Chapter 45

Sarah POV

I wasn’t quite sure what was going on when Zane led me into the rented apartment with his fingers to his lips. I knew the girls were in their bedroom with Dr. Hayes, and I knew Zane had won his challenge fight with Alpha Marin, but after that I was pretty much clueless.

I wanted to ask a hundred questions. What would happen to Zane’s territory now? I had read about how territories were joined after fights like that, but would that really happen? Would Alpha Marin's territory just disappear now? Would Zane just take over?

We ended up in Zane’s room. Zane, now wearing his suit, flopped unceremoniously into an armchair and then looked somewhat longingly at a bottle of scotch. Stifling a laugh, because there was no need to feel smug when I wanted the same thing, I poured us both a couple of fingers’ worth and took him a tumbler before sitting down with my own.

The day was still running through my head: Zane standing there without his clothes, Alpha Marin standing there with her teeth bared and her claws ready, the hundreds of wolves standing as witnesses. And yet what was my strongest memory? Alpha Marin’s quiet, “I yield.”

I felt enormous respect for her and a bizarre empathy so deep I couldn’t explain it. I wanted her to be not just safe, but also respected.

“What will happen to her?” I asked now.

Zane frowned. “She’ll become one of my lieutenants, a ‘governor,’ I suppose you could call her in human terms. She’ll continue to watch over her territory, just under my control.”

“Why did she do it?”

Now Zane frowned at me. “I was the top alpha at the summit. If she were going to make a challenge, it had to be me. Challenging some other alpha would have been seen as a weakness.”

I nodded noncommittally. I supposed I could sort of understand. Then I got an idea.

“How was her territory making out before this challenge?” I asked.

Zane sent me a look of approval. “Their main cash crop is sugar cane, and with climate change, it’s failing.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding. Marin’s people would do better with Zane’s territory to support them.

“Everything is politics,” I muttered before taking a sip of my very nice scotch.

“Not everything,” Zane said, and then he shrugged. “But it’s close.”

Then he sent me a look I didn’t understand, something almost apologetic, which made no sense.

“May I take a bit of strength from you?” he asked. “I know I can do it, after the Luna Temple. I would ask, but I’ve got a few very strenuous days ahead.”

I looked around, for some reason, like I expected the drapes to answer my question. “Take some strength from me? What’s that mean:?”

Zane shrugged a little and put out his hand, and in that moment he looked like a little boy asking for a little treat. I instinctively put my hand in his, and then I watched as he closed his eyes.

And then I was back at the hospital as Grace lay dying, and an Acolyte was holding my hands.

I felt it more strongly now, though. Some of my energy was being transferred through my hands to Zane—not much. I didn’t feel drained by it. It was more like what I wished happened when I hugged someone who was sick or distressed. I felt some of my strength go to him, but I kept my strength, as though what I felt were copied and sent on, as though I could hold his hands forever and just keep holding on.

A few minutes later, he smiled at me and let go. I didn’t like that part. I wanted to return to the connection we’d had.

Instead, he said, “Thank you. I need to get some sleep.”

It had gotten quite late in the day, what with the battle to the almost-death and all, so I just nodded.

I slept deeply that night. The next day revealed a revised (due to the challenge, for all people might have been expecting it) schedule that Zane made a face at. As he had more than proven he was on top of things, we decided to take the day off.

It started with a day driving along the beach on PCH. The sky was ridiculously blue, the sea restless and beautiful, and the sand oddly unpopulated but lovely.

We ate lunch on the Redondo Pier’s Tony’s on the Pier, which was all seafood and a great view, and then we ended the day with a firework spectacular with the LA Philharmonic featuring the works of Sousa at the Hollywood Dome.

It all would have been a hoot, except that everything we did felt like a military assault on the city. As much as they tried to shield us from the logistics, Zane had to confirm all manner of security measures, from how many bodyguards we needed at the restaurant to what sort of drone coverage we needed at the dome. We did our best to keep the girls from noticing, but there were so many phone calls, so many times we had to say exactly where we were going, and so many times we had to say just which agent was with us that Chloe and Grace had to have noticed.

For their part, the girls put on wide smiles and talked about how exciting everything was. I just wanted to take them up in my arms and run away, but that was foolish.

We did have an hour or so at the Hollywood Bowl, sitting there in our curtained-off seats and listening to world-class music where I felt truly blessed by the goddess, for all our privilege.

The orchestra was playing the last bit of the “Marines’ Hymn” played mostly by the winds, and we all knew they were about to launch into Sousa. Some people around us were leaning forward because that meant they would start the fireworks.

I heard a she-wolf near us tell her children that fireworks had been invented in the 1900s as a salute to the werewolf General Robert E. Lee, who fought so valiantly against the human Ulysses S . Grant. I just rolled my eyes and told Chloe and Grace fireworks had been invented in China over 2,000 years ago to scare off evil spirits and left it at that.

However, instead of Sousa, they started off with the 1812 Overture, by Tchaikovsky, with all the bombast and explosions anyone could want. We applauded and cheered and just, from my point of view, tried to be a normal family enjoying the show.

Zane caught my eye, and I knew he knew what I was thinking. Behind him, the fireworks were sparkling in blue and red and gold, as though they knew the face they were framing for me, as though they understood how my heart had left me behind and no longer cared what I thought or supposedly wanted.

More than anything ever, in that moment, I wanted to press my lips to the smiling countenance before me, lit up with stars and smiling down at his daughters.