Land of Wolves

Chapter 78

Caleb paces the length of the room, and Adam lays his head flat on the dining room table with an exaggerated groan.

King excused himself to the living room and threw himself face-first on the sofa, his dangling feet barely visible from where I sit at the table. Occasionally he shouts a response into the dining room, his words slightly muffled as he speaks through a pillow, so I know he's still listening.

I tap my fingers against the table, momentarily distracted by the loud popping from within the microwave. Maverick is helping himself to our food, and he shuts our fridge with a loud groan before turning toward the still-pacing Caleb.

"Almost two hundred adult wolves are living on the human lands," Maverick says, leaning against the fridge door and crossing his arms over his chest. "There's no conceivable way to sneak our men across the border and down into Florida. It's too long a trip, and the risk of them being spotted is too high."

As much as I hate to admit it, I agree. Despite how stealthy they try to be, a large group of beefy, wolf-sized men will surely draw attention. Wolves are significantly larger than humans, and while it's not impossible for the occasional human to be as tall and muscular as a wolf, it's rare.

Even stopping for gas would draw attention, and humans have no issues calling the HPAW hotline when they spot somebody they suspect is a wolf.

"Those men have mates and children living on the human lands," Caleb points out. "If something goes wrong, their entire family will be at risk. We'd need to get mates and children back onto our lands before launching anything, and as dangerous as it is to sneak wolves over, it's just so to bring them back."

"And it'd take too much time!" King yells from the couch.

Maverick rips open the microwave and pulls out the popcorn bag he tossed in a few minutes ago. He lifts the bag into the air and makes eye contact with everybody in the room, silently asking if they want any. I give a slight nod, unable to resist, and Maverick rifles through our cabinets until he finds two bowls.

Everett watches all of us with unnerving intensity. He's clearly angry with Caleb's dismissal of him earlier, and he's hardly spoken a word since. I'd pay good money to know what he's thinking.

Maverick sets a bowl full of popcorn in front of me before taking a seat between Cole and Adam. The pair immediately reach over to steal some of his food.

"Even if we managed to remove the marked humans from the facility, it would take a good twenty-four hours before our people would make it back to the border," Cole points out. "There's no way they wouldn't be intercepted in that time."

The second furthest facility is only four hours from the border, which is manageable. We assume HPAW will figure out what's happening during the rescue or directly after. Caleb's fairly confident they won't be able to pull together enough support within six hours to stop the wolves from returning to our lands.

They can try to close the roads, but trapping the wolves would endanger the general public, and the human government would be pissed. They expect HPAW to handle things privately, and forcing the wolves to fight in the middle of a city would lead to too many civilian casualties.

HPAW could never justify it. Not to save marked humans they don't care much for, anyway.

"It's not ideal, but it sounds like a rescue in Florida is just too risky," I tentatively say. I've been trying hard not to speak up, not wanting to intrude in a conversation I'm not welcome in, but it's been hours and we're nowhere near closer to figuring out a solution. "Especially when it could ruin the other missions. Besides, we don't even know for certain that there are marked humans there," I continue.