Caleb jumped out of his chair, clambering to get as far away from me as he could, as fast as he could. Dmitri’s laugh was a deafening roar as he watched the Alpha scurry like a frightened mouse. I frowned, “That’s not helping.” He shrugged, still chuckling. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t make him unsee what he just saw.” “Remind me to threaten to yank Bo’s ass back to the Aether later,” I grumbled and frowned at the man cowering in the corner of the room. “Still, he’s taking it better than you did.” Dmitri’s laughing choked to a stop, “I don’t think that’s a fair comparison, he hadn’t spent several days doing very intimate things with you before he saw you as you really are.” “And all the spanking,” I teased, “there was a lot of spanking that happened.” “I’ve since gotten over that and I’m not opposed to putting you over my knee right now,” he was serious. “Promises, promises,” I r
‘I’m on my way up to check on Sophie,’ I wasn’t sure where Blake was, but he should’ve made his way back down to the office already. ‘Is everything ok?’ ‘Samuel is halfway across our territory, on patrol and he’s trying to make his way back as fast as he can, I thought it best if I didn’t leave her alone.’ Blake was too good at knowing what I needed from him without my asking. ‘When I get up there, maybe you should go spend some time with Kelly. I’m sure that she would appreciate the extra attention.’ I could feel his gratitude as I closed out the link and continued making my way up the stairs. Hopefully Dmitri could contain Caleb’s overzealous ideas to start some kind of revolution in my absence. I didn’t know if I could force him to block out memories or not but I also didn’t want to have to try. I had enough on my plate to deal with and even that was spiraling out of my control. Blake was pacing back and forth in th
“I’ll have to be honest with you,” Dmitri frowned, “when you said that you desperately needed a moment alone with me and I could feel your heart racing through the link I wasn’t expecting you to actually want to talk.” “I think that the plan I have, which I still don’t want to tell you about just yet, is escalating a lot faster than I thought it would,” I collapsed into one of the only two chairs in the little room, staring at the tapestries hanging on either side of the door behind him. “There are some things that I’ll admit I hadn’t thought all the way through.” “Like telling Caleb that you’d provide his mate with her own wolf or the promise you made that it was going to be the strongest she could have?” He gave me a smug smirk that had always irritated me. “Yes,” I huffed, letting him have the satisfaction of being right. “Why did you pick this room out of all the rooms in the house that we could’ve been alone in?”
Sophie looked disappointed when she noticed I wasn’t returning from the direction of our suites. “So you didn’t take a minute to yourself to do some relaxing,” she frowned as she teased. “You don’t actually think we sleep when we go to bed at night do you?” I teased back. “Eww gross,” her face scrunched up, “I know I started it, but can we just not?” I shrugged, “I can’t wait to tease you about this stuff. We really need to figure out how to find your mate.” “And have to share my cookies, no thank you.” She pushed her way into the kitchen, eager to get the cookie dough out and start baking. “You’re still going to make me share these with Kelly aren’t you?” she pouted as she hugged the bowl against her chest. “I’ve just come back from going toe to toe with your brother, I’m not about to do it again for your sugar addiction,” I laughed, hopping up on the counter to watch her. She’d done this part often e
Kelly’s face lit up when Sophie held out the container of cookies, “We brought snacks! And some of them are even still warm on the top.” “Are you trying to make me look bad?” Blake groaned looking hungrily at the container as it was passed into Kelly’s hands. “Why, what did you bring for her?” I looked around the room to see if I could spot it. “Just a pint of ice cream,” he frowned at me. “Well now she can make her own ice cream sandwich cookies, depending on the flavor of ice cream.” “Where did we have ice cream stashed?” Sophie pouted, making us all chuckle. “I’m going to start to get a big head with all this attention you keep giving me,” she gave me a warm smile. I shrugged, “Not all my visits are fun though. I’m afraid this one is more business than pleasure and it concerns both of you.” Kelly’s smile didn’t waiver, but Blake’s face expressed concern. “I know I’v
Dmitri hadn’t been particularly stoked with the idea of me spending another night in the Aether after my fun detour trip to ancient Egypt last time. He was less happy about me doing it alone. But we didn’t know what excessive exposure to the celestial energies there would have on him. We had enough shit to deal with as it was. This was the first time I’d had a clear intention and some instructions on how to achieve it, before I let my consciousness drift away to the inky black void with all its twinkling star-like eyes watching me. No one was there to greet me and Dmitri hadn’t been yanked along with me. So far, so good. I sat down and closed my eyes. I was going to call a specific Menae, on purpose, for the first time. The image of a midnight black wolf, with a starburst shaped white patch of fur on the forehead above silver eyes formed in my mind. I needed the daughter that had the gift of reading people, claircognizance, Bo called it. “Delphinios,”
They’d awoken Sophie and refreshed themselves a little by the time that I was ready to go. “Does Isabel know to expect us? Or should I let her know now?” I pulled my hair up into a messy bun to keep it out of the way while I got poked and prodded for however long this was going to take. “She’s expecting us,” Dmitri circled his arms around me from behind. “It’s not going to be as bad as you think it’ll be,” he tried to whisper reassurances in my ear. I shrugged, “Easy for you to say, you’re probably not going to become a human pin cushion after this.” I leaned into his embrace briefly, taking what little comfort I could before volunteering for torture. I couldn’t say that I could blame her for looking surprised. A request to be ready for the four of us, during the time of day I usually trained, I probably would’ve expected to see someone in need of medical attention as well. “Should we start with your concerns or see if I can break her
I couldn’t help but wonder if all this was my fault. If I’d just listened to her when she’d insisted that she didn’t need the recognition or the formalities, would we still have to go through any of this? Would Ulf have even found out about her if we hadn’t stuck to tradition and invited him? Candice may have still been a thorn in our side at some point. Be she wouldn’t have been given the chance to create this much trouble. I was sure of that much. She would’ve been killed on sight the moment she’d stepped a foot into our territory. It was just the way that she’d been posed and done up to look like Selene that had saved her life. And now she’d been allowed to get under all of our skin. Without letting Selene rip her mind to shreds there was no way of knowing what information that she’d given to Ulf. We could only assume that she’d divulged every intimate detail that she knew about all of us in her attempt to be his ally. I never should’ve let her stay