Chapter 22
Basir
I could feel the weather turning. It may have been early autumn, but the dawn air had a bite to it.
Gracie was buried in blankets, but I had checked that having the window open this wide wouldn’t wake her.
As I’d found myself many times before, I was sitting in my mate’s window rather than in bed with her.
I told myself it was so the others could have room.
Both of them had already woken for the day, though, and the truth was more complicated than any justification I could come up with.
I didn’t trust myself.
I didn’t normally, but after she’d given me a gift? I couldn’t risk my control.
The figurine was still in my hand, warming under my touch. I hadn’t put it down since she’d given it to me at dinner.
For most of my life, I’d lived under the rule of my wolf, and it had made it easy to focus on survival over everything else.
It had made it easy to forget about the pain I caused—and the pain I was forced to endure.
And when I was unshifted? The control I held onto allowed me to feel detached from those moments.
So to see a representation of my wolf fit in the palm of my hand was unsettling in a way I hadn’t expected.
So why couldn’t I put it down?
Because Gracie had given it to me. It was the first present I’d ever received. In the past, Ravik and Thornar had given me things, but never like this. She had chosen this for me.
My eyes closed as I tried to dispel the emotion rising up, but with her so close and her scent filling my lungs…I knew that was impossible. I was so fucked.
I knew what was happening. I knew what I was feeling. It was just the first time I’d ever experienced it, and I was terrified. Scared that I would fuck it up and scared that I would somehow taint her. That I would somehow extinguish the fire that was growing within her.
I wasn’t worthy of Gracie’s love, but that didn’t stop mine from growing.
Gracie shifted in the bed to pull the covers up further around her, so I slipped the figurine into my pocket as I moved from the window, silently closing it behind me.
Moving toward the fireplace, I stoked the embers while trapped in my own thoughts.
About her and about the previous night. My brows furrowed.
What a perfect example of me not being worthy.
Gracie felt like she needed a job.
My wolf shifted under my skin, the dissatisfied and disgusted feeling radiating down to my bones. My reaction was embarrassing. Her words shouldn’t have bothered me so much, but for her to question for even a moment if she was provided for…
I didn’t like it. I really didn’t like it.
It made me feel as though I wasn’t doing my job, and while each of us had our hands in different ventures across Ironsun, it was clear that Gracie didn’t understand the resources available to her.
I didn’t want her to see a difference between her money and our money.
I didn’t want her to even think about money.
It was an insane thought process, I knew that. But knowing it didn’t help how I felt.
Ravik had managed to calm me, barely, but I could tell he didn’t like the idea. It had been Thornar’s perspective of it later in the night which had made me feel moderately better.
Gracie should be able to work, but because she enjoys it—because it interests her—not for money.
He was absolutely right, and despite the fact that he regularly made me want to lose my mind, I relied on Thornar’s point of view.
Ravik as well. Each of them read Gracie in a way that I hadn’t figured out but hoped to.
Gracie deserved so much more than I could probably give her, but I was going to try my hardest to at least give her everything she needed.
Maybe there was some type of compromise we could find with the job.
Down the hall, I heard the chime of a grandfather clock, signaling that it was six in the morning. Alpha Greene’s house was quiet as I left the bedroom, the guards stationed in the foyer offering me nods of greeting but nothing else.
As I made my way to the kitchen, I passed a vase of flowers. I plucked three of them, putting them in my pocket. I was unsurprised to find Thornar in the kitchen, already making a tray up for Gracie.
“Good timing,” he said, placing a cup of tea on the tray. “I was about to take this up.”
“I’ll do it,” I offered. “Where’s Ravik?”
“Coming back from a run. I think he was wasting time before the meeting.” That was not surprising and probably a good idea. I had been fighting the urge to go on a shifted run for days now.
I wanted to be part of the meeting, so I made quick work of going back up to the bedroom and placing the tray down for Gracie.
We had decided to let her sleep, knowing we could easily update her on any intel, and with a day of travel ahead it was important she was well rested.
Pulling back the curtains so the morning light could eventually filter in, I walked over to the table where the journal Ravik had gotten her sat.
Taking the flowers out of my pocket, I pressed them between the pages before stepping back.
I stood in the middle of the room for a long second, looking toward my mate, before giving into the urge to go to the side of the bed. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to her forehead. Her scent was still in my lungs as I found Ravik and Thornar both in the kitchen.
“Where are we meeting them?” I asked.
“Garden, she’s already out there,” Ravik said.
I followed the two of them out, trying to brace myself for information about the Grimfur Skulk.
I did my best to forget the damn place existed, let alone think about whatever was going on there now.
As we reached the garden, I clocked that Alpha Kaliyah was sitting in the same chair as yesterday, but now there were two women with her.
Both looked like they had been through hell.
“Here they are,” Kayliah said, sitting forward. “Join us. I know these two want to get to sleep after so much travel.”
I had a feeling it hadn’t been in a jet either, considering their clothes were covered in dirt, their faces drawn and exhausted.
I placed both of them in their mid-to-late thirties.
If I didn’t have a trained eye, I would have assumed they were ordinary citizens, but their critical gazes said they were something more.
“This is Ravik Gentry, future Alpha of Ironsun, and his Enforcer and Beta,” Kayliah introduced before motioning to the two women.
“These ladies are some of my best intel operatives—you can call them Ashley and Rachel—and they just returned from behind Grimfur territory lines. Please, tell us what you found.”
Fourteen days. It was fourteen days until the ritual, and I hoped they had information that could help us. The only other option was their intel would make everything considerably worse.
“Alpha Ivan and Alpha Graeme have been transporting citizens from the farthest corners of the Grimfur Skulk territory into the Cold Moon Pack,” Rachel explained, reaffirming what we already knew.
“Have there been reports to local authorities? Riots?” Ravik asked. “If they’re shipping buses of people up north, there has to be some type of public outrage.”
“There is,” Ashley agreed. “But people are scared. They aren’t using Grimfur Skulk military, although local authorities aren’t responding to calls to aid either.
Ivan and Graeme have enlisted one of the city-based crime syndicates to take people in the dead of night.
They started first with their shockdust clients and have expanded past that. ”
My entire body went stiff and I was speaking before I could stop myself. “Which crime syndicate? And why would they follow Ivan Rivers?”
“He’s paying them, naturally, and supplying them with shockdust for free,” Rachel explained. “The group is named Cinder Ring—CR for short.”
I sat back in my chair as if trying to distance myself from the name. They continued talking around me, but I wasn’t fully hearing them. The Cinder Ring had grown that large in a decade? To be a group recognized by an Alpha from another territory?
My gaze dropped to the table as I tried to steady myself. Underground tunnels. Sewers filled with rats. Tables covered in shockdust. I could still feel the sensation of rope against my skin as I waited—hoped—that my parents would come back.
But they never did. Cinder Ring was who they’d sold me to in order to pay off their debts. It was the syndicate that had infected my childhood with despair. The syndicate that I’d run shockdust for.
“Basir.” Ravik’s voice broke me from my stupor. I realized the arm of the chair I sat in was creaking underneath my fingers, where I was grabbing it with a white-knuckle hold.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing to go inside. I was sure Ravik and Thornar would offer some type of explanation for me. I couldn’t afford to sit there, not with so many eyes watching.
I didn’t have a plan, but the moment I walked into the kitchen, I came to a full stop.
Gracie stood there, looking around in confusion, wrapped in a fluffy robe with her slippers peeking out from under her sweatpants.
Her hair was messy and her gaze sleepy, and she looked as if she wasn’t fully sure why she was down in the kitchen.
“Basir?” she asked. “Are you okay? I felt something—”
I had her in my arms before I’d decided to move. The second her head was resting against me and I could feel every inch of her, my chest cracked open. The anxiety and panic spilled out of me as she clung tighter. My inability to control my emotions had woken Gracie, and she had come looking for me.
“I’m worried,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said, my voice muffled by her hair. “Nothing that hasn’t already happened. I’m sorry I woke you, glow.”
Gracie didn’t push, but she did melt further into me.
“Morning, little flame,” Thornar said a few seconds later when he and Ravik walked inside.
Gracie peeked her head up but didn’t leave my arms. “Morning. Did you guys just have the meeting?”
“Yeah.” Ravik nodded, offering me a look. “When we’re on the road today, we can update you.”
“When are we leaving?” she asked. “We’re going south, right?”
“Yep, Stark Flight territory,” Thornar said, then offered his hand. “Now come on. Let’s go eat breakfast upstairs before it gets cold.”
It was painful to let Gracie slip from my arms, but I let her go with Thornar as Ravik stood next to me. “You good?”
“Cinder Ring is who I ran shockdust for.” I said.
Ravik understood. “Hopefully we won’t have to see those bastards, but if we get Stark Flight on our side, we may get a chance to destroy them.”
One could only hope.
As we made our way toward the stairs, I said, “I’m not looking forward to going south.”
“Why?” Ravik asked.
“Because that’s who Ivan tried to sell Gracie to.”