“I’ll take the baby,” Ken said to Dewi. “While you help them with this.”
“You sure?”
He leaned in and kissed Dewi. “Absolutely.” The baby had just nursed and was ready to take a nap. He took her from Dewi and carried her upstairs to change her, allowing him a few minutes to himself.
I don’t know how Peyton does it.
Ken knew there was a vast gulf of information he wasn’t privy to—and frankly didn’t want to be, either—but what Peyton and Gillian had read him in about chilled him to his core.
The black-hat hacking he currently engaged in for Gillian and the pack wasn’t something he felt comfortable with, but it was a necessary evil in light of the potential danger from the growing threat.
And a preferable option to armed confrontations with the drug cartel people, too. In his mind, anything that kept those people far from their front door and kept their own people safe was justifiable.
It wasn’t like he was hacking them to steal money or committing industrial espionage. The pack simply wanted information regarding what the cartel was up to in case it involved another run at the Targhee Pack.
Early warnings.
Still, Ken didn’t feel comfortable with this cloak-and-dagger stuff. And it felt like a lifetime ago instead of only earlier the previous year when he would have laughed all of this off as a fever dream had someone from the future popped in to give him a heads-up.
With the baby changed and now falling asleep, Ken tucked her into her crib and then headed to the bedroom with the baby monitor to work on his laptop, which he’d brought upstairs earlier.
The latest data dump was ready. He compiled it, uploaded it to their private, anonymous secure server, and then sent Gillian a message that it was ready.
None of this felt…real.
He also suspected there was far deeper knowledge he held that Peyton had maybe implanted and then told him to forget about. He sensed a gaping void in his mind where it felt like something should be there, but… wasn’t.
And he couldn’t ask Dewi or the others about it, either. While he instinctively knew Dewi, Badger, and Duncan hadn’t done it, he also suspected they couldn’t know about it. Not until Peyton wanted them to.
I hate this.
He wasn’t built for this bullshit. If there was something on the far opposite end of the spectrum from adrenaline junkie, that would be him. He loved his newly adopted family but felt they all had greater confidence in his abilities than he did. Simply remembering the ordeal he and Nami survived in Idaho nearly made him nauseous.
With the latest data dump forwarded, he focused on the more mundane and ironically also more intimidating assignment of researching contractors to start the construction process for the new properties the pack had bought adjoining this one. They were creating a smaller version of the Idaho pack compound, with new houses for Beck and Nami, Joaquin and Malyah, and others, as well as guest cottages and a meeting hall with permanent offices for them, and an emergency hurricane shelter, meaning their home could truly become a sanctuary outside of the business of running the pack. The new facilities would be a safe place to hold small gatherings and runs for their packmates without the risk of clueless humans stumbling over them.
A place to build a school so they could safely raise the pack’s children in an inclusive environment that embraced and protected them in all ways.
All his life, he’d wished for a large family.
Now, he had one. And then some.
Another issue he grappled with was the cloudy nature of his true roots, that his mother was the child of two shifters, and they didn’t know the circumstances that led to her being abandoned, resulting in her adoption by clueless humans. Plus, he was still coming to grips with the fact that he was related by blood to Tamsin, Hamish, and Badger.
And to Nami’s sister’s mother-in-law, Imani.
Although Imani still had no idea about any of that. That was yet another pressing situation to untangle on the collective to-do list hanging over their heads.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging it. At least he wasn’t having panic attacks when the full weight and scope of everything periodically washed over him. He was increasingly improving his ability to pull back, focus on the immediate task at hand, and eat that elephant one bite at a time instead of trying to swallow it whole.
On top of everything else, however, was his being a new dad. Let’s not forget that.
He took a long, deep breath, held it, then slowly blew it out before opening his eyes again.
I can do this. Easy-peasy. Right?
Aisling
“Are ye sure this’ll work, then?” Aisling nervously asked Duncan where she sat in a chair in the living room. Duncan and Badger each sat on one of the sofas, while Dewi slowly paced around the room.
