Damian's POV

Charlie squealed and threw himself at the stranger that we couldn't see from our position. I traded a glance with Galen and walked closer to the doorway to see.

A rugged, tanned man stood with his arms at his sides as he looked to the sky with an expression of fond exasperation on his face. Charlie was wrapped around him like an octopus, straddling him with his arms wrapped tightly around his neck as he rubbed his face obnoxiously into the man's neck. When I came into view, the man flicked his green eyes to mine and smiled, making his laugh lines more apparent. He grabbed Charlie by the back of his shirt and pulled him away from his body, making Charlie hang mid-air like a kitten in its mother's grip. He dropped him into the arms of the man next to him and stepped into the foyer with his hand out to me.

"I'm Jeremiah Cole. You must be one of the twins Charlie has told me nothing about," he grumbled in deep baritone with a backward annoyed look towards the vampire in the startled man's arms. He gripped my hand in a firm handshake. I aimed an amicable smile towards him and replied.

"Yep. I'm Damian Moriarty. You must be one of the "friends" which Charlie also told us nothing about. Pleasure to meet you." I shifted to angle my body toward my brother and mate. With a nod to them, I introduced them. "That's my brother Galen and our mate Yuki."

Jeremiah's eyes widened and flashed with an unreadable emotion when he saw Yuki's cat ears and tail from where he was perched on Galen's back. They flickered at the attention but otherwise didn't move aside from the constant swishing of his tail. Jeremiah opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted him. We can talk in the office later about the important stuff.

"Before we get into that story, I'd like to introduce my father, Vizin, the Alpha." I nodded to him and continued. "Standing next to him is Samuel, the Beta, and Spencer, the Gamma." I turned back to him to see him glance at me speculatively. But otherwise not speaking his observations.

He held his arm out to the door where his group had filed in during introductions. A beautiful woman stood at the front of the group, and at Jeremiah's motion, she moved forward, swaying and graceful in a way that wasn't unlike Charlie.

She positioned her body next to Jeremiah so she was pressed up against him with her shining, straight black hair flowing as she turned her head toward me. She licked her lips and the way her grey eyes scanned my body up and down made blood unwillingly rush to my face so I forced myself to look away.

Jeremiah chuckled as he saw my reaction. His eyes flicked behind me and flared with amusement at something there. Dad walked over from where he stood at our right and shook hands with Jeremiah. Galen crept up to me from behind and nudged the back of my neck with his nose, his scent soothing me in a way that made me realize how tense I was. He stood next to me with Dad on my right.

Jeremiah introduced the woman. "This is my... lover, Maxine Lewis. She-"

"Call me Max," she interrupts with a smile. She bypasses Dad's hand to invade my personal space faster than I can blink to smell my neck, her hair tickling my arms. I jerk backward and bump Galen's arm that was stretched out to catch me. Yuki snarls from his place on Galen and throws himself at her.

She cackles and evades his leap, turning elegantly and throwing herself behind Jeremiah. Yuki's green eyes flash and he bares his little fangs at her, his hair standing on his tail and his ears thrown back. Before he can attack her again, I wrap my arms around his waist and embrace him so he can't move. He relaxes almost instantly, turning in my arms to sniff at my neck. He sticks his tongue out and starts laving at my neck. I quickly stop him before my body can react more than a twitch in my pants. He pouts at me before throwing another glare at the woman and curling his arms around my neck.

I look up to see Galen snickering, Dad smirking, and Jeremiah not reacting beyond a twitch at his mouth. I sigh and scratch my neck with my free arm as my face starts flushing.

"Sorry, he's... possessive. Quite frankly, we all are here," I admit with a small embarrassed smile. Dad flashes another smile before looking around the foyer with a frown. The pack members who'd stuck around out of curiosity have left, leaving just Dad, Samuel, Spencer, Sammy, Itiri, and Danny. And Yuki and Galen, of course.

He speaks up before I can. "Let's all head to my office. There's an attached meeting room with chairs so everybody can get comfortable," he announces. Jeremiah nods before nodding his head at the people behind him. About 20 or so men and women file into the foyer completely. Charlie jumps out the awkward-looking man's arms and skips ahead of all of us. Jeremiah and Dad roll their eyes at the same time before exchanging smirks.

We all head into the meeting room and take our places. It's a plain room with semi-comfortable chairs scattered throughout the room in something of a circle. Galen and I sit next to each other, but Yuki immediately heads to the massive map covering the left wall.

The map shows the positions of all the registered werewolf packs, vampire covens, fae communities, etc. in the world that are affiliated with the Council and some of those which are not. It's something that the pack has had for generations, passed down and updated for each change that is witnessed. It's definitely a bad idea to have something like this, but it makes life a lot easier when needing to contact another place without having to go through the Council. Thankfully there are not that many hunters out there anymore, so it shouldn't be a problem any time soon. I suspect that Dad doesn't mind these strangers seeing it because Charlie trusts them.

Jeremiah gives it a curious look but otherwise doesn't look at it, sitting with his back to it and his lover sitting next to him.

As we all get seated, sans Yuki, Dad clears his throat to speak, but Charlie jumps in before he can say anything.

"Thanks for helping us with this, Jerry-poo!!" Charlie bursts out with, swinging his feet as they can't touch the ground. Galen snickers quietly, but loud enough for Charlie to hear. He whirls on us, his feet stopping their motion. "Fuck off, asshole! I know you just made a short joke in your head!" Galen shrugs but doesn't say anything. Dad sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Okay, okay, calm down. It's time to talk seriously," he says, looking to Jeremiah. "Charlie said he had friends coming to help but he didn't say what that entailed."

Charlie snorted and leaned in next to me to whisper "Entailed? Get it? Cuz' wolves have tails." He wheezed.

Jeremiah ignored Charlie and nodded. "Yes, he said you were being hunted and that most of your pack couldn't fight to save your lives. He asked if we could help train the ones who will fight back. And although he didn't ask us to contribute to the fighting, we'd like to join in."

Dad considered that before speaking. "And what do you get out of this? I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but people don't offer to fight bloodthirsty hunters on a whim." Yuki looked over from where he stood at the map.

"Horsey?" He asked with a very confused expression on his face. A feminine laugh echoed in the room and Maxine tilted her head to look at Yuki.

"It's an expression. "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" means "don't look for a problem in a gift that is given to you", cutie," she smoothly said. Yuki's eyes widened at this new information as his mouth opened in an "O" before he went back to studying the map. Maxine giggled at him and turned back to the circle. Jeremiah ignored this interaction and continued.

"Charlie did us a favor in the past and we wanted to repay that favor," he said and rolled his eyes when Charlie blew him a kiss. Maxine caught that kiss and sent one back at him.

"What did he do?" Galen suddenly asked. I gave him a look. He pouted. "What? I wanna know. I'm curious by nature. Don't shit on me for it," he grumbled before looking at Jeremiah, who sighed.

"It's a long story, so I'll summarize it. I used to be a hunter and—"

"Excuse me?!" Spencer, Dad's third-in-command suddenly stood up, shoving his chair back. Everybody but Maxine, who narrowed her eyes at him, startled. His expression was furious. "We're letting a filthy hunter into this meeting room?! What the fuck, Charlie?! How are you friends with some disgusting, bloodthirsty—"

"That's enough!" Charlie screeched. He stood up from his chair, his usual playful demeanor suddenly frosty and cold, strode over to Spencer and lifted him up by his shirt so high that Spencer's feet barely brushed the ground. "Jeremiah and Maxine are my precious friends. If you were paying attention, Jeremiah said he used to be a hunter, not that he is a hunter. He is no longer one. He has redeemed himself and punished himself enough without you judging him for his actions. Speak that way again to them and I will find a moose and impale you onto its antlers. Do I make myself clear?" He growled, his eyes flashing an eerie black. Spencer went limp in his grip, his face losing all its color at the oppressive aura that made itself known in the room. He nodded and Charlie dropped him.

I looked to Dad to see him looking calm. Next to him, Samuel looked sad for Spencer, but in a nostalgic way. I was confused before I remembered the fate of Spencer's wife and Danny's mother, Gabrielle. When Galen and I were younger, like 3 or 4, she'd been killed hunters. It was our pack's first encounter with them in centuries. She was out hunting for dinner while Spencer was on a trip with Dad to a Council meeting. Danny was hiding in the brush when it happened, and she witnessed her mother being killed by those monsters who caught them out there. Spencer came home to a traumatized daughter and a murdered mate. Danny was depressed for a long time until Itiri joined the pack and they discovered that they were mates. Spencer never quite recovered and stayed quiet most of the time.

A sigh broke me out of my thoughts and realized it was me who made the noise. Galen brushed his arm against mine and I smiled at him. He winked at me and we looked back at Jeremiah to continue his story.

"Like I was saying, I was a hunter. My whole family was a hunter family. It's how I was raised. Anyways, my great grandparents had captured a vampire before my time, and he stayed in our cells under our manor for a very long time. He was practically used as a punching bag. A way to relieve frustration. And he was batshit crazy. I'd only seen him once, and that was when I was a kid. My grandpa brought me down there to witness "true evil" and it turned out to be Charlie. Anyways, that was the only time I'd seen him until years later when I was 24. My grandparents were dead by then and my parents were ready to pass on the branch to me. But one night, a group went out and caught a feral vampire. She was even crazier than the one in the basement, I thought. Strangely beautiful. She hissed and growled in her chains and couldn't talk. My dad just told them to put her in the cellar with the other one and they did. But that night, when I thought everybody was asleep, I went down there for the first time since I was a kid. And I saw what they did to those two vampires to "relieve their frustration". I was disgusted and angry and I confronted them about it, but they just laughed it off. My dad came down and told me to go to bed and so I did. But I kept visiting them when nobody else was down there. I gave them little glasses of blood that I got from the hospital. I fell in love with the woman and became friends with the boy. And then I released them and let them kill every person in that manor."

Everyone was quiet for a moment. I looked to Charlie and then Maxine and knew that they were the ones he was talking about.

A sniffle was the only noise in the room, and I looked to the source to see Yuki with tears sliding down his face as he stared at Charlie. He ran and wrapped his arms around him as he bawled. Charlie smiled and squeezed him hard to enough to lift him.

"I'm okay now, kitty. No need to cry," he said as he ruffled Yuki's hair. He sniffled once more before coming and sitting on my lap with his feet in Galen's.

"I'm sorry for yelling," Spencer said. He was looking at the floor, Danny sitting next to him while holding his hand. He looked up at Jeremiah and then to Dad. "I took my anger out on you when I shouldn't have."

Jeremiah frowned. "I understand. I'd yell at you too if you were the same kind of someone who killed my lover." Maxine leaned into him and looked up at him as he smiled.

Dad clapped once, the sound echoing through the room. "Okay, now that that's over, is there anything else that needs to be said?" Galen raised his hand. Dad stared at him with a deadpanned expression. "Galen, you don't need to raise your hand."

Galen smiled sheepishly before looking at Maxine. "I take it that you're the vampire from the story. How old are you? You seem much wiser than Charlie." She smiled angelically before taking her shoe off and throwing it at Galen's face with enough force to throw him backward in his chair. A yelp echoed in the room before the smell of blood permeated the air. He leaned up with his hand pressed to his nose as blood leaked steadily through the gap of his hand. "Ow."

Maxine continued smiling. "Never ask a woman her age, you worm."

Yuki snickered from my lap. "Galy, you should know that." Galen threw a betrayed glance at Yuki.

"Et tu, Yuki?" Yuki smiled a confused smile. Galen sighed and shook his head. He sat back in his chair ignoring the blood on his face.

"I was born in the 1800s, if you must know," Maxine said with her nose in the air as she looked away from the group.

"Ah. So you're older than Charlie then," Galen concluded with a nod. Maxine cocked her head.

"What? No way. Charlie is old as dirt," she said with a confused glance to him.

Galen's eyes widened and he looked to Charlie who was picking his nails with a bored expression. "You told me you were born on the Titanic!" Charlie looked at him with an expression that screamed 'are you a moron?'.

"I said I was on the Titanic, not that I was born on it, dumbass. And stop exaggerating, Maxine, I am not old as dirt," he snidely said with a glare to her. Galen sputtered where he sat, looking completely astonished that he was fooled.

She ignored him and shrugged. "Might as well be."

"Okay, I'm done. Are we done here? I'm tired. I want to go to bed," I said while standing. I looked to Dad, who smiled and nodded too.

"We can start training this weekend. Is that good for you, Jeremiah?" He asked. Jeremiah nodded and stood with Maxine. The people he brought with him stood as well. They'd just been looking back and forth between the two parties during the conversation but otherwise stayed silent. We all started filing out, but Maxine detached from Jeremiah and attached to me with a smile. I stiffened and looked at her warily.

"Something you need?" I asked. She smiled and look at me with her sparkling grey eyes. We were last to leave the room, but Galen and Yuki loitered at the office entrance, Yuki rubbing his face into his neck while purring.

"You haven't boinked them yet, have you?" She slyly asked. I turned beet red and sputtered, trying to release her grip from my arm.

"What? Why would- what are- why would you say that? What?" I stuttered while blood rushed to my head fast enough to make me dizzy. She cackled with her face to the ceiling before continuing.

"You know, ride below the crupper? Grope for trout in a peculiar river? Pierce the hogshead? Bumped uglies? Knocked boots with? Made love to?" She continued, my face getting redder with each suggestion.

"No! That's none of your business!" I practically shouted as she laughed. I hesitated. "Why do you ask?" Her laughter trailed off and she answered seriously.

"I can smell it," she simply said before walking out the door. I stood there for a second before running to the door and seeing her halfway down the hallway.

I catch up to her as she side-eyes me amusingly. "Smell what? Do we stink or something?"

"Not you or your brother. I can smell your mate," she says with a smirk. When I look at her uncomprehendingly, she stops and rolls her eyes. "He's a cat shifter. He's of age. He met his mates. Do I have to spell it out?" My face doesn't change. What is she talking about? She sighs and lightly cuffs me by the ears.

"His heat, moron. I can smell his first heat coming. From the smell, it'll probably be here within the week," she says with a smile. The realization hits me.

Oh yeah. That.

Maxine vanishes around the corner of the hallway as I stand where she left me, blankly staring at the wall. I knew that Yuki's heat was going to happen eventually, but with everything going on, it just didn't occur that it'd be happening so soon.

"Damian?" I hear behind me. I startle and turn around, Galen's concerned face being the first thing I see. Then I turn my eyes downward to wear Yuki sits curled around him in such a way that his ears are relaxed, and his tail is curled around Galen's waist. He's purring and nuzzling into his face.

I don't give Galen and answer, but I step forward and inhale deeply next to Yuki, who turns around and nuzzles into my cheek. I concentrate on discerning the smells which enter my nose, but one stands out. A ripe smell, somewhat musky, but not in a bad way. My mouth seemingly fills with saliva at the scent and my eyes burst open. I look Galen in the eyes and say into the mental link "he's going into heat". His eyes widen and he looks at Yuki and starts jogging down the hallway, ignoring Yuki's confused hum.

I take this as my cue to go downstairs. I start at a light jog before outright running down the stairs.

"Dad?!" I shout as I peek into rooms I pass. I hear him shout from the foyer and I follow the sound. As I enter the doorway, I ignore everybody standing around and go straight for dad who stands next to Jeremiah and a smirking Maxine.

I don't hesitate. "Yuki's going in heat, Galen and I need to stay in our rooms for a few days." Dad's brow furrows and he opens his mouth to speak.

"This is rather inconvenient timing. Why didn't you realize sooner?" He asks me. I feel a blush rush to my cheeks and ignore Maxine's chuckle as she speaks up.

"I had to tell him; I have a better sense of smell. And even though I said it'd be this week, it's probably closer to tonight or tomorrow, depending on their bond." She finishes with a clap on my back, making me stumble. I'm about to snap at her before I hear Galen's shout from the upstairs hallway.

"Damian! I locked him in our room! It's starting and I'm having trouble restraining myself!" I hear the strain in his voice. I look to Dad, who looks amused. He nods once and I run up the stairs, not hearing the snickering going on in my wake.