For the sake of keeping the peace, he said, “Hadley is on it.”
“Hadley Whitaker.” Lethe said the name like it was dirt she couldn’t wait to spit out of her mouth.
“Yes.”
“Do you trust her to get our pack justice?”
“Not our pack,” he reminded her, a spark of temper flaring. “My pack. And yes, I do.”
“Huh.” Mashing her eye to the screen, she squinted at him. “That’s interesting.”
Choosing to misinterpret her, he agreed. “Looking at your face right now is like viewing abstract art.”
“I’ll assume you mean art done by an abstract master and take that as a compliment.” Not to be deterred, she held her device at arm’s length. “You like her.”
“I respect her,” he said a beat too late to be believable. To either of them.
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” She looked away, a glint in her eye. “Nothing at all.”
“You warned me about her. Why? What do you know that I don’t?”
“Unca Midas has a girlfriend?” a small voice squealed then ripped the screen from her mother. “Can I meet her? Is she pretty? Does she like kids? She’ll like me. Momma says I look just like you, and she’s your girlfriend…”
The rest of what Eva had to say blended into a string of incoherency, she chattered at him so fast.
“Give me that, you little imp.” Lethe reclaimed the screen. “Did you hear that? Daddy is calling for his big helper to make Mommy a BBB sandwich.”
“BBB?” He thought about it for a second. “Bacon, bacon, bacon?”
“Who in their right mind would sully a bacon sandwich with lettuce and tomato? I mean, really.”
“Hood is going to catch on eventually,” Midas warned her. “He’s going to realize it’s Mommy who wants alone time, not Eva who wants Daddy time.”
“Oh, he knows.” A glimmer of pride brightened her smile. “She’s dominant. She’s stuck to me like glue, just like I was to Mom. She has her nose in all the pack business, and routinely makes patrols around the property. It’s precious. She issued a citation to Mila Reed for not sharing her ice cream with her sister.”
“A citation?”
“Um, well, Eva is dominant-dominant. Grier almost had a heart attack when Eva got into a brawl with Theodore Posy. The little imp was gnawing on his throat, trying to rip it out, when Grier intervened. After that, Grier suggested the citations. Even bought her a flipbook from an online cop supply store.”
Theodore Posy.
Three hundred pounds of scarred-up, pissed-off gwyllgi who hated everyone and everything except for the angora rabbits he bred for their silky wool. He also enjoyed knitting and had stabbed more than one person with a knitting needle for laughing at him for either or both. He tried to teach Lethe once, but her temper was worse than his, and she had less patience.
Their mother hadn’t been sad when he gave up the Atlanta pack to move to Savannah.
“Does she have all her teeth?” Unfamiliar with the stages of child development, he had no clue.
“Yes.” She held up her left arm, which was covered in pinkish half-moon-shaped grooves. “She’s a biter.”
Already challenging her mother. “You must be proud.”
“I’m grateful every time I get the chance to tell her not to eat the neighbor’s familiar’s kittens, which are living under our porch, or to put my bacon down or I’ll eat her instead.” Tears glimmered in her eyes. “I’m thankful I got to be a mom. Whatever comes next, I’m glad I got to know Eva.”
That right there, love for her child, was what had outweighed her already thin patience. Eva’s condition tipped the scales for Lethe. Living in Savannah meant easy access to Grier, and to Linus. With a miracle child, they had expected the miraculous developmental progress, but it was one thing to have an emergency and bundle your kid up for a three-hour drive from Atlanta to Savannah and another to scoop her up and run next door to the only person who could help.
Reminding himself of that, that Lethe’s ambition wasn’t to blame for his current predicament, he made a bit more peace with his situation. He loved Eva too, and he would do anything for her. Even give up his best friend and take on her role to free Lethe up to walk her own path for the sake of her child.
“I’m glad too.” He spotted the imp stalking her mother in the background but didn’t say a word. “I should let you get back to mothering.”
“She’s behind me, isn’t she?”
“Yep.”
Lethe exhaled and counted softly under her breath, a habit he had picked up from her. “I have to go.”
Her finger slipped off the button, and the call continued as she set down the tablet. He heard her roar at Eva and stomp off bellowing about monsters who ate little girls who interrupted sibling bonding time.
Midas listened until the room went quiet then ended the call with a sigh when he realized Lethe hadn’t told him why Hadley required a warning label. She had used his adorable niece against him, and he fell for it.
He wasn’t brooding in the quiet for long before the bedroom door swung open and his mother swept in.
“I heard the most peculiar thing,” she said, flipping on the lights and joining him on the bed. “It can’t be true, but I thought I would ask.”
Midas no longer indulged in any of the activities that might cause a mother to enter her adult son’s room with caution. The worst she expected was to wake him from a nap. He flushed, embarrassed for no good reason, annoyed with himself when it had never bothered him before.
“Ask away.” He set aside his tablet. “What have you heard?”
So far, there had been no fallout from his botched date with Rebecca. Granted, his mother hadn’t expected it to go well, so she might simply be relieved it didn’t go worse. Or Rebecca might have been too ashamed to admit how badly she had been treated and decided to edit the details.
“That you granted Hadley Whitaker certain privileges.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Ares mentioned you performing a Care Bear Stare on Hadley. She could barely keep it together long enough to explain what in god’s name she meant.”
“A Care Bear…” Midas rested his head against the wall. “Hadley called it that?”
His mother’s lips pursed. “Apparently.”
“I didn’t see the harm.”
His inner beast wouldn’t quiet until it could look its fill, and for that to happen, she had to be his.
No.
He quelled that primal urge before it could rise. She had to be…given certain allowances.
“Your professional relationship with her is whatever you choose it to be.” An elegant shrug lifted one dainty shoulder. “Linus and I shaped ours how it suited us, and it’s between you two how you go forward as the next generation.”
“But?”
“Ares also mentioned you marked her.”
“No.” Shock propelled him onto his feet. “She’s wrong.”
Damn you, he thought at his wilder half. What have you done?
The feral beast that lived under his skin was unable to articulate words, but it managed to project smugness at him.