Page 9 of Blood and Magic
After everything went down with Sol, her eldest brother, Percy, ran to Marx for safety. Sol said the Scorpions had turned him into one of them. Once we saved her, we rounded up the corpses to burn them, ensuring they didn’t heal themselves and reanimate. Guin had been certain he wasn’t among them, which meant he’d escaped and still walked with the undead.
“So Marx has someone who knows the ins and outs of Vanderbilt Ranch,” I said. “Not to mention leverage to pull with the siblings.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about Sol or Guin,” Kodiak replied. “But Liam may be a problem.”
I couldn’t disagree.
“Keep an eye on him,” the alpha continued. “Guin will be handling most of the business in Bozeman while Sol is away, and Lycan is escorting Ava on her business trip to Paris. Which means Maeve will be there alone.”
I nodded, hearing what he wasn’t saying as much as what he was. I wouldn’t just be there to run things while Orion was out of town. I’d be playing bodyguard, too, which was fine with me. If any Scorpions came sniffing around, I’d give them a taste of their own bullshit. I’d been antsy for revenge since I died.
“Here’s the operating plan.” Kodiak handed me a stack of papers. “And it goes without saying…don’t fuck with the Vanderbilt, alright?”
I snorted. “That won’t be a problem.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “The last thing I need is Guinevere dragging her Louboutins in here to bitch me out about another one of my brothers putting their paws where they don’t belong.”
The visual made me laugh, and I covered my mouth to hide it from a clearly displeased alpha. No one talked to Kodiak the way Guin did and got away with it, and maybe that was because she wasn’t officially part of the pack. She changed with us at the full moon and came to some pack meetings, but she hadn’t made an oath to the alpha. Nor had she cut her hand and sealed the blood bond. I’d never ask her about it, but Sol indicated Guin preferred to be a lone fox. That would only go so far with Kodiak, and I secretly begged to be a fly on the wall when they finally had that confrontation. They’d been known to have shouting matches that could be heard halfway across the homestead.
“I don’t know, Prez,” I said. “I think you like it when the eldest Vanderbilt gets all hot and bothered.”
He snapped his gaze up, features twisted into an angry scowl. “Was that a joke?”
I couldn’t help my shit-eating grin. Years ago, Kodiak’s wife had tragically died in a car accident caused by the Scorpions, leaving him with two little girls. It was part of the reason we hated them all so much. Since then, he’d insisted Kendra would have been his mate had she lived, and he gave up on the whole dating scene in general. But most of us suspected that was bullshit. If she were his mate, his wolf wouldn’t have been able to live without her. Kodiak would have gone rabid just like our previous alpha. Orion would have had to put him down or die trying. Being that he remained the most competent man I knew, Kodiak could (and should) mate someone else. My money was on the eldest ginger Vanderbilt.
“Get out of my office,” he said.
Shaking my head at how blind he was choosing to be, I turned to leave.
But he called out to me as soon as my hand hit the door handle.
“Will I see you at the rehearsal tonight?” he asked.
“I’ve got patrol,” I said. “But Lycan promised to fill me in. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
Kodiak nodded. “Have a nice night, Mill.”
“Yeah. You too, Prez.” I left him with his thoughts and headed back to my cabin to prepare for my perimeter run. On the way, I stopped by my little brother’s room in the dorm to check on him and let him know I wouldn’t be around tonight if he needed anything. At twenty-five, Caelum was only two years out of his transition and acting like it. He ran through the females in his age group like he’d just discovered his dick and couldn’t wait to show everyone. I tried not to slut-shame him, even if I’d never been the same way.
The pack had a more liberal approach to sex than the rest of society. As beings that regularly got naked together each month to shift into our animal alter-egos and fought off attacks from an enemy herd of vampires, fucking around seemed like the least of our worries. The camaraderie it created kept the pack strong.
But I found I could never really get into it with anyone else. I’d had a few flings when I was younger, but nothing substantial, and nothing that held my interest for longer than a night.
I knocked twice, raising an eyebrow when bangs and hushed shifting echoed from the other side. The door opened, and a miniature version of myself peeked around the corner, naked from the waist up, purposely hiding what was going on below that.
“Hey,” he said, doing his best to play it casual.
The reek of sex, sweat, and sin wafted out of the room, and I winced, taking a step back. Then, I recognized the female’s scent and sighed.
Lyra. Fenris’s little sister.
Whatever. Not my circus.
“What’s up?” Caelum asked, running a hand through his blond hair, nearly the same shade as mine.
“I’m going out on patrol tonight,” I told him. “Tomorrow, I’m heading to Vanderbilt Ranch.” I filled him in on the next two months and what Kodiak had required of me. “Wyn will still be around if you need anything.”
Caelum nodded and glanced behind him before disappearing for a moment and returning with a towel wrapped around his waist. He stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind him.
