“Okay, yes, the venture is off to a rocky start, but wedohave one of the bigger cairns on board, and we have interest from another. We have the basajaunak, which is huge. We have a phoenix and a thunderbird. And a warning: come together, or next time, the large pack Momar is targeting will fall, and the rest of the shifters with it.”
“Yes,” he murmured.
I knew him well enough to know that he needed a pep talk, and later, he’d need a distraction. I was ready to provide both, and I’d be thorough. He’d done the same for me a few times over. “Look at it this way. The gargoyles were never in any danger. They didn’t know me or anything about me, but they still joined up. So did the basajaunak, even though they didn’t want to leave their cozy refuge in the trees. They didn’t have any reason or need to, but they joined our cause. But the shifters? The shifters have alotto lose. They’re targets. Their families are on the line, their packs. They need help, and we’re offering them that help. They’d be idiots to ignore what we have to say.”
He stopped in front of Broken Sue.
“Mr. Tom is preparing your suite, alphas,” Broken Sue said. “He wrestled your key away from me.” He held out a plastic card. “This is the ghost key, if you will. It works for every room in this building—well, for our collection of rooms. Everyone else will get their specific room key.”
Austin nodded, took the key card from Broken Sue, and waited to hear our room number before starting forward again.
“And honestly, we don’t need them,” I told Austin. “The shifters, I mean. We were able to fight Momar off with what we have. Niamh is confident we can gather more mages, and I’m inclined to believe her. We’ll be enough without these people—it’d be a bonus to have them, sure, but we can stand without them if they turn out to be fools.”
He didn’t wait for the elevator, pulling me toward the staircase instead. The resort was a sprawling complex of two-story buildings.
“I stayed in O’Briens all those years ago to give people a refuge,” he said. “To give them a safe haven. I became alpha to provide that safety for you. This convocation is to protect the vulnerable. The masses. Icannotallow them to be idiots, not when it might mean their lives. Momar will try again, Ifeelit. Wenearly lost the last time, and he knows that. Next time, he’ll be better armed. Without a larger force, we won’t be. We might not even know it’s coming, not if we aren’t connected with the packs. I need to make these alphas see reason to ensure shifters as a whole aren’t taken down bit by bit.”
And there it was. Austin wasn’t confident he could make them see reason, and while I would just shrug, he wouldn’t accept that outcome. In his head, he was already king of the shifters, the alpha of alphas. But he didn’t want to force them to agree. He wanted them to come to him of their own free will, and he knew it would be an uphill battle. He knew he’d keep trying anyway.
My heart swelled.
“We’ll convince them,” I said softly. “We will, I promise. We’ll fight, barter, and plead if we have to, but we’ll do it.”
He scanned the numbers as we passed and stopped at our room. Before he opened the door, he pulled me into a hug. “Good cop, bad cop,” he murmured into my hair. “Usually, you’re the good cop. I have a feeling you won’t be this time.”
“Why is that?”
“Good cops don’t usually call people idiots, and I see that in your future.”
I laughed and pulled away, then he scanned us in.
The suite was gorgeous. In the more public area was a small kitchenette, a sitting room, and a dining table, plus a bathroom with a shower. For Austin and me, a king-sized bed awaited in the next room, along with another little sitting area and a bigger bathroom with a lavish tub made for two. As Mr. Tom was in the kitchenette, organizing snacks, we inspected the bedroom area. Someone knocked at the door as Austin’s phone rang.
“Don’t you dare answer that door,” Mr. Tom scolded me as I turned in that direction. “Were you born in a barn? You’rean alpha, not to mention the Ivy House heir. You do not open doors.”
Except…how would the door get answered when he wasn’t here? Because whatever he might think, he wascertainlynot camping out on the couch.
“Bags,” came Broken Sue’s voice as Austin wandered toward the bedroom window to answer his phone. “Does the alpha want to get the car himself, or should I send someone to collect it?”
Mr. Tom swung the door open wide.
“Send Tristan,” I said, meeting them at the door. Mr. Tom nearly knocked me over to prevent me from reaching for my bag, and I rolled my eyes as he took it. “Tristan will want to drive it, and this is the last chance he’ll get to. Tell him not to wreck it.”
Broken Sue nodded but didn’t move away from the door. He gazed at me expectantly.
I sighed. “If you’re trying to say something, I have no idea what.”
“Of course you don’t,” Mr. Tom said as he came back to collect Austin’s bag. “You can’t speakstone.”
“Aurora has asked to visit her father before you all go to dinner,” said Broken Sue. “They should probably talk before this gets underway. They haven’t spoken in months.”
Kingsley was holding firm on the silent treatment, trying to scare Aurora into returning home. He didn’t want her in a dangerous pack, which he thought we led…and in fairness, we kinda did. We were targets, after all.
Aurora clearly wanted to clear the air. She wasn’t here in a pack capacity, but rather as family. She’d wanted to speak to her dad face to face, which I thought was mature of her.
“It’s her dad. She can go whenever she wants,” I replied.
Broken Sue nodded. “Tell Alpha Steele to call me when you’re ready.”
