27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

‘I'm going with you,' Greg said flatly.

‘To Maxwell's? Sure,' I agreed readily.

‘To the past.' His tone made it clear that he would brook no argument, and to be honest I wasn't feeling all that inclined to argue with him. I was all kinds of edgy about strolling into history; I'd done it twice before so this little stroll would be my third and final trip. More trips than that and the Third realm started to take a hole puncher to your brain, removing all sorts of important bits like memories and your personality.

I was sorely tempted to send one of my wolves instead but I was terrible at delegating and it seemed like a shitty thing for a good leader to do. I shouldn't ask anything of my people that I wouldn't do myself.

Besides, Maxwell might be willing to let me break the rules by using the hall as a time portal rather than just to get in and out of the Common realm. Accessing the Third was a huge no-no; he'd do it for me because I was family, not just any old flunky. It was me or no one, and if it was me I really wanted Greg by my side. ‘Okay,' I confirmed.

‘Okay?' he parroted, startled.

‘Did you expect an argument?' I slid him an amused glance.

‘Well, yes, actually.'

‘Nope,' I said cheerfully. ‘I want my wingman for this.'

You already have a wing woman. Esme pouted a little.

I do, I said gratefully, but this is one of those occasions where more is more.

As opposed to the occasions where more is less?

You're getting it.

I hope we catch the thief red handed and we can feast on their entrails, she said eagerly.

What is it lately with you and entrails?

I'm peckish, she admitted.

I leaned forward and picked up an apple from my fruit bowl.

Not that. Don't you dare! I need meat, Lucy. Honest to goodness meat. The salty one.

I snickered in my head .

What?

There was some nice innuendo in there, I explained.

She huffed at me. Focus on feeding me. Pig, please.

As you wish, my canine dictator. I stood up from my desk. ‘I'm going to the kitchen for a moment. Esme wants a bacon butty.'

Greg looked hopeful. ‘Grab me one?'

‘Sure thing.' I looked at him. ‘You know you can delegate watching the security cameras to others, right?'

He smiled softly. ‘I know, but I like the excuse to spend lots of time with you.'

My own smile widened. ‘You don't need an excuse, love. Any time you want me, you just say.'

He brightened. ‘Free use?'

I gave him a flat look and flicked him on the forehead. ‘No.' I paused. ‘Maybe one time on holiday.'

He grinned. ‘Good to know. I'm going to make a colour-coded spreadsheet of potential activities for when we go on holiday.'

Be still my beating heart. ‘That's just playing dirty,' I muttered.

He winked. ‘I know.'

With effort I wrenched myself away from Greg's smutty flirtation and hauled myself down to the kitchen. Xander was there, helping Noah and Finley with dinner service. Since he'd joined us, I'd found that Xander was a helpful soul, he needed to be doing; Finley was more than happy to have the help and, I suspected, the companionship as well. The three of them had formed a warm camaraderie. There were huge cauldrons of stew bubbling away and enough garlic bread to slay a horde of vampyrs – if garlic really did anything to them. Maybe I could ask Voltaire about that.

Xander had come to me from the Devon Pack painfully eager to please, and any hint of displeasure from me made him flinch. For that reason alone, I did my best to always appear sunny around him, but it wasn't hard, he was a sweet lad.

‘Hey, everyone,' I said warmly. ‘Can an alpha get a bacon sandwich? The stew smells great, but Esme wants bacon. Right now. She's very particular.'

‘I'll do it!' Xander almost tripped over his own legs in his eagerness to serve. ‘I can do bacon!' With an amused nod, Finley gave him permission.

‘One for Greg, too, please,' I added.

‘You got it!' Xander was almost bouncing in place.

‘That's a lot of food,' I said to Finley, gesturing at the many bubbling pots.

‘We have a lot of loners,' he fired back.

‘True. How do you think they are settling in?'

He beamed. ‘Well, Alpha. Very well. I'm grateful.'

‘I didn't do it for you,' I said, but I gave him a grin to take any sting out of the words.

‘I know it. You did it because it was the right thing to do.'

Uh-oh. His gaze was full of admiration. Finley had always liked me but the look in his eyes was akin to full-on worship, a Xander level of adoration.

I shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't long since I had felt like I was ‘just' an accountant who'd tumbled down a rabbit hole and had been trying to swim the right way up ever since. I had existed in a constant state of perpetual near-drowning, the queen of ‘fake it till you make it'. I'd found all the false confidence exhausting.

But now? Now I truly was Queen and I didn't need to fake anything and I was starting to accept that. Esme was fast, strong and deadly; I was smart, and I paid attention. We were a good team, worthy of admiration. Adoration, though? That would take some getting used to.

Baby steps – I'd grow accustomed to it, just like I'd got used to being an alpha. Small incremental changes added up to a huge improvement overall.

Luckily, Xander chose that moment to present me with a cup of tea. He'd made it milky but strong, exactly to my taste. ‘Thank you!' I grinned at him. ‘I appreciate a man who makes a good brew. '

He blushed a little and mumbled something indecipherable, which may or may not have been ‘you're welcome'.

I sipped my nectar from the gods and waited patiently for him to fry my bacon to crispy perfection. ‘Sauce?' he asked.

‘Yes, please. Tommy K for me, brown sauce for Manners.'

He made up four rolls: two with ketchup and two with brown sauce. ‘Cheers, Xander,' I said as I piled the food on one plate. I paused before carting my baps out of the kitchen. ‘Everything okay with you and the Devon pack?'

He hesitated for just a second but I pounced on it. ‘Tell me.'

He grimaced. ‘Some of the others want to go home, and they want their alpha to go with them. I'm pushing back on it, I promise. I know you need us here to strengthen the mansion.'

I bit my lip. ‘Would it help if we called more of the Devon pack to us instead?'

‘It would,' he agreed, brightening. ‘We just want to be together. But where would we house them all?'

Perhaps the seat of power could do some more heavy lifting. ‘Leave it with me.'

I dutifully trotted back to my office with the bacon butties. I handed Greg his two – sacrilegiously coated in brown sauce – and sat down to eat mine whilst I stewed over the best way forward.

‘What's up Peaches?' Greg asked. ‘I can hear you thinking from way over here.'

‘Xander said the Devon Pack is feeling – homesick, I guess. Half of them are still in Devon and it's a long way away. I'm thinking of calling the others here.'

Greg frowned. ‘If we call more of their fighting wolves, it'll leave their home vulnerable.'

‘I know. I was thinking of calling everyone .'

‘Pups included?'

‘Yes,' I confirmed.

‘That's a lot of disruption,' Greg said slowly. ‘They'll have jobs that the adults will miss, school the pups will miss.'

‘I know.' I grimaced. ‘But it just feels right for some reason.'

It is right, Esme said approvingly. Pack should be together.

Yes, I agreed, but I was unhappy about it. What do we do about the Dorset pack, the East Riding pack and the Essex Pack? We've killed all their alphas but we haven't done anything about assimilating their packs.

One thing at a time, Esme said firmly. We will turn our gaze on them once we have the orb. We can only do so much.

You're right. They'll have to wait. I wasn't happy about that, either, but I'd send them each a letter promising a visit soon. That would give them time to prepare and also forestall matters.

You're right to call the Devon pack to us. Strengthen the mansion.

I looked up at Greg. ‘Have you got a snow-day style phone-tree plan in place for the Devon pack?'

He grinned. ‘Peaches, this is modern times. I can text every member at the click of a button.'

‘Well, click that button. Let's get them up here, pronto.'

I pulled out some of the heavy cream paper that Lord Samuel had favoured and took my time to pen a letter to each of the betas of my new packs. I put the missives into fancy envelopes and wrote the packs' addresses carefully; yes, email would be quicker but it lacked the gravitas. There was no email equivalent of 150gsm paper.

Once I was done, I checked the time. ‘We'd better move. You and I have a date with Maxwell.' I grabbed Terrance and settled him on my head. Having access to some fire power seemed like a good idea when I was sneaking through time like a ninja in the night .

Good evening, my Queen, Terrance greeted me sombrely.

Terrance, how are you?

As well as ever, he said, a trace of amusement in his voice.

Wonderful. Are you willing to undergo a spot of time travel?

Of course, Your Majesty. I am here to serve and I am willing to serve, as I have ever been. His words seemed a little odd to me but I waved them off as him being a product of another era.

George arrived to take over Greg's position at the security desk. ‘Can you arrange for these letters to be posted?' I asked and handed him the mail. ‘Recorded delivery, please.'

‘Of course, my Queen.' George all-but bowed to me. Since saving the life of his son, Noah, he'd been another wolf that bordered on worshipping me. It was uncomfortable.

Be careful what you wish for. All I'd wanted when I'd joined the pack was their devotion, but now I had it I wished we could go back to the irreverence they'd shown before. But I couldn't go back; like everyone on this earth, I could only go forward – unless I used the Third, in which case time was my bitch.

‘Let's rock and roll,' Greg said.

Him, too? You are all obsessed with geology , Esme groused, making me giggle. I could always rely on her to lighten the mood when I was busy crapping myself with anxiety.

It was time to mess with time; here's hoping we didn't fuck anything up beyond recognition.

Maxwell had closed Rosie's. Last time I'd wandered into the Third realm, I'd been with Grandy Sandy and he had been the one focused on getting us to the right time and place. Now it was all on me.

Maxwell looked sombre. ‘You're sure you need to do this?' He studied us. Greg and I were dressed in dark clothes, as close to a Victorian style as we'd been able to find, albeit our clothes had zips.

I grimaced. ‘I can't think of any other way of identifying a thief when the theft took place hundreds of years ago, can you?'

‘More than likely the orb will have changed hands at least a couple of times since then. Many would want that sort of artefact.'

I shook my head. ‘Nina closed it down. It's inert, nothing more than a pretty trinket, so it's not going to fetch hundreds of thousands on the black market. The thief probably had difficulty flogging it in its closed state. But even if they did manage to sell it, it gives me a starting place. At the moment I'm staring into the abyss of the whole of the Other realm and the orb could be literally anywhere. Finding the original thief at least gives me a lead.'

Maxwell grimaced but nodded reluctantly. ‘Okay.' He licked dry lips. ‘As you know, the portal isn't supposed to connect to the Third so what I'm about to do is highly illegal. The longer it is connected, the more likely it is that the Connection will detect the unauthorised portal and come knocking. When I open it, go through quickly.'

He leaned against the unobtrusive door that served as the portal to the Common realm. When he laid his hand flat against it, his fire magic ran along it and it caught light, glowing with an iridescent magic. Flames in shades of purple and blue danced along the door and then faded until there wasn't a mark to be seen.

‘Hurry,' Maxwell said tightly.

I grabbed Greg's hand, thought the date firmly – 31 st December 1845 – then opened the door and we strode through together.