Matthew spoke to my brother and had Gavon flown up to our pack house. I think Gavon was thinking this was going to be an adventure. I was on the front porch of the pack house when my brother arrived in a pack SUV, and Stephen was standing behind me holding Matt.
"Gavon!" I cried and jumped in his arms. We weren't all that close, but I loved him since he was my brother and I was glad to see him. I didn't really get a chance to talk to him at my wedding, and this gave us a chance to catch up. Or so I thought.
Gavon lifted his head, sniffed the air and growled. "Mate!" he said and started to frantically look around. Oh oh I thought as Gavon walked around Stephen and I into the pack house, and right into the kitchen. I just looked at Stephen who was smirking and followed him in. I wondered who it was as he walked right up to Elise who was turned away from us listening to her ipod music with earbuds in while making a sandwich- and she was dancing a little lost in her own world .
Growling, Gavon said "Mate" again and wrapped his arms around Elise who just shrieked, threw her sandwich in the air, spun around and punched Gavon right in the face. Elise was my bodyguard for a reason. Gavon went down hard with a surprised grunt, but stared at Elise while he started to get right up again while holding his obviously broken nose with one hand. Which was streaming blood down his shirt and making his eyes water.
Elise shook her hand (I'm sure it hurt), pulled out her earbuds, grabbed hold of his shirt pulling him up a little, and threatening to punch him again. "Listen bastard," Elise began, and then suddenly let go of Gavon making him fall back down on his ass again. I tried hard to hold in my laughter, but when my brother fell on his ass and was getting beat up by his mate- I let it rip. I started laughing so hard, and Stephen joined me as Matt was looking anxiously back and forth between everyone. Elise didn't even look at us as her mouth fell open and she started sniffing the air herself. Gavon stood up slowly, and Elise took a step back like she was unable to process this information.
"Mate," Gavon bit out from under his hand on his nose, but didn't reach for her, wary of her punches.
Elise held out her hand in a futile attempt to keep him back. "Mate?" she asked him and he shook his head yes. He pushed her hand down and she just stared at the contact and shivered. Gavon went to her, blood and all and pulled her to him slowly. Elise let him while she still looked shocked, and he put his head down to her neck and breathed in deeply. Automatically Elise wrapped her hands up around his neck and pulled him tighter. I smiled and looked at Stephen, who handed Matt to me and walked over to Gavon patting him on the shoulder.
"Come on Gavon, let me show you to your room."
"Room?" Gavon said pulling back to look at Elise, as he dived right into her mouth.
Stephen sighed, he knew all about it. "Yes, your room is this way so you can be with your mate."
Gavon pulled back and shook his head 'yes', then finally looked at Stephen with totally black eyes. Gavon was dangerous now, but still in control of his wolf. Stephen looked at him carefully to make sure, he didn't want Elise to be in danger. But Gavon was as fine as the mate-lust would allow him to be.
Stephen said to Elise, "Sometime today you might want to get his nose looked at in the Infirmary so it heals straight." Stephen tugged Gavon's shoulder and led him upstairs to Elise's room. I heard a door slam shut, and Stephen returned a minute later smiling.
"Well I guess we now have a free morning, love," he said to me with his eyes twinkling.
Smiling back I said, "I guess so. And I'll need a new bodyguard."
****************
Elise and Gavon surfaced two days later, and my brother's nose had healed nicely. We were eating breakfast at the kitchen table with a few other wolves, and saw Elise pulling Gavon into the room.
"Everyone," Elise said, "this is my mate Gavon."
Everyone offered their congratulations, smiled, and then went back to what they were doing. Elise must have been starving since she piled her plate high with food, and waited for Gavon to do the same. They walked over and sat down next to me and Stephen at one of the many large dining tables. We had already finished but were having some coffee and reviewing the more pressing problems at the moment. Matt was already at the daycare playing with the toddlers.
"Good morning," I said to them, smiling at their happiness.
"Good morning Luna," Elise said smiling back.
"Good morning Danika," Gavon said smiling and reaching over to kiss Elise. She automatically blushed.
"What are your plans for today?" I asked them while Stephen watched, grinning and enjoying everything. Werewolves loved drama, and new situations were so juicy and irresistible- and Stephen was loving this. I suspect just like the Doctor loved to watch our sticky situations.
Elise looked at Gavon and said, "I thought I'd show him the village, and I want him to meet my parents."
Gavon looked at Elise and brought her hand to his lips. Then looking at me said, "And I want to start working with you and Timothy, I understand that there's a lot to discuss."
I nodded, "Yea, we'll need to talk to you in Stephen's office this afternoon." I looked at Stephen who nodded. Then smiling I continued, "But now go enjoy yourselves."
Stephen and I held hands as we walked to Stephen's office. We were both thinking about when we first met, and all the years of tormenting dreams we had.
"I'm glad for both of them," I sighed as we walked in. I briefly thought of everything that happened to us the last year and I started to have some... disturbing... feelings. Almost like when I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I absently started rubbing my neck and Stephen walked up behind me, he could sense my building anxiety of me and my wolf.
"What is it love?" he asked as he pulled my back to his body. He bent his head and smelled my neck and I smiled. He always turned me on so much.
"Something's happening and I don't know what." I said and his hands stilled. He turned me around and led me to the couch.
"Zeke?" he growled out.
I thought for a minute and sighed. "I don't know. I feel a type of... danger... but can't identify it. All I know is some...one... is planning some... thing... to harm us. Our pack maybe. It's danger is all I know."
Stephen nodded then went to his computer. He notified all his pack Betas via his mental pack-link and email that there was a meeting for a half hour in the Command Center. The remote Beta's would stream this using a secure, encrypted channel. If the pack was in danger then everyone needed to be on alert.
Stephen knew he had to give me space to concentrate, so I went into my office and sat in my small sofa there. I left the door open and when he was done making arrangements he stood in my doorway watching me.
"I have all warriors on patrol, all the communications and monitoring stations are on high alert and fully staffed. All outposts are on high alert also so we have satellite capabilities also. All of our eyes and ears are watching and listening for anything unusual.
I asked suddenly, "Chatter from the Bremerton Navy yard? They might discover this danger first."
Stephen thought for a moment then said, "We have our people listening from the inside, as well as our military monitoring stations scanning all frequencies. We are doing everything we can to discover what is going on."
I closed my eyes and thought about these faint feelings. I opened myself up to them, but being cautious in case it was another trap set by Zeke. But somehow I didn't think it was, or at least not directly. Zeke's teams were so weakened that he's had to back off and regroup, but I'm sure the Machine and I were still a primary focus and target. Zeke's methods included sending other groups against us.
Bagpipes, I heard bagpipes. And then I could hear faint talking, planning in English but with an accent. Ireland, the voices sounded Irish and intense. The danger was coming from Ireland but directed here on the Olympic peninsula. Fear made my heart race.
I opened my eyes to tell Stephen but my vision was immediately pulled into this sterile white lab. It was if I was standing next to them, but I wasn't physically there. Men and women were walking around in white sanitary clothes, there hair and beards covered, and they wore goggles and gloves. Booties were around their shoes and most people were headed somewhere.
"So it's ready?" a Tall-ish Man with short, brown hair said as he looked down to table with a circuit board on a protective foam surface. I could see faint tendrils of silver-blue energy slowly twist around the board, slowly stroking the components in an almost sensual way.
"We just need to test it," a shorter man with black hair said as he looked to the third man of the group.
"I know just the situation," the third man said. Zeke, it was Zeke's voice and he was thinking of... me.
I steadied my breaths, and I could feel Stephen's energy giving me comfort. He was probably sitting with me on the couch and holding my hand. He wanted answers as badly as I did. I couldn't feel my body but trusted I was safe. Using all my concentration, I made myself look around the room for any sort of identification. It was a sterile high-tech room, but I saw printing on some translucent plastic sheeting surrounding the room. The printing was backward, so it took a few moments to read it. It said 'Atseva Industries'. Which is backwards for 'Avesta'.
Forcing my consciousness and myself back into my office, I opened my eyes and looked at Stephen who was sitting holding my hand. I looked at him and made my heart and breathing slow down, and I noticed that I was sweating with anxiety.
Looking at Stephen I blurted out, "Zeke is in Ireland, and he's build a new Machine part. And in order to create a new part they needed to capture someone who can access this power. Another descendant like Mave and Gavon. This time I believe they've built a weapon of some sort, and they already have a target to test it on."
Stephen looked at me with his eyes darkening, "Continue."
I blew out a breath and said, "The lab is Atseva Industries, and they've built a circuit board that fits into a larger mechanism. That's all I saw, but Zeke was there and he's so very angry."
"I would imagine," Stephen murmured. He quickly jumped into action, there was a contingency plan for this. Stephen had units in Ireland and Britain from my previous vision, as well as a few other places.
We went to the Command Center and started working with Tyler and the regular team, they sent the 'Ireland' group into action to see the best way to destroy the Machine part there. The Atseva Corp had a research lab in the IEC in Cork, Ireland. Unfortunately the IEC, or the International Energy Consortium, was a quasi-government building with extremely high security. The building specs would have to be obtained illegally, of course, but we needed them for planning. The building needed to be studied quickly, and surveillance was put into place to try to determine who any of the engineers were, or the next 'descendent of Zend' might be. Stephen wanted to bomb the facility to destroy any technology and equipment in order to 'save lives', and I vetoed that since I was concerned for the certainty of civilian casualties.
"Really Stephen? Do you know how many war crimes have been committed using that rationale?" I was incensed, but also saw Stephen's point of view. "I'm sure there's a way to destroy the equipment in a localized way. I mean, what good would it serve to blow the building?"
Stephen looked at me like I didn't understand what was at stake, but I'm the one who understood more than anyone. And I felt a shiver down my spine to think of it.
"I do know, Stephen. I DO know what's at stake." I looked directly at him, slightly insulted. I was the one who... well I just didn't want to go there it was too dark, too evil. "Stephen, I'm not sure there's any way to destroy all the data with everything backed up on the 'cloud' all over the planet."
"Danika, we have the most advanced technologies and can follow the threads back to the sources, we can destroy all the data on the mainframes. If we can't directly destroy the hard drives, then we can infect it with a special virus to self-destruct. We just need each computer plugged into the net, and we can destroy everything, we can destroy all knowledge of the Machine if the devices are networked." Stephen let out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. "The time intensive part of this is the surveillance on the ground, we have satellite and communications monitoring already in place."
Stephen continued to monitor all the activities of the 'Ireland' op, he needed to know where Zeke was staying, there was a 4-star hotel nearby with a yacht mooring. That was the best bet. Stephen was also checking out Fort Charles and Fort James further inland, but didn't see any activity, plus there were no prostitutes nearby for Zeke's deadly 'entertainment'. Stephen stood and stretched, and gave Tyler instructions to get him if anything developed, otherwise we just had to wait for the building plans of the basement labs, and for further information of Zeke's location.
"Come, Danika, you need some rest and let's get Matt," he smiled at me and held out his hand. There were no shortage of babysitters for Matt, he seemed to charm everyone the rascal. Just like his father. Being a year old now, he was starting to get mobile, drool, and babble all the time and I loved that boy to bits. I smiled at Stephen and we went to get our pup.
After eating and playing with him for a while, it was night time for our pup and we settling him in his nursery just off our room. We stood in our room holding each other, Stephen started to breathe my scent in, and nuzzled on my neck. I smiled at the simmering and erotic direction of events, and I had a question for him.
"Stephen, is there any fantasies that you haven't done with me yet?" I whispered in his ear.
My Alpha stilled and I could hear his breathing. I knew my answer. "Yes," he growled back at me.
**End of chapter, please vote and comment.
Thanks, Olympic Wolf