When she heard a knock on the door about an hour later, she didn’t look up from her computer. “Yeah.”
The door slowly opened and Ken peeked through. “Sorry, honey. Can I bring you anything?”
Fighting the urge to slam the laptop lid, she instead waved him in. “Close the door, please.”
He stepped inside, looking nervous, and now she felt horrible she’d been snapping at him.
“Sit. Please?”
He took one of the chairs in front of the desk.
She sat the bowl of batter on her desk and leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers together on top of her head. She forced herself to keep her tone soft, gentle.
Not easy in her current mood. “Pleasecall Peyton and have another talk with him and tell him not to keep us there longer than a weekend. I won’t Prime you to do it. I won’t order you to do it. But if we show up there with you still feeling wigged out, he’s not going to listen to a damned word I say because I’m his baby sister. I’m the Head Enforcer with too much on my plate already. Icannotbe out of pocket in Idaho for that long. Not right now. I understand you’re feeling anxious about everything, but you also have to trust me to know my own body and not infantilize me.” She didn’t want to play that card, reminding him about how controlling his step-father had been to his mother, but it was still in her bag of tricks.
Ken stared at his hands, which lay in his lap. “I’m worried, okay?” he finally said. “About everything. You, this shit with Faegan Lewis, the cartel bullshit—everything.”
“Trying to keep me hidden in Idaho won’t solve any of that. It will just—” Someone else knocked on the office door, irritating Dewi. “Yeah?” she called out.
Duncan opened the door, looking grim. “I’m flying to Knoxville. I don’t know when I’ll return. I’ll call Peyton on my way to the airport to update him.”
Dewi slumped in her chair. “Did she pass?”
“Not yet, but soon. Just got off the phone with Aaron. She’s still conscious but it won’t be long now. Days, at the most. I want to stay there until after she passes.”
“Okay. Safe trip, Da. Please send them our love and condolences for what they’re going through.”
He nodded and closed the door behind him.
One of her Enforcers, Aaron, worked out of Charleston. A few weeks earlier, he’d pinged on Lowri Thompson as his mate when her family had summoned him to help them out with what turned out to be a life-or-death issue. Dewi wasn’t entirely sure Da had revealed all the details about the situation to her, but she trusted the Prime Alpha, their former pack Alpha, to be able to handle it on his own and loop her in if or when her attention was needed regarding the matter.
Tied up in all that confusion was “Aunt Tully,” a widow who was a clueless human, but a dear family friend to the Thompsons, and who was dying of cancer.
Da had made it his mission to fly up every few days to visit with her, providing her company and a little respite from her pain with his Prime powers.
Dewi stood and rounded the desk to settle in Ken’s lap, draping her arms around his neck. Neither of them had met Aunt Tully but they both knew from Da’s reactions to the situation that it was taking an emotional toll on him.
Ken nuzzled the top of Dewi’s head, his breath warm across her scalp. “I’ll call Peyton in a couple of hours,” he said, sounding as subdued as Dewi felt. “I’ll ask him to rescind the request.”
She lifted her head, cupping his cheek to kiss him. She also wanted to give a little in return. “Weekend visit, huh?AfterDa gets back. Or even a couple of days in the middle of a week. I mean, this is the perfect reason to delay our trip. Right?”
“Yeah.” He stared into her eyes. “I’mreallyscared, Dewi,” he quietly admitted.
“I know.” She did, too. It pulsed from him through her in waves that nearly made her nauseous.
And it wasn’t even morning sickness. “I need you to learn to trust me, though,” she added.
“I do trust you.”
“No, right now you trust your fear. That’s only worked for you when youfeltdanger. Endquist. The car chase in Idaho. Those were absolutely legit fear reactions. Except you can’t live life letting fear control you. It’ll eat you alive. Threats have always been out there. Always will be. If not them, then something. The things the average human never knows about—and I’m not even talking shifters and stuff—would make most people curl up in a ball and suck their thumbs. There’salwaysgoing to be a looming ‘what-if’ situation off in the wings that we have to deal with, or at least keep in the front of our mind and monitor.”
“But at least if Peyton and Trent and them are around—”
“They were around when a cartelliterallyattacked our pack compound and nearly killed you and Nami. We had a Muster with something like three times the number of people in the compound than are normally there. That didn’t keep any of us safer.” She gently tapped his chest. “Youkept you and Nami safe.Yousaved me—and you—from Endquist. That was all you, not me, not Peyton, not Trent.You.”
“Well, Duncan helped me and Nami.”
She smiled. “You know what I mean. You did the hard part, getting away from them. And while you don’t think you would have survived the night without him, I think you would have, and we would have found you and got you out of there. But your instincts about approaching Duncan? That pretty much guaranteed your survival. And that was all you because even Nami told me she had no idea he was a shifter.”
