Page 28

Billie

THE ONLY SOUND is the hum coming from the refrigerator. It’s the only noise that’s been made for an uncomfortably long period of time. The silence has gone on so long, it’s become an entity unto itself—a heavy, prickling presence that’s just waiting for someone to disturb it, to engage or challenge it by making an opposing sound. A sound that will have it whipping around and bearing down on the hapless sap who accidently woke the sleeping beast.

After we got home last night—well, this morning, because the sun had risen by the time we opened the front door—we all showered and passed out in my bedroom for several hours. Not enough hours in my opinion, but it was more than four.

The first thing I did upon waking was check in with Little Fox, which I’ll be doing more often since the grotto reveal yesterday. And yup, she was in there, over by the bookcases all happy and shit because one of the sections in the restricted area had been unlocked. She wasn’t just happy—more like ecstatic, just thrilled to learn more about her favorite topic: herself . Oh, wait. I’m sorry . I meant her (choose one) totally spectacular, one-of-a-kind, out-of-this-world, Divine-touched, self.

I was a little less thrilled. Staring at the shelves of material she’d already gone through, then the new material, the controls, the screens, the diagrams—all the crap we’ve got to learn—I felt overwhelmed, thinking maybe we’re skipping ahead before we should, that it might be better to have a solid understanding of what is already available before adding in more, most likely, advanced material. You know, like learning algebra and trigonometry before diving into calculus. She gave me a few backhand flicks of her paw and proceeded to dig in with enthusiasm.

With that, I decided that contacting Alessandro had to be my top priority today. Xander agreed and asked me to give him a couple of hours, so he could check in with his pack leaders and determine next steps, but that we should all be around for the conversation. I also agreed, and that’s where we are.

Kind of.

You see, I thought there’d be talking. A discussion of sorts. Maybe not from Heydar or Assad but surely from my mates and Alessandro or even Annabelle.

But... it’s well after I explained everything that I learned, going into much greater detail than yesterday, and no one has said anything—or even moved, for that matter.

The arm Ethan has slung over my shoulders hasn’t so much as twitched. Xander’s hand on my leg is just lying there. No rubbing. No squeezing. No anything. The twins are their normal stoic selves. Assad’s sitting in Ethan’s Chair of Solitude, maintaining a relaxed but alert posture with his hands loosely interwoven in his lap. Heydar has an arm stretched over the back of the love seat, with Annabelle leaning against him. At least Annabelle has gazed around the room several times, her brown eyes wide with expectation. Jax is angled in the corner of the couch on the other side of Ethan, with his elbow on the armrest and his head in his hand, looking at me with wide dazed eyes.

And Alessandro?

Alessandro is seated in the spindle chair across from me, the coffee table between us. His posture is casual, one ankle perched on the knee of the other leg, showing off his bright-red wool socks under his ironed (they’ve got to be ironed) dark-blue jeans. His tanned fingers with gold rings are interlaced low in his lap snuggled against his thick white cardigan. But that relaxed posture only extends below the neck. Above the neck? His head is dipped down, and his green eyes are narrowed and fixated on the edge of the coffee table like it’s the most interesting example of woodworking and craftsmanship he’s ever seen.

My skin is literally buzzing with the itch to move, the need for something to happen, for the silence to break. A flash of heat ripples over my back, only to be followed by chills skittering up and down my spine. I swallow, and I can still feel a little lump in my throat from whatever happened yesterday, and I can’t hold my discomfort anymore. Wiggling my toes, I readjust to a cross-legged position, bringing my wool-covered feet under my bum and tucking my hands into the opposite sleeves of my dark-blue O’Sullivan’s hoodie, like a Victorian lady’s muff. Xander’s hand on my leg just floats along with my adjustment.

The little movement wasn’t fruitless, as the rumpling of the upholstery and the low creak of the couch break Alessandro from his furniture-fascinated stare. He lifts his head up and blinks several times like an owl. “ La mia stella ,” he begins, his voice low and unusually rough. He clears his throat and leans forward, grabbing the cup of Constant Comment tea we offered, having already blown through the caramel tea he gifted us with. The sun may be up, but it’s overcast and chilly out, perfect tea weather. He delicately sips the tea and reclines with the steaming cup cradled in his hands. His wet lips rub together, and he sighs. “Am I understanding you correctly, that you and your fox have taken two wolves under your royal banner as your gentry?”

My head jerks back, and I mumble, “Gentry?” Furrowing my brows, I connect with Little Fox, who’s also listening intently, her ears perked up. “Um, I’m unsure of the terminology, but they’re, like, linked to us, kind of.” I scratch my forehead and wince. “I could feel their life forces, could tell their state of well-being, and somehow know things about them without ever asking. But they’re not linked to me like my mates, and I’m pretty sure they can’t access my shifter essence or Little Fox’s mental space like you and your fox can.” I nibble on my lower lip and mutter more to myself, “We were referring to them as subjects.”

Two huffing grunts sound from the twins. They rock from side to side and readjust their arms to fold over their chests. The sleeves of their flannels—blue, black, and white for Assad; green, red, yellow, and white for Heydar—pull tight from the bulge of their biceps. And it’s like the twins just did their own version of Teddy Roosevelt’s “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” theirs being “Grunt lowly and flex your muscles.” My stomach clenches, and my throat bobs several times, trying to swallow the lump of what I’m assuming is anxious nerves cementing there.

“And what had happened at the end of the process?” Alessandro presses. I swing my gaze back to him, and he arches a shapely brow. “After the dispersion of these...” Finally, some of the Alessandro I’ve come to know peeks out as he recalls my description of the process. His lips tick up on one side while he circles a hand and softly chuckles. “These energetic bees or floating balls of energy entered into the wolves? How did they interact with Little Fox, and how did you...” He falters, inhaling a sharp breath. Swiping a hand down his face before waving it at the ceiling, he gusts, “ Mamma mia , how? How did she manage to maintain that delicate... such a delicate energy at that strength and that intensity for so long? The taking on of gentry is normally done over time, for it is a choice both for the royal and for those they choose to take on. Time spent getting to know each other. Forming a bond and developing trust, making it easier for our shifters to connect. To do it as she did...” He clears his throat. Scratching the short-shaved hairs on the side of his head and groaning, he continues, “She’d have to have penetrated them and come to understand them... to know them on a soul-deep level, as they would have had to do with her. Done through mental energies alone...it’s intimate. Tricky.”

“I don’t know how it all snapped into place,” I confess, feeling my cheeks heat. “At first we were just trying to hold them, but”—I bob my head, thinking about what she, we, did and the outcome versus what we were trying to achieve— “reflecting back, I think we could have just focused on the general frequency of wolf-shifter and held that broadcast or whatever instead of tuning in to each individual frequency.”

“She tuned in to multiple individual frequencies at once?” Assad uncharacteristically blurts out, his almond-shaped eyes widening to Brazil nuts. “Multiple frequencies of wolves she hadn’t met before, hadn’t tuned in to before on an individual level?”

“Um...” I obliquely glance at Xander and cringe. “Yeah, I think she used data from X-Wolf to connect with them, basing it off either previous interactions he had or general wolf-shifter knowledge that an alpha is privy too.” Xander’s eyes are on me and seem more curious than anything, though I do note the tic of his jaw. Pressing my thumb and fingers into my cheeks, I squeeze the flesh between my teeth, and blow out a tight breath. “I think she approached it like sonar or radar or something, pinging our energy off theirs on the general wolf-shifter frequency and then waited for them to ping back.” I drop my hand and shrug a shoulder. “And once they did, she knew their personal frequency.” Inhaling a large breath, I blow out, “As for the two... gentry, their energy pulled at ours, and ours was pulled toward theirs. A sense of deep connection formed, and then”—I wave a hand around— “she activated a program to work in the background, trusting that it would do whatever it was supposed to do. She trusted the process.”

The twins mutter something in Persian, I think swears, while rubbing their eyelids like they’re getting a migraine, before tightly refolding their arms over their chests.

I decide the coffee table is rather fascinating after all and drop my gaze to it. “As for the last part, I’m unsure. We were burning up. I felt really hot and dizzy and... not right. There were alarms blaring in the grotto, and I tried to warn her. She didn’t like that, and, um... well, she shut me out. Next thing I remember is feeling like I was on fire when I woke up in the forest.”

More swears and curses and non-English; both Persian and Italian are muttered in reply. Then Alessandro scoots forward in his chair with both feet on the carpet. Setting his tea down he reaches, his hands out to me. I place my cold, clammy palms in his warm, dry hands, and he wraps his fingers around them. His fox rushes into me.

Little Fox twists her head around to look at the metal stairs and the shaft of warm light breaching the dimmer blue lighting down here. We hear the pattering of his paws above, the sniffing of his nose and his soft whimpers of concern. His shadow hits the stairs first, soon followed by his swift descent. He’s light and graceful on his paws, his fluffy tail held low. We watch him look around the grotto, sniffing and circling. Once he spots Little Fox, he scampers over to her. She pushes the books away and sits back on her haunches, eyes on Biscotti .

He hurries to her, rubbing his snout under her jaw and down her neck, wiggling his way under one of her forelegs and looping around her back to weave under her other foreleg, purring while he does. Dipping her snout, she rubs it against his head and ears, purring with him. He gives her a little nip on the underside of her jaw, and she huffs at the reprimand. After a few moments, I get the idea that they need to hang out and share information with each other. I bring myself back to myself, opening my eyes and finding Alessandro staring at me with tears adorning his dark lashes.

“You could have died, la mia stella ,” he rasps, his hands squeezing mine. “Both of you.” His dewy, glowing gaze slides to Jax and then to Xander. “You saved them. If not for you both, la mia stella... la duchessa would have disintegrated, and...” He swallows a harsh cackle. “It would have been an avoidable sacrifice. A deathly combination of overconfidence and ignorance.” Not liking the insult, I try to pull my hands away, but he holds on, and his face twists with furious agony. “ Non , do not try to deny it. You may not like it, but that is what happened. These powers, la duchessa , they are not to be taken lightly. And with great power comes not only great responsibility but great sacrifice. We give of ourselves, our energies, our life force to use them. We cannot have you using a bazooka when a handgun will do, si .” His glowing eyes go distant, and I feel his consciousness reconnecting with Biscotti , downloading information from him. His gaze comes back to me, and he rubs his thumbs over my hands before releasing our hold.

We both recline back into our seats, Xander’s hand now gripping my thigh, Ethan’s hand firmly clutched over my shoulder. Alessandro gazes at the twins, and after a moment, they grunt and nod in silent agreement. Then all three of them focus on me. Alessandro sighs and rolls a weak wrist. “With you now taking on gentry, this speeds things up, officially, with your royal status. Especially with them being in a pack, being wolves... word will spread. They need to be acknowledged. More will know of your existence and the truth of you being a royal, your gentry being the real proof of your royal powers.”

Listening to his words, hearing the meaning behind them, has cold fear icing down my spine. I’ll be a target more so than when Xander’s father was alive. Memories from when I first met Alessandro pop into my brain. Royals had been sought out, either to be captured and killed or manipulated and used for their powers. They started pulling away from shifter society, from their positions of high status, high visibility. My mind turns to thoughts of my father’s family and the fire in Ireland that took some of them. Thoughts of another fire, the one that claimed my parents, and how their killers were looking for me, a young royal.

Death. Being a royal is being marked for death. And what does that mean for those I love? Those I’m bonded to? What does it mean for The Den? My mates?

My eyes, now wide with terror, lift to the large glass windows overlooking the back field and the surrounding forest. Even with overcast skies, the slow-melting morning frost glistens on the tall grass, and I can glimpse narrow paths leading into the protective shadows of the thick woods bordering one side of the property. An urge to flee, to run and hide, overtakes me. My heart rate spikes, feeding blood to my muscles, and they jerk in readiness, ready to launch me from my seat and bolt. Because if I run, two things will happen. One: I could hide, and I’m wicked good at hiding. Two: Those who are looking for me wouldn’t bother with those I left behind. I could protect the ones I love by removing myself, the target, from their orbit.

A low chuckle draws my attention to Jax, who’s staring at me with raised brows, grinning. “Not going for another nickname are you...” Pausing, he says in a southern accent, “Forrest?”

“What?” I bluster while flamb oyantly waving my hand in the air. “That’s, like, preposterous! Don’t be absurd.” Yup, 1,000 percent I was ready to run, Forrest, run !

“Royals do not leave their bonds behind,” Alessandro clips out with enough steel in his voice, I feel the lock of metal braces around my legs. My jaw drops at the tone, and I spin back to him, only to have my chin hit the floor. His normally warm energy has turned glacial, and his usually playful eyes are serious and unyielding.

I shrink. I literally shrink under his stare like a child about to get the ruler in school. Ya know, back when they did it that kind of stuff. There may be a flicker of remorse in the twitch of his lips, but he resolutely presses them together and leans forward, elbows on knees. He points a finger at me, and it feels rather sharp. I lay a hand over my chest, searching for a puncture wound. “You know it. Deep down you know it’s true.” He slashes his hand through the air and scoffs. “Maybe you were unaware before you shifted, when you were fending for your life, but not now. We do not leave behind those bonded to us. We don’t let those who the Divine brought to us, who willingly joined us, slip away. They are part of you, and you are a royal. I know you’re thinking it would save them, but it won’t. Leaving them, leaves them open to being used against you, because you can be reached through them.” He cants his head to the side and lifts one all-knowing brow. “Reached not just through your bonds but your love for them and their love for you.”

Well shit.

Shame and guilt and, feckin’ hell, exhaustion... just bloody exhaustion... crash over me, and I end up falling sideways, my head landing on Ethan’s lap, his muscular legs softened by his baggy joggers. I lift my legs to rest on Xander’s, and he tucks them in tighter, brushing his hand up and down my thigh, sharing his warmth. I reach a hand out above my head, finding Jax’s already open, waiting for me. I snatch it up and blubber, “I just...” Then I falter, feeling emotions that were once secured behind stone walls slice through the barricades like a switchblade through a few sheets of paper. “I just wanted to protect them, and I—” I hiccup an inhale “Feck! I feel like I keep messing up. Fumbling the ball and making things worse. I’m doing it so often that we don’t have time to repair the hole and correct course before I’m dropping another cannonball through the bottom of our bloody boat, starting the whole process over again, only we’re still sinking from the ones I dropped before.”

“ You’re gonna need a bigger boat ,” Jax asserts, doing a horrible impression of Chief Brody from Jaws . His hand gives mine a shake and a squeeze, pulling me out of the waters I was about to drown in and into the lifeboat that is my playmate. My fingers flutter in his hold, and the corners of my lips lift a hair.

“ Si, amico mio ,” Alessandro affirms, a smile softening his hard expression. “The impression...” He blows out a breath and rolls his eyes. “It has room for improvement. But the sentiment, the idea—it is appropriate.” He looks at me, and his eyes pull down at the edges. “I’m sorry, la mia stella. I do not like being harsh, especially with you, but I felt like it was needed.” I nod my head sideways on Ethan’s lap and wipe a few tears away with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Alessandro gestures around the room, and tilting his head to the side, he quirks a brow. “Don’t you see, la mia stella ? You have a bigger boat. We’ve all been brought together for a reason. Look at the patterns, the connections, and see what pieces have been made available.” He slides his gaze to Xander. “We need to look at the whole board... together. The Divine is with us. The Divine has brought us together. All of these things are happening for a reason. We need to decipher the core purpose, the one that connects the others. A one-pointed focus, a true north. If we determine that, then making decisions will be easier, clearer.”

“Well,” Jax drawls on a long inhale. “If we’re thinking, like, big... then I would guess our purpose would have to do with the Divine somehow. Right?” He gazes around the lot of us with raised brows. We all give him some form of nonverbal agreement. Rubbing his chin, he blows out a breath. “I mean, the wolf packs closing off from other shifters, the manipulated bonds, and the reemergence of royals... that’s all about the Divine. Moving away from it, altering its essence—it’s all proof of the Divine’s existence.”

“I see the connection,” I mumble while furrowing my brows in thought. “I just don’t understand the threat, I guess. I mean, the Divine, this energy or power or whatever shifters believe is the reason for their existence, how could it be threatened? Doesn’t it exist regardless of who believes in it or not?” I crane my head back to gaze at Ethan and Xander, continuing around the room until I land on Jax. “The bear shits in the woods with or without an audience. Doesn’t, like, the Divine continue to be the Divine?”

“I believe you’re thinking of a tree falling in the woods and if it makes a sound,” Annabelle corrects in a dry tone. I look at her, and she lifts a challenging brow. I sheepishly cringe, and she tosses me a half grin. “Yeah, thought so. And I think it’s better to view the Divine as a real power more than a belief. A power that is at the risk of weakening or even disappearing if it’s not allowed to continue naturally. If the wolves continue to reject their divinely-bonded true-mates, if they continue to work with humans in manipulating the bonds, then they could be changing our biochemistry. Which...” She glances at Xander and draws in long breath. “Which may not produce any major adverse effects at first. But if continued over generations, we’d see the changes.”

“When those born from shifters who were mated through manufactured or manipulated bonds mate themselves, then their offspring are the product of two generations where shifter biochemistry had been manipulated or altered,” Ethan surmises with a far-off expression. “And if it continues, there’s a chance shifters would be more lab-created than nature-born.” He rubs a hand over his short-shaved head and then lays it on my side. “That is, if the use of manipulated or manufactured mating bonds affects the essence of shifters at that level, which we may not be able to decisively determine until the evidence presents itself enough times to be conclusive.”

“Evidence such as two shifters producing an offspring whose shifter is latent, like in rare cases when a shifter breeds with a human,” Annabelle adds, her eyes also unfocused deep in her own unsettling thoughts. “Or the offspring is able to shift but does not have access to standard shifter attributes like healing in their animal form or their subspecies’ specific talents.”

“Okaaay,” I intone. “Way more than philosophical or religious beliefs.”

“Yes, mate,” Xander affirms, his hand kneading my thigh while his eyes scan the room, settling on Alessandro. “We have three legs to this stool, so to speak. With me now as an alpha, I”—he looks to Ethan and Jax— “along with my betas and counsel can start working with the wolves. Connect with the packs that are mixed subspecies in hopes of forming alliances.” His face twists, and I rub my bum against his low stomach in comfort. His fingers massage their way between my legs, and he lifts his hips up, readjusting his seat, rocking my bum deeper into his lap. He groans. “Given the reluctance of my father’s advisors to speak candidly about our pack’s relationship with the three mixed-subspecies wolf packs in the US, I imagine the relationships will take some time to rebuild.” He rolls a shoulder and shakes his head, scoffing. “Pretty sure I’ll need to take an undeserved verbal lashing, but I’m willing to do that. I can have our elders contact theirs, see if they can lay down some groundwork before I reach out. Hopefully after last night, we’ve taken care of any major internal threats within my pack and provided a memorable example of our strength and ability to uphold our convictions.”

“Ya think?” Jax blurts, bending around Ethan and me to look at Xander with wide eyes. “X, not only did our wolves clean house, you”—he ruffles his fingers through his hair, and throws a hand to the ceiling— “pulled power out of the sky, incinerated the traitors’ remains, and then shared that power with your pack.”

Assad, Heydar, and Annabelle whip their heads around to stare at Xander with looks of shock and awe, their eyes glowing as if their shifters want to see X-Wolf in this new light. A proud smile stretches across Alessandro’s face, and he bobs his head as if he knew what existed in Xander all along.

Xander ignores all of their expressions and gazes at Jax cooly. “As I said, we provided a memorable example of strength.” Bringing his attention to Alessandro, he raises his brows. “Now what I want to know about is the royal aspect of this. What do you mean by Wilhelmina taking on her role as a royal in a more official manner? And what of other royals? If the power of the Divine is in jeopardy, then I would think this would be the time for royals to remind shifters of their presence, that they are real and not just spoken of in theory.”

Alessandro regards Xander for several moments, his face blank and his breath even, his fingers twirling the cup of tea in his lap. He takes a sip, then places the cup in its saucer. His eyes flick to mine before returning to Xander. “I agree that it would seem time for royals to return to the shifter world, to step into the light. But that does not mean they will. Many have lost loved ones, mates, parents, and children due to their title and their powers, such as Wilhelmina’s father’s famiglia and her parents. As for la mia stella officially becoming la duchessa , it would require her to be fully acknowledged as such by one of the three kings, most likely mio padre . That acknowledgment comes with responsibilities: ones her madre and padre did not uphold, ones that I do not think she or her mates are willing to fully accept at this time—ones I do not want her to feel pressured to take on.” The stiffening of my body and the two I’m lying on, and the gripping of the hand around mine, means my mates and I are all hearing the meaning behind his words. Royal mates. I don’t get why it’s a requirement. I don’t understand why royals, who presumably hold more of the Divine within them, wouldn’t trust the Divine to provide what is needed.

“Her taking on her role as la duchessa would give her a royal vote, a voice among other royals,” Heydar muses, scratching his beard. “If royals are needed to protect the Divine, then her taking on the role will give us another leg up.”

“True,” Alessandro affirms, which is followed by a weighted silence.

“What if we first worked on her handling her powers,” Jax suggests, breaking the uncomfortable tension that was building. “What if she and Little Fox worked with you and your fox on a more frequent basis? Maybe not just the powers but also the rules of the court or whatever? And with her connection to the two wolves she’s taken on as her...” His brows knit and then rise as he snaps his fingers and blurts, “Gentry. Right? It’s gentry.”

“Si amico mio , Gentry is correct,” Alessandro replies with a droll smile.

“Right, work on those things, and maybe, I don’t know, if you’ve got some royal connections, we could slowly start working on her official royal status... unofficially,” Jax suggests.

“When?” I exclaim with a little whine to my voice. “When the feck am I going to be able to do all of this? I’ve got biweekly meetings with Gertie starting so I can become an official member of the pack. We’ve got Decoction and the boards Xander’s on, which will need our attention, not to mention there’s all the work with the other packs. If they’re mixed subspecies, having the one non-wolf-shifter present will add validity to Xander’s position. I need to be present in the pack with you guys. It’s important, more so than I previously thought, especially after last night. Then there’s school and finals, and you better believe I still need to work out, box, and run—soccer or no soccer. Doesn’t matter. Has. To. Happen.” By the end of my rant, my face is red, my vision is blurry, and I’m huffing like I just ran hill sprints. Maybe I should run some hill sprints... only maybe not, because I might just keep on running, and I’ll be damned if I get another nickname.

“We’ll run a tight ship,” Ethan murmurs, the back of his knuckles cooling my hot face. “Let us work on scheduling. We’ll make sure to include free spaces and rest periods. Let Xander, Jax, and me figure out what’s most important for you to focus on with the pack, and Alessandro can figure out what’s most important with the royal aspect.”

I lift a suspicious brow at him.

He tenderly rubs his thumb over my cagy brow, taming it like a brow whisperer and smirks. “You obviously will have final approval.” I give him a firm nod of damn straight , then wiggle my way deeper into his lap. He continues, “Though I think understanding and harnessing your powers would take top priority. You and I can go on runs.” Two grunting growls sound out from either side of us, and Ethan scoffs a dry laugh. “The four of us can go on runs and work out together because you’re right, we need to take care of ourselves.”

“And our bond,” Jax adds, scooting closer to Ethan, switching out the hand around mine so he can sling an arm around Ethan’s shoulders. And even with the seriousness of what we’re facing and what has to be done, I have to fight the urge not to rub my thighs together, seeing them show casual affection, remembering the more-than-casual affection only hours ago. So hot. It was so fucking hot.

Ethan leans into Jax’s embrace and turns to him, nodding. Jax goes on: “We need to make sure we spend time together, nurturing our bond, keeping it alive and us strong.” He lifts his gaze to our guests, our friends. “I think the same goes for all of us. And I know that this is about the Divine and all shifters, and there’s so much at stake besides what and who is important to me personally. But...” His eyes dip to me before sliding to Xander, Ethan, and then back to me. He murmurs, “If something should happen to tear the four of us apart, I won’t have the will or reason to continue on.”

“Wisely said,” Alessandro murmurs. “A sentiment that many in your positions do not understand until it is tested, which it will be.”

“We could help with that,” Annabelle offers, and the twins raise their brows and side-eye her. Her cheeks blush, and she amends, “Not with your own bonds, but we could help take care of you in other ways. We could do a couple of dinners a week. Some may be working dinners, but you wouldn’t have to cook.” Her gaze lifts to Jax, and she smiles while raising her hands in defense. “Unless you wanted to, of course. We’ll keep working with the Shifter High Council because they’ll need to be involved. We’ll need their support, both with the wolves and with garnering resources regarding the orphans and testing.”

“Playdates,” Xander murmurs, tapping his fingers along on my thigh. I bring my gaze to him, and he tosses a sly smile to Jax before looking back down at me. “Playdates will happen. We all need them. We’ll just need to schedule them to protect them.”

“I love me some playdates,” I reply with a wink and a smile.