Chapter 15 15
Chapter 15 – Rabid
I went to the second floor to seek out Giota. I needed to talk with Kazimir and Ninos alone, but I wasn’t sure what to do with Alina. She was in the middle of pack territory with nowhere to go and nothing to her name. The one thing she knew with certainty is that Kazimir was the only thing standing between her and death at the hands of Russian assassins.
“Alpha!” A little girl with long braided hair greeted me as she wrapped her arms around my leg.
I looked down at her smiling face and felt a wave of warmth soften me. It was coming from Haze, the big bad wolf had a tender spot for pups. I tried not to scare her and plastered a warm smile across my face, I knew this was the Gamma’s orphaned daughter.
“Hello Thea, it’s nice to see you too,” her eyes widened when I said her name and she looked like she was about to burst with joy.
“Thank you for letting us move up here, the bed is really big,” she squealed with excitement.
“Thea?” Giota poked her head out of the guest room and froze when she saw me.
“Giota, I need your help. My brothers have arrived, and the human female is one of their true mates. Only she doesn’t know it yet.”
“Oh wow! This is the one that doesn’t know anything about shifters?”
“Yes, and we want to keep it that way until she’s had a chance to really bond with her mate.”
“I see. So we’re keeping her confined to the pack house?”
“The manor,” I corrected. “I need to speak with the others away from human ears and I was hoping you can watch her. She has a feline companion with her Thea might like.”
“Sounds easy enough,” she agreed.
“Thank you, I’ll bring her and the cat right up.” “Kitty!” Thea clapped her little hands.
A few minutes later I had retrieved Alina and the bag with a squirming Kronos. “Someone will be here soon with a box and litter for him. I need to review some items of business with Kazimir and Ninos. Please don’t speak about our Russian friends or hacking to anyone. If anyone asks, you’re simply on sabbatical, spending time with friends and exploring life.”
“A sabbatical?” Alina laughed. “Kitty!” Thea rushed to meet us.
“Giota, this is Alina. Alina, this is Giota and Thea,” I introduced the ladies and excused myself.
I entered the Alpha office and found Kazimir walking around the room while Ninos leaned back in a chair at the conference table.
“She named the cat Kronos!” Ninos laughed. “Probably wishing he could be like the Titan King and swallow Hades whole.”
“Is this your attempt at remodeling?” Kazimir asked. “I destroyed the office when I first returned.”
“Pack house is fairly empty,” Kazimir noted.
“The pack members all have houses and cottages throughout the territory. The manor is for ranked wolves and their families, along with a few guest rooms.”
“Where are the rest of the ranked wolves?” Ninos asked.
“You’re looking at them. The Delta escaped while Stefanos was here and took his only daughter to a family pack in Albania. I spoke with Helena this afternoon, she found her mate and they’re going to stay in Albania.”
“The Moon Goddess sure has been busy.” Ninos laughed. “I hope you have plenty of single females here, seeing as I had to leave Madonna behind,” he smiled and Kazimir huffed in annoyance.
“What?” Ninos poked. “You have a mate!”
“What about the Gamma and Beta?” Kazimir returned his focus to me. “The Beta, Christos, was killed by Stefanos and didn’t have an heir. The
Gamma drowned on my father’s yacht the day my father died. His mate passed away a few years ago and they left behind a little girl named Thea. She’s almost five years old.”
“You’re going to run a pack, with no ranked wolves?” Ninos asked. “I have you guys,” I replied.
“We’re not part of the Moon Warriors, no one will listen to us,” Ninos said.
“I’m the Alpha, I can make you part of the pack. Kazimir, I know you’re an Alpha and ordinarily, you could have been a Beta or Gamma to one of your brother’s packs…”
“You want me to be your Beta?” Kazimir asked. “Yes.”
“I will support what you want to do, and act as your Beta if you want, but is this going to be our new home? I’d hate to swear an oath to a pack if it’s just temporary.”
“You have a good point.”
“What about me?” Ninos asked
“I was going to ask you to be my Gamma.” “Are you serious?”
“Yes, but Kazimir is right, we should figure out what we’re doing.”
We took our seats at the table. Kazimir explained everything Alina had shared with him. Her Uncle Yuri was a small-time hacker until he stole from the wrong people. Nine months ago, they came for retribution and took Alina and Yuri. Refusal would mean instant death. Now Yuri works for dirty Russian politicians running, extortion, hacking, blackmail, and spying jobs.
She admitted to uploading a special virus to the hard drive of my other laptop that Yuri created to hide her digital track. Alina thought the virus might have also been encrypted with tracking. Fortunately, Kazimir had not brought the laptop with him. Instead, he wiped the computer and disposed of it with the bodies of the assassins out to sea.
Yuri worked with a team of twenty living in an old church outside of Moscow. A group of thieves thriving in the same way we do, except these thieves didn’t get the money they stole. The politicians they worked for got the money. Their basic living needs were taken care of, they had a roof over their heads, a warm bed, food, and clothing. Alina had no meaningful relationship with her uncle and no one to turn to. Since her uncle was the only one who could track her whereabouts, he had ordered the hit to exterminate Alina and us.
“At least we know who we need to take out,” I told the others. Yuri was a threat to us and needed to be neutralized. We needed to come up with a plan.
“There’s a bigger devil behind Yuri who sent them after us,” Ninos said. “We have Kazimir, if anyone can hack the hacker, it’s him.”
“I’ll start working on it tomorrow. I brought most of our equipment with us.”
“There’s a Beta office next door that hasn’t been destroyed yet you can set up in.”
“What about operation cash flow?” Ninos asked.
“We will continue with that. We have two months until the move on SiberianOil. I haven’t reviewed all of my father’s personal assets or any links to Mafia money yet. We also need to track funds to Stefanos Theodorus, and I’m sure it will be well hidden.”
Kazimir nodded in agreement. “Sounds like another job for me.” “That and you need to find time to woo your mate,” Ninos added. “Good thing I don’t need a lot of sleep.”
“Or sex,” Ninos snickered.
“Ninos!” I warned, teasing Kazimir about his lack of sex might cause Ninos to lose a testicle of his own. “Kazimir, you should talk to Darius or Orion, it seems their great-grandfather was human and mated to a she-wolf. Some witch or warlock helped him live as long as his mate.”
“Really?” He asked intently.
“That’s what they told me. Seems the human lived as part of the pack here, elder Kadmus should be able to tell us more.”
“Isn’t there a Grand Warlock living in Italy? The one who’s doing all that shifter research? What was his name?” Kazimir asked thoughtfully. “Azriel, Ezra, or something…”
“Azazel, but I’m not sure if he’s still in Italy.” “Are we going witch hunting?” Ninos asked.
“One thing at a time. Kazimir hasn’t even seen his mate naked yet.”
“Speaking of mates, when do we get to meet your lovely Luna?” Ninos was really begging for an ass-kicking.
“I’m not sure, she’s still home with her pack,” I told them, and Haze let out a low whine. My chest tightened every time I thought of her, which was nearly every five minutes.
“And The Beast of Greece?” Ninos scowled. His pack had been destroyed by Alpha Dimitri when he turned sixteen.
I explained to Ninos what I had discovered about Dimitri and his destruction of abusive Alphas. How those Alphas engaged in the slave trade. Ninos was too young to remember if his Alpha had slaves, but he remembered many public whippings with silver whips. He remembered being poor and afraid of his Alpha.
“An Alpha provides for the pack, some like my father only take. I understand why he did what he did,” I told them.
“And now he wants to kick your ass if you take his sister!” Kazimir laughed.
“I think he wants to kick my ass for not taking his sister. Hell, I want to kick my ass for not taking her.”
“Taking her across your lap or taking her in every position your mind can dream up?” Kazimir smirked, knowing my dark pleasures.
“Why didn’t you?” Ninos asked.
“I don’t know. She loves her pack and I’m not sure I can give her the pack life she deserves.”
“That’s why we’re sitting in the middle of your pack right now, trying to put it back together and you want to just give it away after!” Ninos scoffed sarcastically.
“I don’t know if we’re staying, and I doubt she’d approve of our way of life. What we do for a living.”
“In two months from now, a large part of SiberianOil will be in your pocket and you will have more money than you can spend in a lifetime. We don’t have to keep doing this, Hades. We can focus on the pack, and I can focus on finding my mate,” Ninos said.
“The kid has a point. We’re doing this as an investment to live comfortably. Everything will look different in two months,” Kazimir added.
“Alpha, I have those cat items you requested. I’ll leave them in the foyer,” Darius came through the mind link.
“Thank you, Darius.”
“Your eyes glazed over. Were you mind linking?” Ninos asked. “I’m the Alpha, I can mind link with anyone in the pack now.”
Ninos was packless before he got his wolf and had never used the mind link. His parents turned rogue and abandoned their kids shortly after the pack was destroyed by Dimitri. Ninos was being raised by his older sister until she found her rogue mate and abandoned him. He was sixteen when she left, and we found him at eighteen waiting tables at a restaurant.
“Alpha?” Giota came through the mind link. “Yes?”
“Kronos darted off and Alina ran after him. We searched through the house, and I can’t seem to find him or her.”
“I’ll look outside, you keep looking in the house. Check every room and closet.” I looked at Kazimir with an expression that must have been clear to him.
“Alina?” He asked.
“The fucking cat ran off and she chased after him. Giota can’t find either of them,” I barely managed to finish when Kazimir rushed for the door.
We made our way outside and tried to catch her scent. “She’s human, and I’ve already warned the pack about her arrival. They’ll keep away from her.”
“ALINA!” Kazimir called out and ran down the long drive to the road. “ALINA!”
“No shifting,” I reminded Ninos who ran to the back of the house to search.
Maybe she let the cat escape to create a diversion to escape? If I was human, out in the middle of a forest, I’d try to find a car to escape in. Alina was no fool and I doubt she’d take off on foot. I started walking towards the eight car parking garage and noticed Darius had moved Ninos’ rental car along the side of the house. Alina was crouched down next to the car, calling for the cat. She wasn’t trying to escape, she was looking for that damn cat.
“Alpha, we found him,” Giota mind linked me. “Maria was in the kitchen and opened a can of honey for some baklava. Kronos burst into the kitchen, maybe expecting it to be a can of tuna or something.” I thanked her and moved closer to Alina.
“I think the keys might be in the ignition,” I said and startled Alina. “I’m not looking for the keys. I’m looking for Little Alpha.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
“I mean Kronos,” she shot me a cold glance. “Why is that ball of fur so important to you?”
“Because he’s warm and sweet,” she said as she paused to think. “His fur is soft, he likes to cuddle, and he doesn’t judge me.”
I smirked knowing how jealous Kuzma would be hearing this. If she liked warm soft fur, cuddles, and sweetness, Kuzma was the wolf for her. He wasn’t as icy as Kazimir could be.
“Is someone judging you?” I asked and she slumped down on the ground with her back against the car door. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs.
“Kazimir does. Sometimes I catch him scowling at me, like he’s disgusted with me. Other times, he looks at me like he wants to devour me. He jumps from zero to sixty so fast, it confuses me,” she sighed.
“Alina, do you like Kazimir?”
“Have you seen Kazimir? You’d have to be blind not to be attracted to him. He’s… He’s way out of my league.” She sounded so sad, and I understood why that cat was so important to her. Alina was lonely.
“I’m no better than a stray cat and I’m not even sure why you saved me,” she murmured.
“I think Kazimir has developed feelings for you and wants to get to know you on a deeper level,” I couldn’t believe I was standing here playing wingman to Kazimir. When I said deeper level, I meant balls deep. Kazimir was probably on the verge of exploding from blue balls. “Is it possible you feel something deep down inside for him?”
“It feels foolish,” she looked up at me and her eyes glistened with moisture. “I know I shouldn’t, but something inside is obsessed with him. When he touches me, it’s like I can feel warm currents flow through my body. And there’s something about the way he smells.”
Yep, it’s safe to say that she’s just confirmed being able to feel the mate bond, even if she doesn’t understand it. She was feeling the pull of the bond hard and fighting it every step of the way because she was plagued with insecurities. I reached my hand out to help her stand back up. She looked up for a moment and placed her hand in my palm.
I gave a slight tug as I helped pull her to a standing position and forgot how light she was. Alina fell forward and crashed into my chest. I held her for a brief moment in my arms to help steady her and an angry growl came from the shadows near the trees. A black wolf with a white bib stalked out and Alina screamed when she saw it. The wolf’s honey colored eyes were locked on Alina.
“Alina!” Kazimir called out and rushed to us.
“Get your gun!” She screamed and the wolf snarled.
“It’s okay,” I said trying to calm everyone down. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“It’s vicious. It needs to be put down before someone gets hurt,” Alina cried, moving behind Kazimir for protection.
“Kazimir, take Alina inside while I deal with the little mate.” I hinted to him. He quickly scooped Alina up and dashed towards the house.
“Be careful, it could have rabies!” Alina yelled out.
“Good luck!” I heard Kazimir chuckle before the door slammed shut.