Chin on top of her head, he held her while he made arrangements for still more enforcers to meet them and claim the body. It wasn’t Krista, not really, but the witchborn fae wearing her skin was all he had to give her parents.
Gwyllgi required no waterproof tents, insulated sleeping bags, or crackling fires to enjoy a night beneath the stars, but they often mated other species less at home in the forest. For that reason, the pack had an unusual number of permanent campsites on their property for mates and children less suited to exposure to the elements. As of last fall, there were even three isolated one-room cabins designed to fade into the surrounding trees.
A good third of the pack had fought his mom on building the cabins, small as they might be. The permanent campsites were already an eyesore, they argued. The den was meant to be a wilderness oasis, a place to shake a long week of working downtown out of your fur. Not walk manicured trails or choke on pungent mosquito repellent.
Mom decreed the pack had to accommodate all its members, and then she bit anyone who dared oppose her vision.
There was a very good reason why Tisdale Kinase was alpha of the largest gwyllgi pack in the Southeast.
Sharp teeth were only the tip of it.
Tonight, with Hadley’s mental wellbeing hanging on by a thread, he was grateful for the cabins. He carried Hadley into the closest one, woke her for a shower, then heated up chicken soup from a can in the pantry. She was asleep on the bed, bundled up in an oversized towel large enough to dry a wet gwyllgi, before the first bubble broke the surface in the pot on the stove.
Guilt churned in his gut over leaving Midtown before the teens were located, but Mom was always telling him half of being an alpha was learning when to delegate. Ares was his right hand, and the enforcers were highly trained members of elite teams. As much as it twisted him up inside, he had to believe he’d made the right call. Hadley teetered on the breaking point, and it was his duty—no, his privilege—to help her regain her balance.
After pouring the soup into a bowl for himself, he took it outside to eat on the dirt porch so as not to waste it.
“What happened?”
The fact his mother had hunted him down was about as surprising as the sun rising in the east.
“Hadley paid the first installment on our bargain with Natisha.” He stirred the soup but didn’t eat. “She’s in a bad way right now.”
“I’m sorry.” She joined him on the porch, not caring if her neat mint-green pantsuit got dirty. “Do you think she’ll cross the finish line?”
Break a deal with the fae, and the bargain came undone, for starters. But that was only fair. From there, they decided how much was owed to them for the betrayal and how to collect what was due.
Hadley had no choice but to cross the finish line, or Ford would die, and Natisha would get her chance to have what Linus had hinted she wanted in the first place: Hadley.
“She’s stronger than she looks.” He picked the carrots from the bowl and flicked them to the ground. “It will cost her, but she’ll make it.”
“I wish I had never summoned her,” Mom muttered, meaning Natisha. “I should have let it alone.”
“Ford would be dead if you had,” he pointed out, for all the good it would do.
“I don’t want this to break Hadley.” She drew her legs to her chest then wrapped her arms around them. “I don’t want you to hate me if it does.”
“I could have paid a tithe of forgiveness and sent Natisha home.” He started to work tossing the noodles. “I’m the one who chose to bargain with her.”
“And Hadley chose to bargain for you.”
Her inflection, the gentle cadence of her voice, sent his gaze seeking hers. “What do you mean?”
“She made this choice, the same as you.” She dug her toes in the dirt. “Don’t blame yourself.”
“She saved me, and Ford.” Left with only thin broth and chicken, he spooned up the salty cubes of meat. “Natisha didn’t want anything I had to offer.”
“Yes, she did, and she got it too.” Mom leaned her head against the cabin. “There’s something about Hadley.”
Midas put the bowl down and gave her his full attention.
“Linus trusts her, and I trust Linus, but I get the same feeling around her as I do around him.”
“They’re both necromancers,” he reminded her. “They’re both bonded to...”
“Exactly,” she murmured. “Bonded to what, exactly?”
The taunting Hadley received every now and again made him think his mother wasn’t the only curious one. He didn’t have to reach far back in his memory for the most recent incident.
“Why did she call you shadow child?”
“All potentates have wraiths.”
“You’re not Potentate yet, and that’s not an answer.” He spun it around on her. “Have you bonded?”
“Yes.”
Unsure what he expected, her candor surprised him. “You have a wraith?”
“Remember when you told me there were things about your past you couldn’t share with me?”
“Yes.”
“Remember when I said I’m in the same boat?” She clenched her fists at her sides. “This falls under that heading.”
A sudden chill raised gooseflesh down his arms, but he still argued on Hadley’s and Linus’s behalf. “You’ve met Cletus.”
“I’ve met a few wraiths in my time, and they’re nothing but smoke without orders.” She pursed her lips. “Either Cletus is self-aware, or Linus is the best damn wraith pilot to ever walk the earth.” She cut him a sharp look. “Have you seen Hadley’s wraith?”
“No.”
“You need to figure out her secret, and quick.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“As you might recall, I was mated to your father.” She patted his hand where it rested on the bowl. “I am familiar with the unbreakable bond our kind feels with their mate.” The bowl fell from his hands and splashed its contents onto the dirt.
