Claiming Treasure
Assessment

Heather Rhodes’ POV

Cascade Pack Dining Hall

Every table in the dining hall was full. I only knew a few of them, but we all watched the big screen and barely breathed as we waited for the verdict. “Alpha Blackledge, what says the jury?”

I was holding Mongo and Three Tequila’s hands as they sat on either side of me. Rori and Chase were my friends, they’d taken me out of Orlando and hid me for months, and now they might be imprisoned and removed as Alphas. My hands were squeezing so tightly I couldn’t feel them.

“The jury sentences Alphas Rori King and Chase Nygaard to time served, and admonishes them to focus on changing laws they replace unjust rather than breaking them.”

The hall erupted in cheers, with people standing up and hugging each other. I sagged in relief, finally letting out the breath I’d been holding. Mongo was a little more excited; standing up so quickly he knocked his chair over, he yelled “FUCK YEAH” before grabbing Three Tequila and spinning her around. I couldn’t hear the rest of the feed from Minnesota, but I could see Chase and Rori accepting the congratulations from the people around them. I realized I was crying and used the back of my hand to wipe the tears away.

“Heather?” Three Tequila was looking down at me as I blubbered away. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Hormones are all over the place, I guess.” Now that it was over, I was finally able to eat. Everyone was in a good mood, and one of the ladies serving brought her a hot serving of pancakes and sausage. I was finally getting past the morning sickness stage of my pregnancy, and my appetite had expanded along with my belly. “How much longer are you two staying,” I asked my aunt and uncle.

“I don’t know for sure. We need to make sure you’re safe and cared for before we head back home. I think we need to talk to Carson first.”

“He won’t let anything happen to me, Mongo. He’ll make sure the babies are safe.”

“We need to keep you safe as well, Heather. There’s got to be a way around this one-year thing.” I didn’t want to think about the time limit on my existence, so I went back to eating my pancakes.

The room quieted suddenly, and I looked up to see Beta Carl and his mate Angelina standing with their hands raised. “Our Alpha has informed us that he will be arriving at approximately eight this evening. The Cascade Pack is going to welcome him back with a feast in honor of our Alpha, and our guests. Beta Madeline will organize the meal, Beta Angelina will organize the party, and I will lead the hunt. Our patrols located a herd of deer in the ravine to the west, and we will need five or more. Clean up and prepare, Cascade Pack!”

An answering cheer of “To HUNT!” rang out before the group started breaking up. As the room cleared out, a man approached our table and waited until I noticed him. He was middle-aged, with silver flecks in his otherwise black hair. Like most of the people here, he was in great shape and good looking; heavily muscled, he wasn’t intimidated by Mongo’s size. “Hello, Miss Rhodes. My name is Nathan Bannister, and this is my mate, Patricia.” His mate was his match, tall and muscular. Her blonde hair and ice-blue eyes were always moving, taking in her surroundings. “May we join you?”

“Of course,” I said. One of the serving ladies came by and took my plates as they sat. “Please, call me Heather,” I said as I leaned forward with a hand. Nathan grasped it gently, bringing it to his nose and sniffing it for a second before he passed it to Patricia, who did the same. “Thank you.” I introduced my aunt and uncle to them before settling back in my chair. “Aren’t you going on the hunt?”

“That is not our job,” Nathan replied. “We are the Head Warriors of the Pack.”

“You look like fighters,” Mongo said. “What exactly does that mean? Arrowhead doesn’t have that position.”

“I am in charge of Pack security, so it is my job to keep the borders secure and protect everyone in the Pack. Now that Heather is here, that includes her.”

“And as the Head Warrior’s mate, I am the primary bodyguard for the Luna,” Patricia said. “That means Heather’s safety is my job. We overheard your concerns about her safety and thought it might be helpful to show you all why she will be safe at Cascade Pack.”

“I’m not the Luna,” I said with a wave of my hand.

Patricia just smiled at that. “Our Alpha claimed you as his mate, and with that, you became our Luna. It does not matter to our Pack or us that you are human or haven’t mated with him yet. Pregnant werewolves cannot shift, so my position is common among normal Packs.”

Three Tequila got a little upset at that. “You mean Arrowhead isn’t normal?”

“No, it’s not,” Patricia said. “Rori is the dominant Alpha, so they do not have the typical dominant Alpha/supporting Luna dynamic of other Packs. Chase is more of a co-Alpha, and since he can’t get pregnant, they don’t need the Head Warrior’s mate to perform those duties. Beta Vic is in charge of Pack security, making him my mate’s counterpart.”

“I understand then,” Three Tequila said. “Forgive us, our knowledge of the Packs is not that high. In most of our visits, Rori ordered everyone to stay human to protect the secret.”

“Well, come on then, and we’ll give you the tour. I think you’ll feel better about your niece’s safety when we complete the tour.”

We all got up, and he led us out into the center section of the Pack House. “Our Pack House is designed to prevent intruders from getting easy access, at the same time giving our people time to get to the Safe Rooms. You noticed that the entire ground floor on the outside looks like stacked river rock. That is a stone veneer over an insulated wall of fourteen inches of reinforced concrete. It will withstand small artillery fire, much less small arms. The sixteen-foot height of the wall is more than a wolf can leap in either form. The doors are laminated steel and Kevlar, covered with wooden trim.”

“That’s quite the wide set of doors you have there. Aren’t you concerned someone could bust through, maybe drive a vehicle up the stairs and in?” Mongo was testing the doors, which moved smoothly despite their weight. They were a good six inches thick, opening outwards into the covered entryway instead of inwards like a typical entry door.

“The outswing design makes it difficult to ram, and look closer at the painting above the door.”

I moved underneath it; the painting was beautiful, a pack of wolves running through the snow after a bull elk. It took a second to pick out the tracks along each side of the wall and the thickness of the painting. “That’s a plate,” I said as I saw how the wood frame melded into steel painted to match.

“Yes. Four inches of plate steel with steel guides and explosive bolts, controlled from the security center. The door also has motorized closure and electronic deadbolts. We can seal the entry in under two seconds, and after ten, you’re not getting through at all. We use the same construction on a smaller scale for the three emergency exits from the ground floor.”

“Impressive,” Mongo said.

“We adopted compartments like a ship in the design of the building,” he said as we moved into a corridor. “All controlled remotely,” he said as we looked at the door he indicated. It looked like a pocket door. “Stand clear while I demonstrate.” Pressing the panic button on the wall caused a red light came on along with a warning horn. The door pushed across in the next five seconds, completely sealing the hallway from the main entryway. He reopened it after we tested it. “The door is inset into the foundation concrete, and there are no handles or other ways to open it unless you do it from the Security Center. Once a section is isolated, we can flood it with carbon dioxide, putting out the fire or any attackers not wearing SCUBA tanks.”

I was feeling better already. Nathan continued the tour, showing us how their security system and the design made it difficult for attackers to get around. We went into the basement, where he showed us the expansive Safe Room. “The whole building is built around this, with two feet of reinforced concrete and steel. It’s insulated, fireproof, and has independent power, heating, cooling, and plumbing systems. The entire Pack could survive in here for two weeks, and it will remain habitable even if the whole House and the forest burns around us.”

I walked around, looking at the triple-high bunks along the walls and the storage. It even had a medical facility.

Near the entrance on one side was the Security Center. He opened the door, and the woman at the desk waved to us. “This is the nerve center. Pack defense is controlled from this room, along with the alarms and surveillance.” I could see five screens showing inside and outside. “No one gets close without us knowing about it.”

“This place is a fortress,” I said.

“A castle is only good if you are within its walls,” he said. “Come on.” We continued to another part of the basement, where doors opened into a gym. It was big, with boxing rings, wrestling mats, weight training gear, and exercise machines. “I saw the video of the fight at Arrowhead, and I know you have some training. If you feel up to it, I’d like to evaluate your skills.”

“To what end?”

“Everyone here trains to fight. I need to know what you can and can’t do, so I know what training I need to give you,” Patricia said.

“I don’t have any clothes, and I have two broken ribs,” I objected.

“This is an assessment, not a fight, and we won’t be doing things at speed. As for clothing, we normally don’t work out with clothes on. Werewolves don’t have human hang-ups on nudity, and we may shift between forms.” My eyes got wide, and I started to say something. “But, I had some brought down for us. They are in the women’s locker room.” Letting my breath out, I followed her into the room. In addition to lockers, bathrooms, and shower, it had a sauna and a cold tub. She helped me put on my sports bra and biker shorts, then wrapped some extra padding over my injured ribs.

I moved around; it wouldn’t affect my movement. “Let’s go,” I said.

When we got out to the padded floor of the sparring area, Nathan was waiting with a video camera. “I’m going to record the session so I can break it down later.”

“We’ll start with what you know about breaking holds and go from there, at half speed,” Patricia said. We spent about fifteen minutes as she tested me on how to break her holds from the front side, rear, and ground. Patricia even did some with me sitting in a chair, and more going against a person with a knife or pistol. I appreciated my Krav Maga, but it didn’t always work against her. When that was over, she tested me on kicks. I could use my lower body, even though punching and grappling is out of the question with my ribs.

Patricia was a beast in more ways than one. Every kick or move I tried on her, she avoided or blocked, and I was getting frustrated. I overextended on a spinning kick and stumbled; she caught me before I hit the ground. She set me on my butt and stood over me. “You did better than I expected,” Patricia said with a smile. “You’re fast and balanced.”

“Until this thing gets too big,” I said as I pointed to my belly.

Mongo helped me up, and I downed a water bottle as we all walked to the far side and through a door. “What’s this,” I said as I walked into a room covered in cork, with foam torsos on stands at the far side.

“Knife range,” Patricia said. She opened a cabinet in the back, showing me dozens and dozens of sharp weapons to choose from. Walking up, I tested the throwing knives available until I found a set that felt right. Nathan filmed as Patricia had me throw at targets at different ranges, including sitting and on the ground, against stationary and moving targets. “You’re good with these,” she said when I finished. “We’ll get you a few sets of silver-coated blades, and some extra sheathes you can wear; I don’t want you going anywhere without at least two on your body from now on.” Opening a drawer, she picked out a calf rig with three knives and handed it to me. I put it on, withdrawing one partway; I could see it was silver. “You’ll be fine with that, but a wolf will burn if they touch it,” she warned me.

“Knives are fun. I practiced a lot with them because I could still use them when pregnant; I wasn’t allowed to shoot firearms other than pellet guns.”

“You’ll love this,” she said as she walked me into the next room. “Welcome to our FATS room.”

It didn’t look like much; it was about twenty feet square with floor-to-ceiling projection screens on one side. The one in the middle was flat to the wall, while the two on either side were at a forty-five-degree angle towards me. “FATS?”

“Firearms Training System,” she said as she handed me a Glock.

The weight and grip felt right, but the pistol was bright blue instead of black. When I dropped the magazine to check the chamber clear, I saw it was also blue and had a CO2 cartridge inside. Looking closer, I could see the action was not a full slide; just the back could cycle. At the muzzle of the pistol, there was no barrel there, just a glass dot. “What is this?”

“Laser firearms trainer. The CO2 cycles the action and simulates the cycling of a pistol for the trigger mechanism. It feels and shoots just like a real pistol, without any lead or loud noises that would not be good for the baby. You can shoot thousands of rounds down here, far cheaper than we could fire a real pistol.”

“Can I try?”

“Of course,” Nathan said with a smile. “We’ll see how you do with plates. Knock them over as fast as you can; scoring is for time with penalties for missed shots.”

“Oh hell, I want to try too,” Mongo said.

“And me,” added Three Tequila.

“Fine, we’ll all get a chance. Werewolves are very competitive,” Patricia said. Nathan set up the computer with our names, then Patricia went first to demonstrate. The three screens lit up with an outdoor scene and a dozen plates at different distances, spaced out on the three screens that covered the room from side to side. At the end of the count, I watched as she rapid-fired twelve times, breaking each plate. Three-point-seven-eight seconds. Jesus Christ, she was a badass.

“How the hell can I compete with that,” I said when she handed me the pistol.

“Focus on being smooth and hitting your targets, speed will come later,” she said. “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”

“You teach that to the SEALs?” I moved to the center and took the spot, pistol at low ready. When it buzzed in, I went from left to right, firing and moving to the next target without waiting to see if I hit. I hit eleven of the twelve, losing a second plus penalty as I had to go back. Six-point-five-two seconds.

“Nice,” Mongo said.

“Give it a shot, old man,” I said as I handed it to him. He didn’t shoot as fast, but he had a clean run, seven-point-zero-four.

“Ooh, I have GOT to get me one of THESE,” he said. “This setup would be great for the clubhouse. How much did this system cost?”

“About a hundred grand,” Nathan said. “The pistol alone is five.”

“Damn,” he said. “Maybe not yet.”

Three Tequila shot last and did a respectable job with two misses in eight-point-two-two seconds. Disappointed, she handed it back. “I need to practice more,” she said.

“Let’s try some other drills,” Nathan said. He had me try different shooting drills, testing speed, accuracy, and reaction time. I was having a blast and felt like my toys had been taken away when the system turned off, and the lights came up. “Your skill level is adequate for self-defense, but we’ll work to make it better,” he said. “We will provide you with a pistol with silver-core ammunition and a holster. I expect you to be armed anytime you are outside the Pack House,” he said.

“I have to worry?”

“I worry,” Patricia said. “You being armed means you have a chance to hold out until I can summon more help. As you saw at Arrowhead, a Glock evens the odds against a werewolf. If you had silver ammunition, you would have killed her.”

I shook my head. “I was scared, but I didn’t want her dead,” I said.

“This is a different world. Yes, you have asylum, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who want you dead. You have a lot of natural ability and some training, and we’ll work with that to make you a real force.”

Mongo sat back, nodding his head. “I feel a lot better than I did a few hours ago, Heather.”

“I do too.”

“You have some time to rest and clean up before the party starts,” Nathan said. “We’ll show you the Pack lands another time.” With that, we returned to our rooms.

Carson was going to be back in a few hours, and I needed to talk to him about what he said at his trial.