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“Knowing Madame Juana, she doesn’t do anything without being a hundred percent sure. If she thinks your mate is a Silvermane, then you can write it in stone,” said a voice, obviously male but not a pack mate.
Caelum and I immediately looked at each other, and then looked low.
“Who invited the cat in?” Ry asked.
Hunter raised his hands in a ‘what are you gonna do’ gesture. “Would have been rude to kick him out. He, Wendy and Ombre were putting Rog together!”
We were going to have to talk about ground rules. Apparently, we were so unlike other packs that our packmates just decided to make up their own rules regarding pack-privileged information.
“Let me tell you something,” the cat said, stepping out from the crowd. “This iswayabove your aptitude level. If Madame Juana gets the blood of your mate, I can think—off the top of my head—of about ten rituals that she can use to streamline that sort of power so that the head of the pack will be as powerful as proto-Lycans themselves.”
“How can we protect ourselves?” Caelum asked. If he was anything like me, his heart was already beginning to pump at a million miles an hour.
The cat looked around him thoughtfully. “Hm. Honestly, get more powerful blood and harness it yourselves. That makes aid from any other pack completely worthless to help in the power-grab, so we’re up alpha-beta against alpha-beta and… well, have you seen their alpha and beta? I have. They’re even bigger thanyou.And they don’t really care about the power of education and self-reflection. They’ve been spending their whole lives hitting things in the head. They’re going to… Oh, how would you phrase it? They’re going tokick your ass.” The cat slowly blinked at us. “They’re going to go after you first, too, because they want to make an example of you, and they also like your territory and resources. Not to mention you have by far the smartest pack to start with if they plan to take over the rest.”
I winced, hating hearing all of this from a cat. It was a little emasculating. It was probably said all the same way that Samael would say it, but it felt worse.
“Can Wendy do the same ritual that Juana plans to do?” I asked anyway.
“She can if she gets over herself and summons Samael. They’re in the middle of a tiff, but he could easily teach her how to do it. Ombre and I can’t remember those kinds of particulars; don’t have that sort of memory.”
Caelum sighed outwardly, and my shoulders slouched. Of all the times for Samael and Wendy to get in a tiff… It had to be when the stakes were high.
“Wendy’s here, right?” he asked.
“Of course she is. Unlike you lot, I have absolutely no trouble keeping track of my ward’s whereabouts,” the cat said haughtily.
“Shut up, Silas,” we groaned, then moved towards the back of the house. I whipped back around and told my pack, “Get comfy. Nobody’s going home. This is the base of operations until further notice.” With all the groaning that set off behind us, I knew they’d heard me.
CHAPTER 26
Caelum
My life had descended into chaos. Yes, my father—and most other packs in fact—had predicted that I’d regret all my life decisions years before now. They hadn’t heard of a pack that could just acquire territory peacefully, the human way, and then just hold it.
Did we go out looking for fights? No. We were one of the only peaceful packs.
Did we have to fight them when they came? Yes. Sometimes my pack liked to pretend that there were other options on the table, but there weren’t.
Ryker put his hand on my arm. “She told me that her blood was now super-charged. It’s what she heard when she was captured.”
I snorted, finding this incredible. “Theydiddo a lot of evil monologuing. I thought that was something people only did in the movies.” He sighed, stopping in his tracks. “So it looks likeJuana and this alpha of the other pack are the ones that set our mating into motion.”
Ry shoved his hands into his pocket and gave a nod. “That’s what it seems like.” He pulled a hand up and smoothed it across the air, added, “But it’s not the most awful thing, boss. She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she got out of that shit on her own. If she’s a Silvermane, too… then this is her world. We’re her people—Lycans. And as Wendy said earlier; if it wasn’t fate, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Is this your wolf talking, or is thisyoutalking?” I asked, crossing my arms.
Ryker stepped back and turned to face me fully. He looked actually shocked. “Look, I don’t like it when the wolf makes rash decisions for the both of us, but isn’t this the same thing in reverse? Because I have both sides.Youhave both sides. And my wolf wantsher,” he pointed upstairs. “He doesn’t want fuck buddies. He doesn’t care about power. He doesn’t care about popularity. He wantsher;his needs are very simple. And you know what? He makes a lot of sense, because she’s sexy as fuck, and she’s badass enough to fight her way out of a Lycan prison against the very same guys that bashed in half of Rog’s face! We’re the ones fucking this up, because the longer we wait to claim her completely, the more vulnerable we all are!” He was whisper-shouting at me now.
I sighed and shook my head. “We made promises to our pack,” I reminded him.
He shook his head firmly. “We said we weren’t going to look for a mate, and we didn’t. Our mate foundus. The ideas we had when building this pack were all experimental, and if any dozen guys can understand that not all experiments are a success, it’stheseguys,” he jerked his thumb behind him. “Besides, we gave them a pack where they can be proud of their achievements, find value for their brains, study what they want, and become who they want. Nobody else offers that. They’re not going anywhere. They’re gonna have to suck it up, andyouneed to stop pandering to these asshats who are only pouting because they feel like if an alpha female takes charge, then they’re gonna end up mating, too, because of the domino effect. And they’re probably fucking right. They’ll get over it.”
Ryker was fucking right. I hated it. I was standing there, trying to remember the last time I felt he was right aboutanything, and I couldn’t recall. Was this how he felt aboutmeall the time? Because it was horrible.
But what the fuck was I doing? Kaci was a beautiful young woman, and I had done nothing but throw proverbial rocks at her and try to chase her away from my boys’ club like we were in kindergarten. I was going to have to play nice. Well… not too nice, Kaci was also sort of a wild girl, but still.
“We’ll claim her as soon as possible,” I decreed, and his shoulders relaxed immediately. “You’re right.”
