Page 32 of The Return
I pickedup my phone at least a dozen times. I wanted to call Corey, to hear his voice, to ask him how his day was going. Instead, I was on the laptop talking with the Council. And they had a lot to say.
“When your father was in charge, he—”
“My father is stepping down in a few days, but he’s still in charge. If you want to talk with him, then do so. If you want to talk with the guy who’s going to be the Alpha, then I’m your man.”
“Yes, but Jonas, we—”
“I’m not about to debate this,” I said, doing my best to inject authority in my voice. “My mate doesn’t want to live at the pack house. He has a job, a life.”
“He’s pack, isn’t he?” chimed in another voice. “He does as he’s—”
“I’m sorry, have you met my mate?” I held up a hand to silence anything they were about to say. “No, you haven’t. None of you bothered to get to know him while I was… gone.” And that’s what pissed me off more than anything. “In his mind, he’d done something and I got taken away, but did anyone go to him and explain? No.”
“Because if he had known, he would have tried to find you. I think you know that as well as we do.”
I didn’t bother to tell them he’d scoured the town doing that very thing.
“That’s not the point. When my father accepted him as pack, you all were fine with it. Then he had to pull me out for meditation and deep training, and you all left Corey spinning in the wind. Someone should have talked to him at some point, just as you would have a wolf who needed guidance.”
There was sputtering and finger pointing, but I’d made my point. Everyone, my father included, failed Corey and… no. I had to be fully honest here. I was on that list too. I’d failed Corey by not being able to contain my anger. The whole incident was clear in my mind, and I was equally to blame. My first thought should have been for my mate. Comforting him, not trying to get even.
“I bear the blame as well,” I told the Council. “We all do. The only one who isn’t at fault is Corey, and I think we have to acknowledge that.”
The denials trailed off. “What would you have us do?” Council member Yawen asked.
“We—all of us—left my mate hanging out to dry. Now he wants something that is within your power to grant. I don’t think he’s asking too much. He has Kinsey there, and Matt is always nearby. His shop is already the hub of pack activity, so it isn’t going to be as though they can’t find him if they need to see him.”
“This is highly irregular,” Council member Delray murmured, as she glanced at the stack of papers before her. I knew it was posturing, but that didn’t mean I would back down on this.
“So is a human pack member,” I shot back. “And it’s this, or we admit we wronged him. Which do you think is going to be easier to stomach?”
The Council stared at each other, as though they were speaking psychically, and then they called a recess. I had no idea which way they’d decide, and I hated the thought that I’d have to tell Corey they wouldn’t budge from their position.
While they deliberated, I opened up the file that listed Corey’s holdings. He had sixty-two thousand dollars saved from his schooling, and over a hundred thousand from the property and refurbishment of his shop. That would be a tidy nest egg for him, or allow him to expand if he chose to.
It sucked that for some of the most important moments of Corey’s life, I wasn’t there to share in his joy. The anger that had always churned in my gut returned. Fucking Adam. If he—no. I had to cut off that line of thinking. I wasn’t sixteen anymore, and I needed to stop blaming my failures on someone else.
The tone from the computer startled me, but I clicked the icon to answer the call. As expected, it was the Council. I clenched my hands under the table as I awaited their verdict.
“We have discussed it, and though we are loathe to do so, we acknowledge our failure when it came to your mate. For that we do most sincerely apologize. It’s our understanding that your father is the one who sent him to school?”
“And also got him his business startup money.”
“We feel that this is a good start, but only a start. We have wronged your mate—our pack member—and we agree with you. It is not too much to ask for him to stay in Harken’s Corners. As you stated, his bodyguard and driver will be there should they be needed. Therefore, you have our blessing.”
Decorum kept me from pumping my fist, but damn, how I wanted to. Corey was going to be happy, and that made me ecstatic.
“However….”
Well, that didn’t sound good. I girded myself for whatever they were about to say.
“We want to visit the coffee shop. See how your mate deals with his pack.”
So now they were vetting Corey? Fuck that.
“Then that’s something you should have done in the last six years, don’t you think? You haven’t even been following up on him. Would you letanywolf go out into the human world without checking on them from time to time? This is, pardon my language, bullshit.”
They waited until I settled down a bit, then grinned at me.
