Soon,I tell myself.
When I’m fairly certain the nursery is as ready as it can be, I close the door with a satisfying click.
One less thing for Ren to worry about.
One more way to take care of what matters to her.
To us.
When I step back into the kitchen, the scent of coffee hits me first, followed by combined sweet and savory scents.
Ren’s laughing at something Court said, her shoulders relaxed, her earlier tension eased just a little. Thayer nods to a plate full of food, pancakes covered in sliced berries and whipped cream, eggs and bacon.
I know without asking it’s for Ren. I brush a kiss to her temple as I set the plate in front of her. “Eat, little bird.”
She leans into me without hesitation, smiling up at me. “Thank you, dimples.”
“You know the rest of us actually cooked all that food,” Thayer says with an arched brow.
Ren nods. “Yes, but he directed you all on how to do it. He deserves my thanks.”
“And we don’t?” Grieves growls sitting with his own plate piled high with food, claiming the stool on the other side of Ren. Forsythe glares at him, but reluctantly takes another spot.
Ren hums as she chews her first bite of pancake. “No, you all do. These pancakes are divine. Perfectly cooked.”
We all watch as she devours the entire plate of food. Something settles in my chest, in my bones. For weeks we’ve watched her pick at her meals, barely eating half of what we’ve given her and now here she is consuming every crumb.
If we needed a sign that her Rejected Mate Disorder is gone, this would be it.
Forsythe’s phone rings next to his plate and he frowns at the screen, before answering and setting it to speaker phone. “Lizzie?”
“Hey, little brother.” The greeting is typical, but there's a strain in her voice that I’m not used to hearing. It makes all of my senses prickle. “How are things with Ren’s friend? Is the baby okay?”
Forsythe’s brow wrinkles as he flicks his gaze up to the rest of us. “Yes,” he answers slowly. “The delivery went well. The mother and child are both resting. We’re back at Ren’s now.”
“Good,” Lizzie says. “Good. That’s good. Listen… Have you seen the news coming out of Bravonne?”
That has me reaching for my own phone, because no, we haven’t checked anything since we took off on the airplane. But I stall out when she says urgently, “You should stay there for a while. Don’t come back.”
“What?” Forsythe spits the word.
“I mean it. Don’t come back. Not right now. Things are… they’re tough right now and they’re only going to get tougher and I don’t want you or your omega caught in the crossfire. Grams is on a warpath.”
My prime stares down at his phone, while Ren slips under his arm, and climbs into his lap, nestling into his chest, a soft purr vibrating through her, trying to soothe her alpha while he gets devastating news. Some of the tension in his muscles relax as he wraps his arms around her, ducking his head to inhale her scent.
“You don’t want me there?” he asks eventually.
Lizzie sighs, and I can practically see her scrubbing her hand over her face. “It's not that I don’t want you here, Sythe. It's that it’s not safe for you and Ren here. It's already… she’s all but disowned you in the media, okay? There hasn’t been an official announcement or anything, but she’s being vicious. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to arrest you for treason as soon as your plane landed, because you bonded your fated mate without crown approval.”
“On what grounds?” Grieves growls.
“Doesn’t matter does it? And it certainly wouldn’t stick, but it wouldn’t stop her from tossing your entire pack in jail for at least a few days.”
Our entire pack. Every one of us looks at Florence, tucked into our prime’s chest like he’s trying to absorb her into his body. I know we’re all remembering the alpha care challenge, the one where the omegas were tied to chairs and put in cages, the one that threw our omega into a panic attack.
Sure, she wouldn't be restrained in any way, but she would still be in a jail cell, likely a different one from ours, alone and contained.
No. No way. We are not putting her through that.
