جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 200

SkyeThe rumor issue weighs on me the rest of the day. Someone is coming for my family, threatening the life we’re building together. The life I’m finally starting to feel is the one I was always meant to lead. And they're using me to do it. I can’t let that go. So I decide to fight the rumors the only way I know how. By telling the truth.I write a statement I've been building toward it since I told Diana I was done letting other people define what I'm building. The decision was made then. The actual words take a bit longer to craft.It's not a press release. It's a formal address to the Woolf pack—the people I live among, who have been watchful, who have been waiting to see who and what I am.I write it in the voice of a Luna who knows what she chose. Not apologetically. Not defensively. Just: what this is, from someone who is building it and has chosen every part of it.The only problem is, this doesn’t just involve me. And no matter what I say, it will implicate two men who will h

JaxonSkye tells Nicolai about our conversation almost as soon as I leave her office. I’m not surprised. This is the dynamic now—she tells both of us everything, because she is the person who connects us and she does it honestly.I'm in my room, gathering some files to send to Noah, when he comes to find me. He stands in the doorway watching me for a minute, even though I invited him in as soon as he arrived. His demeanor isn’t hostile. Just the quiet of someone who received news they'd been preparing for and is deciding what to do with it."I know what you’re giving up for her," he states flatly."I assumed she would tell you about our conversation." I reply.“She did. She tells me everything.” There’s a slight edge to the last word, which I suspect means she told him about the kiss as well. "And you're sure?""Yes." I don’t elaborate. It’s all he needs to hear. He's quiet. The silence hangs between us, doing something I don't have a word for—it's not comfortable, it's not hostile,

SkyeI sit in the car in the estate driveway for ten minutes before going inside after returning from Dr. Chernov’s office. The relief of a doctor's opinion that nothing is wrong, it will sort itself out in good time, is still warring with the concern that 1) He could be wrong, and 2) What of he’s not and my heat comes before Nicolai and Jaxon are both ready to give me what I need, together?It’s fine. It's probably fine. Probably.The probably part is doing a lot of work and I'm aware of that. So I make a decision. Or reaffirm my earlier decision, actually. I'm not going to tell them. Not yet. Not until there's something concrete to tell. I spent three years managing everyone else's feelings at the expense of my own information. I'm allowed to carry this one until I know what it is.I get out of the car. Go inside. Feed my son lunch and help Nicolai review a trade agreement and have dinner with both of them and don't say a word about Dr. Chernov.It's fine. I’m fine. I'm probably fine

NicolaiBy mid-morning, Jaxon and I have made as much progress as we’re going to with the information we have and I’ve dispatched a few men, whose loyalties to the Woolf family have been tested by fire, to see if they can uncover more. I’m just about to take a break, go in search of some much needed quality time with my mate, when the issue of the Ironwood succession comes up. Some documentation requires attention and Jaxon brings it to me because it intersects with Woolf territory legal standing—Gianna has been handling both sides, but certain questions about Jaxon's formal role here require my review.We sit across from each other in the meeting room with the documents between us."The standing question is the one I can't resolve without you," he says. "If I'm here as—what I am here—there needs to be a formal designation. Otherwise I have no legal standing in Woolf territory at all. If something happens to you or Skye, I have no rights. Not to Benji, not to—" He stops. "It doesn’t n

JaxonJust when Nicolai and I have exhausted all our resources and I feel like having nothing useful to do but wait might drive me to insanity, Mikhail bursts through the office door. “I’ve got someone I think you’ll want to talk to.” He announces, Nicolai jumping to his feet at the information. His team picked up someone, Mikhail explains. A wolf who works the eastern waystation—a mid-level operative in Savin's network who was trying to get ahead of the situation and got too close to the wrong part of the city. He's in a room in the estate's basement now.“He knows the layout. The guards. The timing.” MIkhail grunts in his usual deep tenor. “He doesn't want to talk.”Something passes between him and Nicolai at those words. Something I interpret to mean Mikhail has already tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade him and is now insinuating more drastic measures are necessary. Nicolai ushers Mikhail out the door and I leap to my feet to follow them. If this man is the key to finding my ma