She absorbed that.“Where do we go from here, Ryan?”
“We move onto the next problem,” he told her immediately.
“Because we have oh, so many,” she retorted grimly.
“Indeed we do.”His tone was equally as grim.“We’ll need to approach the Pantera.Adam has managed to arrange something for the end of this week.It isn’t an official meet with the Pantera Council, not like on the day of the explosion, but it’s a chat with the leadership.You’ll need to be there.They should scent their kind on you, and it will help lessen the tension.”
“You want me there?”she asked surprised.
“Yeah.Now that you’re more in control of your beast, you’re capable of holding your own.Plus, you’re dual.I don’t ever have to worry about you ever again,” he teased.“Those cats inside of you will keep you safe for me.”
He could tell she was touched at his bout of silliness, but she just traced a finger over his chest.“Then what?”
“We try to figure out where your mom is.She’s been running for a long time, and we don’t even know if she’s still in danger.Then, we figure out why someone tried to blow us up.”
“All in a day’s work, huh?”
“Yup.In the meantime, we try to avoid you getting pregnant.And, when all this shit has calmed down, we need to have an official mating ceremony, you need to coax your Lioness out to party, and we’ll have to travel to Trip and Marc’s Prides for them to accept you as their mate.”
Her eyes rounded.“Wow, that’s quite a to do list.”
He grinned.“You asked for it.”
She perked up at that, and he could tell that not knowing what was going on had been driving her crazy.
Guilt filled him at that, but it was in his nature to protect her.Even though he knew the cats would keep her safe, his desire to protect her would never die.
It was his duty and his honor as well as his pleasure to make sure his mate was happy and whole and fulfilled.
She was, and always would be, his priority.
Pride be damned.
Chapter 12
Trip grunted as he climbed into the SUV.
It was way too early to be leaving the compound, way too early to even be awake.
He’d finished his work late last night.Feral’s accounts weren’t something he trusted to the Pride’s CPA.He handled them, preferring the personal touch on his Triad’s baby.
He was a trained CPA himself.Hell, not just here, but held equivalent degrees in Holland, his place of birth, and Canada too where Marc’s Pride hailed from and where they’d lived before they’d met Ryan.
The work was menial for a Pride Leader’s Triad brother, but the Feral restaurant chain was something the three had come up with together and had invested in outside of the Pride’s books.
They still used it to help their people, hiring mostly Pride workers, and only reaching into the other demographics when it came down to sourcing great chefs.
They had a Wolf Shifter in their Washington DC branch as head chef, and a fabulous dessert chef who was a freakin’ genius with sugar art in Las Vegas who was Pantera like El.
Food, he’d realized a long time ago, crossed many borders, even if that hadn’t been their intention at the start.
Feral’s branches around the country were managed by Ryan’s brothers and sisters.They were top dog in their own restaurant, and Ryan only had his nose in the newest and biggest restaurant here in LA.
As a result, though Trip kept his eyes on all the branches, and dealt with the books for them all, he was most interested in the LA restaurant.
Finishing up the figures last night hadn’t been misery for him, but the early wakeup call was.
He yawned, the sound louder than he’d intended because El giggled.
