Sirens (Theo Raeken) [1]

Vinceret

"Arden?" he asks, stunned. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same to you," I say. "You're a werewolf?"

"You know about werewolves?"

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" I retort.

He rolls his eyes. "Well, forgive me for thinking you were here for a friendly high school reunion," he says. He holds the door open wider and gestures. "Come in."

I reluctantly walk in and take a seat on the office chair shoved under his desk. "What the hell are you doing in a college in Portland, Lahey?"

"You know how I went to France, yeah?" he asks. I nod. "Well, I started to miss the US. Like, I didn't really know what to do with myself over in France. So I came here and started college a year earlier."

"But — well, no offence — how did you get into college without, you know, finishing school?"

He shrugs. "Allison's dad knew someone here."

"Oh," I say awkwardly.

"Why are you here, Arden?" he says abruptly.

I chew on my lip. "I heard you knew about Ian Caraway's pack — my father's pack. I want to know about them."

"Ian, as in your father? The dead pack leader? Man, this is too many degrees of separation for me to distinguish between at the moment."

I let out a dry chuckle. "Yeah, I know," I say. "It's something about my mom killing my dad and now his new pack leader is pissed. You know how alphas are. Totally arrogant and sadistic." Like Theo.

He sits down at the foot of his bed. "Forgive me," he says, "but why aren't they going after your mom?"

I bite down hard on my bottom lip. "They did," I say. "She's dead."

He widens his blue eyes eyes. "Oh, my god," he breathes. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

I nod awkwardly, clasping my hands together. Don't cry, Arden, I tell myself. "That's why I'm here," I point out. "I need information on the pack my father was the alpha of before he died."

"The Vinceret Pack," he says. "It's a Latin name. The pack that conquers."

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. "What a friendly name," I mutter dryly.

"Right?" he says with a slight laugh. "Anyway, as you said, Ian Caraway used to be the alpha." He pauses, deep in thought.

"And? What about the alpha now?"

"I-I don't know," he says. "Nobody outside the pack knows."

I swear under my breath, dragging out the consonants angrily. "Shit." I sigh angrily. "Nobody?" I demand. "Nobody at all?"

"Calm down," he says. "It's not my fault they have security like a Columbian drug cartel."

"Then I need to find someone in the pack," I say suddenly.

He widens his eyes. "Actually, there's a woman that works in a bar on the way to Beacon Hills from here. She left the pack."

"Yes!" I exclaim. "That's perfect."

He tears a note off of a pad and scribbles down an address and name. Veronica Mangano. I shove the note in my pocket. "Anything else you want to know?" Isaac asks.

"What about the actual pack? What are they like?"

He huffs out a breath. "Warriors. They're all like warriors. Eighty of them, approximately."