Bree could only gape at him, unsure what to say. It hadn’t been a soppy speech. There’d been little emotion in his voice. It was more like a practical statement. And yet, it touched her as surely as those infamous three little words that were so easily thrown around would have done. Her cat just looked at him, stunned and warmed by his declaration.
Bree cleared her throat. “Well then, I guess—” She stilled at the sound of knuckles rapping on the front door. Please don’t be the Cages.
Alex released her foot and pushed away from the table. “I’ll get it.”
Bree forced her body to relax muscle by muscle. It wasn’t easy. But then Alex strolled into the kitchen with Vinnie and his eldest sons. Tate and Luke predictably helped themselves to pizza.
“Please tell me you’re here to say that at least one of the missing people has been found,” said Bree.
“Wish I could.” Vinnie sighed. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep looking. I’m here about two things. First, I want to let you know that Moira has been … dealt with. She assured me she won’t bother you again.”
“If she does, I’ll deal with her myself,” said Alex, returning to his seat at the table. “I’m serious, Vin—Bree has enough going on; she doesn’t need to be dealing with Moira’s brand of bullshit on top of all that.”
“Agreed. Now, as for the second thing that brought me here …” Leaning back against the countertop, Vinnie rubbed at his jaw. “I had a call from Nick Axton.”
Bree had met the Alpha of the Mercury Pack a few times. His pack was so closely allied with Mila’s that the two seemed intertwined in many ways. If the Phoenix Pack ever threw a party of any kind—to which the Olympus Pride was usually invited due to their connection to Mila—the Mercury Pack members were often also there.
The Mercury Pack had already been known to Bree, though, since a lone pallas cat they knew, Madisyn, had mated with a Mercury Pack enforcer.
“Not sure if either of you are aware of this,” Vinnie went on, “but his mate, Shaya, is a mediator. The shifter council often ask her to mediate between two parties that can’t agree on a matter, hoping to avoid a battle.”
“Okay,” Bree drawled, picking up her glass of soda. “Why is this important?”
“Because Shaya was recently contacted by Dale Bray. He wants to meet with me.”
Alex’s slice of pizza slipped from his fingers. “The fuck?”
“He told Shaya he’s not comfortable contacting me directly about a meeting as he knows I believe that he wishes to harm Bree,” Vinnie went on. “He apparently also assured Shaya that that’s not the case.”
Bree’s eyes narrowed. “He asked Shaya to facilitate the meeting because he thinks you’ll feel more comfortable attending if you know the mediator.”
Vinnie nodded. “That would be my guess, yes. We know this isn’t the hyenas attempting to spring a trap—it would be plain stupid of them to turn a mediation meeting into a war. That sort of thing simply is not done. And the hyenas have proven through their success at keeping their territory’s location secret that they are not stupid.”
“That’s not to say that Dale Bray won’t have a chunk of his clan hanging around,” Alex pointed out.
“But we’ll have many of our cats waiting in the wings, so we’ll be prepared for an attack,” said Vinnie. “I’m honestly not interested in anything Dale Bray has to say. I just want to draw the fucker out into the open so that someone can follow him back to his territory and then report its location to us.”
“So you’ve agreed to the meeting?” asked Alex.
“Yes. It’ll take place tomorrow morning. Bree, you’ll need to take the day off work.”
A loud growl rumbled out of Alex. He shot out of his chair. “Hell, no. Hell. Fucking. No. They’re not getting near her, Vinnie.”
“Dale asked for her to be there—it’s mostly Bree he wants to speak to.”
“I don’t give a shit what he wants. It’s not happening.”
“I get why you have reservations, but think past your overprotectiveness, Alex. You want to find out where their territory is, don’t you?”
“Not enough to put Bree in close proximity to him.”
Bree bit her lip. Did Alex’s response surprise her? Not in the slightest. His protective instincts were naturally on hyperdrive after the polar bear fuck-up, and that was perfectly understandable. She couldn’t be angry with him for it. But there was no way she’d sit the meeting out just to placate Alex or anyone else.
“I want all this to stop, Alex,” she said. “I’m sick of almost being kidnapped. I’m sick of people around me getting caught in the crossfire. You were shot six times. Benny and Crawford died simply because they were guarding my house. This needs to end.” She wasn’t asking his permission; she was explaining why she couldn’t stay behind. He saw that, and it made him curse a blue streak in Russian.
“I don’t like it, Bree. I don’t like it at the fuck all.”
“I doubt anyone in this room does. But Vinnie’s right; this is the only way to draw the hyenas out into the open, so let’s just do it.”
“It’s not going to be that easy to follow them back to their territory,” Alex told Vinnie. “They’ll be expecting that.”
“Of course they will,” the Alpha agreed. “Which is why I’ll also ask Farrell to follow them in his avian form. The hyenas will be so busy concentrating on losing the car that’s following them that they won’t think to look up.”
“Thought of everything, haven’t you?” Alex said a little bitterly.
Bree rose from her chair and crossed to Alex. “I need to do this.”
But, of course, he spent a good twenty minutes trying to talk her out of it. She’d known he would; known it was best to just let him vent. She never said a word. She just watched him, her face blank, sending him the message that this wasn’t negotiable; that this wasn’t something she’d argue over because it was happening and that was that.
Finally, Alex sighed. “This is fucking bullshit.” He took a long breath and then sliced his gaze back to Vinnie. “If she’s going, I’m going. I’ll be with her every second. And if any of those bastard hyenas touch her, I will kill them—mediation rules be damned.”
Vinnie inclined his head. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A light wind sighed through the trees and swept over Bree’s face and arms, giving her a welcome reprieve from the heat. She shifted slightly on the hard, sun-warmed bench, straining to listen for the sound of a car engine. All she could hear were birdcalls, leaves and grass rustling, and the creak of branches as they swayed with the breeze. She was impatient to get the meeting over with, but the Silva Clan hyenas had yet to arrive.
It was typical for mediation meetings to be held on the territory of the mediator, which was why Bree found herself sitting at a clearing in a corner of Mercury Pack territory. The large grassy spot was ringed by bushes and tall, majestic trees. A peaceful little oasis.