I looked out on the yard in front of the Pride House as a large black SUV turned and headed down the recently upgraded road towards the gate and sighed. The last three months had been challenging as we'd raced to complete the complete overhaul of the interior of the massive Pride House before the first snows arrived. Now with Zane and his family heading to Wild Valley there were only two wolves left here among the Pride, my eldest daughter Katherine and Sergi's mate Jasmine.

The move had been a colossal headache and the stress had nearly driven myself and Anna half insane as we struggled to keep the whole move out of human attention. The most difficult part had been moving the two tanks and it had been before the road had been upgraded. In the end, we'd had to use the Grizzly and the BMP-1 to try and tow the lame duck of an IS-2M up the road as it's engine made a lot more smoke than it did power.

In fact, the BMP and the Grizzly had been forced to make so many trips up and down the road that they were both out of service now due to excessive engine and transmission wear. Getting parts for the BMP was relatively easy since it wasn't that old of a vehicle and its parts were still plentiful. On the other hand the Grizzly was a different proposition due to the fact that it, along with the IS-2M were, over eighty years old.

However, once the entire Pride had been moved to the newly renamed Silver Peak Pride House we upgraded the road to the point that it was actually navigable by our buses and SUVs. The reason for the upgrades had been the almost constant truckloads of materials and debris that had to come into and out of the Pride House while it was under renovation.

When was all said, and done we'd managed to burn through almost half of the money that I'd siphoned from Vladimir's old accounts into ones owned by the Pride, which was a considerable amount. However, the changes had been massive and now the place had some of the highest environmental, efficiency, and safety standards of any Pride or Pack in the country.

The day before Zane left I'd invited him to a meeting of the Pride Council with Simone where we gave thanks to him for all that he'd done for the Pride in the past three months.

"Zane ever since I first met you two years ago, you've been a good friend, though at times I've wanted to tear my hair out at how reticent you were, but now I'm proud to present you with a small token of our Pride's appreciation for your sacrifices on our behalf." I said turning to gently pull the heavy gold and silver necklace from the bent-wood box in front of me before placing it around his neck and fastening the clasp. "From this day forwards, you are a friend of Silver Peak and you have all of the rights and protections as any member of our Pride, wear this necklace with pride Second Zane Donovan." I said as my mate, Anna, did the same thing for Simone as she'd also given us much in the past three months.

The expression on Zane's face was a bit rueful and even perhaps embarrassed as he was already wearing a necklace from the Nam Cho Pride, a second one from his rank as Second at Wild Valley, a rather worn one that marked him as the Alpha of Ice Lake, and now he was getting a fourth that showed off that he was a Pride Friend of Silver Peak Pride. "Thanks for the honour Mark, if I get anymore I am going to feel like one of those rap stars with the dozen necklaces and chains." He flashed me a bit of a grin since it was obvious that the necklaces he was wearing were worth a small fortune.

I had to laugh at his comment before I replied, "Zane, you keep making friends of Prides and Packs and you expect anything less? You helped save my people from death, almost at the cost of your own life." I placed a hand on his shoulder as my voice had cracked slightly as I felt Tanya's arms hugging my leg. "I know of no other way we here can honour the sacrifices that you've made for our sake. You've truly earned this honour Zane."

Zane gave a slight grunt and I could see that he was trying to dismiss the honour. "I did my job Mark, the one Adam sent me to do, though it did take a bit longer than either of us had expected and I picked up a damned wolf-pack for my troubles. Nothing more, and nothing less." He picked at the necklace on his neck, "Silly to get a necklace just for doing what I've been trained and ordered to do." He grouched quietly since the honour hadn't been just bestowed on him by Anna and myself, but rather by the entire council.

I squeezed his shoulder slightly. "Face it Zane, you've earned it this time." I told him quietly before I stepped back, "Guess you guys are looking forwards to going home?" I finished, "After all as nice as the quarters that we provided for you and any other wolf from Wild Valley are, they still aren't home, are they?"

Zane nodded and grumbled softly, "Yes even having two of my Juniors sent over along with my pups and their mother, I am so ready to get back. I need to get back and see what horrible changes Melody has made while I've been gone."

At that comment his Junior, Tessa in this case, growled at him. Though, I could see both the comment about Melody, and the growl in response, were both in fun since he did trust his Assistant completely. He had to trust her now more than ever now because of his increase in responsibilities.

"It is time to get back." He finally said, "I talked with Melody this morning and your son, Shawn, is doing well. From what she's said he's seemed to be a lot happier than when he first arrived three months ago. I know you talk to him on a weekly basis, but I figured he might not tell you everything, kids you know right? Some of the wolves still aren't quite sure about having him, a tiger, in the pack, but nobody, as far as Melody or I know, is giving him any crap." He gave a rough laugh, "I think that Brook has had a quiet talk with some of those who have objected more loudly than others."

At that I had to laugh, since after spending two years at Wild Valley I was well aware of how effective Brook was at maintaining discipline at that Pack. "We'll have your vehicle ready in the morning, I hope you don't mind joining us tonight for one more Moonlight Roar?" I asked him, and by extension those of his team that were currently staying with us.

Simone, who had just finished hugging Anna, snorted softly at me, "Only silly cats roar, we howl, and if you say it is why we are mad I will bite your tail."

They ended up howling at the moon as we roared out our power and strength as a Pride to all in the valley.

Anna looked across at me as the vehicle headed for the access road and I nodded. There was one person who hadn't been looking forwards to this day, Jasmine. She had told me, privately that she was going to miss her packmates since they offered her some grounding in the Pack. However, without them her Pack Bond was strained but she knew that she couldn't leave since Sergi was in not fit condition to leave his home now.

With our renovation of the Pride House we'd maintained the same general configuration as it had been before. In the Plaza, where there had been an oversized carved wooden statue of Vladimir Berekov, concealing a huge steel beam that ran from the floor to the very peak of the skylight, now there was an almost equally huge trunk of polished cedar that did the same job and looked much more elegant. The floor around the Plaza was of granite with brass insets of five pointed stars. On consideration and consultation with Pride Council we'd replaced the centerpiece of each star, which previously had been a red hammer and sickle of the Communist Soviet Union, with the image of the head of a tiger in mid roar enameled in white and black. Indeed, that symbology was scattered all over the Pride House and it was easier to modify it rather than completely excise it. Our new Pride Sigil was that of a white mountain on a blue background with the star in the middle and in the middle of that the roaring tiger's head.

The south wing contained the gym and above that the massive rookery, which was by far, way too large for the number of Ravens that we had, but from what Caspian told me, they loved it since it gave them all the space they could ever desire. The north wing had the dining hall, and kitchens on the main floor with workshops on the second and fourth floors while the crèche and teaching rooms were on the third floor. The west wing was almost completely residential with the Pride Library, computer lab, and rec rooms on the main floor while the rest of it was residential. The amount of space that we had was rather overkill since we could house almost five hundred cats in the house while our Pride only had two hundred and seventeen members. In the process of renovation, we'd actually reduced the overall capacity of the Pride House from almost seven hundred to it's current capacity by making the residential spaces larger and more comfortable for almost all of our Pride Members. The East wing was the smallest since a large chunk of it was devoted to the foyer, which was 10m tall and at the plaza was two stories tall while only being one story tall at the front door. The rest of the space in the wing was devoted to both guest suites as well as Pride Admin.

Below the main floors of the pride house were the sub-levels where we'd place the core of our network assets, and I was once more able to make calls to our allied Packs and Prides on a secure line. One of the first things we'd done when we'd arrived was to immediately ratify the Inter Pack/Pride Treaty that Adam had proposed only a few weeks earlier. However, as of yet we'd been unable to officially sign the final documents that made us part of the treaty, though we'd already leaned on the treaty heavily to ensure our survival.

Security's main office was in the first sub-level and it was one of the most modern elements of the Pride House. In the center of the main briefing room we'd placed one of the super-expensive holo-tables that had been given to us as a gift from Wild Valley Pack when they upgraded their set-up. It was a little used, but I was well aware that even a used one could set any group that bought one back by at least seven figures.

Along the walls of the main foyer Anna and I were still considering something like what we'd seen at Wild Valley, to show the unity of the Pride and the pride we took in what we were.

Probably the most controversial thing that Anna and I had done was to disband the ancient house system and replace it with a more modern and equitable system. Each rank of our Pride would elect four of their own number to represent their interests on the Pride Council. It allowed even the Juniors to have a voice on the Council, though their representatives were often quiet and didn't much like speaking up to air their opinions unless they were asked directly. They felt that it really wasn't their place to question the desires of those who were above them in the dominance structure.

Sergey was still adapting, himself, to the role that he'd been thrust into as one of the Juniors on the Council and I saw that in his eyes the first time he sat down in his new seat while his mate walked around the table setting out coffee, tea, and various edibles to the members of the Council, including her mate.

"Mark?" Anna asked, brining me back to the present, "As much as that irascible wolf drives me crazy I think we are going to miss him."

I gave a soft chuckle and turned from the window and walked over to my chair, "I do admit he does make me want to pull my hair out from time to time Anna. But, even you have to admit that he's got some serious talent and at some point, when he's ready, he will make an excellent Alpha."

Anna laughed easily as she took her seat and rolled her eyes looking at her computer. While she was used to the machine she wasn't as adept with it as I was, and for the most part, she left the computer stuff with me to deal with. "I know love, but we both knew that he was wanting to get back to Wild Valley, if only for a little while. Though I am sure that Adam and Brook will soon remind him why he delayed returning for so long."

I had to nod at that statement since I was well aware of how grouchy Adam was at the move that Zane had taken in regards to Ice Lake. I'd also gotten some flak over Alex's move to Ice Lake from not only Jerome and Paul down at Westbank Pack, but also, more worryingly from my cousin, his mother. She'd given me more than an earful on what she thought of her son's move up to Ice Lake, though when I told her that his mate was there and that he was learning fast, her tone had become less accusatory and more conciliatory. "Yes, that is probably why he needs to go back, the balance of his team is there at Wild Valley, and when the time comes he will leave that Alpha necklace, and the responsibilities that go with it, in Alex's hands."

Anna nodded, "Now let's see... I have a report here from the kitchen staff reporting that one of the new stoves is acting up again." She began, getting back to the day to day grind of running the Pride. In the previous three months, I'd spent more time wearing a hard hat than I'd ever though possible as we worked our way through the Pride House. Most would think that as a Pride Lord I would deign to get my hands dirty actually getting into the guts of the renovations, but they would be wrong. With the Previous Pride House when we demolished and started from scratch I'd been in there up to my elbows in the work, not only inspecting but also lending a hand, and often times a shoulder, to the jobs that needed to be done. My willingness to get my hands dirty and work beside the wolves and the cats who were involved in the renovations had proven to be something of an inspiration to my Pride Mates as we worked through the house.

"Daddy?" A small voice from the door of the office once more brought me back to the present, "Can I come in?" It was Tanya, the cub that I'd adopted after we secured this place from Vladimir and his cronies.

I had to smile at her as she stood in the doorway with the hem of her dress in her hands fidgeting nervously. This action also brought to light one of the things that she was still struggling with currently. The abuses that she'd endured had caused deep psychological wounds that even now I couldn't really come to full grips with. The result being that she'd yet to fully give up on any kind of undergarments that didn't offer some form of protection from accidents, which were sadly quite common with her. "Of course, kitten," I said softly with a smile as she came from the door, around the heavy solid wood furniture and into my arms.

She snuggled into my arms happily as I pulled her into my lap. "Thank you, daddy." She said softly as she relaxed against my chest and inhaled the soothing, for her, scent of her new adoptive father.

I smiled down at her and looked across to Anna and noticed her look of sympathy. Even after three months we simply couldn't get Tanya to be comfortable around Anna. Obviously Yasmira, who Sergey had once called a harridan shortly before I adopted him, had done terrible things to those cubs who'd found themselves in her tender care. I worked to calm myself down since I sometimes wished that I could have made that... that... witch's fate worse than it had actually been. Somehow, I felt that a quick, clean death, like what she'd been granted was far better than she deserved. In some ways, she deserved a worst fate than those three wolves that had raped and killed Tatianna's ten-year-old daughter Katarina. Instead her, her foul mate, and all their sick and diseased followers, including her son and his retinue of two, had been interred in a special tomb that we'd constructed for them near the peak of one of the nearby mountains. Inside the main crypt, we'd sealed them inside special steel caskets in niches in the walls. Inside of those caskets they were further sealed inside of rubber body bags packed with Natron, a sort of desiccant salt that would ensure that they'd quickly become mummified. If everything worked out as we'd hoped they'd remain in that tomb for the next few million years, never to infect our world with their foul presence, something for which I was profoundly glad of. I comforted myself by gently hugging Tanya tightly and placing my nose in her hair and sniffing softly to inhale her soft scent.

"Mark, you have to admit that every time I see you with a cub in your arms you are at your most content." Anna said, trying to act the part of a sage, though in truth I was the older of us.

"Anna," I began, while still hugging and taking some comfort in Tanya's relaxed state in my arms, "I will never to seek to tell you otherwise. After all the health of the Pride is reflected in the health of our youngest members." I told her, "Besides if I hadn't gotten the job of being a Pride Lord I think I'd have wanted to work with cubs, especially ones like Tanya and those that suffered along with her."

Anna stood and walked over, and without touching Tanya she leaned over and softly kissed my forehead. "Mark, that's part of what makes you so good at your job. You care for all of those in our Pride, from the youngest to the oldest they can all see it." She kissed me again when I tilted my head up to look into her blue eyes, "One thing I can say my wonderful Pride Lord, is that when the time comes and we have our own cubs, you will make a superb father and I can't wait to see how our own cubs will turn out when they are born."

I smiled at that thought as Tanya snuggled down and gave a sleepy yawn before she closed her eyes and sighed softly. Though Anna and I almost always ended up sleeping in a bed other than our own every night one thing that I always insisted on was the presence of Tanya, since she didn't sleep well without me holding her softly. In fact, that was one reason that she napped as often as she did during the day, since, oftentimes, her sleep was fractured by nightmares and terrors of the worst sort, which made her use of pull-ups even more necessary that they normally would be.

If anything, the depredations of those horrors had been far worse than even I could imagine, after getting a full grip on the numbers I'd had to spend some time comforting my own cat, who couldn't believe that his older brother had caused so much death. The final number was that had died, or been killed under his rule was forty-seven, in eleven years. In that time, as the Assistant Guardian at Blackwater, I'd never read of a Pride, or Pack, that had ever lost so many in such a short period of time without being at war. The numbers caused my cat to roar in anger and grief at the horrible losses that those mad-cats had inflicted on their fellows.

Even now the pain of all of those losses still echoed in the Pride Bonds as our Pride was trying to come to grips with all of those who'd died before their time. The worst day had been about a week after we took this place, when we held our memorial for those who'd died or been killed. The mewling cries of the kittens who'd lost their parents, and in a few cases even siblings, had been heartbreaking and I'd ended up roaring out my own pain and agony at the ones who'd been so cruelly taken from us until my throat felt raw and abused, even my hyoid bone had ached when, as a Pride, we'd curled up together on the floor of the gym to try and come to terms with our grief.

I had just closed my eyes, I was tired, I'd not really slept well the night before. The cat that I'd ended up curling up with had been one of those who was terrified of those in power due to Vladimir's abuses, and having his