“One hour!” she screeched at us. “I just want one hour of peace.”
“Only an hour, huh?” I said. “Dad’s losing his touch.”
Her eyes flashed daggers at me.
“He’s like a two-year-old!” Charles complained. Cassie was helping him up before he fell asleep in the vat and drowned. Her lips were pressed tight together but her eyes sparkled. “He’s still got my demon blade too!”
“I don’t care what anyone’s done. I just want this cleaned up before dinner!”
She disappeared back outside, muttering about immature lions. I leaned over the banister and gave Charles my most innocent smile. “That’s number twenty-three,” I told him. “Only seventeen more to go.”
“Just wait till Sophie wakes up,” he shot back. “Then you’ll see what a prank is!”
My lion picked up its head at the mention of her. Its mouth opened in a silent roar. A myriad of emotions spiralled through me. Fury, hunger, tenderness. The lion clawed at my gut, swiping away the logic of the man and surrendering to pure instinct. She’d hidden the link from us. We both could have died without acknowledging the greatest gift the old gods had given to our race. The lion brimmed with violence, its primal nature shaken to the core with fear, as it stewed in what ifs. Still too raw to be soothed by the mating link itself, the lion paced around in my mind, impatient for its mate to awaken.
Charles knew exactly what he was doing but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction. I leaned against the door as Cassie shooed him inside. “Don’t crack your head on the tub,” I said.
He tried to lunge at me but ended up falling on his ass. I laughed all the way to the conference room.
“You’ve got contracts with the skin walkers,” Durin murmured. He sat behind the oak desk in the office I’d gladly relinquished.
“I’ve signed contracts with a lot of factions.”
His black eyes watched me over the rim of the parchment. “They take on any form without discrimination,” he said. “Is that the kind of thing we want to be associated with?”
“They’re honourable. And loyal. They’ll be good allies.”
He grunted. “Didn’t one of their huntresses try to mate with you?”
I shrugged. The faces of all the women who’d come and gone melded together in my head. I couldn’t pick any of them out of a haystack.
Durin pressed on. “They’re also ritualistic.”
“So?”
“So how isn’t that just another step down from a magic user?”
I shrugged. “Things change, Durin.”
He eyed me with the speculative cunning of an alpha. I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed over my chest.
“Uh huh. And the fact that they’re West African doesn’t come into the equation?”
“Why would it?”
This time, he leaned forward. Setting the papers down, he threaded his thick fingers in front of him. I couldn’t help smiling inside. His skin still held a ghostly pallor, but for the most part, he was Durin again.
“Should I expect all your decisions to be made for the good of your mate rather than the pack from now on?” he said with typical bluntness. I matched it.
“Yes.” And then, “But Sophie would never accept anything that would harm the pack. So it’s a moot point.”
He scrubbed at his face, messing up his beard. He really did do a good impression of a mountain man. “I suppose you’re not going to back down on this Sisterhood thing either?”
“Not on your life.”
“Uh huh.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “When the day comes, you’ll be alpha of the Reserve. But that day isn’t today. So I would appreciate it if you asked before you reinstated them.”
I leaned forward too, the lion in my eyes. Once I would have allowed his dominance to keep me silent. But I’d been somebody else for too long and it chafed. I was never going to change again.
“It was a mistake to allow the Council to exile them in the first place.” My voice was like a steel blade. “Because of that decision, Sophie was running around unprotected in the fens for six months. They’re lucky I don’t take their heads for it. So the Sisterhood stays. We’re done punishing the humans, when we dropped the ball. I’m done being scared.”
He sighed heavily. “It’s not that simple.”
“Since when?”
“Since we allowed a human with unknown powers to remain in our community.”
I snorted. “Come off it! You’re the one who voted for Lex to stay.”
He ran his hand through his hair this time. His eyes clouded over, and my hunting instinct became deadly sharp. “What did the malachim show you?” I found myself asking with my breath held.
Durin shook his head. “Nothing solid. Just a feeling of oppression. That we’re being stalked by a danger that will change the face of our world forever.”
I let it sit for a moment. And then the mating link showed me the image of Lex on her first day at Bloodline Academy. Small, skinnier than a stork, and wearing mismatched clothing. She’d come running through the corridor behind Sophie as Basil screamed his head off. Bewildered by what was happening, she’d looked into my eyes without understanding it was a challenge. The lion went completely silent in my mind, its voice and claws stolen by something it recognised in her. Locked inside that breakable human body was a will that would dwarf most of the Reserve.
The tattoo on my chest burned. I slapped my hand over it, massaging to stop the pain.
“When the day comes,” I said, “I would rather embrace a change that Lex is fighting for than hold on
