"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Lillian shook her head at me and climbed into her car without another word. I moved back so she could pull out of the parking space, turn around, and leave. I watched her go, thoughtfully, and turned a few ideas over in my head as she disappeared into the traffic of the city.
"Hudson, kiddo says he's starving. He could eat a whole moose," Sadie called.
She wiggled her brows at me when I looked at her. I laughed and shook my head. Given the chance, I had no doubt he probably could. I walked back to the Hummer, got inside, and headed to the nearest McDonald's to grab the kid a Happy Meal. It only seemed appropriate on such a happy day.
Traffic was a brief, passing irritation. I had my family with me and the rest of the pack at home. We hadn't been back to the mansion in what felt like forever and I'd placed it up for sale the other day. There was no point in keeping it. We didn't intend to return to that life.
Instead, I pulled through the Secret Garden-esque flair of the driveway and headed into the parking area. The others had brought their vehicles by now, each of us parking down the lane as necessary. We'd had it widened so we could do three-point turns to get out. Sadie didn't mind, so long as we were careful with the local wildlife.
That had cost approximately $300,000 when we'd discovered a rare type of bird nesting in the trees, completely off-season. But that's a story for another day.
Fucking phoenixes.
Xavion met us at the door, a grin on his face. "I've got an idea."
"Oh, no," I said, deadpanning him, too.
He shoved me, snorting. "Don't be such a dick. You guys get the adoption paperwork finalized?"
Sadie held up a folder and waved it at him. "He's all mine."
"Good, we need a lady's touch with that kid," Xavion said. "Get in here. We've got a huge proposal for both of you to see. Leo's been screwing around with Powerpoint all day long. It looks great."
I tilted my head at him, forever half a dog, even as a person. I held the door open for Sadie and Tommy, following the pair of them into the house. The cake we'd ordered to celebrate Tommy’s adoption stood 3 tiers tall on the table, the frosting well set in the cool room. Xavion led us into the former living room. We'd dubbed it the Decision Den, because it seemed as though the computers and work ended up in the room no matter how much we tried to keep it out.
Live like a pack, work like a pack, I guess.
Gabe had linked Leo's laptop to the oversized television we'd mounted on the wall last weekend, deciding that we couldn't deal with Sadie's 90s model constantly freaking out over too-quick cable speeds. We'd saved the older television for Tommy's room, when he got a little older. It even had one of those old VHS decks built into it. Perfect to show him all our old, terrible tv shows from days gone by.
Leo stepped in front of the television and lifted his chin, all pomp and circumstance. Tommy ran off to play while Sadie and I were seated upon the couch. I kicked my shoes off and she curled into the circle of my arm, tucking her head against my chest.
"Lady and gentlewolves," Leo began, bowing and sweeping his arm across his chest. "I present to you the fruits of my labor, the honorarium of my extraction, the-"
"Get on with it," Xav said, tossing an empty Coke bottle at his head.
It pap!ed off his forehead and Leo scowled at him. "As I was saying. Our feature presentation."
He motioned at Gabe, who tapped a button on the keyboard. The television exploded with sad, barking dogs in filthy cages. There were cats in filth-caked hovels, all meowing at the top of their lungs. I frowned and pulled Sadie closer, but she was absolutely enthralled. There was anger on her face but an intensity in her gaze that I hadn't seen before. Fixing what she saw was what she lived for, was what everything she did was to work against.
And all she wanted to do was to climb through that screen and correct every issue she saw.
"The Fontaine Foundation is proud to present, Sadie's Sanctuary," said Leo's voice as the video swept away from the miserable animals.
Instead, we were treated to a video of the lodge. Land had been cleared, replaced with areas where dogs ran free and enormous bird aviaries. Cats enjoyed themselves as they clung to trees in fenced areas, exhibiting natural behaviors without the worry of becoming roadkill. Equines of various sorts, no unicorns of course, walked through endless pastures, all of them serviceable to feed the animals as they desired to eat.
From there, the video devolved into metrics and formulas, prices and buying structures that were in perfect synchronization with the land we had purchased. It maintained that we could work with a rescue of this size while maintaining our hunting land and our privacy.
Sadie's face lit up as she watched the presentation, her smile as wide as it could be by the end of it. It was something I hadn't considered. As much as I liked her little old house, she had certainly outgrown it and the property wasn't really big enough to expand the home any further.
If we wanted to continue to grow the pack or add adult members to it, we'd need more rooms. The lodge, with Lillian no longer a concern, was a perfect position to work from. And I thought the presentation was rather inspired, all things considered. Obviously, my pack had seen the potential that I hadn't.
It would work, if it was what Sadie wanted to
