"If you're sure no one will mind or there's no one better to do it, I'm all for it," she said, squirming to tuck herself beneath my chin.
"They won't. Honestly, the office probably won't even bother you after the first week or two. They'll want to feel you out, meet who stole our hearts, and try to understand your purpose. After that? They'll settle right in with you." I paused, then peeked down at her. "Why did you want to make a call, anyhow?"
"I don't know if it'd make sense."
"You can try me?"
Sadie sighed and looked out the window across from us. "I want to try to help Lillian. Maybe the big, scary dragon hasn't eaten her yet. I don't know. But I don't think it's fair that she gets fried or whatever was going to happen to us. She had an honest problem with me. She tried to solve it herself. Maybe she did it wrong, but people tend to overreact."
"She tried to kill you and missed the dose. Sadie, she wanted to use you to punish Hudson for her sister. That's it," I said, alarmed. I couldn't let Sadie go running off, maybe try to rescue Lil. She was gone. The problem was over. That was the end of the story.
But she continued as though I hadn't spoken. "I mean, if someone came in and decided to play mom to my nephew, I'd want to get to know her. I'd probably be defensive, too. I'd be irritable and I'd absolutely blame someone like Hudson for what happened, even if it was stupid to do it. And don't get me wrong, I do think it's stupid. But it feels like I'm being haunted by the ghost of someone I never met. I owe it to Becca, if I'm going to take her place as your omega, as Tommy's mom, to make sure that Lillian doesn't die because of me."
"That's noble, I suppose, Sadie, but you can't change the past. You aren't responsible for it," I told her.
She shook her head. "I know I'm not, but Eskal is going to reconsider what he wanted to do with her. I was hoping that maybe there was some kind of testimony I could give. Like maybe if I said I didn't want her dead, he'd do something else with her."
"He might," I agreed. "You already talked to him?"
"As much as I could. Mostly, he just listened."
I nodded. "Then that's as much as you can do. I'm sure he'll be back to you in a day or two. But she tried to kill you. Humans wouldn't tolerate attempted murder, either."
"I suppose not," Sadie said, her shoulders slumping. "But we need a bigger impact on the supernatural world. The dragons can't have this much control over it, no matter what."
"Are you suggesting some kind of coup?"
"I don't know what I'm suggesting, but I know that I don't want Tommy bound to laws like we have now. What if it's his son or daughter that does what he did? What if that omega doesn't react the way I did?"
Frowning, I wound that around in my mind. Werewolves are not forward thinkers or long-term planners, for the most part. The business was a different thing altogether, but we still encouraged the use of financial planners and human thinktanks to prepare some of our proposals for us. Though we were perfectly capable wolves, it was sometimes difficult to think beyond the current status of our lives.
It was just part of how things worked when some of your mind was shared with someone who liked to dig holes and flush squirrels out of the brush.
The idea of Tommy suffering what we'd worried would befall us was too much. And Sadie had a point; why did the dragons have final say over what happened? They'd been contested now and then, but maybe we were being rolled onto our backs when it wasn't really appropriate.
"It's something to talk to Hudson about, see what he thinks. Until then, we'll wait and see what Eskal does. And we'll get you ready to head to your first day at work. How about that?"
She blinked at me. "Are there things I need to know before we go back to work? Like, weird social werewolf billionaire things?"
I laughed and began to explain the internal hierarchy of Fontaine Feeds. We spent most of the afternoon there, talking and helping her figure out how she would perform her role. And, to be honest, it was nice to get back to work. I'd craved something different, had a taste of it, and was ready to go back to our old normal plus Sadie. She'd been the final piece in our puzzle, what we needed to make Fontaine Feeds special; and our personal life, too.
And she was smart as a whip. She found flaws in my plans, small ones that we spent time correcting. We were nearly finished when Xav's phone rang. Sadie was on it in an instant.
"Hello?" she answered.
I could hear someone on the other end and, after a moment, recognized Eskal's voice. I didn't interrupt, not wanting to set the dragon off if he'd considered her request. Sadie's face fell as she listened and it was as if someone had punched me in the gut.
When she hung up, she sighed and looked down at the phone. I reached out and put my hand over it. "You tried your best. She would have never advocated for you, if she'd been in your shoes."
"He's going to exile her to another city that's willing to take on an alpha female in their pack," she said.
I stared at her. "She's getting a reset?"
"Is that what you call it? A reset?"
I withdrew my hand from the phone and put it in
