Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAGNUS
My father's study hadn't changed in thirty years.
The massive mahogany desk dominated the room; scarred by decades of decisions.
Two fountain pens lay parallel on the leather blotter beside their ink bottles.
My father believed that the slow-moving ink of a fountain pen forced you to think before you wrote.
Bookshelves ran floor to ceiling on two walls, packed with the disorder of a man who read everything and organized nothing because he remembered where every book was, regardless.
The window seat beneath the tall, narrow window was upholstered in forest green.
It was my mother's claimed territory. The place I most often found her reading with her feet tucked under her.
Or occasionally doing things with my father that had taught me, early and without fail, to knock first.
I had been coming to this room since I was old enough to stand on my own without holding my mother's hand.
Even when I had held her hand, I'd let go the moment I saw my father sitting behind that massive desk.
It had appeared a mountain to me. Fenrir Blackwood would grin down at me from that peak and reach out for me, lifting me up like a god raising a mortal.
I had believed he was one. He was my Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Zeus presiding over Olympus.
My father's word was law in the way the laws of physics were true; not argued into existence, not maintained by effort, just the operating condition of the world. When Fenrir Blackwood spoke, the room reorganized itself around what he had said.
"You need to send Nell Odhiambo away."
My eyes went to the curtains behind my father's desk.
They were green like the window seat; heavy silk, floor to ceiling, the color of a deep forest. They fluttered in front of the closed window, as if someone had tugged at them.
I had the thought of a little girl reaching out her hand in a throne room, fingers closing around the edge of emerald green curtains and pulling down the fabric to reveal the Great and Terrible Oz.
"She's a remarkable young woman." My father sat in his chair with his hands folded. His eyes on me, patient and certain about his edict.
"She's brilliant." My voice held a little too much praise to be discerning. I cleared my throat and dialed it down. "To dismantle a pack's liquidity in three hours — I've never seen anything move that fast. Human or otherwise."
"She's an asset."
"Yes, sir." The two words were carried on a sigh of relief. He saw it too.
"Which is precisely why she cannot stay here. Remarkable things attract attention, Magnus. Right now, our enemies know someone inside our infrastructure did this. The moment they find out who, she becomes the most hunted woman in this city."
"That's why I brought her here. Our walls can protect her. Our territory can protect her." I did not say what my wolf's sole thought was ; I can protect her.
"Our proximity to her is also the thing that paints a target on her back. The further she is from the Blackwood name right now, the safer she is."
He was right. He was always right. Zeus on a mountaintop. Santa checking his list twice. If my father looked closely enough, he'd find me on the Naughty List.
"Your brother mentioned Anchorage."
Fucking Vidar. "I think it would look weak if we hid an asset."
My father's eyebrows rose, curving upwards like a question mark. His pupils remained dark, his wolf not sensing any danger. Only the human part of him was paying attention. He turned to look out the window at all he commanded.
"Four packs were coming for us," I continued. "We hit back, and we hit hard, with Nell's help. She's earned her place in our infrastructure. Which should come with our protection."
My father made a sound at the back of his throat.
It wasn't disagreement. It wasn't assent.
It was the sound he made when one of his children was naughty and he asked us what we thought our punishment should be.
The funny thing about children, they often choose a harsher punishment than the parent had been prepared to dole out.
Gunnar would hand over his boxing gloves.
Astrid would delete her social media apps from her phone and hand the device over.
Ivar would ground himself for a month. Vidar never got into trouble.
Me? They didn't need to punish me. I'd let any wrong choice eat me up from the inside out until my father called me into his office and told me to let it go.
"Sorsha called your mother while you were out. She wants the wedding date moved up."
My jaw tightened. One degree. I controlled the rest. The words, when they came out, were level. "If you think that's best."
He turned from the window then. Not all the way — just enough to look at me from the side.
The lamp caught the gray at his temples and the old scar along his jaw.
"You've been running the pack's intelligence operations for eight years.
You've managed alliances, buried bodies, and kept this family's name clean through three territorial disputes and a federal investigation that was dropped before it could begin.
I am so very proud of the work you have done, son. "
The pride moving through my chest was like the first real heat after a long winter; slow and spreading, reaching places that had gone cold and stiff without my noticing until the warmth of those words found them.
My jaw loosened more than a fraction. My shoulders dropped a full degree.
It felt like being wrapped in a thick blanket. Or a curtain.
"Marriage is different between Alphas. We chose Rosalind Lobo for you because that alliance would make the pack stronger, but also because a pack needs an Alpha pair, not a lone wolf."
I understood what he was telling me. Not about the wedding date. About the woman in his kitchen.
He had seen it. Of course, he had seen it. Fenrir Blackwood had been reading rooms since he was born. He had watched me look at Gunnar standing too close to her. He had seen the way I crowded her. I'm sure my eyes had flashed for at least a fraction of a second.
He wasn't forbidding me. He wasn't warning me. He was telling me that he had taught me the lesson, that he trusted the lesson had taken hold, and that whatever happened next was a reflection of who I was and who I intended to be as the next Alpha of this family.
Which was worse than a warning. A warning left room for argument. This left room for nothing except the quality of my own character.
"I'll talk to Ma about the wedding date."
Fenrir studied me for one long moment. Then he turned back to the window. The green curtains were still in the lamplight. No draft. No movement. Just silk, floor to ceiling, the color of deep forest, exactly where they had always been.
"Good," he said. "Go eat something. Your Ma said you look thin."
The conversation was over. The test, I believed, was passed. I walked to the door, my hand closing around the brass handle.