Chapter 487

ARIA

“The massages,” he said.

+30 Free Coins

“Are very good,” I said. “I’m also extremely relaxed and deeply bored and if someone tells me to rest one more time I’m going to fire a lunar blast at them.”

He looked at me. “You’d fire a lunar blast at a masseuse.”

“I would fire a lunar blast at whoever was nearest when the restfulness reached the critical point,” I said. “I’m choosing to give people advance warning so they can arrange not to be nearest.”

He nodded slowly, the nod of someone receiving a threat that was probably not fully serious but was specific enough to take seriously. “The pack is managed,” he said. “My team has it covered. They don’t need me.” He paused. “Specifically.”

“What do you normally do,” I said. “When there isn’t a crisis.”

He thought about this. “I’m normally the guy who handles-” he stopped. “I mean there’s the-” he stopped again. “Technically my primary function is-” another stop. “I don’t think this is going to reflect well on me.”

“Try,” I said.

“The killing,” he said. “Mostly.”

“You’re mostly the killing,” I said.

“When it’s needed,” he said. “There are a lot of diplomatic things that require the implicit threat of the killing. It’s a support function. Behind the scenes.” He paused. “In peacetime, specifically, I’m more of a—” he appeared to do an internal assessment, “-presence? The Alpha’s presence is itself a function. People know I’m here and that changes how things—”

“You are being paid to exist,” I said.

“That’s-” he started.

“In peacetime,” I said. “You are here, existing, and the existence is the function.”

“It sounds bad when you say it that way,” he said.

“Is that not accurate,” I said.

He was quiet for a moment. “There are documents,” he said. “Reports. I review things.”

“Who writes the things you review,” I said.

1/3

14:26 Thu, May 14

Chapter 487

“Nina,” he said. “And Jordan. And Elite.”

“And if you didn’t review them,” I said.

+30 Free Coins

“They’d act on them anyway,” he said. “Because they’re better at the immediate response than I am. I’m better at the-” he paused. “The overview.”

“The overview,” I said.

“The big picture,” he said. “Knowing when a situation is more than it looks like. When something small is the beginning of something large.” He leaned back slightly. “I’m very good at that.”

“What does that look like in practice,” I said.

“Sitting,” he said. “Thinking. Occasionally hitting things when the thinking produces conclusions that require expression.”

“The mahogany table,” I said.

“The mahogany table,” he agreed, without apparent regret.

“So,” I said, “in a peacetime period, when there’s nothing requiring overview assessment and nothing requiring you to express conclusions through mahogany-”

“I read,” he said.

I looked at the book on my lap.

“These,” I said.

“Initially I didn’t,” he said, and his voice shifted into the register he used when he was being honest rather than performing a position. “Ivory used to come to the den. She’d sit by the fence and read out loud. I don’t think she expected me to listen. She probably did it to feel less alone while I was being – whatever l was being during the worst of it.” He paused. “At first I wasn’t listening. Then I was listening and pretending not to be. Then I was listening and actually interested, which she definitely didn’t know because if she knew she’d have used it for something.”

“And now,” I said.

“Now I have access to the library and the whole collection and nobody has been in the den for three years so I read them in my office.” He looked at the cover of the book in my hands. “The human authors’ understanding of wolf biology is-”

“Incorrect,” I said.

“Significantly,” he said. “But the stories are good. Ivory has taste.” He paused. “Also Jordan and Nina read them. I found Jordan’s personal list in the intelligence files once. He had notes.”

“Jordan has notes on the BL collection,” I said.

“He has opinions about the character work,” Kael said. “He annotates.”

2/3

Chapter 487

+30 Free Coins

“Does he know you found the list,” I said.

“He does not,” Kael said. “And we’re going to maintain that. Because knowing about the list is more useful than saying anything about the list.”

“Leverage,” I said.

“Useful information,” he said.

Silver made a warm sound in my head that might have been approval.

I set the book on the edge of his desk. “I want to do something,” I said. “With the break. Something useful.

There’s genuinely nothing to do,” I said. “I looked. Anything I could think of, someone’s already doing. The pack sweeping schedule has a roster I didn’t know existed. The botanical maintenance is Ivory’s. The training rotations are Elite’s. The communication systems are Nina’s. The inspection protocols-”

“Are being run by a very efficient junior administrator who Nina trained,” Kael said. “Yes. They’ve built something that runs without us. It’s—” he considered the word, “-nice, actually.”

“It is nice,” I said. “And I’ve had five days of it and now I need to do something.”

He looked at me with the expression of someone receiving a perspective he hadn’t fully considered from the outside.

“Have you tried the massages,” he said.

“Kael,” I said.

“I’m just saying-”

“I have had,” I said, “three massages per day for five days. I am very relaxed. I am so relaxed that the relaxation has become its own kind of tension.”

He nodded slowly, with the air of someone understanding something.

The explosion happened.

It was not subtle. It was not a small sound. It had the specific quality of something having detonated at a significant distance, significant enough to be far away but loud enough to have sent a vibration through the building’s foundation that I felt in the soles of my feet.

Kael sighed.