Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
MAGNUS
We came ready for war.
Twelve enforcers, weapons sheathed and holstered. More on standby. They were instructed to stand outside the Four Seasons as four Blackwood men walked into the lobby. Me, Vidar, Gunnar, and our father.
My dad had not asked questions when I came to his office. He dropped whatever he'd been doing and took shotgun in the vehicle. Gunnar drove; his hands were steady, where Vidar and I were both a tight clench.
The Lobo wolves at the entrance looked at us. We looked at them. Nobody reached for anything.
That was the first thing that registered as wrong. The Lobo enforcers were not in defensive formation. They were not on alert. They were standing with the calm of men who had been told to expect us and were responding to our arrival with something that was — deference.
Actual deference. Heads inclined. The body language of wolves acknowledging a superior pack.
"Alpha Blackwood," a man said, extending a hand to my father. Fenrir took his hand. The wolf nodded at me, then fell back in line, leaving the four of us a clear path to the penthouse elevators.
The Lobo enforcer held up one hand — the universal gesture of one moment — and pressed a finger to an earpiece. He listened. Then he looked at us and said, with the professional courtesy of someone following instructions: "If you'll wait in the lobby, gentlemen. The women are finishing up."
The women are finishing up.
Vidar tilted his head back with an exasperated sigh. Gunnar wore a pinched expression, clearly pissed he wasn't about to punch anyone. My dad chuckled, shaking his head, looking completely unsurprised that the women in the penthouse had taken charge.
The elevator arrived when the enforcer's phone buzzed again. He listened, nodded, and waved us forward with the brisk efficiency of a man executing a schedule.
We piled in. The elevator was not designed for four wolves in men's skins. Gunnar and Vidar jockeyed to stand in the front. The doors closed.
Gunnar looked at the ceiling. "Does anyone know what's happening?"
"It's Addie and Nell," Vidar said. "So it could be anything."
Fenrir made a sound. "I knew both those girls would be an asset to this family."
As we left the ground floor, the weightlessness moved up my body.
Floors passed beneath us. The city fell away below as I lifted closer to my fated mate.
I didn't know what deal she had constructed up there.
Didn't know what she had traded or promised or restructured in the time it had taken us to drive here.
Didn't matter. I was walking out of this hotel with Nell on my arm.
Whatever it cost — whatever Sorsha demanded, whatever I had to put on the table to dissolve the arrangement with Rosalind — I would do it.
I would give Sorsha whatever was in my power to give.
I would give it without negotiating. Because some things were worth the full price.
Nell Odhiambo was worth every last thing I owned.
The elevator doors opened. No blood. That was a good sign. Hopefully?
I stepped through the door. My eyes moved through the room searching for exits, threats, variables, status of known individuals—
Nell.
She sat on the suite's pale sofa. A cup of tea in her hands. Her legs crossed. Her hair loose. The bruise that Katya Volki would be paying for someday soon was gone. Didn't matter. I would settle that debt.
When Nell saw me, she smiled. My steps stuttered, and I knew the cost. I knew what I would pay to have her.
I turned to face my father. "I'm willing to step down as Alpha. I can't marry Rosalind. I know what that costs and I know what it means for the alliance and I'm telling you now, in front of everyone, that I—"
"Oh, hush." Sorsha Lobo sat in the armchair across from Nell, her own tea in hand. "It's already arranged. There will be a wedding tonight." She set her cup down with the decisive click of a woman closing a negotiation. "As agreed."
"I can't—" I started.
"Magnus." Nell's voice. The CEO register. The one that ended discussions.
I gave my fated mate my full attention.
Nell set her own cup down and stood. "Could everyone give us a moment?" she said to the room at large.
The room at large began to redistribute. Vidar found Addie and pulled her into him with a warning growl, which she just grinned at. Gunnar slumped down into a dainty settee, his big body looking comical in the frilly chair. My dad crossed to Sorsha, diplomacy in his stride.
"Use my bedroom."
That came from a girl in the corner of the room. I hadn't even noticed a fourth woman. It must be Rosalind. She wore a fitted dress that hugged her ample curves. Her hair was a mass of black curls. Sunglasses sat perched on her nose.
"Just please don't get any fluids on the sheets. I need to sleep there tonight with my new husband."
I opened my mouth to protest that I would not be marrying her, but Nell's hands tugged me into the bedroom. It had been hours since I'd touched her. I forgot all about the woman I was promised to marry and followed the woman who owned my heart.