Chapter 187

Grace

I managed to call Magnus back an hour before I fell asleep and stayed up too late, yet I didn’t feel it. When I woke up, I felt refreshed. I changed and took a run through the forest for the first time in so long I almost got lost. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of ancient oaks and threw shadows across the path. But the warmth that bathed my skin was nothing compared to how warm I felt. I felt alive in a way I couldn’t remember being. My hearing seemed sharper. Every cell in my body vibrated with purpose and hope and the knowledge that I was moving forward.

I’d set Mooncrest back on the path of growth and flourishing.

I could get the Senate’s seat. It felt… so much closer than I ever imagined it being.

And more than that, I was going to grind Fenris and the president’s little plan into dust.

By the time I’d gotten off the phone with Magnus, the holes in my plan to move forward seemed to disappear. It was unexpected to form an alliance so quickly, unexpected that there had already been so much foundation laid for me by my parents and maintained by Eason.

The guilt felt lighter and a little easier to think about this morning.

Maybe it was because I had managed the call with Magnus on my own. Maybe it was because it had been my decision to send the goods that ultimately started to repair the bridge I hadn’t even known was there.

Maybe it was just because I had several new names and contacts to add to my list of people to call for help. Magnus had told me about all of my father’s old colleagues, the tentative network of would-have-been alliances that he’d been building all along the Lycan Clan-Werewolf States Border and other borders.

It felt like a missing puzzle piece snapping into place. Each step I took seemed lighter. The rest of the run floated by with thoughts about what was at the top of my to-do list today.

Fenris, the president’s puppet and perhaps Gareth’s puppeteer, wouldn’t know what hit him. Magnus had shed a sliver of light on his motives and weakness. Some of which I knew, but there had been one part I hadn’t known: Lunar Remedies’ had been secretly listed on some sort of private stock market several months ago. The final listing of stocks had been the day that Fenris came to meet me. Coincidence? Doubtful. That son of a bitch had planned for me to fold to fuel the rise of stock worth to whoever could get access to this stock. Magnus promised to get me the details so I could figure out how to get access to it. Apparently, his wife was more than a placeholder: she was the pack’s financial advisor.

I followed the familiar scents of home back through the forest back toward the house and grinned as I came in through the back door. I heard Kelly talking to Cecil and heading out the front door.

As I entered the kitchen, I found George at the stove. I grinned.

“Ambassador Snowfall, what’s got that look on your face? Is my brother being difficult?”

He smiled. “Not quite, just… reorienting myself.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He waved his hand. “Eason’s been… officially released from constant supervision.”

He nodded toward the door. “And… oddly he’s elected to go out with Kelly rather than throw himself into more work. I’m… wondering what’s going through his head.”

My lips twitched. “Want a hint?”

George cocked his eyebrow at him.

“There’s Ethan,” I said. “Coming back soon? Then, there’s you… and even Eason knows how to take a break.”

I sank into a seat, shaking my head. “He… He’s always liked kids. He’s lost a lot of time with Cecil and Richard because of…”

“You.”

I nodded. “One day… One day it’ll be easier to say, and maybe we’ll be able to laugh at it.”

“With that longevity drug on the docket, I’m sure it’s coming,” he smiled. “Though… if it makes you feel any better, he hasn’t mentioned running off to Northfall yet.”

Yet.

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make me feel better oddly enough.”

He shrugged. “Give it time. A lot has happened.”

I nodded. “That’s fair. What are you making?”

“Heating up breakfast. His Majesty left at some ungodly hour. He said he’ll be back this evening, and to ask about your power plant situation.”

I eyed him. “And… is he planning to fix it or hold out information on how I should fix it?”

He chuckled and set a plate in front of me. “There is no should. While he has more experience than you, the Clans are a very different place than the States. Your goals are very different as well.”

I looked down at the meal. “Thanks, but… there’s a should when there’s a rift in my territory, and I don’t want anything to do with the Noir Coven.”

He chuckled at that. “Well, then there’s definitely no should.”

I scowled at him. “They attacked Mooncrest.”

George picked up his plate and started to eat, watching me with a questioning gaze.

“I’m beginning to see what he means…”

“What does that mean?”

“That the States is really more of a prison of the mind than anything.” He sighed. “Let’s start from the beginning. What do you know about my job? My title?”

“You’re a liaison between the Clans and the States.”

“I’m the secondary representative of the Clans to the rest of the world,” he said. “His Majesty sends me when it is important to have proper representation, but he cannot make it… When he has a queen, she’ll be able to fulfill the same role.”

I swallowed at the gravity of that.

“And she’d be more than prepared for it,” George said, grinning at me. “Also part of my job.”

I blinked. “Like… etiquette?”

He snorted. “No. Like politics, specifically inter-species politics. Let’s say this future queen has a grudge against the Noir Coven. It would be my job to make sure she could interact with members of the Coven in such a way that would not make His Majesty’s life hard or undo the relationship His Majesty has cultivated for the Clans with the Noir Coven.”

I set my jaw, meeting his gaze. “And if you couldn’t?”

He smiled coldly. “I assure you that I could, and even if I couldn’t, this queen would be replaced long before the ties to the Noir Coven would be cut.”

I narrowed my gaze. He really thought that a tie to a terrorist group would be more important to Charles that his wife?

“You think so?”

“I know so,” George said. “The position of Lycan Queen is not fit for anyone who cannot get over their own prejudices for the sake of the people she would be helping to rule.”

“Prejudice?” I asked. “You make it sound like this is just a matter of an issue with a species. Murder? War? Terrorism isn’t enough of a reason?”

He smiled. “Have you ever met… a vampire?”

I bristled. “No.”

“Have you ever met an elf? A fairy? A human?”

I blinked at him. “What is your point?”

“It’s a symptom of the States that you think that you as a people are able to exist without help from any other species and that you deserve that help.” He scoffed. “Werewolves learned their medicine and technology from humans. You know, humans used to hunt werewolves back when you couldn’t control the shift and went around turning humans on the full moon.”

“That’s different. It was self-defense.”

“What makes you think the Noir Coven’s actions may not have an equally, or even more reasonable, reason?”

“More reasonable?”

“You really think that there weren’t humans in contact with witches who could have told them easier means of dealing with it?” He asked. “Locking up those infected, for starters? Let’s not pretend that murder was anything but the easier and more vicious solution.”

I dropped my gaze. Admittedly, I never paid much attention in history class.

“Fear, then. Still reasonable, but there is nothing reasonable about terrorism.”

“You're missing the point, but sure. Fear, then. What about hunters, then? Human hunters, hunting werewolves even now. Terrorizing smaller packs and selling them to the underbelly of society as slaves, ingredients, or whatever.”

I grit my teeth. I wanted to argue that didn’t happen, but I couldn’t put anything past the president who had sent Blood Moon to attack us, essentially.

“Do you suddenly not wish to do business with humans?”

“Human hunters,” I said.

“Bounty hunters,” he said. “Police officers. You have no way of knowing who is a hunter or not unless you're going to do an in-depth investigation into every human you will ever meet and their entire family... So, do you stop doing business with humans?”

I set my jaw. “Do humans have rules against hunters? Governing them?”

“Not a single one,” he said.

“Then, maybe, if they don’t even think about trying to stop them.”

George walked around the island and gestured me out of my chair.

I frowned.“What?”

“A demonstration.” He smirked. "Humor me."