Page 58 of Broken Bonds

Far from it.

“You’re telling me… you have Randolph Sterling’s son… his youngest son… under your protection… on our land… and you didn’t think to give me a heads-up about that before now? Especially right after speaking with Marchman?”

Oh. Shit.

“Well, considering I didn’t expect a vampire to walk into my office first thing this morning, I’ve kinda had my day derailed. I planned to call you about it today or tomorrow to ask for advice.”

“He can’t stay, Jax.”

“I can’t send him away,” I counter. “He’s desperate and, with this new information, I’m convinced Sterling will murder him if he finds him. Frankly, I don’t want to move him to a smaller pack just to have them get attacked if Sterling locates him. We’re strong enough to deal with a fight if it’s brought to us. I probably have more well-trained and well-armed Alphas in our compound than Sterling has in the entire state of Georgia. Don’t forget we have a National Guard barracks less than twenty miles from here, and the commander and a good chunk of its people are from our pack.”

I hear him blow out a breath and know he’s thinking about my words.

Finally, “I fuckin’ hate it when you’re right, kid.”

I can’t help smiling because while he’d never say that in front of others, it means he’s all-in on my thinking.

“Todd says he’s a hard worker and a good guy,” I continue. “If the pup wasn’t, he couldn’t fool them him long. Todd can smell bullshit a mile away.”

When Father starts laughing, I realize what I said. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” I say while he laughs so hard on the other end of the line that he starts coughing.

When he finally composes himself, he continues. “You’re right about Todd. He’s a good kid.” To Father, anyone younger than him is a kid. “But I think you need to seriously consider what I would normally write off as a drastic and untenable option.”

“What?”

“I mean, initiation, sure. But two problems—he’s never had a mating heat, and I honestly think under the circumstances that running him through a normal initiation process with this other shit circling over our heads isn’t the wisest move. Through initiation, he’ll smell like us, sure, but he’ll still have more than a hint of Sterling’s pack, and that’ll make him—and us—vulnerable. Because as he merges with the pack, obviously hints of him mix with our people, too. The stronger the scent of his birth pack at initiation, the stronger it’ll mix with our people.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Trigger his first mating heat and have someone—or someones—non-canine take him. Imprint their scent on him. That will help further dilute his scent ahead of initiation. Doesn’t even need to be an Alpha as long as they’re not canine. Then, when he goes through initiation, his scent will already be muted enough, and already smelling enough like pack, that it shouldn’t matter.”

“But why non-cani—oh.”

He snorts. “Yeah, oh. The kid’s got enough troubles. Let’s try not to get him knocked up right out of the gate.”

“Good point.”

“A non-canine imprinted scent from our pack, overlaid with everyone else from initiation, that should adequately mask his scent. I mean, even better would be if someone non-canine pinged on him as their mate, but that’s still potentially problematic.”

“Because of the other complications,” I say.

“Exactly.” He paused. “You said Todd really likes him, huh?”

“I mean, he’s Todd. He’s always down to fuck a cute new pup.”

“I’d ask him first to see if he wants to do it.” He laughs. “Considering that buck’s stamina, there’s no way that pup wouldn’t smell nearly 100% elk by the time Todd lets him loose after a day or so.”

My turn to laugh. “True. That would be convenient.”

“I mean, obviously, if the kid wants to do that. If he doesn’t then we need to quickly figure out what the hell to do with him, because he absolutely cannot stay with our pack.”

“We’re back to I don’t want to send him away and have him get killed.”

“Someone, likely Sterling’s hired guns, has wiped out vampires, fae, and witches. If you think any of those three races will think twice before killing that kid if they get a whiff of him, even while being granted sanctuary on our land? Think again. After everything I’ve heard today, after only two phone calls, I guarantee you several of them would happily die at our hands just to know they took out one of Sterling’s sons first.”

“But he hasn’t done anything!”

“Yeah,” Father grimly says. “Well, neither did the innocents Sterling’s people slaughtered.”