“What? No! Oh shit!”
“Now you know what I’m facing. When do you plan on bringing your team of enforcers up here?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve spent so much time in Mexico, I’m behind on setting up the peace conference in Tajikistan. But let me do some shuffling and see if I can send you part of my team.”
“I’ll take them. Meanwhile, don’t forget to send me Pablo’s phone. I’m also going to talk to Zane about what else can be done to beef up security.”
“Okay bro, say hello to everyone and give Mom a kiss and a hug from me.”
“Yup, will do. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Steel hung up and reflected about what he learned. Both he and Slate couldn’t be wrong—both saw the light just before Colton’s miraculous recovery; he was sure it signified the giving of the gift.But what could it be?Until he could figure out a way to ask Cody, he decided not to say anything to Jackson.
The last thing he needed now was a shitstorm with Colton and Ian when his and his mate’s pup was so close to being born. Nope, even if Jackson found out he’d been kept out of the loop and made him sleep on the sofa, he would take the punishment just to keep his mate safe. He snorted—this is probably the same choice Colton faced about telling his mate about his gift.
Chapter 25
Rudy found out Pablo was being moved to the High Council next Wednesday. He groaned when his informant passed the information to him because his window of opportunity to kill Pablo was shutting fast. And he had to be killed. No two ways about it. Rudy’s life was on the line if that asshole linked him to the plot to kidnap and kill one of those fucking Blackwood boys. He didn’t know why Josiah hated them so much but he’d find out later.
In the meantime, he studied the map, trying to spot locations where his sharpshooter could get a clear shot at Pablo when he left the building. He circled a few that might work and then called in Loki. He was lucky to have a sharpshooter on his payroll since wolves rarely used guns but Loki had spent time in a paramilitary wolf group and knew how to shoot.
A knock and then Rudy’s office door opened. “Hey boss, you wanna see me?” asked Loki.
“Yeah, I gotta job for you. Come take a look.”
~/~/~/~/~
After finishing their late breakfast, Colton rose, taking Ian’s hand, pulled him up and led him over to the love seat. “Hey, I thought we should talk and get to know each other,” he said to Ian.
Ian snickered. “I think I know you quite well already.”
Chuckling, Colton pulled his mate close and tucked Ian under his arm. “That’s one way to look at it. But I was thinking more about who we are…outside of the bedroom.”
“Okay, but I still know more about you than you do about me.”
“Oh yeah? How come?”
“While you were in Mexico, I was here for a month and all your brothers told me about your childhood and the trouble you got into.”
Colton growled, imagining what his brothers said, especially Cody and Carson. “Don’t believe most of the crap they told you,” he said, thinking about the “Cocky C’s” and how he’d found guys for them. The last thing he wanted to discuss with his mate was his past sexual escapades.
“Does that mean all the stuff they told me about your love of medicine was wrong?” Ian asked, feigning innocence. He knew his mate was referring to the “Cocky C’s” sex group. Ian didn’t care who Colton fucked before they met but he couldn’t resist teasing his mate because he loved to see Colton blush.
“No of course not,” Colton said, then, wanting to change the subject he asked, “What about you? I know very little other than what Oracle said last night.”
“I’m a Scottish Wolf but I don’t remember Scotland at all. I was very young when we left so most of my childhood memories are of the life I had afterwards. We lived in the Scandinavian Mountains. If you want to know the country, I would guess Norway though it might have been Sweden. We had to be far away from humans.
“We were poor, very poor and in the beginning it was a daily struggle for my father to find food. As I grew up, I helped him with chores every day and at night my father would home-school me. I don’t know exactly when I developed my love of medicine but I remember one time when my father hurt himself with an axe; I watched my mother stop the bleeding and stitch him up, saving his life until he could shift and heal himself. After that, all I read was anything I could find about healing shifters.”
“Go on,” Colton encouraged.
Ian looked down at his hands, turning them over, and examining them. “I remember one night, looking at my hands, as I’m doing now, and I despaired because I couldn’t figure out how I’d be able to afford Medical School so I could become a doctor. I kept thinking I was destined to stay in the bleak and desolate mountains forever, never being able to save anyone other than a wayward animal I found injured on the mountainside.
“First of all, I wouldn’t leave my parents. They needed my labor to help eke out a living for us. Second, even if I were able to ignore my parents, there was no money for medical school. My mother knew how I felt but she kept telling me to have faith. One day, I heard an Oracle was coming to visit a small village near us and I decided to go ask about what my future might be. I kept changing my mind more than once but in the end I went and met…guess who?”
“Steel’s mother? She was the Oracle you met?”
