Chapter Seven
By sunset, which was after eight that night, almost all of the guests had arrived.
The only exceptions were the members of three Texas packs who were flying together from Dallas; their flight was delayed due to weather, and they were expected the following morning, hopefully in time for the initial introductory meeting.
Part of the expansion of the house had included the construction of a seven hundred and fifty-seat auditorium in the basement.
That had taken some doing, given the sheer size that was necessary to accommodate that many werewolves, but I’d had little choice.
We wouldn’t have that many attendees at the annual gatherings, but it was always best to have extra seating, and somehow the architect and contractors I’d hired had made it happen.
I didn’t try to gather everyone that night.
Some were tired and far too cranky after traveling to get here, and I didn’t want to start getting into official business yet.
Not to mention that while I wouldn’t—and didn’t want to—do things exactly the way Hezekiah had, it was standard for the first night of any gathering, regional or national, to be a time when people could simply mingle and greet friends and allies they hadn’t seen since the previous gathering.
I wasn’t going to entirely follow the lead of my predecessor, but I also refused to topple tradition.
I did take time to introduce my guards to everyone who held still long enough.
Under Hezekiah, the guards’ sole purpose at the gatherings was to enforce laws and rules.
I considered my guards part of a team, not my underlings, and for this gathering, they would be the first point of contact for anyone who had issues or needs.
Otherwise I would be scrambling to address everything, and I simply didn’t have the bandwidth for that.
By the time darkness fully fell, some of the guests had already retired to their rooms for the night, including all of the Boston wolves. I suspected, given how Suzannah and Garrett had peeked at me as they left the dining room, that the group was conspiring on something to do with the wedding.
Others had gone outside to look at the moon and stars.
At last year’s gathering, that hadn’t been permitted.
All attendees were required to remain inside unless Hezekiah specifically instructed them to go out.
I’d chosen to grant my guests freedom while they were here.
I’d instructed them, in the too-long informational email I’d sent out to all of the arkhons and alphas, to stay on the cleared portion of the house’s land, leaving the woods for hunt night, and not to leave the property without checking in with me or one of the guards, but otherwise they could be inside or outside as they pleased.
As the night wore on and more people went to their rooms or outside, or to the largest guest house if that was where they were assigned to stay, Kyle seemed to sag.
He leaned against the doorway between the dining room and the large social room, eyelids drooping.
He could afford to show his fatigue. No one cared if the Anax’s mate was weak.
I didn’t have the same luxury, but I was exhausted. At this time of night, if anyone thought less of me for going to bed, that was their problem. I went to Kyle and took his hand. “Upstairs. Sleep.”
“I don’t sleep. That’s the problem.” He yawned. “I don’t know if I can sleep. This is going to be a long-ass couple of days.”
“It is, but at least come rest with me for a while.” If I could get him horizontal, maybe sleep would take him over for at least a little while. If he had a nightmare, at least I would be there to comfort him.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Rest. I can do that. Who knows, maybe sleep will be my friend for at least part of the night.”
In our room, we again stripped down to nothing, because we both preferred the sensation of lying skin-to-skin.
Sometimes it was arousing. Sometimes, like tonight, it was simply comforting.
Most werewolves were soothed by physical touch, and my mate’s touch did more than anything else to quiet my mind and let me relax.
Wrapped in Kyle’s arms, with my head on his chest, I fell asleep fairly quickly.
A while later—I couldn’t tell how long without any type of light or clock to indicate how much time had passed—I woke alone in the bed. Kyle hadn’t left the suite. I could hear him breathing nearby. At least there was that. But he was awake, and I didn’t know whether he’d slept at all.
“I hope you’re wrong,” he whispered. “I know you’re probably right, but I hope you’re wrong.”
Abruptly, I sat up. No one else was in the room with us, but he was definitely talking to someone. My concern was quickly eased when I realized there was only one person Kyle was likely to talk to in the middle of the night.
Sure enough, after a couple of seconds, I heard Quinn Boucher’s voice filtered through a phone speaker.
My heart reached out toward that voice. Quinn reminded me of myself.
Changed too young, though at least he’d been of legal age, under traumatic circumstances.
His were more traumatic than mine, however.
He’d spent a month as the sexual captive of two werewolves, including the one who changed him, and had then fled to safety in Prairie Pack, a small pack in North Dakota—only to lose the pack’s Beta who had become his lover, along with their Alpha and a few packmates, to a slaughter by members of a Canadian pack.
Including the wolf who had changed Quinn.
The day of the massacre, Quinn had called me for help. I’d gone to North Dakota to help rebuild the pack and, when the new Alpha expressed wanting to kick Quinn out of the pack, I’d taken Quinn in as one of my guards.
He and Kyle had grown close during that time.
For that matter, so had he and I, until the Anax power marked Quinn as a threat because Quinn, with a gift for seeing “colors” that gave him information about people, knew what the power was doing to me.
I’d manipulated Quinn into leaving for his own safety.
Now he lived in Nova Scotia with his mate, Malachi, a packless wolf and close friend to Silas Creighton, the Anax of Canada.
“I want to be wrong,” Quinn said, his voice slightly tinny through the phone’s speaker. “The sun isn’t red yet. That’s the only good thing. The sun isn’t red, which means maybe no one will die.”
“You think someone’s going to challenge Tobias.” Even in a whisper, Kyle’s words fell like lead weights.
“I want to be wrong,” Quinn said again. “Silas, Malachi, and I are coming down there in a couple of days for your wedding, and I want the wedding to happen. I want you and Tobias to be happy. You both deserve that, and you deserve to not have to go through any more hell to get there.”
“Kid, there will always be hell to go through as long as Tobias is Anax.” Kyle sighed. “Yeah. We’re both really looking forward to seeing you. Silas and Malachi too, but you especially. The place hasn’t been the same since you left.”
“I’ve been gone longer than I was with you,” Quinn pointed out. “You must be used to it by now.”
“Nah. Some things, you don’t get used to.” Kyle paused. “I’m going to let you go, kid, before we wake Malachi. I think we’ve already woken Tobias.”
“Tell him I said hi.” Quinn hesitated, and I could almost see him biting his lip, the nervous habit he’d been trying to train himself out of since I’d known him. “Tell him I miss him and he needs to be careful.”
“I will.” I won’t. I know you can hear us.
Werewolf super hearing for the win, I said.
Stop sounding like me. “Take care, kid. See you Saturday. Hunt well if I don’t talk to you again before full moon.”
“Hunt well,” Quinn replied.
Kyle walked over to the bed from the small sitting area near the window and set his phone on his nightstand. “Sorry for waking you.”
“Don’t be.” I held out my arms, and he moved onto the bed and nestled against me. “Nightmares? Or just worry?”
“Both, I think.” He rested his head on my shoulder. “I know I had dreams. They’re kind of jumbled, so I’m not sure how nightmare-y they were. And I am worried, but you already knew that. You are too.”
“Yeah. Of course I am.” And of course he could sense it through our mate bond. “I’m worried about you as much as anything. When was the last time you slept more than an hour or two at a stretch?”
“Don’t ask a question you don’t want an answer to.
” He scoffed. “Hell, don’t ask questions I can’t answer.
I’m not sure. It’s been a while, I know that much.
Every so often, exhaustion gets the better of me and I manage a reasonable amount of sleep, but so much has happened, Tobias.
Two years ago, give or take, I was human.
Working for a tech company in Boston, crushing on my cute neighbor, trying to make plans to get home to see my parents and sister more often.
Vegan. Pacifist. Life was decent. And then I went outside to pick strawberries one night, and my life turned into a fucking horror movie. ”
His voice caught, and something wet touched my skin. He was crying.
I had no words to comfort him, so I tried humor. It usually worked for him. “I hope I haven’t been part of the horror.”
As soon as I said it, I wished I’d stuck with having no words. Of course I’d been part of the horror, especially during the months between becoming Anax and accepting the power as my own. I’d tried not to let it come between Kyle and me, but I’d failed miserably more than once.
“You haven’t been much of it,” he said slowly. “Fuck, that sounds awful, and I’m not trying to guilt you, Tobias. But I can’t say you haven’t contributed.”
“No, I know.” I tightened my arms around him. “I’m sorry.”