Chapter 210

Amber’s POV

I was trying to act normal for Alice, but truthfully my heart was racing out of control. She didn’t ask many questions, but I wasn’t sure how successfully Julian and I were keeping things from her. She was more observant than we gave her credit for, and seemed on edge, though not as much as I was.

I left her in front of her cartoons, while I stood near the bar, close enough to keep an eye on her, far enough away to twist my phone nervously in my hands hopefully out of her view.

When it finally rang, I had so much pent-up anxiety that I nearly dropped it.

Seeing Julian’s name on the screen, I quickly answered it.

“I messed up,” he said as soon as I did. “Tony baited me and I fell right into it. Now he has a clip of me threatening to kill him. He’s already putting it out to all the news stations.”

I internally cursed. I knew I shouldn’t have left Julian alone. Without me there to calm him, he likely went into a rage state, especially if Tony baited him with threats to either Alice or me.

“Just come home,” I said. “When you are here, we can sort through this and solve this together.”

“I might have to break my promise to Aunt Kathy,” he said. “I can’t see any other way out of this than through a challenge.”

“We aren’t to that stage yet,” I said. “Just come home, and we’ll figure this things out.”

If he was beside me, I could help calm him. When he was all the way across town, I was powerless.

“Yeah, alright,” he said, finally agreeing, much to my relief. “I’ll take the car home. Don’t let Alice watch the news.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

After hanging up, I walked back over to Alice. She wasn’t really watching cartoons. Instead, she was more staring out into space.

I sat beside her on the carpet. “Everything okay, honey?” I asked.

She glanced at me. “Is Daddy going to be okay?”

“He is. We’re all a little stressed right now, but it has nothing to do with you. You are safe, and everything is fine.”

That didn’t seem to make her feel better and she frowned. “Is Daddy going to lose his pack? Are we going to have to go and live with Uncle Rafael? I don’t want to leave Daddy, Mommy!” Tears welled in her eyes.

“Oh, honey, we aren’t going to leave Daddy.” Immediately I reached out and pulled her into a hug. “Your father and I are going to fight really hard to keep him in charge of his pack. But even if that doesn’t work out, and that’s a huge if, since we are both working so hard, the three of us are always going to be together.”

“You mean it?”

“I do. There is nothing in the world that is going to tear us apart.”

“You aren’t going to marry Uncle Tony?” she asked, her voice small.

“What? Where did you hear that?”

She lowered herself, hunching in like she was ashamed. “I changed the channel when you weren’t looking. They said on the news that Daddy threatened Uncle Tony. And Uncle Tony said it wouldn’t be long until you left him…”

My face burned with anger. Did he really say that?

“I’m not leaving your Dad,” I promised. The three of us are in this together.”

“Forever?” Alice asked.

Forever was a long time, and Julian and I had a far way to go yet. We hadn’t even had time to talk about calling each other mates, let alone planning a future like that.

Yet… it was true, wasn’t it? Forever, ultimately, was what I wanted? I wasn’t just playing around, teasing, or being disingenuous. If I wanted to be Julian’s mate, that meant forever.

“Yes,” I said. “Forever.”

That seemed to calm her down.

I held Alice until she got sleepy and went to take a nap. Then I paced until Julian finally arrived home.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as he came through the door, his first words to me. “I should have been smarter about all this.”

“It happened,” I said. “But now that you are here, we can sort it out. We can plan…”

He held out his phone. “My family has been calling me non-stop since it happened. I haven’t answered their calls but the messages are damning enough. They are turning against me, Amber. My council, my family… I don’t even know who to call. Do I have anyone in my corner left with any influence?”

He was spiraling, I could see that now, lost in his own tumultuous thoughts, just as I had been when I had been frustrated I couldn’t find a cure. Like I had needed then, he needed a distraction now.

A reset. Something to clear his mind so it could start thinking again more logically.

The only thing I could think to do in this moment, as he had done for me, was kiss him.

So I grabbed him by the front of his lapels, dragged him closer to me and kissed him square on the mouth.

He startled at first, then froze. But quickly, his body started to react. His arms went around me. His lips melded to mine. This time, when he gasped, I licked my way into his mouth, and he eagerly replied.

In our passion, he turned and pressed me against the wall, taking back control with his body and his tongue, chasing mine back into my mouth now. His hands gripped my hips, tugging my clothes like he wanted to tear them from me.

This wasn’t the time or place for that, so out in the open like this, but my body responded pleasantly to the threat of being strewn naked for him to see.

He broke the kiss once to whisper, “I love you,” before he dove straight back in.

I gripped at his shoulders, holding on as best I could.

We kissed until we were out of breath. Then, separated, he rested his forehead to mine.

“Thank you,” he said, breathless. “I really needed that.”

“I think I did, too.”

It was nice to be grounded again, with him as my anchor.

“Things went really badly with the council,” he said. “And then worse with Tony.”

“We’ll fix it,” I said. “There are people in this pack who still believe in you, and we will find them.”

“Gods, I hope you are right.”

“I am. Come on, let’s get you a drink.”

“Now you are talking.”

Hand in hand, I led him into the den where the dry bar was. As I started to pour him a drink, he turned on the nearby television. Tony’s voice started to blare through the speakers so Julian muted him.

“He’s having a rally,” Julian said. “That the news is covering this at all doesn’t bode well for me.”

Julian had much stacked against him, yes, but we were here now. And once we formulated a plan, I was certain we could win back his lost supporters.

With Julian’s drink in hand, I turned to walk it over to him.

Halfway there, I stopped, seeing a face in the crowd. No, not just in the crowd, but boldly standing on the stage, directly behind Tony.

“Julian,” I said.

He looked at my face, and then back at the television. “What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost…”

I knew the exact moment he saw her too, because he cursed very loudly.

The woman in the crowd, so near Tony she must have known him, was Olivia.