Page 161 of Altius
And I wanted to be upset with Morgan. To demand she not keep secrets from me, like the incident with Garvey that Joaquin had recorded, but I already knew what she’d say.
I had a lot going on with my family. Work was hellishly busy. She didn’t want to burden me further when she was perfectly capable of handling herself.
Which was true nine times out of ten. But every time her luck ran out, it left her hospitalized or battered…
No wonder Kelsey was upset.
Wyatt reached over and punched my shoulder. “Dude. Pull yourself together. You smell gross again.”
Morgan blinked at me in confusion. She breathed through her mouth, attempting to pick up a hint of the toxic fumes I was pumping out, but she couldn’t.
Her orchid scent took on a worried undernote.
“I’m just pissed with Garvey,” I said, giving her hand a final stroke before getting to my feet. “Just need a quick shower.”
“At least we’re not the stinky ones, for once.” Wyatt rubbed his face against Morgan’s uninjured shoulder, greedily coating her with his pheromones. “Do you know how hot you looked when you sprayed that fucker in the eyes?”
Shutting the door to Morgan’s bathroom behind me, I tried not to think about the determined set of her jaw and the utter confidence of her movements as she squared off against an alpha three times her size—and how badly it all could have gone wrong.
Achieving a reasonable degree of calm again would be impossible until Garvey got what was coming to him.
Reputational destruction and professional ruin.
And maybe, just maybe, if the fates were merciful, my fist in his face.
***
“What the hell, Morgan?” Audra Van Daal’s biting tone echoed through the first floor of Pack Redmond’s loft.
Morgan sat at the end of the dining table, surrounded by paperwork, frowning at her phone. A stoic Wyatt sat beside her, holding her uninjured hand beneath the table, face verging on crimson as he bit his tongue.
Owen sat at the head, tapping an imperious finger against the wood grain, mentally deducting favorability points from his impression of Audra the longer she spoke.
The mated pair was sitting at the island, having a whispered debate about what to order for lunch, but the matching frowns on their faces betrayed they were half-listening.
Sitting on Morgan’s other side, I was similarly displeased with Audra’s tone.
Surely, one sibling tongue-lashing was sufficient, and Kelsey had done a sterling job, something Morgan had tried to explain twice already.
Not that Audra cared.
“You’ve been getting harassed for months and never said—”
“Audra, darling, loveliest of mates,” Quinton interjected, his deep voice smooth as butter. No wonder he did so well in the courtroom. “She’s my client, not yours.”
“But she’s my little sister.”
“And I’m charging her by the hour. So, please, be quiet.”
He resumed asking questions about Morgan’s run-ins with Garvey and some of the finer language in her fellowship agreement.
Now that things were back on track, I got up and headed into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee.
Just as I hit the start button, Alijah approached, clutching a bottle of scent-canceling spray against his chest.
“Can I have a minute?” he asked in a near-whisper. “Need to ask you something.”
“Sure.”
