That was probably going to be very good for our egos. Sabina wasn’t the only one in our unit who was going to be grounded, it would seem.
We were going to be leveled out too.
I’d already seen how Cyrilo’s unfeeling responses to Sabina’s distress had ruptured my icy brother’s control.
We were changing.
I just wondered how I was too.
Was I getting softer?
Something about the boy’s plight just didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t know if that something was triggered by being newly mated, or if it was just a broader understanding of how fate worked.
Sometimes, things happened for a reason.
Sometimes, bad shit had to happen for the good to be allowed to flourish.
If Kingsley had lived, for example, that meant Daniel would have been a lost cause.
As Sabina’s father had bred Cyrilo for sin, Kingsley would have done the same.
But under our roof?
He’d be an alpha to look up to.
I reached for the hand she’d pressed to my belly, and squeezed her fingers before murmuring, “Just speak with Eli. Okay?”
She hummed, and the sound soothed me in a way I wasn’t about to question before I grabbed the sandwich, traipsing across the kitchen to hand it to Daniel, who hadn’t moved once.
At least if we had to live with a kid, he was a good kid.
Probably too fucking terrified to squeak without shitting himself, thanks to that cocksucker of a father of his.
When I heard movement in the hall, I listened in, taking note that Frank was leaving.
Ethan and I didn’t even need to talk to one another, didn’t even need to discuss Frank and who he was to us.
We wouldn’t be exploring that side of our family.
Roots were roots, but we were who we were, and we made ourselves into the men we clawed our way into being.
Just like Daniel.
His past tarnished him, but his future would make him.
Ethan’s and my past didn’t tarnish us, but we weren’t going to be digging into the family history, making connections, not unless the pack needed them.
You never knew when you needed another pack on your side, but Frank’s was from the South, and we were high up in the North. I highly doubted we would be able to use those ties between us to any gain.
Ethan’s voice was polite, Eli’s sharp at the same time, both were grateful as they ushered Frank out of the house.
When I heard a car start in the distance, only then did my shoulders settle as tension released from them.
“You don’t have to have a relationship with him if you don’t want to,” Sabina told me gently, reading my mind but answering out loud.
“I know. I don’t want one.”
“I figured as much.”
“I want to focus on the future, not the past.”
“That’s what we’ll do.” She pressed a hand to her stomach, reached for mine, and smiled. “That’s what we’ll do.”
I arched a brow at her, and teased, though I knew she had her period, “You trying to tell me something?”
She grinned, shook her head. “Nope. Just, you know, preempting things.”
I rolled my eyes. “You never heard of the phrase ‘you don’t borrow trouble’?”
She arched a brow at me, darted a look at Daniel, and repeated, “Nope.”
I laughed a little, then hauled her into me so I could kiss her on the brow.
Eli
“You want to what?”
I worked my jaw at that, not appreciating being questioned by someone I didn’t even fucking consider a councilor anymore.
Before, taking their shit had been hard.
Now that I had a different plot ahead in mind, it was even more difficult to accept.
I ran a hand over my chin, watching as the council—without Conrad and his wife as leaders—gathered in front of me, umbrage lining their features as they bristled with dissension and fury at my tactics.
“It isn’t a matter of wanting. It is a matter of honor. Of duty. For a child that young to be tossed out onto the streets is an abomination.”
“That’s because Kingsley Rainford was an abomination,” Laura Thierry muttered.
“Yes, but his son isn’t. He’s also close to shifting, and if he does that and is left to lead his own life without any input from anyone else? Who knows where that might lead us.”
“It isn’t our problem,” Ronan Grayford snapped, making me want to bitch slap the fucker for being so damn dense.
“It is. He came to our territory. He was stealing food from one of our stores to fill his belly. At some point, it was going to become our problem.” I