The Mating Call: Drekinn Series (13 page)

"My Pack, my wolves," he whispered to her, and she stopped in her tracks. Shit, he was right, last night he had taken over, and they all knew it.

"And one Cougar, don't forget about me. I have decided that I want to be a part of the Barkers Club. So sign me up. Oh, I forgot. 'I, Kiki DeLaru, request to be taken into the Milgren/Young Pack,'" Kiki said and rolled her eyes and then smiled sweetly at the group who was staring at her open mouthed. A cat in a Pack, it was kinda unheard of.

Calli shrugged and raised her hand. Then Rissa and Cherri raised their hands. The female Enforcers, who had no vote in this whatsoever, raised their hands. Thomas stood with his hands at his side and looked round the room and then swore under his breath and raised his hand.

"What the hell?" Kade and Calli said together as they felt all the people in the room join with them. They were a Pack. All of them.

"That isn't supposed to be able to happen," Calli whispered. They changed the law, and a Warlock did the spell. No one in the city limits of New York who was a shifter could make a Pack or Organization of shifters that was not blood bound or mated.

They all looked around the room and Rissa said, "Does that mean one of the chicks is our mate? Cause I'm not really feeling it."

Kiki looked at Rissa and laughed, "I don't think so. But you should totally come to the dark side. We have cookies and shit!"

"Oh, okay, but make them chocolate chip, they're my favorite. What are we doing now?" Rissa said and turned back to her computer. Cherri just shook her head. Rissa was just not on the same playing field sometimes. But they loved her anyway, because she was fucking brilliant with a computer.

Calli stood still shocked at what happened and then looked around the room at the Enforcers, who had been standing at attention, and they were now more relaxed. Like they felt at home. "Are you all Lone Shifters?" She asked. That was the only way this could have happened. But still, there were four of them, and they were only allowed to have two. All of them shook their heads but Thomas, who nodded.

"What about your families?" she said.

"I can still feel their connection, but not as strongly as I feel this one. I don't know what to say," Kiki said. "Except I for one am glad, they were a bunch of tight ass muther fuckers that didn't accept me for the real me. Can you imagine? They actually make me wear black trousers for Sunday dinner, and a freaking tie. Who the hell wears trousers anymore, I ask you? Totally, twentieth-century shit."

Rissa's, Calli's and Cherri's communicators went off at the same time. Calli groaned when she saw who was calling. "Ma, not a real good time," she said answering the communicator briskly. She heard Cherri and Rissa do the same. Then as if all their mothers were in the same room they said, "What the hell just happened?"

Calli frowned and looked around, and Cherri shrugged her shoulders. "Mom, what are you talking about?" Calli said.

"One second everything was fine, and I could feel you in the Pack, and the next you were gone. I thought you were dead. I called the others, and they said the same thing happened. Did you do another one of those damn blood oath things? Do you know how hard that was to break? Your father and I demand you get your ass over here with those two and undo this."

"Oh shit," Calli whimpered and tried to hand the communicator to Kade, who was standing there with a frightened look on his face. He threw it back to her and ran around the dining room table, and Calli growled. "And you call yourself our Alpha," she sneered.

"I am, all except when your mother is involved, seriously, she scares the shit out of me," Kade whispered.

"I heard that, Kade dear, and there is no reason to be afraid. Did my daughter just call you her Alpha?" her mother preened into the communicator, and Cherri, Rissa and Calli groaned, because their mothers all squealed.

"The first one has fallen, I told you bitches it would be my daughter too. You all owe me a hundred. And I expect your whole group to be here on Sunday for planning. We have a lot to take care of," Calli's mother's voice floated around the room like a proud screeching ghost.

"Damn it!" Callie screamed when her mother disconnected. "I swear the woman has a fuckin' beacon where I'm concerned. She doesn't do this to my brothers, only me. Of course, my brothers are pussies, but still, they should have to be towing the line too. But NOOOOOO, only me."

Rissa and Cherri turned back around to the computers and ignored her like it was something they dealt with a lot. Kade didn't know what to say, and the rest of the group just stood there and watched as she ranted and raved about her mother.

"We kinda need to get back on track here," Kade said gently and broke her tirade. Calli sighed and nodded.

"Rissa, how the hell did they get into the database?" Calli asked and walked back to the office space.

"Hang on, before we get started what about this whole Pack thing, your mama said something about blood oath. I gotta tell you, I can't stand the sight of blood, especially my own," Kiki said.

"We'll figure that out later; I think we're going to have to talk to Ms. Praton and Brooks. And there will be no bloodletting." Kade said firmly.

"Shhh, don't tell her that, it comes with the actual initiation." Calli said and laughed when the Drag Queen flipped her off.

'They broke into the Drekinn computer through a very complex, little program. I mean; it's not as hard as what I would have written, because if I want to break into something, I don't leave a trail. But seriously, for armatures, this is good. I would guess they have a newbie on their hands because he made all the classical mistakes someone out of college who has a big head does. But I think I can trace it back to find them. Give me a few hours," Rissa said absently.

"I'm going to figure out why we are all now a Pack," Cherri said and began to pull up the protective spells that had been put in place against it. "Maybe it has something to do with our DNA. I'm going to need samples from all of you."

Callie laughed when Kiki went pale, "Kade and I are going to go back downstairs. We will take Kiki and Thomas with us, after they give their sample. We will work with the computers down there to see if we can dig anything up, and also do a little video com link with Ms. Praton and Brooks. I think we need to figure out a different approach to these assholes. And I will get Kiki looking at photos of known criminals."

Everyone nodded, Kiki sighed and held out her arm for Cherri. By the time they were back down at their place, Calli had a headache. She was not sure who the hell she pissed off that bad. Sure, criminals hated her and the Enforcers, and she had a lot of enemies, but seriously, this was taking it to the next level. Why did they have to be out of the way before the
Bondi King
, did what he needed to do? It made no sense.

"Hey, I'm gonna cook dinner for the Pack, what do you all want?" Kiki announced, and everyone turned and looked at her like she had suddenly grown another head.

"You cook?" Calli said with her eye's narrowing. There was no way the universe would give them a Drag Queen that could cook real food. It would be just too perfect.

Kiki snapped her fingers at Calli and said, "I'm not just a gorgeous and beautiful person. I spent my youth in the kitchen with the cook, to stay out of the family's way, so I learned a lot. I saw you had a completely stocked pantry, with fresh veggies and everything."

"We do?" Calli frowned and walked into the kitchen. Wow, whoever did the shopping was awesomely cool. Fruits and everything.

Kiki stood behind her as she dug in the cool storage, and pulled out a few apples and then waved at Kiki. "Go ahead, worst we have to do is order out again."

Kiki hissed, and Calli laughed before leaving the room. She threw Thomas and Kade an apple as she walked across the room. Both men grunted but began to eat. They were pulling up the computers, so they could start to work.

Calli growled when she saw the screen of her computer again, but she said the right words and opened up her computer. It didn't take long for them all to become engrossed in what they were doing. She could hear Kade speaking to Ms. Praton and Brooks, but she was interested in figuring out why the three of them had been targeted. She could understand herself. She was out there on the streets making herself known, but Cherri and Rissa worked behind the scenes, unless they were with her at an outside event, no one would know they worked together.

***

The wonderful smells from the kitchen were what drug all of them out of their work stupor. Or maybe it was Rissa, Cherri and their Enforcers coming into the room yelling for food. One or the other, who cared because of the heavenly smell coming from her kitchen. Calli was pretty sure that even the Italian take out place did not make things like this.

As she walked into the room with everyone following her, she saw the counters. Bowls of different pastas, sauces and bread were in the front, and then in the back were some salad and bottles of wine.

"Holy shit," Thomas said and then shrugged when Kade hit him on the back of the head.

Kiki put his head out as if they were supposed to kiss it our something. She cleared her throat. "It's customary to kiss the Chef."

"Keep dreaming, bitch," Calli said and then covered her mouth with her hand. It just slipped out, like when she was with the girls, they would always say things like that to each other. But she didn't know if Kiki was gonna run from the room crying or not. She just didn't know the Drag Queen that well.

"Hmmm, bitch, I should totally make you eat in your room for that," Kiki sniffed and then held up her hand. "But it was funny. Everyone grab a bowl and let's take it to the table."

Thank goodness they did have a large table because to fit all these people they needed it. Everyone grabbed a bowl, and set them on the nice table that Kiki already made. But when they went to sit down, Thomas, Trina, and Sabrina stayed standing at attention.

"What the hell are you three doin'?" Calli snarled.

Thomas looked uncomfortable, "Uh, we'll eat later, in shifts."

"The fuck you say, sit your asses down. We're Pack, remember? That means we all eat together," Calli said and pushed out a chair next to her and waited.

The three Enforcers slowly sat down at the table. Calli looked at Kade and motioned to the three Enforcers. Thank goodness he could tell what she wanted because if she had to be nice on top of everything else, she was gonna puke.

Kade cleared his throat. "Let's talk about what we found out today, I think you will all find this very enlightening. Rissa, start us off."

"Oh, okay," she said and put her fork down sadly. "Let me start off by saying, freaking awesome meal, Kiki!" The Drag Queen smiled and then laughed when the rest of the group all clapped and named her their official cook. "I traced that guy's address back to where he was hacking from, and the weird part is it says he was in one of the Drekinn buildings. Not the main one, one of the smaller ones. So I called around and did a bit of research. Some little squirrel by the name of Randy is the one who reprogrammed for the weakness in the security and then allowed someone access to the program from the outside. I'm still tracing that program. But since yesterday no one has seen Randy. The Enforcers are looking for him. But I recharged the program with a sniffer attached, so if they try to access it again I can get their exact location. They have improved the security around here; all of us will have our own access code, I will give them to you later. Can I eat now?"

Kade laughed at the hopeful expression on her face and nodded. "Cherri?"

"I found something interesting. Kade, your blood had some weird markers in it, something I have never seen before. I refused to send it into Drekinn in case someone could still hack. But I have all the data; it seems that when you took over as Pack leader from Calli, you triggered whatever it is in your DNA. The rest of us all have this marker that is compatible with yours. I think that possibly there are more people out there with the same marker. But it would explain why all of us seem drawn to each other. I talked with Thomas and the girls here, they said when word came down about this detail, all of them were the first to sign up, they said they felt the pull too. We have to talk to Ms. Praton and Brooks about this, but I think something's going on here. I read the laws the humans made, technically we aren't breaking any laws, as long as we all live together. So I took the liberty of buying this building and another that was just finished construction down the Ave. I contacted all the tenants and told them they could either accept a new apartment in the other building, or they could move out of here. I gave them thirty days," Cherri said a matter a factly.

"Uh, you bought the fucking building?" Rissa said.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Rissa, she was always so nice and sweet, when she cussed, it was because she was shocked or pissed. Right now, she seemed a little shocked.

"Duh," Cherri said rolling her eyes. "We have to all live together, and as much as I love Trina and Sabrina, I really think they would like their own places when this shit is done. And if we get more people, they can't all live with us. However, I did call the construction guys to put in stairs like we talked about. They will be here tomorrow to do it, so we don't have to keep using the pad. And since we are all going to be in the same Pack who lives in the building, I also am having Rissa change the codes later so we can see what we have. I am so excited."