The cabin was three miles down the coast, hidden in a stand of old-growth spruce. Kael and his father arrived separately—Aldric driving, Kael running the coastal trail in wolf form, stretching muscles that had been confined too long in the city.
The Makah wolves had prepared the cabin. Firewood stacked by the door. Supplies in the kitchen. A note on the table: "Welcome, Alpha. The territory is yours."
Aldric read the note and set it aside. "The Makah are loyal. They won't ask questions."
"Will they need answers eventually?"
"Probably. But by then, we'll have them."
The first meeting at the Silvanus house was awkward. Four people who had faced an ancient horror together, now sitting in a dusty Victorian parlor, trying to make conversation. Cassius served tea. Aldric accepted. Lyra sat beside Kael on the settee, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
"We need a plan," Cassius said. "The Council will continue investigating. Marcus Valerius isn't satisfied with what he found—or didn't find. He'll be back."
"What does he suspect?" Aldric asked.
"He knows something happened in the tunnels. He doesn't know what. But he's persistent. And he has resources."
"Can we feed him false information? Lead him somewhere else?"
Cassius considered. "Possibly. But it's risky. If he catches us lying, it confirms his suspicions."
Kael spoke. "What if we give him something real? Something that explains the activity without exposing the alliance?"
Everyone looked at him.
"The creature—Aurelius—it was bound once before. By vampires and wolves working together. What if we let him discover that part of the story? The old alliance. The original binding. We don't mention the new binding. We don't mention us. Just the history."
Cassius nodded slowly. "It could work. The Council knows about the old alliances, even if they don't speak of them. If Marcus finds evidence that an ancient binding was disturbed and then... settled... he might accept that as an explanation."
"And if he doesn't?" Lyra asked.
"Then we deal with that when it comes."
The conversation shifted to logistics. How often they could meet. How to communicate securely. What to do if someone discovered them. By the time they finished, the sky was dark and the house was cold.
Kael walked Lyra to the cliff's edge. The ocean was invisible below, but they could hear it—a constant, rhythmic presence.
"I don't want to go back to Portland," she said.
"Neither do I."
"But we have to."
"For now."
She turned to face him. In the darkness, her silver eyes caught the faint light from the house.
"Kael. What are we doing?"
"I don't know. But whatever it is, I don't want to stop."
She reached up and touched his face. Her fingers were cold. He leaned into them anyway.
"Me neither," she said.