One Broken Legacy

Chapter 9: Introductions and Deductions

"She thinks she intimidates me." I scoffed as Anya's beat-up old truck shuddered down the road. "She's nothing on Izzy."

"Izzy Legler?"

I nodded. "You know her?"

"She's one of the council, of course, I know her!"

I didn't know when it happened, but Nick had swooped in and kidnapped me Sunday after lunch. He had taken me to the road where Anya was waiting and was happy to join them in meeting the pack as a friend, not a Morill. It was strange, but the thin jolts of excitement that kept burning down my spine and to each of my digits didn't lie.

"She's not as quiet as the rumors say. Izzy is a fire when she wants to be."

"Wait, you've been to one of the Gatherings?" Anya gapped, taking her eyes off the road for a moment. "I thought they were just exaggerations, old stuffy meetings."

"Since I was eight." The stuffy room was true but surrounded by the most powerful people from each species, which didn't give anyone a chance to lower their guard.

"What are The Gatherings?" Nick, who had been quarantined in the back of the cab, pushed his head between the seats in a desperate attempt to be a part of the conversation.

"They're meetings of all the leaders in the Coth world." A drastic understatement.

"Wolf packs elect a common alpha to represent them each year," Anya chimed in. "Alpha Daniel has been ours for the last few years. He's the best, and I'm not being biased."

I rolled my eyes, but I had to agree. From what I could make out, in the last five years Alpha Daniel had been fair. He got along with the other leaders and that wasn't easy to do.

"Why are you allowed to be there if it's so important?" Nick's question threw me off for a moment. I had forgotten to ask Anya if she told him about the Morill's. Everyone in the supernatural world knew about us from a young age. Nick would stand out if he didn't.

"I'm a Morill, my family practically created The Gathering hundreds of years ago. If anything significant happens in the Coth world, we know about it and we handle it."

"Like the police force?" I nodded at his question. "Does that mean you're like the FBI or a secret agent?"

"Maybe I should start calling it that. It's better than anything else I've come up with."

"They're like the Cardinals," Anya joked. "They've got their fingers in everywhere. Practically royalty to us, and this one will be like their queen in a few years."

Yeah, the queen if I can convince people that I'm up to the job.

"Really, Lexi? You're like royalty?"

"If royals had jobs and no retirement. My poor Uncle Finn's been working for a hundred and sixty-seven years without a break. The poor guy would have worked himself to death if he could die."

"You make those jokes," Anya groaned. "I can't believe you make those jokes."

I usually didn't make those jokes. Hell, I didn't make jokes for anyone but Kiri. The arm's length I had been keeping them at had grown shorter, just an elbow now. That was as far as it could go. But maybe I could still enjoy it? No, that was ridiculous. I would be gone soon, better to not get attached.

"Am I missing something here?"

"Her uncle's a vampire."

Nick's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing as the car rounded the bend in the woods.

I hadn't doubted the truth behind the rumor that all wolves lived in packhouses, but Alpha Daniel's pack was set up differently than I imagined as we approached.