Chapter 604
They walked into the office.
They looked at the ten adults named Marcus.
They looked at Kael.
“You called,” said the six–year–old.
The six–year–old Marcus was the one who broke Nina.
Not entirely – her composure didn’t collapse, it didn’t abandon its post without warning, it simply began to exhibit small structural failures along its edges. The corners of her expression. The specific quality of her eyes. The way she picked up her coffee cup and put it back down without drinking from it because drinking from it would have required a steadiness that was currently being redirected elsewhere.
Jordan lasted three more Marcuses.
The door opened and a man came in who was visibly still wet. Not dressed for a meeting – dressed for whatever he’d been doing before the link order arrived, which had been, apparently, a shower. He’d wrapped something around himself and come directly, because the link order was from the Alpha and the response was supposed to be immediate, and he had responded immediately and immediately had not allowed for full preparation.
Jordan, at the window, turned to look at the shower Marcus.
He turned back to the window.
His shoulders were doing something.
“Jordan,” I said, quietly.
“I’m fine,” he said, in the tone of someone who was not fine.
“You’re-”
“I’m reviewing the territorial analysis,” he said.
“Jordan,” I said.
“THERE ARE TWELVE OF THEM,” he said, to the window, at a volume that was louder than he’d intended.
“Thirteen,” I said.
“Thirteen,” he said, to the window.
The chef arrived.
Chapter 604
I heard him before I saw him – the specific sound of someone moving through the corridor with the purposeful energy of someone who’d been in the middle of something and had received an interrupion
d was handling the interruption efficiently so they could return to the something. The door opened in! thechef walked in with a ladle in his hand, because he’d been in the middle of the afternoon kitchen preparation and the link order had arrived and he’d responded with the immediate compliance of a prick member and had apparently not registered that he was still holding the ladle until he was already in the office.
He looked at the ladle.
He looked at the room.
He looked at Kael.
“You called,” he said.
“Yes,” Kael said.
The chef looked at the ladle again. Something in his expression suggested he was conducting an internal review of the sequence of events that had led to him arriving at the Alpha’s office meeting with a ladle.
Nina’s composure made its final structural decision and released.
She didn’t make a sound – Nina’s loss of composure was not the loud kind, it was the silent kind, the specific shaking quality of someone whose whole body was expressing something that their professional standards were attempting to prevent from reaching audible frequency. She put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were doing things.
Jordan, from the window, had turned around.
He was looking at the chef with the ladle.
He looked at Nina.
/He looked at me.
I looked at him.
We both looked at the ladle.
“This is-” Jordan started.
“Don’t,” I said.
“This is very-”
“Jordan,” I said.
“The ladle,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“He’s still holding it,” Jordan said.
Chapter 604
“I know,” I said.
e’s holding it like it’s appropriate,” Jordan said. “Like bringing a ladle to an Alpha meeting is-
“Jordan,” I said.
Jordan turned back to the window.
His shoulders were significantly worse thätt before
I recognized some of them.
This was the thing I hadn’t expected
the specific experience of looking around a room of thirty people
and having personal history with several of them in ways that were suddenly relevant.
The first one I’d placed was Marcus–from–the–border–watch, the one Kael had actually been trying to reach. He was the fourth Marcus to arrive, the one from the western section – no, I’d gotten confused in the ordering. He was the first one. Dark hair, mid–thirties, the border watch bearing.
I recognized him because I’d been at the northeast post briefing three weeks ago when Kael had made the assignment. I’d been learning the operational structure, working through the pack’s security architecture with Nina, and I’d been in the room when Kael had looked at this specific Marcus and said *northeast post. three week rotation.*
Then there was the Marcus who’d brought me to Shadowmere.
He was the eighth or ninth to arrive – I’d lost precise count – and I recognized him the moment he walked in, the specific face of the man who’d met me at the edge of Blackwood pack territory and brought me here, who’d been polite and professional and had answered my questions about Shadowmere with the careful specificity of someone who’d been briefed on what to say and what not to say. He was in his forties, quiet. with the expression of someone who recognized me at exactly the same moment I recognized him.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
*Luna,” he said, through the link, in the private–thread way that the link allowed when you directed a thought specifically.
*Marcus,* I said.
*You remember,” he said.
*You brought me here,* I said. * I was terrified.*
*You were very calm,* he said.
*I was very terrified and hiding it,* I said.
*You hid it well,* he said.
*Thank you,* I said.
Chapter 604
Is this normal,” he said. “The meeting.*
*ink we’re discovering that it isn’t, I said.
*There are a lot of us,* he said.
*Yes,” I said.
*The chef has a ladle, he said.
*I know, I said.
*Is that-*
*Also not normal.* I said.
*Good to know,” he said.
I’d also seen the Marcus from the communal garden – the older stocky one who’d been the second to arrive. I’d seen him three times in the past month during my early morning channel–building sessions, when the garden was quiet and I’d been working through the spoke system in the specific meditative way that Silver had developed with me. He’d been planting something each time. He’d nodded at me each time with the specific respectful acknowledgment of someone who’d decided the Luna was doing something and was not going to interrupt it. I’d appreciated the nods.
He was currently standing at the back of the office with the patient expression of someone who’d been to many meetings in his life and had learned that they eventually ended.