“A few. They’re heavy with pups. All of them are ready to whelp.”
When the terra indigene attacked the compound run by the Controller, they hadn’t seen any gestating females. Pups old enough for schooling, yes, but no females bearing those pups.
Had the breeding females been kept in a different place from the girls who were cut? “What else?”
“We found the dead puppies,” Joe whimpered. “Simon, they killed the puppies.”
A horrible pain ripped through Simon. Memories of reaching his sister Daphne after she’d been shot. Memories of finding Sam cowering, his little paws covered in his mother’s blood. Memories of Meg the first time he’d seen her, stumbling into Howling Good Reads half-frozen and looking for a job.
“What puppies?” He could barely shape the human words.
“Many of the terra indigene who were searching for the girls only recognize humans from the Others who can shift to that form. The Eaglegard and Hawkgard saw humans throwing noisy sacks into a lake many times before today, but they didn’t understand. They just thought the stupid humans were fouling their own water supply. By the time some of the Crowgard flew by the lake and recognized the sounds coming from the last of the sacks as crying baby . . . Too late to save any of them.”
Would they have done this to Meg? Would they have bred her on some kind of farm like livestock? Would they have thrown her pup in the lake if it had been male and useless for prophecies?
Cleaning house. Isn’t that what humans called it when they wanted to avoid being punished for some wrongdoing? Cleaning house. Destroying the evidence that would show everyone they were bad, even for humans.
Maybe we should do a little housecleaning too.
He wasn’t sure what else he said to Joe, or what Joe said to him, before he ended the call with a promise to send information about how to keep the rescued girls alive.
Humans. He had tried to watch them, work with them, even help some of them.
Right now, all he wanted to do was get rid of them before they hurt Sam. Before they hurt Meg.
He could, and would, rid the Courtyard of the sickness called human before it contaminated the terra indigene, before it changed them. He was, after all, the dominant Wolf, the leader.
He went downstairs. John Wolfgard took one look at him and cowered.
Simon took the keys from his pocket and calmly locked HGR’s front door.
No escape from that direction.
“Simon?” Vlad’s voice. Sharp. Almost challenging.
“All humans are banished from the Courtyard. I don’t want to see them, hear them, smell them.”
“What happened?” Tess’s voice now. Just as sharp.
Simon turned and felt the fury explode in him when he spotted Merri Lee and Ruthie standing next to Tess, whose coiled red hair rapidly gained streaks of black.
Ignoring Tess’s visual warning, Simon rushed at the girls, his hands shifting to accommodate Wolf claws.
“Filthy monkeys!” he howled at them. Spittle flew from his mouth. He swiped at Vlad when the vampire stepped between him and the girls. “Filthy, greedy monkeys! Meg’s puppies aren’t something you drown like a bag of kittens! But that’s what you do, isn’t it? You destroy anything to get what you want, anything that isn’t exactly like you!”
He almost dodged Vlad when he leaped to attack Merri and Ruthie. He might have survived Tess. But Henry’s big, furry arms caught him, lifting him off his feet so that all he could do was struggle and rage.