“Pack Alpha business,” Trent said. “I’m under orders not to tell you anything else. I don’t even know most of the details. Peyton’s keeping siloes, you know that. He’ll tell us when he tells us. But my orders are to keep on keeping on, and you and Tamsin are to remain here in Idaho until he returns.”
She scowled, fixing her gaze on Ken, who now stared at the floor. “Why? How long will he be gone?”
“A few days, at least,” Trent said. “He’ll keep us posted. He’ll likely be out of contact for some of that time.”
“Is that fucker Faegan making his way to the US?”
“Dewi,” Trent said, “I don’t kn?—”
“Why the sudden secrecy?”
She felt a familiar wave of brotherly irritation from him. “I. Don’t. Know.”
“Why am I not being read into this situation?”
“Because none of us are,” he said. “He wants you and Tamsin here with Gillian. He feels like shit that he had to leave.”
“He should,” Dewi muttered. “The rat bast-fink.”
She spotted Ken’s amused smile struggling to break through.
Okay, so maybe that last one had been deliberate on her part, to see if she could get a reaction from Ken. Because if he could smile right now, things couldn’t be horribly bad.
Right?
“Oh, and don’t bother trying to Prime either of us for info,” Trent added, arching an eyebrow at her. “Peyton swears he’ll fill us in as soon as he can. So please don’t badger us, huh?”
Ken
Yeah, good luck with that.
Ken got it. Dewi didn’t like being left out of the loop any more than Ken enjoyed being dragged into it.
He felt her frustration, her irritation, and her resignation.
Didn’t mean she’d roll over and show her neck in submission, though, and Ken damned well knew it.
“Until then,” Trent added, “we need to be patient and trust Peyton.”
“He doesn’t trust us, apparently,” she groused as she headed for the coffeemaker.
“Dewi, you know that’s not true,” Trent said.
She wheeled on him. “No, I don’t know that. I don’t know anything! Because all of a sudden, all these secrets are being kept without a good explanation to me as to why.”
Even Ken heard Trent’s mental grumbles. “You know why—the same reason Peyton keeps any secret. Because we don’t need to know right now, for whatever reason. Pack. Alpha. Business. We don’t have to like or agree with it—we just have to do it. That’s kind of the whole gig, and you know that as well as I do.”
Scowling, she finally turned back to the coffeemaker. Ken silently let out a relieved breath when Trent glanced his way, catching his eye.
Ken hated keeping secrets from Dewi, and especially these kinds of secrets.
But he got it—knowing Dewi the way he did, Ken understood Peyton was absolutely right that if Dewi knew everything going on, she’d want to meet it head-on, in person, and then their world would be consumed with trying to keep Dewi in check instead of actually fighting whatever or whoever it was they needed to be focused on.
There was no “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn” response built into Dewi’s nervous system—it was “fight, or fight harder.” Especially where her loved ones and the pack were concerned. The only true leverage he had against her right now was guilting her that they had a young baby still being nursed, and playing the “happy mate” card. Neither of which he liked using, but he would if forced to.
Ken turned back to the vegetables he was chopping for omelets and hoped Dewi would drop the subject.
Thankfully, Trent threw himself onto the sibling grenade. “Look, we have a bunch of work to do today, kiddo. A lot of meetings with people who came for the recognition ceremony and need to talk pack business with us. And most of those are meetings you need to sit in on. Believe me, whatever Peyton’s handling, he’ll let us know if or when we need to know. When has that not ever been the case?”
