“I know.”
“I’m going to find every passage in this estate and seal them.”
“I know.”
Then he stopped scowling and he looked at me, his gaze wary. “What did you say to her?”
“I told her the only thing that ever weakened you was her.”
He kept his stare at me. His jaw was still tight but his eyes softened, something shifting behind them, and he pulled me closer and pressed his mouth against the top of my head.
That evening we were on the couch, my feet in his lap, Buddy on the floor between us, when his phone buzzed. I watched his face as he read the screen and saw it go still.
“What?”
He turned the phone toward me. Luca’s text. Lorraine had been spotted near the estate again. Multiple sightings over the past week. She’d been approaching pack members outside the grounds.
“She’s not done,” I said.
“No. She’s not.”
I lay in bed that night with his arm around me, his hand on the baby, and I could feel him awake behind me. Tense. Thinking. The estate was supposed to be safe and his mother had walked right through the walls.
I put my hand over his on my belly and held it there. The baby kicked against both our palms, strong, insistent, like he was reminding us he was here.
I closed my eyes. But it took a long time to sleep.
40
— • —
Finneas
Luca called at six in the morning. I was already awake, lying in bed with Andrea’s back against my chest, her breathing slow, my hand on the belly where Alex had finally stopped kicking an hour ago.
“What?” I whispered, sliding out of bed carefully.
“Conrad Ashtor called a meeting last night.”
I walked into the hallway and closed the bedroom door behind me. “Talk.”
“Twelve families. Former allies of your father’s. He held it at his home, private, invitation only. My contact inside said he framed it as a discussion about the pack’s future. Leadership, tradition, whether the current King is making decisions that serve the pack or just himself.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“It gets worse. George has been at the pack hall every day this week. Talking to junior Alphas, the young ones whose families lost standing when you called off the engagement. He’s telling them the pack needs a King who respects tradition.”
“And Lorraine?”
“Coordinating from outside. She’s the one who organized the guest list for Conrad’s meeting. Three fronts, Finn. Father, son, daughter.”
I leaned against the hallway wall and closed my eyes. Conrad Ashtor. My father’s right hand for twenty years. The man who sat at the council table before I was born, who had more connections in the pack than anyone outside the crown. He’d been quiet since the engagement was called off, which I’d taken as acceptance. Stupid of me. Conrad didn’t accept things. Conrad repositioned.
“How long before George has enough for a formal challenge?”
“Weeks. Maybe less if Conrad keeps pulling families.”
“Shit.”
