He’s frowning, deeply, gaze frantically scanning his screen.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, sipping my coffee. They’re all silent, even Sylvan. Which means it must be bad. I swallow. “Come on, tell me.”
“But we’ve been so careful, I don’t understand…” Sylvan murmurs, locked on whatever task has him consumed. “How could they know?”
“Show me, Sylvan,” I say, fingers tensing around the mug.
His hands still, hovering over the keyboard, then he looks at me. “I can’t.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Because…” His eyes dart to each member of his pack. “Because I don’t want you to leave.” He shuts his laptop. “I’ll fix this. I can fix it. Just give me time—”
“Sylvan, you’re scaring me.” I glance around at all my alphas, but not one of them is moving or speaking. “You all are…” I place my mug down, the soft clink echoing. “Sylvan, just tell me. Please.”
I feel Kaiden nod behind me.
“They know.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
“And what dotheyknow, Sylvan?”
“About you. That you’re courting a pack,” he starts, then can’t stop. “We can claim it as slander, our lawyers can have the articles taken down, we can—”
I let out a breath. “Sylvan, it’s fine.”
“…we’ll put out a statement, we’ll…” His words slowly trickle out. “Did you… Did you just say it’sfine?”
I nod, smiling softly.
His brows pinch tightly as his gaze swings to his pack.
“Revea, we’ll do what we can to fix this,” Kaiden finally says, his hands gripping my thighs.
“We’ll start by finding the leak,” Luciano grits out. “Who the fuck even knew?”
“I don’t know,” Val shakes his head, “but when we find them…”
“Yeah, what will you do to them, Valentin?” My mouth starts to twitch, and his stern expression falters into confusion. “Maybe… tie them up? Gag them?”
I can’t hold back my smile at their expressions. Of course they’re confused.
They’ve gone into alpha mode, threatening to destroy whoever’s leaked this damaging information, desperate to protect me from the anticipated backlash. And here I am, joking about it—
“It’s you,” Sylvan says, placing his phone screen up on the counter. “You’re the leak.”
I sigh. “Sylvan, you couldn’t have waited a few more minutes?”
His eyes are wide, staring at me as the alphas fight over his phone, trying to turn it to read.
I slip off Kaiden’s lap, and they all shift to watch as I stand before them and pull out my phone.
Swiping onto the post, I clear my throat and read.
“Hi, everyone, if you come to the salon, you may have noticed I haven’t been around for a while. If you’ve reached out to me, you’ll have been told I’ve been on a break. But the truth is, it’s been my heat.
