Finlay
‘What’s happening?’ Amie asked in a joint mindlink with Sam as we walked into my bedroom. I didn’t want to have this conversation around the others, even if we could use mindlink. I was feeling my temper slipping. I needed a couple of more minutes to collect myself, so I just handed her the letter. The letter from the council telling me my brother had filed for a forced reconciliation of our packs. The council had set up a first meeting to discuss it tomorrow.
‘What the fuck!’ Sam sent it to us as he read it.
‘They can’t take it seriously?’ Amie asked. She had put her hand on my arm and I took another minute to let the touch calm me.
‘He has tried before, and failed. But I have a feeling he is going to use the attack against us,’ I told her.
‘We will fight it,’ she said, sounding so determined I almost smiled.
‘Of course we will,’ Sam agreed.
‘We will. But we will keep this between us. I don’t want the others to lose focus on the games,’ I told them. They both nodded.
‘We have the right to bring two people to the hearing. You should take Amie, as she is the Beta. I will keep things in order here,’ Sam suggested. I nodded. It was good of him not to point out that Amie had a better chance at stopping me from losing control of my temper.
‘It would be good if you could head over to the Cayote Hill pack. They are our oldest and closest allies. We want to keep close ties with them,’ I told him.
‘I would like that, Meadow’s dad has joined them as support staff,’ he said. ‘Speaking of Medow. Are we done here? I promised to call her before dinner,’ he added. Amie smiled.
‘Go. Tell her I will call her later,’ she told him. He nodded and walked out of my room. “Get up on the bed,” Amie said. I looked at her.
“What?”
“Sit on the bed and lean against the headboard,” she instructed me. I had no idea what was going on, but I was going to find out. I did as she told me, and to my surprise, Amie got into the bed and got comfortable in my lap, she wrapped her arms around my chest and leaned her head against my shoulder.
“What is this?” I asked as my one arm moved to lay across her legs with my hand resting on her hip and the other hand played with the end of the braid she had put her hair up in.
“Social cuddling. It’s your reward. Your neck muscles are about to snap with how tense you are. You need to relax. Dinner is in half an hour, I checked with Matilda. You have twenty-five minutes to either take a nap or just sit there and relax. I will make sure you get to dinner on time,” she explained. I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, letting Amie’s scent roll around inside me, before slowly releasing it. She was right, I didneed this. I leaned my head back and took a moment to enjoy her body heat and the soft puffs of air she sent over my neck.
“I envy your relationship with your brother.” It was the first thing that popped into my head and I had spoken the words before I knew it. “You have been apart for ten years and you pick up as if you saw each other last week. The teasing, the caring. I wish I had a similar relationship with my brother.” She hummed softly.
“I guess we have always been close. It’s only about a two-year-age difference, so we have always hung out. I’m sure he at some point thought of me as irritating, but he has always been my protector. Maybe it was because of how close my parents were. It was just natural to be close as a family. Elder and I used to try and team up against mom and dad. We seldom won, but at least we lost together.”
“We were never like that. My father was a good father. I know what kind of reputation he had. But he was always loving towards his family. Most of his time was spent on the pack or on Ryder. He felt he needed to train Ryder to become the best alpha possible. It meant his time for me was limited. My mom… well, she is a different story. I know my parents loved each other, but she always seemed to adapt to him. If he spent most of his attention on Ryder, so did she,” I told her.
“Were you left to yourself?”
“No. I had Aunt Matilda. She lost her mate in a pack war when I was little, maybe three or four years old. She never took a new mate and never had pups on her own. So she would help my mother with me and Ryder. Well, mostly with me. It created the feeling of there being a separation in my family. It was my father, mom and Ryder and then there was me.”
“I’m sorry,” she told me.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault and it’s an old wound. But I see you and your brother and I wish I could have the samerelationship with mine. It makes me feel the loss of Martin,” I confessed.
“I get that. Martin always reminded me of Elder and he helped me fill the void I had from being away from him.” We went back to sit in silence for a while. My thoughts swirled around in my head. I thought about my life before I split from my original pack. I could remember the frustration of feeling I had potential of helping the pack, but didn't get an outlet for it. How much better life had become after I left, even if it sometimes were a hard life and the leadership could be a heavy burden.
“If the council forces the two packs into one again, I can’t go back. I will become a lone wolf,” I told her. When the thought had come to me, it felt like it was the only way.
“I know,” Amie told me.
“Maybe you can put in a good word for me with your old pack.” She started laughing.
“You and James would try to kill each other within the first week,” she giggled. The sound made me relax even more and I chuckled.
“You are probably right,” I agreed.
“We could always buy some land and settle on. But I have a feeling after seeing you in action during the games, packs would want to recruit you if they heard you were packless.”
