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Abbott had focused on his clothing as a way of setting the scene, but as Zander, he didn’t worry quite so much about doing so.
Gavin considered the audience and decided the wolves didn’t merit enough of his time to worry about how he was dressed. He let Lauren go and motioned towards the staircase. “I’ll work with Queenie to arrange one of the seating areas in here appropriately for a parley.”
“No. I don’t want to invite them into our home. The conference room area one floor down should suffice. We’ll handle it in the business offices. Someone threw me off the roof of my motherfucking home, and we are going to bewaymore careful about who is invited into our personal space in the future.”
Gavin looked to Nick, who was watching Lauren with concern.
Nick usually had a better idea of when to handle Lauren with kid gloves, and Gavin wasn’t getting those vibes from the other man, but common sense told him their girl wasn’t exactly herself. Still, she needed to hear the truth of the matter, so he told her, “We’re a political family, Lauren. We can’t restrict entry up here to only the people we completely trust.”
“Then we need to reconsider our blueprint,” Lauren told him. “I understand Randall invited people onto his outside porch for this kind of thing, and only friends and Pack were invited into his home. Cora has gone a step farther, and people who aren’t considered friends only make it to the old farmhouse, and never as far as our actual home.”
“Vampires generally have multiple homes,” Gavin said, considering what Lauren was wanting. “I have two coterie homes away from the strip for my flock and people, and we’ve turned this intoourpersonal space. It isn’t convenient for us to drive out to one of the other homes every time we want to entertain political allies who aren’t exactly friends, but I understand what you’re asking.”
“It might be as simple as delineating floors,” Nick said. “This floor as a more public one, and only friends make it upstairs?”
“Or to the roof,” Lauren said. “Ilovedit up there, and now I don’t want to go back.” She sighed. “Damn, that sounded petulant. I’ll get over it. Meanwhile, is it wrong of me to want to meet the wolves in your business conference room? We aren’t obligated to invite them into our home, right? It isn’t like they’re the fucking mayor.”
“It isn’t, and we’ll look at extending the business offices to make some of them a little homier, so we can entertain political allies down there, rather than bringing them into the sacred space of our home.”
Lauren levitated up, gave him a quick kiss, went back to her feet, and bounded up the stairs.
“Who’s still here?” Nick asked Gavin.
“Kirsten and Nathan. Mordecai went out, I assume to follow Lauren, but he hasn’t returned.” He looked around. “Or perhaps he has and we just can’t see him. At any rate, all other overnight guests are in their provided hotel suites, as far as I know.”
The palace offered underground accommodations for vampires, and every suite was occupied.
“That kid vampire freaked me the fuck out,” Nick told him. “I’d be happy to never be in the same room with her again.”
“Brooke and Kendric are good friends.” He shook his head. “She’s powerful. Don’t let the innocent looking child’s body fool you. She can be incredibly kind, but her cruelty can rival mine, when a situation calls for it.”
“Oh, I picked up on her power. Made my skin crawl.”
“I’ve directed Queenie to make sure the main conference room is ready for us. Do you wish to change clothes?”
Nick shook his head. “I’ll take the jacket off.” He looked at Gavin’s bare feet. “And my shoes. We’re in agreement there.”
Queenie gave a telepathic knock, and when Gavin responded, she asked,Master, shall I have a large and imposing guard show the wolves to the conference room, or would you prefer I do the task?
The muskrat lawyer should do the trick. Small and scholarly looking, but if they get out of hand, he’ll be able to handle them. The appearance will be that we don’t see them as worthy of treating as a threat, but I want him on hand for this anyway, in case we need to create legal documents based on the parley.
“The wolves parked at a nearby facility and are walking this way,” Gavin told Nick. “I’d have preferred we wait to handle this tomorrow night, but I won’t undermine Lauren’s authority by putting it off. We’ll have an attorney present: if he silences any of us, it’s important we shut up and listen to him. He’ll have access to telepath all three of us.”
“Do you want me to let you handle the discussion?” Lauren asked as she walked back down the steps in jeans, a sports bra, and bare feet. “I like to get things over with and put them behind us. I’m sorry if I rushed this, but it seemed the best way to handle it, since they were coming to me. I can’t explain to you how much I dislike running from a problem rather than confronting it head on.”
Nick toed his shoes off, and lifted each foot one at a time to take his socks off. He pulled his shirt off over his head, and kept his mouth shut. Gavin was going to have to answer this one all by himself.
“I completely understand, but a public bar was not the place to have that conversation, as they well knew.” And that outfit was perfect for Lauren to address the wolves. She looked badass with a hint of sexy.
“And I agreed, which is why I allowed our security to get me out of there.”
“Have you considered the fact everyone knows you can pretty much speak for me, and they wanted to bargain with you rather than me, even if it meant risking the Concilio’s wrath by doing it in a public place?”
Lauren sighed. “If he didn’t know what his former leader intended, the new Alpha should have probationary rights within our territory, but if the beta knew what his Alpha was up to and approved…” She sighed. “Ifanyof the top five knew, we have to slaughter them, or at the very least, kick them out of the state with a death sentence on their heads if they return. If they thought I would take it easy on them, they were wrong.”
And his Lauren once again surprised him. Humans usually couldn’t be so ruthless, but he reminded himself she’d lived in an orphanage until she was nine, one of the harshest environments on the planet for a baby to be raised. She’d probably have less scars if she’d been raised a slave by the Concilio. Their slave babies were at least raised to believe they had worth.
Gavin motioned towards one of the seating areas. “Climb on the sofa and tease the hell out of each other while I go through the wolves’ heads. I can’t get into the beta’s memories without alerting him, but the bitch girlfriend’s shields aren’t so strong. Looks like one of his main guards has weak shields, too, and he should know what was up and who knew. I want the two of you to smell like lust and interrupted sex when we walk in. You’ll make me horny watching you fool around, so I’ll have the scent, too.”
