31. Conrad

-This means war—A7X

A fire has been lit under my mate and it’s impressive to watch her working with Ethan and Griffin. Who knew she would turn into such a brilliant tactician.

“Anything I can do to help?” I kiss the crown of Gracie’s head as I walk past.

“Have you heard from Nic?” She looks up at me and I check my phone.

“Nothing yet. I know he had the meeting with Ricardo and his pack today.” Double checking my calendar, I look up positive I am correct.

“Griff, when do we have to go to Wolverton?” Grace looks at her notepad at the list of things we need to do before the Grand Council meeting next week.

“Anytime you’re ready. Jakob and Benjamin are overseeing the investigation into the harboring of rogues on their lands. So far a dozen wolves have been arrested, including Dustin.” Griffin looks up from his phone, reading off of an email.

“Ethan, when do you think it’s best to go?” She looks over at him and he runs his hand over his bald head.

“Honestly, never. I know we need to, but we have pups and should let the elders handle the heavy lifting.” It’s unlike Ethan to want to miss a possible fight.

“Are you okay?” Furrowing my brows, I look at him, puzzled by his answer.

“Yeah, just fixing my priorities. Pups, mate, brothers, then pack in that order. We need to keep the pups and Gracie safe. We also need to secure the safety of the packs to keep them safe. It’s a double-edged sword, and I don’t feel like I’m holding it.” Ethan looks down at his scared hands, then back up at me.

I nod, understanding the feeling all too well. “I’ll reach out to the elders and see what progress they have made. Hopefully, it’s safe enough we can visit before the big meeting.” Everyone nods and I leave the room.

My steps carry me to my mom’s house on pack lands where all three children are. She and Elinor and Agnes are sitting on the floor playing with the babies. “How is everyone doing?” All three grandmothers look up at the same time, smiling.

“Wonderful Conrad.” Agnes says as she helps Nina with her building blocks.

“It’s almost snack time. Barrett is in the kitchen if you want to go help him.” Mom says and finishes braiding Ashina’s hair.

Elinor looks up, and she looks absolutely exhausted keeping up with Deacon. Being the only human in the room and the oldest here can’t be easy. “Need a break?” I offer, taking Deacon off her hands for a bit.

“Being a great grandma isn’t easy.” She forces a smile and I nod. We’ve known for a while that Elinor is coming close to the end. Gracie finally smelled it on her the other day, and that didn’t go over well.

After taking Deacon from her, I help Elinor up and walk her to the massaging recliner. “Sit here, and I’ll go get you your tea.” When she’s settled, I cover her with her favorite blanket and turn on the warming feature.

Deacon and I head into the kitchen and find Barrett listening to T Swift dancing around the kitchen, singing along. “Hey handsome, need some help?”

Barrett smiles as he turns. “Ah, there’s two of my favorite men.” He kisses Deacon on the forehead and then me on the lips softly. “Missed you.” He says sweetly at me then returns to plating the finger foods.

“Do you have Elinor’s tea ready?” I feel a weight in my chest, knowing she’s not long for this world. By the doctor’s guess she won’t see the spring.

“Yeah, I’ve been adding some of my blood to it to help relieve the pain.” Barrett looks down sadly at the cup, then back up at me. “When she goes, that’s the last member of Gracie’s bloodline left. Well, besides the babies.”

Barrett’s bottom lip quivers as he looks up at me, and I nod. “I know, but at least she got to see Gracie happy and safe. Plus, she got to meet her first Great Grandson.”

Barrett nods, then motions to Deacon. Apparently, my talking put him to sleep. “They are so cute when they sleep.” He turns and rolls the cart past me and into the living room.

“Snack time.” He announces, and both little girls squeal and run towards the cart. The way they do everything together, you would think they shared a womb.

Barrett brings Elinor her tea and sits with her while the grandma’s handle the girls. Nicolai comes in through the back door and both daughters stop what they are doing and swarm him. “Woah! Hey girls.” He bends down and scoops them up as they cover him in kisses.

“How’s everything going?” Nic asks, and it’s a loaded question.

“Grace and the guys are doing good. Little man just fell asleep, and GG is doing as well as can be expected.” I give him the extremely short version to catch him up. Nic puts the girls back down and sends them off to eat.

“Sounds good. In other news, my meeting went well. I’m keeping Ricardo in power as my second. It makes more sense since they are his people. I’m still alpha, but he knows them better. He’ll report to me any needs or problems.” Nic says as he gently scoops Deacon off of me and cradles him to his chest. Shaking his head, he laughs.

“What’s so funny?” Him laughing over nothing threw me off.

“I’m such a girl Dad, it’s not even funny. As much as having a son is important for pack stability. Daughters are so much more fun.” He smiles, looking back at Nina and Ashina, then back at me.

“You and Griff feel the same. He loves his son, but he really wanted a daughter.” My eyes dart around, then look back at Nic. “Don’t tell Grace.”

“I remember that tidbit. I want to rip her ex’s throat out and use his head like a pi?ata.” Nic paints a vivid image for me and I arch a brow.

“We promised Grace that if possible, she can send him to meet his maker.” Tilting my head to the side, I watch several emotions flicker over Nicolai’s features.

“That’s even better. She deserves to rip him limb from limb.” Nicolai gets a feral gleam in his eye as he stares at me. “We’ll wear him out some, then let Gracie finish him off.” The glow rises in his eyes and I see the demon the stories spoke about.

Flaring my eyes at his darker side emerging, I take a step back and regroup. “In other news, Grace needs to go to Wolverton sooner than later with you and Griff.” That makes Nic’s head tilt.

“Why not me and Ethan?” Narrowing his eyes, he grabs a sandwich off of the tray.

“She want’s Ethan here with the children to watch over them.” Shrugging my shoulders, I look between myself and Barrett. “We are not warriors.” I motion between Barrett and myself. “Ethan will destroy anything that gets too close to the children without a second thought. Barrett and I will fall back with the kids, trying to get them to safety.” I mention part of the unspoken conversation I had with Ethan. Extracting the children is just as vital as fighting the threat.

“Makes sense. I’ll head over to the house and see what the plan is.” Nic looks back at the others, watching the girls play as he rocks Deacon.

“Sound’s good.” I watch the way he is studying the moms and Grace’s grandmother. “What’s on your mind?” It’s obvious that something is bothering him.

“We’ve had several small skirmishes within the two packs. Mine and yours. Griff, Ethan and I have handled it silently.” He turns his gaze to meet mine and I see a deeper concern.

“Is it because of the joining of the packs?” It’s the only thing that comes to mind.

“Not just that.” He draws Barrett and me away from the others and back into the kitchen. “According to the books, the Lunar or Moon wolf can have multiple mates.”

“We already know that,” Barrett fires back.

“The younger males want their chance to meet Grace and see if they are also her mate. They think we are hiding her to keep control of all the packs to ourselves.” Nicolai dropped a bomb I wasn’t expecting.

My eyebrows shoot up, and I ponder the implications of this. How many mates can my mate possibly have? I look at Barrett and he’s pale and holding onto the countertop, staring at Nic. “Grace was resistant with you. Can you imagine her with another mate or two?” I turn my gaze back on Nic and he nods slowly.

“World war Grace incoming…” Shaking his head, he looks down at Deacon. “Your momma is not gonna be happy.” Deacon’s hand comes up and pats Nic on the cheek.

“Looks like little man is saying good luck with that.” I laugh and leave the house. Nic and Deacon are hot on my heels as we head back over to break the news to Grace.

By the time we get there, Ethan already has a young male by the throat with his feet off the ground. “Okay, so I’m a little late with the news. The males in all the packs want to meet Grace to make sure she’s not their mate.” Nic blurts out as Ethan carries the young male out and tosses him outside.

Grace shakes her head and walks over, taking Deacon back from Nic. “Are you for fucking real right now? I just had a baby and all these micro peens want their shot at their Luna. I am not a baby factory!” She screams, unconsciously putting a bit of alpha bark behind it making us all wobble on our feet.

Barrett and I hit the floor subjugated in front of our mate. Ethan, Griff, and Nic are barely still on their feet. “Grace…” I say, trying to catch my breath. “No one expects you to pop out a million pups.” Her gaze turns to mine and its then she realizes what she had done.

“Con, Barrett, I’m so sorry.” She drops to her knees near us and kisses our temples.

“You’re still learning your Luna powers, it’s okay love.” I kiss her temple, trying to reassure her.

“I still feel bad about it Con.” Grace says as Nic and Ethan come over to assist her to stand up.

Drawing in a deep breath, Grace shakes her head, then looks back down at me. “We’ll host a ball here in the pack house at the end of the month. Send out blanket invites to the heads of the packs in the area.” Grace waves her hand in the air.

“You don’t have to do this, Grace.” Ethan says as he nuzzles her cheek.

“I know, but I don’t need random males breaking into the house trying to get close to me. We have enough problems with Hunter and his rogues.” Grace makes a valid point and looks at Griffin.

“She’s right. It’s better to do this properly than to cause an internal war.” Griffin frowns at his phone and growls. “The humans are complaining about seeing more wolves than usual. They want a wolf hunt.”

My blood runs cold remembering the hunt from when I was a little boy. We weren’t allowed to shift outside of the basement for over a month. “What are you going to do, Griff?” I ask before anyone else.

He stares at his phone, then back over at me. “We need to call the packs and warn them. Then we have to convince our pack to lie low for a bit so the humans think the wolves have moved on. As if they were migrating.” He shrugs his shoulders, looking at me.

“Nic, Ethan and I will start making the calls. Go settle the masses.” Barrett and I get to our feet and watch Griffin leave. Now we have trouble on three fronts.

“What if Hunter is doing this to destabilize us?” I muse as I head over to the table with the maps on it.

“What do you mean?” Nic asks as he and Ethan follow me.

“Okay, so the town is here.” I point to it on the map. “Theres almost five hundred yards that we don’t run in because it’s where the humans can see us.” I move to the map that has the coating I can draw on. Carefully, I outline the no shift zone.

“Okay?” Nic says as he studies the perimeter.

Next, I circle the old mine entrances and exits that fall in that area. “What if the rogues are in the mines? Or they are using the mines to get from point A to point B.” I mention as I go to the other map and mark the other entrances and exits to the same mine system.

“That makes sense.” Nic says as he studies the map closer. He proceeds to mark several other places along the mine system I was unaware of. “They want the humans to hunt us. So let the humans hunt. We’ll keep our packs away from the towns. Let the humans hunt the rogues for us.” Nic looks at Ethan.

“We’ve already survived one hunt. I’m not sure how I feel about this.” His eyes find Graces and she looks down.

“I don’t even know if it’s safe to call a meeting. If we do and someone is working with Hunter, then he will know.” Grace looks up. “Warn the packs about the hunt and that’s it. Allow the hunters within the no shift zone. Hopefully, they only cull the rogues.”

“Grace, are you sure?” I move closer to her and grip her hands.

“Our pack knows not to shift in that area. Outsiders won’t.” She looks over at Ethan and he nods.

“I’ll call Griff.” He says before leaving the room. That was either the best or worst call that could have been made. Only time will tell.