“I don’t … I don’t think–”
“Don’t think. Let it be what it is. I’ve got the measurements for the men Raphael brought in to get the first suits. Kate took care of Raphael. I thought about doing it myself, but she turned red as a tomato when I brought him up and I couldn’t let her miss the opportunity.”
“Raphael and Kate?”
Billie nodded. “Don’t know if it’s all on one side or not. Starlett is gone over him too, and he tends to avoid both women like the plague. Raphael doesn’t do entanglements.”
“Poor Kate.”
“Not so sure.”
Billie nodded toward the door where Kate was coming in. Her face was bright red, but Fabiana also noticed something else. The puffiness of her lips, her mussed hair, and the pained expression on Raphael’s face as he watched her walk away and not look back.
“You okay, Kate?” Fabiana directed at the blonde when she got close.
“Perfect. I’ve got Raphael’s measurements for you. If you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure the kitchen has started dinner.”
Kate was gone before they could say anything else, pushing past Raphael without a glance. He turned her way, lifting a hand before he growled and stalked off in the opposite direction.
“When did she take over dinner duty?”
Billie laughed. “Never. But it’s as good an excuse as any, I suppose.”
“Maybe Raphaelisentangled, whether he wants to be or not.”
“Looks like it. I pity him.”
Fabiana cocked her head to the side. “Why?”
“Because I’ve only met one woman more closed off than you, and she just left the building.”
“Oh.”
Billie laughed. “Yeah, oh. He’s going to have an uphill battle with that one.”
Didn’t they all?
Most of the women in the Moonstone Pack, like the men, weren’t family of Adonis. She’d never really seen a pack made up of so many supplants in her life. They were all strays, bonded by painful pasts or hiding where they could be the most protected and accepted.
Adonis didn’t need to demand loyalty from his people because they gave it to him without being asked. That kind of support would be dangerous to go up against.
Fabiana and Billie worked in silence. Cataloging measurements and the amount of material they’d need, the women passed the information on to the nanotech department. Then Fabiana checked in with her head scientist, watching as he worked with a silicone bubble filled with the microscopic machines until the inside looked like mercury. As he turned dials, the bubble changed colors to fade into the background and blend in.
“Good job. You’ll have to color-match each individual suit wearer to their nanos. They’ll need a full body and brain scan for the connection.”
“It’s fascinating what you came up with. I have electropulse magic, so it makes it easier to control what they receive. Never thought I’d put it to this use.”
Where the hell had Raphael found a mage with that sort of skill on such short notice?
“Are you registered with the Mage Council here?”
Still focused on the nanos, he didn’t look at her. “Should I be? After I’m finished here, I plan to return home. Can’t replicate your suit, of course, not knowing the compound that binds the nanos to it or the way they interface with the other. It’s smart to keep the departments separate.”
That had been Adonis’s idea. Each department focused on their section before giving it to the next in order to go back and start again. Only Fabiana truly knew the entire process. She’d exclusively work to bind the nanos to the suits and program their markers for particular scents.
Her chemist was working on the compounds of different scents for each suit, which Fabiana would then link. Each man, only known to her and Adonis, would have a signature they would be able to pick up if they knew what they were looking for. Evergreen. Snow. Water. For a wolf, those all had connections in the brain, but most wouldn’t register it to be out of the ordinary in areas large enough to have them.
Fabiana’s suit was the only one linked to the property like air, a complete blind to the nose. It was a safety measure, a way to protect her invention, and Adonis had accepted without issue.
