Collars

"Hey, Liam. Kaden," Micheal said as he walked into the room where the other two men were. "Mako wants to know when we can go hunt down the hunters and kick some gobshite ass."

Kaden started to grin, doubting that Mako, a werewolf as they were but different because he was a rogue from some pack he had never heard of, who lived across the street, had used the term gobshit, but Liam growled. "Mako can keep his pants on and his mouth shut."

Micheal went to the refrigerator and helped himself to a chilled beer. His movements were restless, angry, a young werewolf impatient to make his place in the world. "They invaded our territory, or as well as. They put our females in danger. I say Mako is right. We fight."

"Since when do you listen stupid ass**les like Mako?" Liam's voice had an edge to it. "We'll get them, lad."

"By sitting around drinking Guinness?" Micheal muttered, taking a swig of his beer, swallowed, and wiped his mouth. "Fine leaders you are."

"I talked to the human cops before I closed up," Liam said. "Kaden is going back downtown tomorrow morning to speak to the detective he talked to last time. Casper, at least, remembered the license plate of the car. Not that it will help much—the last car turned out to be stolen."

Micheal swung a punch in the air. "The police should let us track them. And then take them down." He cited.

"Sure, lad," Liam said. "We'll find the humans and jump on them, and then our collars will go off, and won't we look like fools rolling around, screaming in pain? We'll get them, Micheal, but another way."

Micheal thumped down on a chair. "Why can't we just get these damned collars off of us? Are there any consequences, other than the pain you guys talk about?"

Liam and Kaden exchanged a glance. Last summer, secret experiments by some of the science inclined werewolves in their clan on removing the collars had produced some horrifying results, and Kaden had declared that the experiments were to be terminated.

But Liam knew fully well that Kaden, Casper and Lent, were still working on it, looking for a safer way for removal. They hadn't told Micheal about it, or the rest of the clan, including Avery. It was strictly a need-to-know basis. He also knew that Kaden still blamed himself for that particular shred of misfortune.

But Liam didn't think it was necessary.

When Kaden had been banished six years ago from their true pack for crimes he had no idea how they had been committed, his friendly crew in the pack had chosen to go with him, never believing that their soon to be Alpha friend was a culprit. At first, he had refused them going with him, but Casper, his Beta, was persistent, and at last, Kaden had had no choice but to let them come.

Leaving the location of their birth had thrust them into the wild, but luckily, most of them had been trained in battle, and Kaden was a good leader with outstanding ability. He had been able to guide them enough to live amongst humans, and more, to prosper amongst them, either by fair or foul means. That hadn't sat down well with the ruling rings in the first town they had lived in. It had become worse when one of the ruling rings had discovered their identity as werewolves.

That had been the beginning of the collars.

To achieve equality and fairness as the jealous folks had termed it, they had created collars with little bits of grinded silver designed in a way to keep their wolves at bay. Kaden had rejected it at first, but when some of them had been taken captive by the rings, he had succumbed to the plan. So, they couldn't shift nor could they remove the collars. The pain that accentuated from that numbed them for a while.

Liam hoped that Kaden would have a breakthrough for them all soon. He was tired of wearing collars, especially now, for some reason, the hunting society was upon them. He was beginning to think that those ruling rings had sold them out for some money because of the expansion of their clan even though their wolf side had been subdued.

Assholes! He cussed in his mind, getting his mind back to the conversation going on between his younger brother and Kaden.

Micheal shrugged, obviously not happy with the reception he was receiving, a picture of a youth being frustrated. "Sometimes it looks to me like you're not doing anything."

"That's when I'm most dangerous, lad," Kaden said. "Anyway, what were you doing rushing off with Mako? You were supposed to stay here and guard Kim."

"I was only across the street. I could see the house the whole time." Micheal wiggled on his chair, too energetic to keep still. "It's not fair, is it? Those humans snap collars on us and make us work shit jobs—they make it so we can't fight back, and then they try to shoot us. We were just lucky no one got killed."

Kaden only nodded, but Liam was pulled to his brother's distress. Sometimes Kaden's stoic "don't worry, I have it" attitude wasn't exactly reassuring.

Liam moved behind Micheal and dropped his arm around his brother's shoulder.

"We have the luck of the Goddess on our side," he told him. "And the Irish."

"Yeah, we are surely lucky," Micheal growled, but Liam felt the lad's body relax under his touch. He rubbed the latter's arms, and kissed his hair.

Take care of Micheal for me.

Their father had whispered the night he'd been killed, his broken body in Liam's arms. Promise me, Liam.

Liam had promised to protect his brother with his life as he'd held his father close and come apart with grief. His old man had died before Kaden and the others could arrive, and Liam had rocked the body and wept. That had been the hardest night of his life.