15
Remy
I wiped a hand down my face as I dropped my phone onto my desk. Everything in me wanted to hit redial and keep myself tethered to Skye in any way I could. Frustration burned in my gut.
This was brutal. Thank fuck it was only a week because I couldn’t keep going much longer without her.
The restless pacing of my wolf burned in me as his agitation twisted and tangled with my own. I hated that she was so far away, and I was here. Completely useless to her if she needed me.
I balled my hand into a fist, barely resisting the urge to smash my fist into the drywall.
Someone knocked on my door.
“What?” I snapped, whirling and glaring at the door like it had personally offended me.
It cracked open, and Katy stuck her head in. She took one look at me and frowned. “Are you okay?”
I raked a hand through my messy hair, jerking on the ends roughly before sitting heavily on the edge of my bed. “No.”
She stepped inside before she closed the door and leaned against it. “What can I do? Want me to wake the others?”
The house was definitely full right now. Ryder and Dante were in one guest room, Larkin and Rhodes in the other. It was definitely easier to get more shit done with everyone being close by. Will had also offered to come up and stay in the house if I wanted, but we were out of extra bedrooms.
The Alpha house had been built decades earlier by my grandfather, and it was the largest residence in Blackwater. The sprawling cabin had a massive finished basement that served as meeting spaces for the council and had an office for the Alpha and his beta. Michael, my father’s first beta, typically used it.
The main floor was spacious with a massive kitchen, formal dining room that had enough seats for twenty people, a formal sitting area, an informal sitting room where we usually watched TV, and the master suite. The top floor had six bedrooms, which should have been plenty of room for the Alpha and his family … unless the Alpha had four kids, which was almost unheard of.
Blackwater was already growing as a pack, but the addition of the Brooks Ridge pack, and the possibility of needing to house more packs, was going to be an issue in the coming weeks. It was a good thing we had already begun construction on a new housing development outside of town.
Blackwater itself had a lot of land, and the outlying farmlands were owned by pack members. Space wasn’t the issue, but residential and commercial buildings required permits that went through human channels and took time.
Time we probably didn’t have.
Everything was pressing in on me to a level of suffocation I wasn’t used to. And, to top it all off, the person I needed most was on the other side of the damn world.
The man who I went to with everything was currently in a coma, and I didn’t want to bother Mom with shit I should be able to handle as Alpha.
This was on me, and I was already feeling the weight of choices made and decisions yet to come.
Katy pulled out the desk chair across from me and sat in it, pulling her knees up to her chest. “What’s going on?”
“What if I can’t do this?” I asked quietly, finally putting that question out into the universe. It had been plaguing me since the wheels of the plane had touched down in Blackwater.
She rested her chin on her knee and watched me curiously. “What makes you think you can’t do this?”
I spread my arms wide. “I’ve been Alpha less than a day and someone already challenged me. What if I’m doing the wrong thing by bringing in more packs?”
“Wrong by whose standards?” she countered calmly.
“Maybe the smart play is to seal the borders and let things fall wherever outside our doors.” The idea of doing nothing while Norwood ran around, unchecked, actually soured my stomach.
Her nose wrinkled. “You don’t believe that.”
No, I didn’t.
“Is it fair to make the pack pay for my choices?” I shrugged, not sure what the right course was. “What if I’m making a mistake?”
“What if you are?” she agreed. “What’s the worst that can happen? We save lives? We offer people hope or an alternative to being owned by Norwood?”
I stayed silent, digesting what she was saying.
She lowered her legs to the floor, leaning forward. “Norwood took Maren. They took Kit and Jayla, too, and who knows how many others. I highly doubt it’s some sort of pack exchange program.”
I rubbed my jaw and nodded.
“Norwood blew up the Summit,” she said quietly. “They killed dozens of men and women. They killed Luke, and almost killed Dad. They tried to kill you. Who else will hold them accountable if we don’t? We could close our borders, lock ourselves in and probably hold them off. But what about the smaller packs? Are you okay with letting them be overrun by Norwood or Long Mesa?”
She narrowed her eyes, fire sparking in their depths. “How many more little girls have to grow up being molested by grown men or listening to their mom being raped on a daily basis?”
Fuck me, that hurt.
The air whooshed out of me. Katy was right, of course.
What Skye and her mom had endured, what Zara and Bella had survived, was proof that Norwood, Long Mesa, and their allies needed to be stopped. And the honest truth was, Blackwater was the only pack that had enough power to attempt stopping them.
“When did you get so smart?” I asked wryly, shaking my head.
“I’ve always been brilliant,” she replied smugly as she stood up. “You just finally started to notice it.”
I got off the bed and smiled at her. “You’re wrong. I’ve always known how smart you are, Kit-Kat.”
By the time I showered and came downstairs, Larkin was halfway into making breakfast for everyone. Sam stood next to her, watching as she explained the right time to flip a pancake over.
Rhodes was perched on a barstool, his gaze intently watching Larkin as she moved. His fingers tightened around his coffee mug as Sam’s shoulder innocently brushed Larkin’s.
He looked over as I approached, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Hey, man. How’d you sleep?”
“Shitty,” I admitted, walking to the coffee pot and pouring a cup into a mug. I joined him at the barstools. “Skye called me this morning.”
Larkin spun around so fast she slipped on the hardwood floor. Sam caught her before she put her hand down on the hot stovetop and helped her regain her balance.
Despite saving her from a burned hand, Rhodes growled at Sam, his expression darkening until my brother let go and took a step back from Larkin. He held up his hands innocently, eyes wide as he watched Rhodes warily.
“Is she okay?” Larkin demanded, coming around the side of the island until she was within distance of Rhodes. He snagged her around the waist and pulled her to his side, resting his head on her shoulder as they both looked at me.
“She’s good. I’ll fill you guys in on everything later. It’s late where she is, so she was going to go to sleep.”
Larkin kissed Rhodes before stepping away and moving back to the stovetop.
It was so natural, so effortless.
And it made me miss my mate all the more.
Rhodes cleared his throat, pulling me from my thoughts of Skye before I could spiral too far down.