I gestured to the rest of the restaurant. “Are you sure you want to discuss this now?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know any of these people, and most other species find wolf heats uncouth. They won’t care and will probably tune us out on principle.” He lowered his voice. “If you ask me, it would be a damn good cover, even if it weren’t true.”
Valens winked, not the least bit concerned with discussing a topic others might shy away from.
This man, Goddess bless, but he was determined to subvert my every expectation of the male species.
“I already took care of it. I’m sorry, that’s probably something I should have told you sooner.” I cleared my throat, glaring down into my weird bubble water. “At the time, everything was new and we hadn’t discussed spending it together. But as long as it happens in the next six months, there won’t be any pups.”
I finally dared to look up and found mixed relief and surprise on his features. “You weren’t ready to be a parent either, huh? Well, it’s okay. You don’t have to be. I’m not asking for that, I promise.”
He shook his head as the waiter walked up and waited for him to place the delicious-smelling feast in front of us before continuing. I sawed off a piece of the juicy steak and took a bite before he spoke.
“It’s not that. I… Believe it or not, I’d be more than happy to have a pup with you.”
And I nearly choked on it. “Excuse me? Are you insane? We barely know each other!” I hissed, truly shocked that he was okay with the idea of having a baby with me already. Except…he wasn’t arguing. “Was there a but in there somewhere that I overlooked?”
He sighed. “But, I never imagined myself being a single father. I’d prefer to wait until we had a full mate bond.”
There it was, the other shoe. My career.
And damn it, I couldn’t even argue with him this time. The more I thought about it, I didn’t even know what would happen to a child if I were still a maiden and the father wasn’t a bond mate. Would they expect me to raise the child in the enclave, doom a daughter to my same future? What if it was a boy? Would I have to give him to his father?
It was all a tangle of ugly thoughts, and I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
“Well, it’s not a problem. Neither one of us is ready for the next steps. Brielle assures me the birth control is effective, and who knows when I’ll have another heat. It could be a hundred years, and surely by then, we’ll have figured out what we want to do with the bond.”
He nodded, finally tucking into his own breakfast.
We ate in silence for a while, and eventually, my mind wandered back to the task at hand. A subject change was desperately needed, so I dove right in.
“So, how do we want to present the evidence? Have you got a plan in mind?”
He paused, lifting one eyebrow as if he were perplexed that I was done with the original topic already. But hey, avoidance was working for me so far, and I didn’t plan to stop anytime soon.
“We don’t want to mention anything out of the ordinary about your tracking skills, so I figured we’d leave that part out, about our suspicions around who we thought was doing it. Lucien said most likely they would want to take the metal and examine it themselves for magical signatures, which is a goodthing. Independent evidence will go further to proving what we’re trying to.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. Accusations would just cause a blow up.”
“Most likely.” He’d cleaned his plate, and the waiter appeared as if by magic. “Can I interest either of you in a cappuccino or perhaps an espresso?”
Valens looked my way and, at my nod, ordered us both a cappuccino.
“So, we bring the evidence, explain we’ve confirmed two missing supernaturals with signs of foul play, and then… we wait?”
He couldn’t hide his grimace at the idea of waiting, and I knew it was because my heat was coming like a freight train going too fast to stop before it decimated us both.
“We wait.”
Chapter 34
Valens
Addressing the Interspecies Governing Council was not going high on my list of favorite life experiences. In fact, it was probably somewhere near the bottom, just above replacing septic systems and just under a formal dinner with twenty-seven tiny forks and an all-vegetarian mousse-based menu. Wolves were not herbivores, and this particular wolf was no politician.
“But Councilman Aliz, they saw it with their own eyes. You want to dispute their findings when they stand here giving a ratified report on behalf of Councilman Vasilescu about incidents that occurred inside his territory?” Councilwoman Grist, a majestic female gryphon whose beak movements disconcertingly didn’t match the way her words came out, clicked her talons on the tabletop.
“I’m not saying they’re lying, only that it’s possible they’ve drawn a false conclusion. That is all.” The lesser fae representative didn’t bother to look Grist’s way. No, instead, he stared down at the tablet in front of him as if his job as a representative of his people was beneath him.
