[Trent]On Saturday, Mike linked me about Rhett coming for a visit. I didn’t like him just appearing in our pack lands whenever he wanted, but it wasn’t as if he was doing it all the time. Plus, getting him to come to us for help meant we would have something over him in the long run. Once we figured out that it was Harmony he feared, I was much more relaxed. She may not have felt like a member of our pack, but she would protect it. This was her home now. We hadn’t talked to her about it, though. Harmony had only barely started learning about all of her gifts. Piling on that she was one of the only things that could beat a warlock didn’t seem like a great idea. We didn’t want her to think we were only focused on how she could benefit our pack. She was more than a tool to us. Monday morning was strained as we waited for ten o’clock. We were all distracted by whatever it was Rhett wanted. How, exactly, did he think we could help with something magical? Was he hoping we would use our resources to get the answers? If there was something dark trying to build up in the area, we would. That would affect everyone, not just those who used magic regularly. Goddess only knows what the intentions of the people responsible are. When it finally reached nine-fifty, I received a link from the guards at the entrance to the pack lands. ‘Alpha, there is a strange man at the entrance. He appeared out of nowhere and is wearing an outfit that looks like it’s made of silver cloth. He says he has an appointment with you but seems pretty sketchy.’‘What’s his name?’‘He says his name is Rhett, sir,’ the guard replied. ‘Let him pass. He is here to see me, as he says.’‘Yes, Alpha.’I sighed. “Rhett is at the entrance to the pack lands. I have no idea why he has suddenly decided to come in the normal way, but the guards say he’s wearing a silver outfit.” “What on earth is going on with him?” Ben asked. “He figured out that we know about Harmony. I bet he’s weighed himself down with this outfit and can’t appear and disappear as easily,” Mike said. “Oh, that’s not the reason. I simply thought it would be polite to announce myself.” We turned to see Rhett standing near the door. They hadn’t lied. He was wearing his signature outfit, but it was a dark silver in color. The silver buttons glinted in the light. He really wore a silver suit to a werewolf pack. “And you think that the silver will stop her?” I asked. “I thought it might give her pause,” he replied, taking a seat on the couch. I went to the armchair nearest to where he sat and took a seat of my own. Mike and Ben took the other two chairs. This was more of what we were thinking when we were imagining him visiting. Not the clothes, of course, but him appearing and taking up the couch. Rhett didn’t sprawl over the couch as he had before. He was sitting straight up and had a very serious expression on his face. We hadn’t seen him like this before. In every interaction we had with Rhett, he looked amused or rueful in some way. “You told Mike there was a darkness building. This seems to be a very serious thing to you. What do you need from us?” I asked. “I need you to use your resources to find it so I can destroy it before it becomes great enough that I can’t. Whatever this is, it’s still growing. I need to get rid of it.” “Why do you need to get rid of it? Couldn’t you just team up with it and have some sort of dark alliance?” “You’ve been listening to Layton too much. She imagines me to be some sort of dark witch, wanting power and all manner of tedious evil things. I want to be free to do as I wish however and whenever I wish. It was not something I was afforded as a human, but it is something I gained in the deal with my darkness. Whatever this thing is, it consumes darkness. I’m not ready to be human again,” he replied. “Mrs. Layton said she thought the rain was your doing. She thought you were trying to spread your darkness over the area in order to gain more power.” He scoffed. “Stupid witch. I am not and have never been about power, Alpha. My freedom means more to me than any sort of power. If I wanted power, I would have done more than play with you and agree to leave you alone if you left me alone. I could have terrorized your pack until you bowed to me and served me. I am not all-powerful, but I am strong enough to make this pack suffer if I wanted.” I didn’t like that, but it was true. He hadn’t tried to do more than get us to leave him to his entertainment and his life. Rhett could have done far more than he did if he wanted to, but he didn’t. “We understand that you are more powerful than you seem. I didn’t mean to insult you, only to tell you what Mrs. Layton told us. If the rains weren’t your doing, then there might be a dark witch out there who is working to do something serious.” Rhett shook his head. “I think it is far more than a single dark witch trying to gain power. Though that thought had occurred to me, the ability to seed darkness into a rain like that requires more power than a single dark witch could have. “Lila was the only dark witch in the area for a very long time. She’s gone now and there is a vacuum in the existence of darkness in this place. Don’t get me wrong here, this thing has to have been building for longer than a couple months. Whatever this is, it has been building for years. The curse just masked it.”“You think it has something to do with the curse?” I asked. “I do. I think it was using the darkness of the curse as a food source. Now, it doesn’t have that. Removing the curse not only weakened whatever has been building. It also uncovered it. I would never have known it was there if the curse had still been in place.” “What do you think it is? Do you have any ideas?” Rhett was quiet for a while. I could see he was working on what he wanted to say. I leaned forward in anticipation. “It feels like death, Alpha. That curse was powered by the deaths of many. The power of it was stealing from the lives of the living supernaturals in the region. The darkness they spread in the rain felt like death to me.” “You know what death feels like?” Mike asked. “I know the feeling of it. The terror of an early death. The sorrow in one’s soul. There was death in that rain. I don’t know how they even did it.” “But it didn’t kill anyone, as far as I’m aware. If the rain carried death, wouldn’t it have killed someone?” Mike pressed. “No,” I answered. “The fae called us and all of the allies, telling them to stay in when it was raining. If it killed humans in some way, we wouldn’t have known. Perhaps it was only meant to kill certain people. Or do something with the deaths that naturally happened in it.” “Exactly. I think it was aimed at killing fae. Their magic is more earthy and could be taken after their deaths. Perhaps it fed on any deaths caused by it, but we don’t know how much that stretches. Consider that some people who were caught in the rain have been more violent and aggressive in the past few months. “It could, very well, be that it implanted in them and any deaths caused by them will feed whatever this thing is. I have been tracking several of them, supernaturals who didn’t get the fae’s warning or who ignored it. Not all of them. Only those prone to violence in the first place. Those are the ones who are acting out violently.” “Is there any way for us to counteract this magic?” “I don’t know. As I said, not all those who were caught in the rain are acting out violently. It’s almost impossible to figure out who all was out in the water and even harder to figure out who might be affected or not. Not until they do something to harm someone else.” Rhett answered. We had locked down the pack lands, but there were some people who were caught out in the rain and some guards who had been in it. None of them were acting violently. We would have them checked out and would take reports of violence more seriously. “You aren’t giving us much to go on, Rhett. We have no direction here other than it not being you. What would you have us do?” I asked. “Talk to your allies. With all the abilities of the mixed fae, the witches, and the vampires, I’m sure you could figure something out. As much as I hate asking for help, there’s nothing I can do from here. Whatever this is, it’s not something I can resolve on my own.”“Victor is out of town until later in the month. I can talk to Silence or Talon, but it might be better to wait.” “Wait to talk to the vampires or wait to talk to everyone? The longer we wait the more danger everyone is in. Talk with the witches, the rogues, and the fae. Don’t wait for Victor to return. This isn’t something that will become less severe with time. Yes, we stopped it from feeding in full force, but that doesn’t mean whoever is doing this will quit after being foiled once,” he insisted. “They haven’t done anything since the rain. How can you even begin to think that this might be over? How can you doubt me when I have never lied to you about anything important? This is a serious threat to your people and everyone in the area.” He was definitely frustrated, but all we had was that it was something that was currently feeding on darkness and that he said could be stronger than him. I didn’t doubt that he thought this was serious. What I doubted was that it was as urgent as he was saying. “We will talk to our allies and we will start investigating as much as we can, with their help. That’s all I can promise,” I replied honestly. Rhett stood and glared down at me. “You will regret not taking this more seriously. You should be as worried as I am. I don’t even care about anyone here as much as you care about your family and pack. The utter disregard for my warning will be your downfall.” He disappeared after saying that. I looked over at Mike and Ben. What were we supposed to do to appease him? He had no idea what running a pack, or an investigation like this, entailed. We couldn’t run around panicking about things without evidence. We couldn’t gather an army to fight an invisible threat. As much as I wanted to be able to find and attack a threat to my pack, I couldn’t. I didn’t have anything to go on. I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “I can call Queen Maeve,” Mike said. “I’ll reach out to Mrs. Layton,” Ben offered. “Good. I’ll call Queen Bellamy and let her know what we know. Once Silence is up for the night, we can call her and let her know. Victor managed to figure out the curse. Maybe the vampires will have some insight into this.” “Don’t worry about Rhett. He’s obviously threatened by whatever this thing is. He wasn’t thinking clearly, or he would have known there wasn’t much we could do right away. We’ll start working and get it figured out as soon as we can,” Mike told me, standing and heading toward the door. “We’re going to figure it out, Alpha,” Ben added with a nod, following him. They closed the door behind them and I was left alone in my office. I got up and went to my desk. Where did I even start? Sitting in my chair, I picked up the phone and dialed. It was best to get straight to it. No matter how little we were starting with, we would get it managed before it was much bigger and harder to handle.