Kym Grosso - Tristan's Lyceum Wolves

Tristan held her gaze and reached for her again, sliding his fingers along the curve of her jaw, down the side of her neck until the back of his hand brushed over the swell of her breasts.

“But until you find your mate, you’ll just have to compare them all to me…Someday, though, I’ll have to give you up for good. You’ll leave Logan and me to go have a house full of pups. We’ll be hopelessly heartbroken.” He feigned sadness.

“And what about you, Tris? Sydney’s married now; it’s time to get serious about finding your mate. The elders believe it is your time,” she countered with raised eyebrows.

Narrowing his eyes on Mira, he released her and raked his fingers through his shaggy blonde hair. “Please don’t start. I’m single for a reason and you know it. Besides I run Lyceum Wolves, not the elders. I appreciate their input, but we do not need a breeding pair to run things,” he grumbled, irritated that she’d brought up the topic of his mating, which was so not happening any time soon.

“Okay, okay. God, I’m sorry I even brought it up.” She smoothed her hair and stood a bit straighter, but still lowered her eyes in submission, sensing his agitation.

“I’m serious, Mir. I really do hope you find a mate soon, but I’m good. In fact, I’m perfect…single…the way I like it. Really,” he emphasized with a grunt as if that would convince her to give up the subject. Granted, he knew she’d been waiting over a hundred years to find a mate. But that didn’t mean he wanted any part of being tied down to one woman. No thank you.

“Come on, let’s go. The boys should be ready for us.”

Tristan had bristled at her questioning, knowing full well that he was not ready to settle down. Sure, he had asked Sydney Willows to move in with him over a month ago, but he did so knowing that they were not mates. Sydney had been his steady ‘friend with benefits’ for over a year. But now that she was married to his friend, Kade, he had no excuse not to play the field. Besides Mira and Sydney, Tristan didn’t date nearly as much as was rumored. When he was younger, he’d sowed his oats as much as the next wolf, but he’d refined his tastes in recent years and was quite happy with his selective but dynamic sex life.

As they walked toward the door, he deliberately said nothing, letting the cooling sound of silence speak volumes. They entered the soundproofed meeting room without speaking another word. He’d had top of line conference facilities installed in the new club, including LCD projectors and wall to wall plasma screens. An oval cherry table with tan leather seating for twenty took center stage.

Tristan strode to the head of the table, where Marcel and Logan were already seated to his left and right. Three distinguished pack members, who Tristan held in high regard, also sat in attendance. Willow Marrow, the oldest living elder, had seen a lifetime of pack wars. When Tristan had fought to win Alpha, she’d been grateful, because he ensured her safety and status. Her brothers, also elders, Gavin and Shayne, flanked their sister.

Gavin’s son Declan sat to his right, and was considered a senior wolf, strong and competent. Tristan could sense Declan had been itching to challenge him, yet he’d always been loyal to the pack. There was a good chance Tristan would need to call upon Declan in the coming weeks, and he wanted him on board with his strategy. As a leader, sometimes it was better to coax an opponent into becoming a friend, rather than cause fractures within the pack.

Tristan silently nodded at Mira to shut the door; she entered the security code to lock down the room and then gracefully sat down next to Logan and looked to the Alpha to begin. Tristan closed his eyes slowly and blew out a cleansing breath, aware that his power rolled off him, commanding the attention of his pack. His eyes flew open; the others felt his tension and waited anxiously for him to begin.

“Okay, people, listen up. As you all are aware, someone decided to wage war with Lyceum Wolves by attacking my club last week. Now that Noir is up and running and we’ve had a chance to investigate, it’s time to go on the offensive. However, before we talk about how this is going to go down, let’s review what we know so everyone’s on the same page.”

Heads nodded toward Tristan in acknowledgment but no one spoke; they all knew better than to interrupt the Alpha. While Tristan presented a cool and charismatic appearance, he was also reserved and lethal, like a Samurai sword waiting to be drawn from its sheath. Picking up the remote, he confidently circled the table. Punching a button, the large plasma screen flicked to life. Through the grainy video of a room in flames, a small, cloaked figure dashed across the room toward the aquarium behind the bar.

“Most of the video was damaged in the fire, but we were able to get this footage. Notice the one person we’ve got here. We’re not sure, but we think it’s a human woman. I smelled the blood before the collapse, and the one thing I could tell is that she’s not a shifter or vampire. I couldn’t tell at the time why all the blood was concentrated behind the bar, but as you can see here in this clip, she breaks the glass to get to Eve.”

Eve was a large yellow boa constrictor, who’d been a centerpiece behind the bar. Tristan had raised her as a baby and had built an incredibly elaborate terrarium for her, including lights and trees. Yet, when he’d gone into the fiery building to save her, the snake was missing.

“There’s only a few seconds left on this clip, and as you can see, she appears to cut her arm. She wraps it in a bar towel and proceeds to grab Eve. I find it damn interesting that someone would go through the effort to torch the place, and then take the time to save an animal, a snake at that. But this is what we’ve got. The only prints I saw when I went in were bloodied footprints, presumably hers, since they were small. There was no evidence of anyone else in the place, but then again, it was burning pretty good. I could barely breathe in there let alone detect the scent of a wolf or vamp. Magic is also still on the table as a possibility.”

Tristan flicked the screen off, walked back around and sat down. He felt a silent vibration on the table, picked up his cell phone and read the message: ‘D. on premises. Waiting for you in Luvox Suite’ . Tristan impatiently tapped his fingers on the table on learning that the vampire was present in the building.

Looking over to Marcel, he directed him to speak to his wolves. “Marcel is going to update you on the stray wolves that attacked Kat. Not sure how they tie into this situation yet, but I know they are a piece of the puzzle. Marcel?”

Marcel nodded and scanned the faces at the table. He was not their Alpha, but commanded the respect of Tristan’s pack. “The day of the fire, Kat’s car was attacked and her driver, Paul, a young member of our pack, was killed. Kat managed to draw two wolves into an area where we could trap them but both of them committed suicide before capture. I’ll tell you that I’ve never seen anything like it. Cyanide tablets. That tells me they were fiercely loyal and didn’t want to risk our interrogations. Unfortunately, the bodies had no identifiable markings. We did find the car; it’d been stolen. New York plates. And that’s all we’ve got.”

Marcel pinched the bridge of his nose and blew out a deep breath. He continued, “Now I’ve talked to Chandler by phone. He continues to deny any involvement. As much as I want to believe the guy, we can’t be sure. I mean, he didn’t give up wanting Kat for his mate until both Tris and I confronted him. So he’s not one to take no for an answer. He may be pissed and looking for retribution. He could have sent those wolves to kidnap Kat and force a mating. Now, on the other hand, if it isn’t him, it could be that there’s someone trying to stage a coup within his pack. You can be damn sure that if he’s clean, he’s pickin’ apart his pack lookin’ for traitors.”