Page 69 of Broken Bonds

The other Alphas I speak to in person after leaving Todd’s all say the same thing—they’ll take up arms, won’t protest the vampires’ presence, but they’re not fucking the pup before initiation.

Another one doesn’t even want to fuck him then, and I told him he’d be exempt.

As it stands right now, Todd might not be Mal’s best chance, but his only chance to hide in plain sight among us.

Still no calls or texts from Shawn, but if I go home now I will find it hard to continue working, so I bypass the house—his car’s parked in the driveway—and return to the office to make more phone calls from there.

Okay, so I am delaying the inevitable confrontation I’m certain Shawn and I will have when I return home.

A confrontation I feel horrible about because the crux of it goes against what I literally just promised him about trying for a baby.

I know he’s hurting and I’m not helping matters in the slightest. I feel I’ll deserve every single angry barb I’m certain he’ll hurl my way until he finally gets it out of his system.

Another reason I need to finish this round of calls before I go home, so I can devote my attention to Shawn.

Because I have a feeling I won’t have a lot of attention to spare for him over the next few weeks.

It’s close to 8:00 when I finish my calls. I have more to make tomorrow, but these were the important ones.

Two more non-canine Alphas have declined to help with Mal’s first heat, but they did agree to participate in his initiation. The canine Alphas I spoke to unanimously declined to participate in anything other than the initiation.

Somehow, I have the feeling Todd won’t be upset by this development. I just hope he won’t get his heart broken.

Or that I’ll have to ask him to leave the pack because someone ends up blackballing Mal and Todd can’t let him go.

At least the Alphas are on board with helping me protect the vampires while they’re here.

Before I can stand, my cell rings again, and it’s Father.

“How’s your day gone, Pops?” I ask.

“Had better, son. What are the latest developments?”

I fill him in and he’s quiet for a moment. “Any inklings any of the Alphas will cause trouble for our visitors?” he asks.

“No. Some of them I’ll excuse from sentry duty, but the majority of them understand if we don’t help them now that we could be next. And that it’s morally the right thing to do, since we’re talking kids and younglings and mates. I think if it were a couple dozen full-fledged vampires, their opinions might differ.”

“And I wouldn’t blame them in the slightest,” he says. “If you think there’ll be trouble with anyone, give me their info and I’ll have a chat with them.”

“Yes, sir.” That’s when I remember. “Hey, how come I didn’t hear anything about Todd having business dealings with vampires until today?”

Father chuffs. “Uh, you never asked?”

“You know what the hell I mean. What else do I need to know that I don’t know?”

“Not to sound like an asshole,” he says, “but I have no fucking clue what you don’t know. Just like I’m sure there are plenty of things now that I don’t know since you’ve held the reins.”

“Is there anyone else around with business dealings with vampires or other races I should have a heads-up about?”

“Again, I. Don’t. Know. Look, I’m sorry if that ruffles your fur, but I never restricted our packmates from legal business dealings. And I damn sure didn’t have time to hear every little freaking detail about what they did, nor did I care. My benchmarks were always one—that it was legal, and two—it would in no way jeopardize our pack. Period.”

“I feel like I’ve been kept out of the loop. It’s not exactly fun learning that on top of all this bullshit we’re about to deal with.”

“Jax, when I passed pack Alpha to you, I promised you I’d keep my snout out of things and let you run the pack. That’s what I’ve done. I would be willing to bet there are people who had dealings with other races that I didn’t know about. If that’s an issue for you, then as pack Alpha, it’s your job to communicate your position to the pack and order people to disclose all dealings.

“But I will also warn you to be careful what you wish for. Monkey’s paw will flip you off. You might suddenly find yourself deluged by thousands of pieces of minutiae that have zero impact on the pack’s safety or daily operations, and you need to end the disclosures. But then that makes you look weak by flip-flopping. And also could breed resentment among the pack for feeling like you’re trying to snoop in their personal affairs when it’s not something that involves the pack at all.”

Fuck.