“Send them to our twin pack,” Ethan suggested cautiously.

“Send them away?” Sabina barked, twisting around swiftly enough to elbow him in the gut and for Knight to squawk with outrage. “You can’t be serious! We almost had a showdown with Choi’s pack over Daniel, and you want to send him away?”

Though he wheezed a little from the force of her elbow connecting with his belly, he rasped, “We have no choice. Daniel can control him, but he can’t keep him away from Maribel or, when she gives birth, the baby.”

Sabina gnawed on her bottom lip, and I scented her tears from over here. They hurt me, truly they did, but I knew Ethan was right. We had no alternative. We couldn’t keep Seth locked up forever, and we had to hope that distance between mother and son would ease his circumstances.

Of course, it could all go to shit and the spirit that possessed him might force him to come back home, but we’d deal with that when it came to it and not a moment sooner, because borrowing trouble was something we couldn’t afford right now.

“I don’t want him to leave,” Sabina whispered, and I hurt for her. Her sorrow pained me enough that I felt it like lightning bolts in my chest.

“Neither do I, sweetheart. Neither do I,” Ethan tried to soothe. “But what can we do? We have to try, don’t we?”

“He’s been sent away from one home—what kind of message are we giving him?”

Blowing out a breath because she wasn’t wrong, I muttered, “Perhaps we should discuss this with him?”

A knock sounded at the door at that exact moment, and as I inhaled to register the scent, I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I jolted in shock. “Fuck, that’s uncanny.”

“Daniel?” Sabina asked.

Ethan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Come in, Daniel,” I beckoned.

The door creaked open, timed perfectly with a howl from the woods. A single, lone howl that had my attention splitting for a fraction of a second, before I returned it to Daniel.

“Is everything okay, son?”

He danced a little from foot to foot, his agitation clear, before he blurted out, “You know Lara has a weird scent?”

I blinked. “Yes. It’s from the hyenas she was with before she came to us.”

“I smelled it when I was in the forest.”

“What were you doing in the forest?” was Sabina’s instant reply. The motherly answer almost had me smiling. “You were supposed to be doing some homework.”

He heaved a sigh. “I was, but I needed to run.”

Ethan ran a hand down her arm. “He’s an alpha whelp, love. Remember we told you they needed certain direction? Well, sometimes, they just need to run.”

She scowled, and while I sensed she wanted to argue, there was no arguing with someone who’d originally been an alpha whelp.

Of course, while she was focused on that, Ethan, Austin, and I were focused on what Daniel was saying.

“How rich was the scent, Daniel?” I asked softly.

When his nose crinkled, I had part of my answer. “It was very strong. Kinda gross.”

I cast Austin a look, but he was already on his feet and walking toward Daniel. “Show me where you scented it, kid.”

I moved to stand, then strode over to the patio doors that led onto a small balcony that ran the length of the veranda below. Another howl pierced the air, from the depth of the forest, and even as I narrowed my eyes at that, I scented them.

A lot of them.

I twisted around and saw Ethan was standing there already, doing as I had—inhaling the wind which, like always, was a boon and a curse when it came down to hyenas. Their stench was powerful enough to make a person’s eyes water.

“Kali Sara, that’s pungent,” Sabina wheezed, having joined us on the balcony. She turned away from the view of the woods and looked at us. “What’s going on?”

“A clan is here,” I muttered. “And somehow, they sneaked through our defenses.”

Ethan grunted. “Poison?”

“I can’t scent it. Maybe the naturals—they might be fooled by the gift of tainted meat, but the supernaturals? I can’t see that happening.”

“They’re canny fuckers,” Ethan groused.

“I know.” Another howl. Mournful.

Shit.

A million thoughts fired through my brain as I tried to process what our next moves should be, and ordinarily, I’d have been A-Okay with just leaping off the balcony and heading straight into the fray, but Sabina was here.

Sabina. With our son. And if she died because of our actions, Knight would be left alone.

Just the thought was enough to stagger me, to have me leaning harder on the balcony railing than I ought to, because the wrought iron might as well have been wet cardboard in comparison to an alpha’s strength.

“What is it?” Ethan rasped. “What’s wrong?”

“I can hear you,” Sabina said dryly, “even if you think you can try to hide it from me.”

My mouth tightened. “We wade into battle, and one of us gets injured, that’s it. We’re all gone.”

Her processing of the situation was rapid fire, and though she moved her hand to cover the back of Knight’s head, what stunned me was her resolve. “Lara could look after him,” she whispered.

“What?” I gaped at her.

“They’re not here to make friends, Eli,” she rumbled. “We can’t live with the fear of dying ruling everything we do. What are we supposed to do? Just let them overtake us? I love you, you love me, but we have to act. We’re leaders, not sheep.”

I knew we did.

I didn’t need her to tell me that, but fuck. The ramifications of everything just hit home to me in the most phenomenal way imaginable. But the way she took up the mantel of her position? If I wasn’t worried for her and our son, I’d have kissed her.

She was all omega at that moment. All fire and vim.

“They have to be here for Lara,” Ethan rasped, messing with my head even more. “What happens to Knight then?”

“The Mother told me my children wouldn’t die. I have to have faith in her, I have to believe in her.” She gritted her teeth. “Go. Do what you have to. Secure our land, keep us safe, and ram the message home that no one can mess with us, one that will protect us for years to come.”

She moved into my arms, her hands slipping into my hair as she sandwiched Knight, ever in his baby sling, between us as she leaned up on tiptoe. Then she kissed me like it was our final night on this earth. Like she knew what she couldn’t know—hyenas were wicked. Vindictive, spiteful. Mean fighters. Hard to kill because their numbers were different than ours.

We had one child, they could have several. Thanks to how they selected their sexual partners—choosing one for genetic compatibility rather than matters of the soul. Our mating process was different as we had tens of thousands of packs around the nation, whereas there were a handful of clans in the entirety of the States. Population control was different as a result, but it boiled down to the fact that we’d be wading into this battle with a few dozen wolves, and they could be here with hundreds.

But I couldn’t think of that, couldn’t transmit my fear onto her.

Instead, I kissed her back like I fucking meant it. I thrust my tongue against hers, fucking her mouth like I wished I’d had time to fuck her body. Like I would fuck her. When her goddamn milk moon was over.