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The father stretched out his long legs, crossed them at the ankles. “I wasn’t angry you were going to Alaska, and I’m not angry you’re staying. Those are your decisions to make.”
“You said I had responsibilities. That I couldn’t shirk my duties to do what was easier.”
“You doing what’s easier by staying here?”
“Fuck, no. Easier would be hitting the road. Feeling the sun, the wind. Sunrises, sunsets, and everything in between.” He smiled slyly. “And if I was lucky, a chance to... work out some aggression.”
Gabriel smiled. “Coyotes can pack a punch. Might have been easier, but you’d have been bloody for a few miles.”
“I don’t mind a fight.”
“So I’ve seen. And you don’t mind jumping into one, either. Even if the fight isn’t yours.”
“Chicago is our home.”
“And that’s all you’re interested in? The city. Not the girl?”
Silence rang through the room.
Without comment, Gabriel sipped his beer. “Alpha isn’t taking the hard road or the easy road. Alpha is doing the thing that needs to be done. Sometimes that decision will be for you. Sometimes that decision will be for the Pack. And sometimes you have to decide between them.”
He looked over at his son. “Miranda will fight you for the Pack. Her and maybe others. They want the Pack, and they’ll fight for it using whatever weapons they need to use.”
Connor’s body went rigid, protective. His father was no threat, but he’d mentioned the possibility, and that had his instincts working. “They can try. But the Pack’s mine.”
Gabriel’s eyes gleamed. “You’re mine,” he said. “And I’m proud of you. But watch your back. And hers.”
Knowledge swirled in Gabriel’s eyes, magic shifting and shimmering. He knew something. And that put Connor on alert. But he didn’t bother asking which “her” his father meant.
After that kiss, there’d been no doubt for him at all. And his father would have known that, would have felt the truth of it. “Why do I need to watch her back? What’s coming?”
But his father shook his head. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
“If there’s a prophecy, I deserve to know it.”
“Not if it’s not her prophecy.”
Connor’s jaw worked. Anger, flame surrounding a core of icy terror, burned in his eyes when he looked at his father. “If she’s in danger—”
“We’re all in danger,” Gabriel said, then took another drink of beer. “‘Dying since the day we’re born.’”
“Don’t give me song lyrics, and don’t test me. Not about this.”
“I can’t give you information. Just be careful of her. She has enemies.”
Connor sat back again. He could deal with enemies. Enjoyed dealing with them. What was the point of being alpha otherwise?
“Doesn’t matter if the road is hard,” Connor finally said. “The road is the road.” He gave his father a glinting look. “Didn’t you teach me that?”
“I’m shocked to learn you listened, whelp. Your head’s as hard as a damn rock most of the time.”
“Built-in helmet,” Connor said, the same joke he’d been making for fifteen years.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “No funnier today than it was the first forty times.”
“But accurate,” Connor said.
“Decisions will have to be made. Between love and responsibility.”
