Fallon yawned.
“You must be exhausted, sweetheart.Not only did you not sleep well, but you’ve been on your feet for hours,” Avi said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“Yeah.I’d probably be tired anyway with the pregnancy, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop working in the kitchen until everything was finished.Now it’s catching up to me, though.”
“Your energy will come back once you’re out of the first trimester,” Sera said.
“Want to go take a nap?”Avi asked, his voice slipping to a heated tone.
She grinned.And then yawned.“Maybe just early to bed.”
“You got it.”
“Hey, has anyone taken drinks out to the lions?”Tris asked, turning from the refrigerator with the ingredients for the stuffed peppers.“We told them they could come in and get food and drinks anytime, but they don’t seem to want to leave their patrols.”
“I think what happened to the wolves last night is making everyone jumpy,” Avi said.
“Let’s take some drinks out to them,” Fallon said.“Then I’d like to get off my feet for a while before dinner.Maybe sit out on the back porch.”
“You got it,” Avi said.
They gathered several bottled drinks from the refrigerator and walked outside.Fallon noticed her mom wasn’t with them, and she turned back and held the door open.“Mom?Are you coming?”
“I…yeah.Of course.”
Fallon frowned as she waited for her mom to join them.“Are you okay?”
“Sure.Why?”
They stepped onto the porch.
“I don’t know.You’re acting kind of twitchy,” Fallon said.
“Well, the herd was attacked last night.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?Avi, the wolves, and the stallions kept us all safe.”
Sera opened her mouth and then closed it with a click as Avi called the lions over.
Fallon and Sera had met them at dawn when they arrived.Amadeus and Javan were part of the safari park’s security team, and Amadeus was also the son of alpha Caesar.
That was when she’d noticed her mom acting strangely, but she’d figured it was because of the attack the night before.Now, as she watched her mom fidget as they brought the drinks out to the males who were near the front gate, Fallon wondered what the hell was going on.
“So we were just telling Crew,” Amadeus said as he twisted off the cap of a sweet tea bottle, “that we figured out how the herd got in last night and took the wolves by surprise without tripping any alarms.”
“What did you find?”Avi asked.
“While Crew and Ford were patrolling the grounds, we headed out into the woods to check the cameras with the tablets to make sure they were monitoring without blind spots.It turns out that at some point, several cameras were slightly adjusted to create overlaps of coverage.It was just enough to create a path right up to the farm,” Javan said.
Amadeus nodded.“They just had to get the first one adjusted without being seen and they were able to work their way forward, using the newly created blind spots and the overlapped coverage to make a path.It’s pretty damn ingenious.”
“Great,” Avi said, blowing out a breath and putting his hands on his hips.“How do we even stop that kind of thing from happening again?”
“We suggested Crew order cages for the cameras.They don’t obscure the lenses but prevent them from being tampered with,” Amadeus said.“Because of what happened here, I let Jupiter know that it’s something we should think about, and he’s going to order them for our security cameras.”
“At least you guys have a huge wall surrounding the park,” Fallon said.“We have so much open space and split-rail fencing.”She paused, then continued, “But I don’t want it to feel like a prison, either.The beauty of the farm is its openness.”
Avi nodded at her.“It’s tough finding a balance.”
