Page 122 of The Omega's Bloodline: Part One

Logan stiffened next to me. Even if we hadn’t already heard all about Kendrick from Yelena, he had given a shit impression of himself today.

“We willalltrain her, if you’re going to insist on being part of it,” said Yelena. “I can agree to you doingsomeof the training, but you’re not going to be alone with her.”

Logan relaxed a fraction, and while Kendrick did pout, he eventually agreed.

“Now that we’ve decided, I think we should let things settle for a few hours. We’ll go to my suite for now and have a meeting later once everyone has had a chance to cool down. Calliope, thank you for a lovely breakfast.”

The five of us departed back down the hall and safely behind Yelena’s door. She spun around, looking like she was ready to knock me into next week.

“What thefuckwas that? Do you have such a problem with authority that you couldn’t even be bothered to run your idea for the future of my nest by me? I shouldn’t have to be told to get a handle on anyone who belongs to me. I expect better behavior.”

I bristled. “What would you have said if I had gone to you first?”

“I guess we’ll never know since you didn’t do that.”

“Why didn’t you askmefirst?” Logan asked. “You kind of put me on the spot there.”

I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face. “In all fairness I didn’t know I was going to say anything when we walked in. I’ve been mulling over the idea, and then I just felt the urge to open my mouth. I’m sorry. That’s not something I should’ve sprung on anyone.”

“Apology not accepted,” Yelena snapped. “If you undermine my authority again, especially where others can see it, there will be consequences. In fact, your consequence for this time is that you will not be accompanying Logan on any of her training.”

“You can’t do that,” I insisted. “She needs me.”

Yelena growled, and while I wanted to push back, the display cowed me.

“You have no idea of how tenuous the balance of power is here. You can’t just do whatever the hell you want. Haru will accompany Logan and you will remain here.”

Seth let out a choked-off laugh. It looked like he tried to silence it, but it snuck out anyway.

“Speak your mind, panther,” Yelena said, leaning up against the wall.

“So he’s grounded?”

The question brought a smile to Yelena’s face and a rush of heat to mine.

“Closer to house arrest, but yes.”

“For how long?” I asked.

Yelena shrugged. “That depends on how fucking insufferable Kendrick is going to be because of you.”

My shoulders scrunched up by my ears and Logan hugged onto my arm. “You were trying to help. More communicationwould’ve been nice, but I know you’re scared here. I know the lack of control freaks you out because I feel it too. We have to trust a little more than we have been.”

“Precisely.” Yelena moved to stand directly in front of me, her dark eyes flashing gold with power. “I know you don’t like the way of things here, but I need you to trust that I take care of what is mine and while you are here,youare mine. I won’t be surrendering you or your brother to Logan. Call it an insurance policy.”

“So what happens now?” Seth asked.

“You will continue healing, your brother will help Logan with whatever she needs within the confines of this suite, we’ll get Logan set up for her job, and I will get both our librarian and Cora on the task to find people who can help. Other than that, we’ll have to figure out what duties are being taken over for Calliope, and we’ll have to do a full education on the workings of the nest.”

“When am I supposed to sleep?” Logan asked playfully, trying to defuse the lingering tension in the room.

“Unfortunately, precious, you’ve already seen that sleep can be a luxury for us. I will get as many people as I can to assist, but this won’t be easy.”

Itook Logan down to the library so we could get her acquainted with the staff there and hopefully find some useful resources. Margaret, our librarian, was beyond excited to have a task of this caliber ahead of her. In addition to her library and duties, she was also the nest archivist and one of our longest-term residents. We’d had a small handful of witches stay with us over the years, though they were certainly in the minority compared to theshifter population here. I put Margaret on the task of contacting anyone that we were able to in order to see if we could arrange a digital meeting with Logan.

Our resident witch pawed at my arm. “Can I ask a question?”

“Of course, precious.”

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