outside the plane. It ripped my breath from my chest, and I almost ducked back inside the warm interior of the airplane.

  I had only been wearing jeans and a t-shirt when the bomb went off, and Dimitri definitely hadn’t stopped to grab my jacket.

  Russia was freaking cold.

  I tucked my hands under my armpits and ducked my head as I headed down the stairs. At the bottom, my sneakers hit the tarmac and a jacket was draped over my shoulders.

  I glanced up at Alexei, his leather jacket more like a blanket on me. He didn’t seem bothered by the cold air in his ripped jeans and thin white t-shirt that showed even more inked skin. Aside from his face, I wondered if there was any place on his body left unmarked.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, falling into step beside him as we followed behind Dimitri. I tried to focus on Dimitri’s back, and not the fact that the jacket wrapped around me smelled like sandalwood and smoke.

  And utterly, devastatingly wrong.

  My wolf would have pitched a bitch fit having another man’s scent on me if she were around.

  I glanced down at the bracelet, wondering how long it would take until I was rid of it.

  “It will be removed once we land,” Alexei told me, his voice pitched low like I might startle and run. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  “Not really,” I replied. I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “You and Dimitri are friends?”

  Alexei grinned down at me. “Yes. He is my brother.”

  The surprise must have been evident on my face because he laughed loudly beside me.

  “Not like the way he is your brother,” he explained. “My pack brother. I am his beta. We’ve been friends since we were pups.”

  I nodded, taking that in as Dimitri headed for the hangar at the end of the tarmac beyond the small building that served as the airport.

  “We live there.” He pointed towards the mountains to the right of us, their snowy caps fringed with clouds against a gray sky.

  Alexei tilted his head up. “This storm will be bad. Usually we don’t have storms like this so late, but winter was bad this year.”

  “You live in the mountains?” My eyes narrowed, trying to see where their pack could live, let alone survive, in the snow and rock.

  A secret smile lit his eyes. “Our pack has lived here since the beginning.”

  “My pack lives in Washington,” I said tartly, arching a brow that begged for him to correct me. “In the US.”

  He nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets as the wind kicked up. I considered giving him his jacket back, but I was pretty certain I would arrive inside the hangar as a wolfcicle.

  “Your country is strange,” Alexei remarked curiously. “Are your Alphas always so … wrong?”

  I snorted. “They’re not all like that.”

  “Dimitri spoke highly of your mate,” he said after a moment.

  I stopped walking and he paused beside me, waiting patiently even as Dimitri moved on and into the hangar.

  “Dimitri told you about Remy?” I asked, unable to stop the wobble from shaking my voice.

  “Once we got into the plane,” Alexei replied, watching me with kind and assessing eyes. “He told us what had happened. The explosion, what the doctor had done. He regretted having to leave your mate and Alpha behind. And those of your friend. He said they were good men.”

  “Are good men,” I corrected firmly and slightly desperately. “They’re alive.”

  They have to be, I added silently.

  “I hope so,” he said. “I would like to meet them when this is over.”

  “You would?” That surprised me. Why would he care?

  “You are the printsessa of Narodnaya,” he told me solemnly.

  “I’m the what?”

  “It means princess,” Dimitri told me, coming up behind me with empty arms.

  “Where’s Tate?” I demanded, looking around for her.

  “In the helicopter,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “Which is where we need to all be to take off and land before the storm hits.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of the hangar. “Unless you want to hang out in the airport where we can try to live off a vending machine for a week.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, turning and stalking to the enclosed building where the helicopter rested.

  A man stood by an open door of the helicopter, his dark eyes watching me curiously as I approached.

  I moved towards the open door and he held out a hand to help me.

  “Printsessa,” he said softly, ducking his head.

  My head whipped around to look at him, but Dimitri all but pushed me into a seat across from Tate before climbing in and taking the seat behind me. Alexei joined us, taking the last seat beside Tate.

  “Why do they keep calling me that?” I demanded quietly, looking at Dimitri.

  He glanced behind us as the man got into the cockpit. They exchanged a few words in Russian before the man turned back to the controls and started flipping buttons. Above us, the ceiling retracted, peeling back to reveal the gray sky above.

  “I told you,” Dimitri said, turning his attention to me. “It means princess.”

  “You keep calling me that, too,” I replied as the blades of the helicopter slowly started spinning.

  A smirk tugged at his lips. “Because it’s what you are.”

  “No, I’m not!” I snapped.

  “Yes, you are,” he countered evenly.

  Annoyed, I opened my mouth to shut him down, but he beat me to it.

  “You’re the daughter of Nikolai Dashkov, Alpha of the Narodnaya pack. In our country? That makes you his heir and the princess of our pack.”

  “Heir?” I choked on the word. “Isn’t that you? You’re his Alpha heir.”

  Dimitri shook his head. “
Not since I found you.”

  “That makes zero sense,” I shouted as the blades started turning faster, louder.

  “Our pack was the first pack,” he told me smugly. “The first Alpha was female, and our pack has upheld that tradition since it began. Congrats, Princess. You won the shifter genetic lottery. You’re the first female to be born in the Dashkov line in over two hundred years, which makes you the heir to it all.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Narodnaya is your pack,” he finished as the helicopter lifted us into the skies.

  4

  Remy

  I paused before walking into the council room in the basement of my home. It wasn’t my first time walking in here, but there was no denying the reasons were now completely fucked up.

  I had grown up in this room, sitting in on Blackwater council meetings since I was eleven. I had learned from my father, watching as he carefully and shrewdly negotiated for his pack. He had trained me, raised me, to be an Alpha.

  But this day was at least a decade too soon, and every single person in the room knew it.

  Rhodes and Katy flanked me as I stepped into the room, and I nodded at the men surrounding the table.

  Ten betas helped my father run Blackwater. Each was responsible for a different area of the pack, and each was chosen by my father. Their loyalty to the pack was unwavering and had created a brotherhood amongst them.

  I needed that loyalty now as I moved through the room and took my father’s seat.

  Dante and Will followed us into the room, glancing around at the men taking up the ten seats around the table.

  There were more chairs that had been pushed to the perimeter of the room. I usually sat on one and observed, sometimes with Rhodes. Occasionally Katy or the twins or other pack members had sat in, but it wasn’t the norm.

  And this wouldn’t do.

  “Everyone get up,” I ordered, standing behind my father’s seat at the head of the table and curling my fingers into the leather on the back until it creaked and groaned.

  The current council exchanged confused looks, a few almost amused, but they all got to their feet.

  “Rhodes.” I jerked my chin to the chair directly at my right.

  Without saying a word, Rhodes rounded the corner and pulled the chair out. He nodded at Michael, my father’s first beta, who stepped aside with a dip of his head.

  My gaze fell to the chair at my left. The chair that was always left open, reserved for my mother. The Alpha’s mate.

  The chair that Skye should have been sitting in.

  I swallowed back the emotions threatening to rise up, focusing on the people watching me curiously, uneasily. I needed to sort this shit out now so I could get back to finding her.

  “Michael.” I indicated the next chair beside my best friend. Rhodes was my beta, but Michael was still needed in this room, in the pack.

  Thankfully, Michael didn’t disagree as he took his new seat.

  I kept going, assigning seats until my friends were blended into my father’s council. Old and new. Chairs were pulled from the edge of the room, squeezed around the full table.

  Once everyone was sitting, I pulled my chair out and sat down, ignoring the gaping hole where Skye should have been seated beside me.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, absently tracing a small scratch in the wood of the table as I pulled myself together.

  Lifting my eyes, I turned to Michael first. “Any word on more survivors?”

  Michael grimaced and shook his head. “No. The last survivors were found when you left. The only ones they’re finding now are … bodies.”

  Which meant the tally of total survivors was hovering in the single digits.

  I bit back a curse.

  “And the local news? Police?” I pressed him.

  “As far as they know?” Michael rubbed his jaw. “Faulty wiring that led to a fire and an explosion in the kitchen. Thankfully the resort was closed to visitors during renovations and no one was there. Press have already dropped the story from the news, and the police closed the case. Fire marshall took a little persuading, but apparently he has a pretty hefty gambling habit.”

  I closed my eyes, leaning back in the chair with a sigh.

  At least I didn’t have to worry about normals digging into the sudden hole in Wyoming after the bomb that had been detonated demolished the lodge. We had plenty of other issues to handle.

  The Summit had been host to nearly one hundred Alphas and heirs. And now, by our count, there were less than ten left in North America. Dozens of packs had been left without an Alpha or an heir. For packs that were already struggling, the loss of leadership would be catastrophic.

  “Any more movements from Norwood?” I asked softly.

  “They’ve moved into the middle section of the east coast,” a beta named Chris told me. His long blond hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, his sheer size taking up an eighth of the table. Chris had grown up with my father in the pack.

  “At this rate, they’ll have control of most of the country within weeks,” Dante muttered darkly, his mouth twisting in a frown.

  “They can’t control that much land,” Jeremiah, another beta, mused, rubbing his dark beard. “There’s no way.”

  “It’s not about the land,” Katy replied, leaning forward as she joined the conversation. “It’s about the people. The women and girls. That’s the currency they’re stockpiling.”

  Every head swung in her direction. It had been years since my father had named a female beta, and she had asked to be relieved of duties when she became pregnant years ago. Katy was the first female to sit at this table in half a decade.

  The man across from her smiled indulgently. “We know, honey.”

  Katy’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything back at Vick. Her features smoothed out, her expression going arctic in what Rhodes had dubbed her ‘Ice Princess’ face when we were kids.

  She did that seconds before launching into a verbal attack that usually left the recipient feeling like they had gone ten rounds with an Alpha.

  “Don’t do that.” I glared at Vick, waiting until he looked away, jaw clenched but submitting. “Katy is here because she has a valid point, and because I trust her. She’s part of my council. I won’t have any person in this room throwing around passive aggressive, patronizing bullshit.”

  “Some of us are wondering if she should even be on this council,” a voice from the other end of the table said quietly. “Because let’s be honest, not all of us are convinced this council should exist.”

  I glared down at William Lodge. He had several years on my father and had repeatedly challenged my father in his early years for leadership of the pack. Dad had brought him onto the council, knowing that the Lodge family had as long a history in Blackwater as the Holts. He was determined to see them work together, and, for the most part, they had.

  Rhodes tensed beside me, but I held him off by lifting my hand.

  “If you have something to say, Lodge, say it,” I encouraged with a grim smile.

  “You’re not fit to be Alpha of this pack, boy,” he said plainly, glaring at me down the line of his thin nose.

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing my father is the Alpha,” I replied, still smiling. “I’m just filling in until he’s back.”

  “And what happens when he doesn’t come back?” Lodge leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “You’re barely of age. I can see you one day, maybe, being an Alpha, but that is not this day.”

  “Come on, Lodge,” Michael hissed, jaw clenching as he glared down the table at the older man. “We talked about this already. Now is not the time for Blackwater to be in any further turmoil. We all agreed to let Remy run things until we know for sure what will happen to Gabe.”

  I forced myself not to react. Not to show a single emotion while they were discussing my father’s life like the damn weather. Like it was some passing thing that would eventually sort itself out.

  “Now is not
the time for us to be led by a boy and his friends,” Lodge snarled back. “Gabriel may not wake up. What happens when Norwood comes for this pack? Because Damien will. He won’t be satisfied with staying on the East coast.”

  “No, he won’t,” I agreed, splaying my hand out on the table. “Which is why I’ve already started working on a plan to stop him.”

  That caught everyone’s attention.

  “Norwood is amassing an army,” I said evenly. “We need to do the same. Dante has already arranged for the Brooks Ridge pack to join ours. They’ll be here in hours. We need to reach out to our allies and neighbors. Open the borders, if necessary, especially to packs that have lost their Alpha.”

  “To what end?” Lodge demanded, squinting at me from the other end of the room. “Blackwater needs to circle the wagons, not widen the circle.”

  “I disagree.”

  Lodge glowered at me. “And this is why you can’t be our Alpha.”

  I met his gaze and held it. “Is that a challenge?”

  His chin lifted and the air sucked out of the room as everyone waited for his reply.

  “And if it is?”

  “Then issue it, and let’s move on,” I replied with a nonchalant shrug. I leaned forward. “We’re not going to win this war by hiding our fucking heads in the sand and praying Norwood decides to stop at our front gates and move on.”

  “No one said anything about a war,” Chis interjected nervously.

  Rhodes’s brow furrowed as he threw him an incredulous look. “Someone blew up the Summit. Killed dozens of Alphas. Considering Norwood was long gone before the bomb went off, it’s pretty clear they either did it or knew it was coming. They’ve started invading packs in the surrounding areas. Do you need a formal declaration in writing?”

  I smirked. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

  My wolf snarled, snapped, ready for a fight. Our mate was missing, our family was in chaos, and our pack was teetering on unrest. I would happily beat William Lodge and every other beta in this room into the ground to prove that I was their Alpha for the time being.

  Lodge took a deep breath, his flinty eyes calculating as he looked around the room. “Blackwater needs stability and leadership. If Norwood comes for us, they’ll find us ready to defend our territory.”