Paul met my eyes over the pile of books on my desk…the now probably highly relevant pile of books that still wouldn’t be enough to get us up to speed, because if those were pack-law experts, they had this shitmemorized. I’d been afraid of something like this. That’s why I’d started digging through the library in the first place.
First thing when all the offices reopened after the holidays, I’d be using some of the diamond money Calder had so generously contributed to the pack general fund to put a lawyer on retainer. Of course, that wouldn’t help me tonight. Why hadn’t I thought of that months ago?Because you were paying off the back property taxes and the past-due electric bill, Matthew.Christ. My life.
“With any luck, Jessica will be conscious soon.” I reluctantly added, “And we may have to wake her up even if sheisn’t recovered enough to wake up on her own. Go tell Nate, will you? He’s sitting up with her right now?”
Ian nodded. “And Amy, although I think Marla’s going to spell her soon so Amy can get back to her own kids. They won’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either. But we may not have a choice. In the meantime, Paul and I are going to take the next couple of hours and try to figure out—”
Naturally, that was when my phone rang. Fenwick. So much for having extra time.
***
By five in the morning, I’d made as many preparations for Diaz’s imminent arrival as I could, setting everyone in motion and then doing what a pack leader did best: standing there trying to look like I had a fucking clue.
Diaz had figured out they were here, as Fenwick had told me in a tone about as apologetic as someone like him ever achieved. Diaz’s pack’s shaman had successfully done a blood-relative location scry for one of the kids sometime between when he called Colin, at which point they’d already been on the road north, and when they turned up at Fenwick’s.
When I told him that, Nate had nodded, then shaken his head, then facepalmed and cussed a lot under his breath, and then gone on a rant about how cars were a shitty place to put spell bags. I gathered that he was mostly incredibly pissed at himself for not thinking it through and realizing long-distance spellwork would be effective once Jessica’s family was out of the protected car.
“At least Arik didn’t think of it either, but that doesn’t help much,” he muttered, and went for more coffee.
It didn’t help me fucking at all, but saying so wouldn’t be very gracious.
Diaz had also spun a story about Jessica having a postpartum psychotic break, and how he was afraid she’d hurt herself or the kids. Doran, Fenwick’s bizarre and bizarrely powerful bodyguard, had been of the opinion that every word out of Diaz’s mouth was a lie, and I respected his judgment. But we needed Jessica awake, whether her caretakers liked it or not.
I’d roused a sleepy, adorably cranky Arik with a cup of tea, filled him in, and sent him off to start waking Jessica up as gently as possible.
He hadn’t liked it at all. But he’d also realized we didn’t have a choice.
Fenwick had arranged to send Angelo with Diaz and his people, both so that he’d have eyes and ears and so that we’d have a trustworthy witness to whatever transpired, a gesture I appreciated. They’d be here at seven, supposedly. But I’d also put Ian, Jared, and Calder on the border with a couple of other physically capable pack members, staking out the turn-in to our territory as our official unwelcoming committee. If Diaz sent anyone early to try to evade Fenwick’s oversight, we’d know. And if they all arrived as scheduled, an angry, underslept Ian and Calder would be enough to put our unwanted guests in a subdued mood.
I’d gotten angry and underslept enough to be almost craving a fight myself, but Fenwick had put the kibosh on that. “I wish I could tell you to go ahead and make all their smelly, flea-ridden, trying to tell me what to do in my own town at three in the morning bodies disappear, but his asshole ambulance-chasers already emailed a formal complaint to the shifter council. That’s a headache I don’t need. So you have to figure out a way to take care of this that isn’t based in mindless violence. My apologies to Ian.”
In the background, Doran added, “Tell Ian that if there is mindless violence after all, call me first so I can participate.”
“I’m assuming you heard that?” Fenwick said. “You’ve been bored, apparently. No, don’t argue with me—Armitage, we’ll talk later.”
And then the line went dead. It had been, all things considered, a typical interaction with Charlie Fenwick.
Most of the pack council, including Paul and my closest advisor, his cousin Jennifer, had gathered in the kitchen to mainline coffee and strategize.
“He probably thinks going through Fenwick instead of coming straight here will make him look more above-board,” one of them was saying. “But sending a preemptive notice to the shifter council? That seems over the top.”
“Let’s be honest,” Paul said. “We don’t have the best reputation. Maybe he thinks he needs insurance in case we kidnapped them.”
The general murmur of agreement said a lot about how things had gone for us over the past few years. We were all hoping that’d change, but it didn’t look great right that second, did it?
A tug on my mate bond told me that Jessica had finally woken up, and I slipped out of the kitchen and headed upstairs, leaving them to it. Thank fuck, because we were coming up on six-fifteen.
Nate ushered me into the guest bedroom and shut the door behind us. Jessica was sitting up in bed, fully awake at last and wearing what I recognized as a borrowed T-shirt of Arik’s. She had it hiked up to nurse the baby, while the toddler snuggled against her side. She clutched both of the kids closer as I approached, looking up at me warily, and tension radiated off of her along with the scent of fear. They’d told her about Diaz being on his way, then.
Or maybe she simply didn’t trust me, either. Demoralizing, but not unlikely.
Arik and Marla, another second cousin of mine and Ian’s, had taken up positions in chairs on either side of the bed like bodyguards.
“This is Matthew,” Arik said. “Matthew, Jessica Diaz. And Jonathan and Josephine.”
“Also known as Potato,” Nate put in, crossing to Arik’s armchair and dropping down onto the arm like a puppet whose strings had gone limp. He had to be unbelievably exhausted after a completely sleepless night.
