I lifted him from the bassinet with both hands. He was heavier. More substance. More warmth. More certainty in the way he settled against my chest, as if this was where he'd been expecting to end up all along.
He smelled like milk, clean cotton, and Maeve.
"Hello, son," I murmured.
Mac caught my tie in one damp fist and pulled it until it was in his mouth.
I looked down at it. The silk was probably ruined. My son was used it as a teething aid. London had spent two days trying to take pieces from me and none of them had managed what this baby accomplished in one uncoordinated grab.
I lowered my forehead until it rested gently against his. His skin was impossibly soft.
"I am back," I told him. "You protected your mother well."
Behind me, Maeve made a small sound that she tried to disguise as clearing her throat.
"Careful," she said. "At this rate he's going to expect a salary. And benefits. Possibly a private pension and a place at Eton."
"He may have whatever he wants."
"We talked about this. Dangerous parenting."
I looked at her over Mac's head. "Did we have that conversation?"
"No, but I intended to. In a very stern tone. There were going to be bullet points."
"I look forward to the bullet points."
She crossed the room and slid one arm around my waist and the other around Mac, folding herself against us until all our scents tangled together with the clean, warm note of our son. I buried my face in her hair and let London fall away.
"I’m glad you're back," she murmured against my mouth.
I held her tighter. "Me too."
She kissed me. Not the careful kiss of a woman who was still learning to trust but with a kiss of a woman who had claimed her pack and her name and the life she'd built from the wreckage of the old one.
Fergus snored from the sofa, entirely unimpressed by the emotional reunion.
Mac tugged my tie again.
The ficus in London was probably still dying. The council was probably still arguing about the omega collateral ban in the corridors. There were supply routes to manage, enemies to monitor, an empire to run.
None of it mattered as much as this.
31
Ivan
Two weeks later, theSurrey estate was significantly louder.
Mary McCarthy arrived with four suitcases, two Boston University sweatshirts, an alarming number of American slang words I had to Google, and the firm belief that jet lag could be defeated through sheer force of will. She'd been wrong about that. I knew because I'd found her asleep on the east wing sofa at four in the afternoon with her laptop open to a course registration page and a half-eaten bag of crisps balanced on her chest, but I admired the commitment.
"Maeve used to do that," I told her when she woke up, disoriented and annoyed about it. "Fall asleep in strange places. Usually with a book. Once in the bathtub."
"The bathtub?"
"Artem nearly had a cardiac event. He thought she'd drowned."
"What did you do?"
