“So,” he finally said, looking at me again. “What’s your game plan, kid?”
“What do you mean?”
Carter looked at me like I was an idiot. “Well? Are you just going to let Mom rule your life forever?”
“No,” I said firmly.
“Really? Because it looks to me like you are resigning yourself to a life where you and Mom are going to live your life out together forever, no pack necessary.”
We both shuddered at that thought.
“That won’t happen,” I said firmly. “It’s impossible now.”
Carter’s gray eyes narrowed at me. “What do you mean it’s impossible now?”
I froze, realizing what I’d just said.
Carter, like the rest of the people around me, also took scent suppressants. His suppressant intake was a part of his rehab program, but like the people on my mother’s campaign he hadn’t been able to smell the change in my scent.
But I’d just put my entire foot in my mouth and he was way too perceptive for me to try and lie my way out of this one.
With a sigh, I tugged the neck of the light sweater I was wearing away from my neck, revealing Dallas’s bondmark on my collarbone and watched my brother freeze as he stared at it.
“Lennon Beatrice,” he said using my middle name. “What the actual fuck is that on your body.”
“You can’t tell Mom,” I hurried to say, worried he was about to hurry over to the landline phone on the wall and call her in order to snitch.
I should have known my brother better though.
“No, I sure as hell won’t be telling her because she’s liable to yeet thosebondedalphas of yours straight into the damn sun,holy shit,” Carter said as he continued to stare at the mark. “You sure don’t do anything by halves do you, little sister?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “They’re my scent matches. I love them.”
Carter scrubbed both hands over his face. “Dad was right, Lennie. He used to say that you were going to be the one to surprise us all and he was really fucking right. Are you feeling all right? You don’t feel sick being so far away from your alphas? Christ, I don’t know about any of this shit as a beta.”
It didn’t feel great to be away from them. The gnawing loneliness and insomnia made me feel nauseous most days and my appetite had yet to return fully, but I didn’t want Carter to worry about that right now.
So instead, I just offered him a weak smile as my answer and changed the subject.
“If I ever get the chance, I want you to meet them. Really meet them.”
Carter let out a huff. “The last time I saw them they were glaring at me and telling me to get my shit together.”
“You mean when you were in the middle of a relapse?” I asked, my voice dry.
“I didn’t say they were wrong about their attitude,” Carter shot back with a sniff.
We exchanged grins, the expression making my face ache a bit as someone knocked on Carter’s door.
“Miss Holloway? It’s time to head to the airport,” Agent Kidwell, the head of my new-old Secret Service team, said from the other side of the door. She had been the second-in-command when Agent Brady had run my team and it was nice to have a familiar face around along with other old agents from that same team, but they weren’t who I wanted to see. It had also made me realize the closeness I had felt to my former team had mostly come from the grumpy old man who acted like a surrogate uncle to me and he would never be returning.
“Damn, already? You just got here,” Carter complained.
“Sorry,” I said with a sigh as I stood and planted a kiss on his cheek. Ginny dutifully followed at my heels as I headed for the door. “Pittsburgh calls.”
“Lennie,” Carter called, his voice suddenly soft.
I turned to look at my brother, seeing him look so lonely still sitting at his little two-person table with the deck of cards still clutched in his hands.
