I wasn’t sure if they were protecting us or the couple, but I figured I’d find out soon enough.

“No?” Sabina asked, her eyes on her sister. “That’s all we found out from Jana’s mate and her second-in-command.”

When Lara turned to look at us, I gritted my teeth at the sight of her eyes.

Didn’t take a genius to sense that the silver in her eyes was not a good thing.

Most of the pack twisted to look at her, saw what I had, gasped, and immediately ducked their heads and stayed out of it. Smart bastards. Even Miss Know-It-All herself, Maggie May, kept her nose out of things.

“What happened to you?” Ethan demanded, striding forward, not out of the circle, but closer to the edge so he could see her.

“She ascended to her rightful place,” Todd told us, his voice calm as he raised his arm and lifted it to her shoulders.

“What place is that?” Sabina asked, confused.

“We can discuss that, leader to leader, later,” Todd reasoned, his gaze meeting mine. He didn’t push any dominance on me, because if he had, I’d have gone for him, especially with my pack looking on the way they were, but instead, I dipped my chin.

Elsa surprised me by speaking up, “We have a right to know.”

“This isn’t relevant to the pack,” Todd assured her. “It’s family business.”

“How do we know that?” Harry Jessop grumbled.

“You don’t,” I snapped, whacking pressure onto the words so that the few of them who weren’t tucking their heads under their tails to keep out of it, hunched their shoulders, aware they’d tested my patience. “You fought bravely for the pack, and all of you will be honored with raises and notes in your files that might, at some point, see you be shuffled into council positions, but we’ve given you the answers as we know them. It’s our job to bear the strain of leadership, not yours. Go and lead your lives and be grateful that, tonight, you’re getting into bed with your mates, and your children aren’t motherless or fatherless whelps, but safe in their family homes.”

A few Adam’s apples bobbed at that, and I sighed as they shuffled out, guilt hitting me for being a little rough with them, even though they needed it.

Sometimes, people got too big for their boots and I needed to make sure they didn’t make a habit of it.

Sabina squeezed my hand. “It’s okay, love. They wanted answers, they got some. As much as we know.”

I sighed and, watching the backs of people drifting out of the circle, muttered, “Couldn’t your sister have come to us at a private moment?”

“Apparently not. I told you before, Lara acts on her instincts. It makes her do stupid stuff.”

When the circle was cleared, I called out, “Enter the circle. If your intent is pure, the totem will let you pass.”

Within seconds, they were through to this side of the totem, and they’d passed my measure of their honor with flying colors.

I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck as Todd and Lara approached me. “Go on, then. Spill. What’s going on with your eyes?”

“She’s the Moon Child,” was Todd’s simple answer.

I cast a look at Ethan, because he’d be the one to know about that shit. But he shrugged. “Never heard of it.”

“When the Moon Child ascends, the Sun Child shall be born in her light.” Todd’s smile was warm. “It’s a good portent.”

“And why couldn’t you share that in front of my pack?” I groused. “Who the hell’s the Sun Child anyway?”

“Because it is information they shouldn’t be privy to.” Lara’s voice was…odd. It was tempered in a way it hadn’t been before. No longer scratchy with youth, but weathered. Like she’d lived a hundred years when I knew she was twenty-four.

“Why shouldn’t they?” Austin argued. “Nothing you said sounds all that bad.”

Sabina cleared her throat, but her hand tightened around mine to the point of pain. “Shadows.”

Lara tipped her head to the side. “Shadows?”

She gulped. “I had a dream yesterday afternoon,” she admitted. “A strange one. I-I saw a lot of things that didn’t particularly make much sense. But I saw a girl born in the light of the sun, before shadows came and overtook her. And her mates.”

Todd had tensed at her initial statement, before he rasped, “You saw the Sun Child’s mates?”

She licked her lips. “I-I think I did. Maribel’s daughter is the girl I’m talking about.”

“Daughter? She’s barely pregnant,” Ethan argued. “We don’t know her sex yet.”

“Since the very first days of time itself, the Sun Child was destined to be a girl,” Todd intoned, and he too had a weird voice, like… He wasn’t ancient. How could he be, dammit?

They were both in their fucking twenties, so why they sounded like they knew all and saw all, I’d never know.

Grinding my teeth with impatience, I gritted out, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Who were her mates, Sabina?” Lara demanded.

My mate gulped. “Knight. Daniel. And your son.”

Neither of them appeared overly taken aback by that, but Austin muttered, “Well, someone worked fast. You’ve only been gone two days.” He sniffed the air in front of Lara. “You don’t scent pregnant.”

“I’m not. Not yet,” Lara reasoned. “And we were in Nevaehai. That was where we claimed each other as mates.”

Nevaehai?

I scowled. “Where’s that?”

Todd smiled at me. “I know you’ve been there. I scented it on you the first time we met.”

Casting looks between my brothers, I murmured, “Another time? Another place?” That was what Sabina had taken to calling the realm where we’d been sent to claim her.

“Yes,” Todd agreed, “it’s the Mother’s soul. We were fortunate to go there.”

Lara grumbled, “Fortunate? My ass. You almost died.”

“But I didn’t. You saved me.”

Ethan’s eyes widened. “The weird fruit thing? With all the bugs around it? That’s what saved you, isn’t it?”

“The loenai,” Todd corrected.

“How do you know all this stuff?” I rasped.

“It’s my duty to know,” he explained. Which explained nothing at all. Mother, I was starting to understand why my pack had been peeved at the reason we gave them for Jana’s attack.

“Okay, look. You said that Jana did what she did for another reason. What was it?”

“So Lara would accept me as her mate, which triggered her ascension.”

The simple reasoning made no sense to me, and my scowl evidently showed that.

“She would never have given me a chance were it not for the unique situation into which we fell. As a result, this is the start of a new beginning.” Todd turned to Sabina. “The shadows, Omega. Where did they come from?”

She gulped. “A boy.”

Lara nodded. “Seth.”

The sisters shared a look, and Sabina rasped, “I think it’s wise to send Seth to the other side of the country. We were planning on that before the attack.”