My usual seat in the corner closest Mack and furthest from the door was free...and it even had food! I eyed the wolfish hound sitting on the floor beside Rohan and he gave me a happy grin, thumping his tail on the floor in greeting.
“No,” I told him, curling one forearm around my plate as I picked up a fork with the other. “This is mine.”
The dog’s ears drooped and he whined. I looked at Mack.
“So, where are we at?”
Mack cocked his head and jerked his chin at Delight. “You need to talk to her.”
I took a slow deliberate bite of my pie and eyed the Odyssey agent. “What?”
“Well, aren’t we all attitude and bullshit, this morning?”
Mack’s boot nudged me in the calf, and I frowned.
“I take it that means you have something else you want us to do, then,” I snarked, not caring that Mack’s next nudge was more like a small kick.
Delight sat back in her chair. “Don’t you want to know what happened?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
I made it sound more like a command than a question and she smiled.
“Nice to see some things don’t change.”
I took another bite of my pie and started chewing. No way I could say anything that might get me into trouble that way.
Wanta make a bet? Rohan asked, and I shot him a sharp glance.
The little shit was smirking.
“Rohan...” Mack’s warning rumble showed the kid’s comment hadn’t gone unnoticed, and it was my turn to smirk.
Delight ignored us all, and got down to her briefing.
“First of all, good job. You won the war.”
It was her tone of voice more than her words that got my attention, and I snapped my head up to watch her. That tone always meant trouble.
She caught the look and her lips twitched.
Yeah.... We were in a world of hurt.
“Not yet, you’re not,” and wasn’t Pritchard just a bundle of joy, right now?
Delight continued as if neither of us had interrupted. “Unfortunately, since the wolves were the ones behind the revolution, we’ve had to ratify their right to rule it.”
“Motherfuck...” Rohan wasn’t happy.
I snorted. At least I knew the little turd didn’t know that much more than I did. He nudged me in the ribs, a not-so-subtle reminder that he wasn’t that little anymore.
As if I didn’t know it. He topped me by more than a foot...and somewhere along the line had gotten old enough for both alcohol and girlfriends.
He’d come a long way from the frightened twelve-year-old I’d been put in charge of babysitting. I snuck a sideways look at him and caught sight of the stubble shadowing his chin.
It almost made me feel old.
“When you’ve done with your little trip down Memory Lane...” Delight was glaring at me, again.
I mean, when wasn’t she?
She chose not to answer that, but went on.
“Because of your involvement, we were able to place a few caveats such as humans not being harmed, enslaved or made second-class citizens...”
Pritchard snorted, showing exactly what he thought the chances of that were. “Now tell her what the wolf captain’s answer was for those conditions.”
Delight focused on me, as though that would block her partner from view.
“The captain said that any human not happy with the way things were run would be given safe passage off world to a human colony of their choice and seed money to set themselves up.”
That made me sit up. “And you believed him?”
“Given the repercussions if he doesn’t follow through with it?” Delight’s mouth tightened. “Yes, I do.”
“And the rest...” Pritchard prodded.
This time, Delight shot him a short glare before turning back to me.
“He said it was the least he could do for your retrieval of his people and his pup.”
I subsided, studying Delight’s face for any sign of a catch. She answered my next question before I had time to ask it.
“And, no, I don’t know how he intends to make it happen. I just believe he can.”
I subsided. That made sense.
My guess was that he knew the value of the artefacts he was living in and that several colonies were going to have a few unannounced arrivals...with full citizenship. Personally, I didn’t want to know how he was going to achieve that.
Like Delight, I just knew he would.
“You have that much faith in him?” she asked, and I was startled to hear the surprise edging her tones.
“Yup,” I told her. From what I’d seen of the wolf, he’d do exactly what he said he would...unlike some others that sprang to mind.
Which reminded me...
“What happened to the Rennet’s World wolves?”
The smirk came back.
“We took their ship,” Delight replied, and her smirk became a grin. “There wasn’t a single survivor. Oops.”
Oops’ my ass, I thought, and she raised her eyebrows at me.
“Your lack of faith is disturbing,” she mocked, and every trace of amusement vanished. “Their world swore revenge, but that’s the least of our current problems.”
Here it comes, I thought, but out loud I said, “What happened?”
“We lost the cub.”
As a show-stopper, those words had pretty much everything else beat. I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my mouth.
“How?”
“We returned the cub to his father, and then the arach teleported in, grabbed the boy and teleported out.”
“What were you doing? Sleeping?” The words were out before I registered exactly how undiplomatic they were.
Delight shot a sharp glance at Mack. I followed it in time to see him roll his eyes. Pritchard snickered and raised his coffee cup in salute.
“Ever heard of a teleport snatch?” Delight asked, her voice full of sarcasm. “Well, this one consisted of four heavily armored arach warriors and a rapid port in and out. We couldn’t shoot because of the kid, and they didn’t stay long enough for us to block the signal.”
“But I thought...” I began, looking over at Tens.
He shook his head. “We had to drop the blocker to get everyone back down
