Chapter 496

KAEL

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She looked at me with the expression that had the twelve years in it – the one that existed before the clinical voice and underneath all the managed versions.

“I know what you’re actually asking,” she said. “You’re not asking about the bunker. You’re asking whether it’s safe. Whether you’re still a liability to the people around you. Whether the wolf’s situation means there’s always going to be a version of the emergency where the Alpha is the problem rather than the solution.”

The room was very quiet.

“The wolf is not a liability,” she said. “He’s been a problem before. He’s not one now. The integration is progressing. The bond is working.” She looked at Aria briefly. “You’re not a liability, Kael. You’re the Alpha. The bunker situation is an administrative oversight that we’re going to fix in two weeks. It’s not a metaphor.”

“It’s not a metaphor,” I said.

“It’s an inconveniently timed practical issue,” she said. “That we’re resolving.”

I looked at my cards.

I looked at the hat she was wearing backwards.

I looked at Jordan’s fake mustache, which he’d resumed stroking.

“Why,” I said, “is Jordan stroking a fake mustache.”

“The bit,” Jordan said.

“You’ve been doing it for the entire conversation,” I said. “We had a serious conversation about emergency protocols and you were stroking a fake mustache throughout.”

“The bit doesn’t pause,” Jordan said. “If the bit pauses, the bit is over. The bit continues until someone acknowledges the bit is over.”

“Is the bit over.” I said.

“Not until someone acknowledges it,” Jordan said.

“The bit.” I said, “is acknowledged.”

Jordan removed the fake mustache with the specific solemnity of someone concluding a performance they’d been committed to. He placed it on the corner of the desk with the care of a person putting something down that had served its purpose.

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“Thank you,” he said.

“The hat stays on.” Ivory said.

“The hat was never in discussion,” Nina said.

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“I wasn’t going to take the hat off,” Ivory said. “I’m simply clarifying that its status is unaffected by the bit’s conclusion.”

“The hat is yours,” I said. “For the duration.”

“Thank you,” she said.

We played the next hand.

I lost it, which Jordan found satisfying in a way he was trying not to show. The mustache was gone but the satisfaction was present.

Aria came off the windowsill and sat beside me.

Not at the table – the table only had the three-chair arrangement that Jordan and Nina and Ivory had established – but in the chair she’d pulled from the corner, close enough to see the cards.

“You’re still observing,” I said.

“I’m observing from a closer position,” she said.

“Strategically,” I said.

“Strategically,” she agreed.

Silver, through the warmer bond channel, communicated something. Not words. The bond wasn’t doing words yet – we weren’t there. But the quality of warmth had the specific feel of something that was not just Silver. Something from further along the line, the wolf’s end of it, the direction that had been closed and was increasingly not-closed.

I didn’t look at Aria.

I looked at my cards.

“What is the next hand worth,” I said. “In secrets.”

“This one’s worth three,” Nina said.

“What’s the three-point secret,” I said.

“Your choice,” Jordan said. “You pick what you’re wagering.”

I thought about this.

“The goat.” I said. “The rogue goat incident. The full version.”

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Jordan’s expression did something that was extremely satisfied.

“The full version,” he said. “Including the temporary fence.”

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“And the council minutes from that week,” I said. “Which you’ve definitely seen and I know are in the intelligence files.”

“Deal,” Jordan said.

I looked at my cards.

The afternoon was still going. The break still had today and tomorrow and then Monday, when we went back to being the people responsible for the pack’s governance rather than the people playing poker in Nina’s office while Ivory wore a borrowed cap and Jordan committed to a mustache bit.

The bunker would be fixed in two weeks.

Aria couldn’t access it now and I didn’t know where it was and we were both technically baits in the pack’s emergency protocol, and the wolf was integrating and the bond was warming and the break was ending Monday.

And in the meantime, there was the next hand.

I arranged my cards.

“Deal,” I said.