Corrigan Magic (Corrigan: Blood Destiny Book 2) by Helen Harper Page A

cooperation in staying silent.  Unfortunately that was easier said than done.  He was taking his vow to not complete any more Brethren related favours very seriously and refused to take any of my calls.  So much for building a healthy alliance then.
    After leaving the lab, I knew by rights that I should get some sleep.  I couldn’t afford to, however.  There was nothing I could do right now as far as the red fever was concerned – I had to wait on other people more skilled than I to find answers.  What that did mean, however, was that I was free to conduct my own research into how on earth Mack had managed to initiate Voice contact.  It was simply too dangerous to delegate it to someone else, even someone like Staines whom I trusted implicitly.
    The library at the Brethren headquarters was normally manned by an elderly were-rat who had long since lost the physical attributes necessary to be an active Brethren member.  His past service was too great to ignore though so Brady, in one of his more benign and thoughtful acts, had given him the job in the library.  Despite his eagerness to see me, and his panicked desire to fulfill my every whim, I gave him the day off.  He wasn’t pleased - but I needed peace and quiet and to be able to pore through the relevant books without having to worry about someone looking over my shoulder.
    The filing system, unfortunately, was archaic.  It wasn’t only the Way Directives and the shifters’ attitudes that needed to be brought up to date.  Still, I managed to located several hefty tomes that looked likely candidates for providing more information on the Voice.  What I found made my heart sink.
    The ability to use the Voice developed naturally as part of the evolutionary process.  It made sense really.  It’s not easy to communicate when you’re an animal.  It might be do-able if every shifter was a werewolf, say.  In that scenario, body language would be easy to suss out.  Not to mention the fact that urine marking could convey a whole host of different meanings which humans could never even begin to fully appreciate.  When there were not only wolves but bears and badgers and foxes and rats and goodness knows what else to deal with, things became much more complicated .  I for one was extraordinarily glad that I didn’t have to live somewhere covered in pee. 
    Equally, it did make a kind of sense that only Alphas were able to initiate the Voice.  It occurred to me belatedly as I read that while the Brethren and other Packs might be subjected to being called on by me at a moment’s notice, at least the Alphas only had to worry about my Voice popping into their skull, whereas regular shifters only had to worry about their immediate Alphas and me.  If every shifter in the land could ‘speak’ to me, I’d have no end of petty grievances bouncing around in my head.  The Brethren were bad enough vocally – after all, last week I had been forced to deal with a nervy were-lion complaining that her latest fighting positions were being stolen by a group of were-hyenas.  Like I cared.  When I attempted to point out that we were a pack and that sharing was what made us stronger, I received a pout in return.  An actual, genuine pout.  It still made me roll my eyes in exasperation thinking about it.  Of course, while all this was interesting, it wasn’t what worried me.
    It was in the third book, a particularly dusty tome that looked like it hadn’t been opened for decades that I found the information I’d been looking for.
     
    In every Pack there is an Alpha.  Every Alpha can use the Voice to both compel and communicate.  Overseeing the Packs is the Brethren, the Lord Alpha of which can use the Voice to control them all.  Only he has that power.  Should another shapeshifter gain this ability simultaneously then there is no doubt that civil war will be the result.  In the fourteenth century, such a tumultuous event occurred and the results were