Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,82

of the pack. Other than that, we don’t say a word about what She tells us. I wouldn’t even tell you,” he admitted, which had her eyes opening wide with surprise.

“Nor me,” I agreed.

“Nor me,” Ethan said quietly.

“Kali Sara, it’s that bad?”

“Not bad, just sacred,” I corrected. “Austin’s right—we can’t treat him like a prisoner forever, neither can we trust him around Maribel. But if the baby is in danger, what can we do?”

“Send them to our twin pack,” Ethan suggested cautiously.

“Send them away?” Sabina barked, twisting around swiftly enough to elbow him in the gut and for Knight to squawk with outrage. “You can’t be serious! We almost had a showdown with Choi’s pack over Daniel, and you want to send him away?”

Though he wheezed a little from the force of her elbow connecting with his belly, he rasped, “We have no choice. Daniel can control him, but he can’t keep him away from Maribel or, when she gives birth, the baby.”

Sabina gnawed on her bottom lip, and I scented her tears from over here. They hurt me, truly they did, but I knew Ethan was right. We had no alternative. We couldn’t keep Seth locked up forever, and we had to hope that distance between mother and son would ease his circumstances.

Of course, it could all go to shit and the spirit that possessed him might force him to come back home, but we’d deal with that when it came to it and not a moment sooner, because borrowing trouble was something we couldn’t afford right now.

“I don’t want him to leave,” Sabina whispered, and I hurt for her. Her sorrow pained me enough that I felt it like lightning bolts in my chest.

“Neither do I, sweetheart. Neither do I,” Ethan tried to soothe. “But what can we do? We have to try, don’t we?”

“He’s been sent away from one home—what kind of message are we giving him?”

Blowing out a breath because she wasn’t wrong, I muttered, “Perhaps we should discuss this with him?”

A knock sounded at the door at that exact moment, and as I inhaled to register the scent, I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I jolted in shock. “Fuck, that’s uncanny.”

“Daniel?” Sabina asked.

Ethan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Come in, Daniel,” I beckoned.

The door creaked open, timed perfectly with a howl from the woods. A single, lone howl that had my attention splitting for a fraction of a second, before I returned it to Daniel.

“Is everything okay, son?”

He danced a little from foot to foot, his agitation clear, before he blurted out, “You know Lara has a weird scent?”

I blinked. “Yes. It’s from the hyenas she was with before she came to us.”

“I smelled it when I was in the forest.”

“What were you doing in the forest?” was Sabina’s instant reply. The motherly answer almost had me smiling. “You were supposed to be doing some homework.”

He heaved a sigh. “I was, but I needed to run.”

Ethan ran a hand down her arm. “He’s an alpha whelp, love. Remember we told you they needed certain direction? Well, sometimes, they just need to run.”

She scowled, and while I sensed she wanted to argue, there was no arguing with someone who’d originally been an alpha whelp.

Of course, while she was focused on that, Ethan, Austin, and I were focused on what Daniel was saying.

“How rich was the scent, Daniel?” I asked softly.

When his nose crinkled, I had part of my answer. “It was very strong. Kinda gross.”

I cast Austin a look, but he was already on his feet and walking toward Daniel. “Show me where you scented it, kid.”

I moved to stand, then strode over to the patio doors that led onto a small balcony that ran the length of the veranda below. Another howl pierced the air, from the depth of the forest, and even as I narrowed my eyes at that, I scented them.

A lot of them.

I twisted around and saw Ethan was standing there already, doing as I had—inhaling the wind which, like always, was a boon and a curse when it came down to hyenas. Their stench was powerful enough to make a person’s eyes water.

“Kali Sara, that’s pungent,” Sabina wheezed, having joined us on the balcony. She turned away from the view of the woods and looked at us. “What’s going on?”

“A clan is here,” I muttered. “And somehow, they sneaked through our defenses.”

Ethan grunted. “Poison?”

“I can’t scent it. Maybe the naturals—they might be fooled by the gift of tainted meat, but the supernaturals? I can’t see