7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It was novel to wake slowly. I stretched and reached out to Greg, but he was gone and the sheets were cold. He wasn't a man who lounged around in bed; he got up with the sunrise and worked until well after it had set. Work to him was more than a job, it was what defined him. Right now, he was second to the Queen, and one day soon he'd be the mate to the Queen. Lucky me , I cooed smugly.

I stretched deliciously sore muscles and tried to think about what I needed to prioritise.

Let's get clean first, Esme suggested. I stifled a smile. Showers were always Esme's priority. Rightly so, she huffed playfully.

I had no issue with having a shower first, so I turned on the water to hot and stepped under the spray. She purred in my head as it buffeted our body, and I let my thoughts settle and coalesce. Rain was dead and gone so I could tick him off my to-do list, even if his lifeless eyes were haunting my dreams and crippling me with guilt. Unlike all the others I'd been forced to kill, I'd killed Rain in cold blood: I was a murderer.

I tried to think of something else, anything else. Jess was safe, albeit a little traumatised. She wasn't going to be marrying Emory anytime soon; the wedding had been postponed until further notice. That meant I could focus on the one thing I really needed to sort out: the orb.

That conniving dragon bitch Geneve had it, and now it was time to snatch it back. I didn't know the first thing about planning a heist, but I did know that I was going to need a team – and a good theme song.

Channelling heist vibes, I dressed – rarely for me – in black: black jeans, black tank top. Then I put Terrance on my head. He was rarely anywhere else; you never knew when you might need some fire.

What I needed besides fire were some allies, sneaky allies. One in particular came to mind so I rang him and left a short voicemail. ‘I have a lead on the thing we talked about last time. Come and see me.'

I hung up. Ordering him was a sure way to pull his tail, but I couldn't resist it. The man deserved it.

With a spring in my step, I bounced off to the kitchen. My step lost its spring when I saw Xander there. I faltered in the doorway, but he'd already seen me. ‘My Queen!' he greeted me ebulliently. ‘You are truly magnificent! Slayer of vile alphas, saviour of wolves everywhere! You are amazing!'

I fully believed I was amazing and magnificent, but it was still weird for someone else to say it out loud. I gave him an awkward smile and went to the kettle.

‘I'll make it!' Xander hustled over. ‘A cup of tea, right?'

‘That would be great.' I looked past him and spotted a grinning Finley. ‘Bacon?' I pleaded.

‘You got it.' Without hesitation, he reached behind him and passed me two bacon rolls; he'd clearly been working hard all morning and he had a veritable stack of pig and bread behind him. The rolls were divided into two piles: red sauce and brown sauce. Truthfully, it wasn't politics that divided the country but whether or not you were a red-sauce or brown-sauce person.

Finley stepped closer and lowered his voice. ‘The kid isn't wrong,' he murmured softly. ‘You are our saviour.'

An exasperated sigh slipped out. ‘Don't you start. I can only cope with one hero-worshipper at a time.'

He grinned. ‘Noted. I'll forego the visible worship but I wanted you to know that it's there. I admire you endlessly, my Queen.'

To save myself from answering, I bit into my bacon roll. ‘Yum!' I said happily as I took another salty, tomatoey bite. It was gratifying that Finley knew me well enough to remember that I was a red-sauce person and he'd passed me the right rolls.

I ate two and snagged a third, wolfing them down until I felt I was truly full, then took my cup of tea and went to hunt down Greg.

First I peered into the pack common room, where I was happy to see Marissa and Seren sitting with a smiling Daniella. When Daniella saw me, she gave me a thumbs-up. I grinned and returned the gesture.

Since Greg wasn't there, I continued to my office. Sure enough, he was sitting at the security console. ‘Morning,' I greeted him with a chaste kiss on the lips.

‘Mmm,' he replied licking his own lips. ‘Bacon.'

I snorted. ‘Yup. If I'd known you were here, I'd have brought you one.'

‘I've already had a couple,' he confessed. ‘Finley's been making huge batches for everyone.'

‘I saw. He's a wonder. How did it go last night? Did the charred wood work for Nina?' I should have asked earlier but Greg had distracted me with his talk of numbers and statistics.

‘It did,' he confirmed. ‘She's made an extra floor just for the Cheshire Pack.'

‘Good idea. I'll go and see her later.' I fixed him with a look. ‘But for now, it's time to plan a heist. For real.'

He grinned. ‘I knew you were going to walk into the office and say that.'

‘Did you now?' I huffed, hands on hips. I hated being predictable.

If anything, my tone made his grin widen. ‘So I've been making plans, calling in favours. There's a reason I left you at the crack of dawn.'

‘Well, I'm glad it wasn't because I was snoring.'

‘Not just because of that,' he muttered under his breath.

‘Hey! I don't snore.'

He winked. ‘Sure you don't, Peaches. You're a delicate little flower at all times.'

‘That's right.' I nodded emphatically. ‘Talk to me about the favours.'

His jovial nature faded as he got down to business, but before we could get far, there was a knock at the door. We exchanged exasperated looks; it seemed like the universe was conspiring to keep us from our heist. Nevertheless I called, ‘Come in!'

Ben came in. It struck me as odd that my brother didn't just barge in but knocked respectfully and waited; he really was getting used to pack protocol. I would have to call a pack tourney soon and see where he fitted into the power structure. Roan – Rohan – was an experienced wolf and I was willing to bet that Ben would make it into the battle core thirteen.

‘Hey,' I greeted him. ‘You okay?'

‘Yes,' he said, ‘and no.' He sat in one of my guest chairs.

‘Talk to us,' Greg said.

Ben sighed. ‘Rohan and I have been having a vision – several, actually. I was convinced it was just a weird recurring dream, but Rohan is sure it is more than that.' He paused. ‘This is the most ridiculous question I've ever asked, but are you planning on stealing a magical orb from a dragon?' He gave a little laugh like he was amused by his own absurdity, but he still looked nervous.

Greg and I exchanged glances.

‘Oh shit,' Ben breathed. ‘It's not a ridiculous question, is it?'

‘Not as ridiculous as you might think,' I said slowly. ‘Tell me about this dream.'

My brother buried his head in his hands. ‘I can see the future,' he said from between his fingers. ‘Fucking hell.' After a long minute, he finally looked up at me. ‘If I really am some sort of seer, this power comes with immense responsibility. I haven't been trained in this shit. I don't know how much I should tell you, if anything at all.'

I shrugged. ‘I don't know either but letting us muddle around when you've got some sort of insight into the best way forward doesn't seem particularly brotherly. Tell us, please.'

Ben licked his lips. ‘Honestly, I don't know what to tell you. I've been having this dream – or variations of it – every night for weeks. At first I thought I'd watched too much Lord of the Rings and Smaug had invaded my brain, or maybe it was just a side effect of discovering dragons really existed.'

I suppressed a grimace: a reference to Smaug didn't seem positive for our heist plans. It seemed inevitable that if a dragon shifter was going to be around, our sneaking-in plans would get fucked up. And the dragon shifter in question would almost certainly be Geneve.

I met Greg's eyes over my brother's head. His expression mirrored my own. ‘Tell us,' he ordered Ben gruffly. He wasn't talking to him as a potential brother-in-law but as my beta.

‘As I said, I dreamed variation after variation. I don't know exactly what's going to happen because I've dreamed it happening twenty, thirty, forty different ways.' Frustrated, he ran his hands through his hair .

‘What can you tell us?' Greg asked impatiently. ‘What features were consistent that will help us achieve a positive outcome?'

Ben rubbed his face as he tried to clear his thoughts. ‘Positive outcome. Okay, well I guess I need to focus on the dreams where you actually managed to get the orb.' He closed his eyes and chewed on his lip. ‘You need Tarkers there, and Wakado.'

‘Debbie?' Greg asked.

‘Yeah.' Ben nodded vigorously. ‘You definitely want Debbie there, too. The man is a machine.'

‘Okay – Tarkers, Wakado, Debbie, me and Greg. Perfect,' I said.

Ben licked his lips and swallowed hard. He shook his head slowly. ‘Not just them. You need Xander, too.'

‘I'm not taking Xander with us,' I objected immediately. ‘He's a kid.'

‘He's an adult,' Greg disagreed. ‘Barely – but even so. He is eighteen.'

I grimaced. ‘I'm not taking Xander,' I said firmly. I couldn't be responsible for the young, enthusiastic lad's death if anything went wrong. He was just a child.

Ben looked pale as he shook his head. ‘You need him,' he insisted.

I folded my arms. ‘ Agree to disagree. Tell me something else, something that I can agree to.'

Greg shook his head slightly at Ben, telling him to leave the topic of Xander for now.

‘There's some sort of short, squat dude that comes along. He has a red beard nearly to his knees.'

‘A dwarf,' Greg said approvingly. He looked a little smug.

‘What's got you looking like the cat that's got the cream?' I asked.

Bloody cats, Esme grumped.

Oh hush! I laughed.

‘I've been toying with a couple of ways that we could enter the hoard. The one I favour is getting a dwarven team. Ben's input confirms that's the right thing to do.'

Ben held up his hands. ‘I want to be clear that I really know nothing about this whole thing. I'm scrambling around making it up as I go along. I'm worried that telling you all this may hinder you more than help you, but Rohan disagrees. Honestly, for all I know I'm just having crazy-arse dreams after eating too much cheese before bed.'

‘I think we can safely say that your dreams are more than that,' Greg said dryly. ‘Camembert doesn't induce the same dream thirty or forty times.'

Ben sighed. ‘ I know that you're right, but I'd almost convinced myself that my dreams were nonsense. Rohan pushed me to speak to you against my better judgement.'

‘Well, from now on listen to Rohan,' I advised.

‘Yeah,' my brother muttered, pushing himself up from the chair. ‘I better go. You guys have dwarves to find.' He paused in the doorway. ‘One more thing.' He looked across the room at me. ‘I have to come on the heist, too.' He slipped out of the door before I could argue with him.

‘I don't like this,' I complained to Greg. ‘Having a prophecy is one thing – and that's bad enough – but I really don't like the idea of being dictated to by a seer, even if the seer in question is my brother.'

‘I understand – but we are contacting Debbie, Tarkers and Wakado, aren't we?'

‘Yeah,' I sighed. ‘It looks like we are,' I agreed grimly.

‘And Xander?'

I shook my head. ‘We are not taking any kids with us.'

‘Lucy, I hate to raise the delicate issue of a lady's age, but you're only in your mid-twenties. You're not that much older than Xander.'

‘Bite your tongue!' I shot him a glare. ‘I have a shit tonne of life experience under my belt.'

Greg's tone was gentle. ‘Xander was raised in the Devon pack under Beckett Frost's rule. I'd wager that he has a shit tonne of life experience under his belt too, and very little of it is good.'

‘Exactly! He deserves to have some good times. I'm not taking him with me to tunnel under some dragon's hoard, and that is the end of it.'

It was hard to put my finger on the reason why I wanted Xander to be far, far away from this extraction. It wasn't just his youth; there was something burgeoning within him, happiness that he hadn't had the chance to cultivate under Beckett's rule. I wanted to preserve that bubbling joy for as long as I could.

There were plenty of ways to skin a cat. Whatever Xander was supposed to bring to this venture, we'd find someone else to do it, someone older, someone grittier.

Someone who didn't look at me like the sun rose and set in my eyes.