“But parents dote on their kids, and it just means they’re spoiled all the time.”
“You can dote on your child without spoiling them,” she pointed out.
I shook my head. “How does someone who isn’t a beta tell a beta what to do?”
Her mouth rounded. “Oh, I see what you mean. Parents aren’t as powerful as their kids?”
“Yep, so they bring them to Eli for him to throw the fear of the Father into them.”
Her eyes rounded at that. “I’ve never heard you say that before.”
“What? Mentioning the Father? It’s not something you do often, in case you invoke him.”
Her mouth rounded next. “Are you shitting me? Where the hell is all this talk coming from?”
I snickered at her bewilderment. “I guess we figured we’d stay silent on you until we could keep you barefoot and chained to the kitchen.”
Before she could complain, a maid came in to grab our breakfast dishes. She was new, because the old one had been cast out of the pack for helping the council stage their siege on the packhouse. Hayley and her mate were lucky to be alive. I wasn’t so sure if I was alpha, I’d have been so kind, but Eli was proving to be a good leader. Dominant, strong, assured, but fair. Just.
The total opposite of his father.
“Some chain,” she remarked wryly as she watched Ella, the new maid, pick up the plates, set them on a tray, and then retreat with a respectful nod at us.
When she sank back against the chair, muttering, “How do you invoke a spirit?”
“You piss Him off,” Ethan replied.
“Really?” She hummed. “How do you do that?”
“Feel like pissing a deity off, huh?” I teased.
Her nose crinkled. “Not exactly. I don’t want to piss anyone off, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a talent for it.”
I grinned, but Ethan, seeming to sense that something wasn’t right, asked, “What’s going on, mate?”
Her nose crinkled further. “It’s just… I’ve been having weird dreams again.”
“I told you, they’re normal—”
“When I’m pregnant,” she sputtered. “Far as I can tell, I’m not pregnant anymore.”
And the stinky diaper wasn’t the only proof we had on that score.
“True.”
As this was the first I’d heard of any dreams, I arched a brow at her and asked, “What kind of dreams?”
She sighed. “Stupid ones.”
“Stupid ones,” I repeated, well aware that was a gross exaggeration. “What kind of stupid ones?”
“Ones that I…” She tipped her head to the side before she raised a hand and scrubbed her fingers over her face. “It’s crazy.”
“Nothing’s crazy. Haven’t we already established that?”
To be honest, I was kind of pissed that she hadn’t talked to me about this already.
She bit her lip, and I knew she’d felt my hurt. “I didn’t want you to think there was something wrong with me.”
Her words had me scowling at her. “Why on earth would I think that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s insane?” She sighed. “You know when the council attacked that night?”
“How could I forget?”
“If you didn’t crack jokes all the damn time, Austin, maybe she’d feel more comfortable sharing this kind of stuff with you,” Ethan rasped, prompting me to glower at him.
“It isn’t my fault you’ve got a stick shoved up your ass—”
“This isn’t helpful,” she groused, her tone dryer than a Martini.
I heaved a sigh. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. But that isn’t why I didn’t tell him, Ethan. I like his sense of humor. You each have your own way about you, and I go to you for different things.
“I was hoping Ethan had read something about the kinds of dreams I’ve been having.”
I frowned at that. “What kind of dreams?” Weren’t there only two kinds? The good kind and the bad?
“They’re like nightmares, because they always end in blood, but it’s the same one, time and time again. It’s gotten worse since Maribel and Seth showed up.”
“In what way?”
“I’m in a clearing, in the middle of the woods, and then I hear this horrendous laugh. It’s like a cackle, but it’s not human. Not at all. It’s an animal, but I don’t know what kind. It’s monstrous. It makes me shudder just thinking about it, never mind experiencing it in sleep.
“I’m just standing there, spinning around in a circle, trying to get my bearings, and even though it’s like Groundhog Day, I never remember until I wake up that I just had the same dream over and over.”
She reached for her drawing pad, which was always close at hand now—she even carried one in her Mary Poppin’s purse—and as she started doodling, I could sense she was trying to calm herself down. Something she confirmed when her voice hitched as she continued;
“So, I stand there, trying to find the cackle because the source of it is getting nearer and nearer, and I know I’m going to get hurt… Next thing I know, I have a bow and arrow in my hands, and I let it loose, then thud. Silence.”
I knew from what Ethan had told me that she was handy with a bow and arrow, so maybe it wasn’t so bewildering that she dreamed such things, especially not when she’d reacted to a fox preying on a family of rabbits back during Ethan’s claiming.
I reached up and rubbed my bottom lip.
“What happens then?”
“I usually wake up.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know, but I just—”
“You just what?”
“I feel like it’s to do with my sister.”
“But, why?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It’s just… whenever the dreams hit, I think of her every time I wake up.”
Before either of us could reply, Eli stormed through the doorway into the dining room. “I managed to get the number, love.”
“Who does it belong to?” I queried, shooting him a look as he passed a slip of paper to her.
She didn’t answer, just reached for her phone and dialed it.
When, a few moments later, she disappointedly muttered, “Damn, no answer,” then ran her hands through her hair, her distress boomed off her in a way that pissed my wolf off and made him want to fix her.
Of course, my wolf usually wanted to fix her by fucking her as a distraction—not so helpful right now.
“Who is it?”
“Her mom,” Eli said softly. “A few weeks ago, Sabina asked me to get her number. The Kingstown pack alpha just got in touch with me to hand it over.”
I knew he’d called on outstanding favors and set the enforcers of other packs onto the case of finding her family, even though it went against my own wishes.
In my opinion, I should have been the one to go and find her people myself, and I guessed he saw my disapproval because he rumbled, “Now’s not the time to start arguing, Austin.”
I shrugged. “Not going to argue, nothing to argue about anymore. I just think it’s dumb as fuck that you’d send some stranger down there to contact someone who’s a member of our den when I could easily go visit—”