Chapter 49

Sarah POV

I slept badly that night. The girls were tired out from the trip to the arboretum and fell asleep in their bed without even a bedtime reading.

After about an hour of lying there, I realized I was missing Zane’s villa and desperately wanted to get home. I was enjoying Los Angeles, but I wasn’t enjoying the parade of rich, powerful werewolves who had a 50 percent chance of hating me every time I met someone new.

Quietly, I got out of bed and let myself into the main room. I walked over to the little kitchen, put a little water in the electric kettle, and flipped it on before I realized I wasn’t alone.

“Oh,” I said, realizing the dark shadow on the sofa was Zane. “Hello.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“No. I thought some tea would help.”

“I had a similar idea,” he said, holding up a glass of what I supposed was scotch.

I found some chamomile tea bags and a mug, and soon I joined him on the couch with the fragrant cup in my hand. We sat in a comfortable silence for a bit.

“Actually, I’m glad I have the chance to speak to you privately,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that, frankly, you’ve been wonderful on this trip, so helpful to my family and so strong.”

“Strong?”

“I fought Alpha Marin, and I’m sure you realized she would have killed me if she could have. I was so grateful that you didn’t protest or interfere. You stood there and bore witness just as sensibly as any she-wolf could have, and the whole conference noticed.”

He chuckled quietly. “I know you didn’t like telling those women I wasn’t going to father their next child, but I’ll have you know I’ve fended off three offers for you while we’ve been here.”

“What?”

“It’s true. One alpha wanted to buy you outright, one tried to explain how much better life would be for you in a more ‘structured’ territory.”

“I can imagine just what structure they meant,” I muttered with some heat.

“And one offered to trade their children’s gamma nanny for you.”

“And you managed to resist trading up.”

“Well, the money was tempting.” He looked at me to make sure I knew he was kidding. I just rolled my eyes and sipped at my hot tea.

“Best of all, though, you’ve done such a great job with the girls, keeping them up on their studies and happy with the trip. I know it’s been stressful.”

“It’s the bodyguards,” I confessed. “Every time I see them, I feel both relieved they’re there and horrified there’s cause for their presence. And I know the shooter is in jail now, but what about the rogue? Why did he attack Grace?”

“There’s more to that question than you perhaps realize.”

I turned slightly to face him better, bringing my leg up on the sofa. “What do you mean?”

“Rogues like that are generally looking for a fight. Chloe challenged him, but he simply removed her and then focused on Grace, who was decidedly less of a threat, I’m sure. It doesn’t really make sense.”

“Unless he had some other agenda.”

“Yes.” Zane sighed into the dim room, lit only by the lights from outside the windows. “My family, of course, they’ve always been a target.”

“Always?”

“It was pretty clear in my teens I was going to be the next pack alpha. My parents both protected me and prepared me as best they could, but there were many who wanted to have influence over me. My mother was the alpha, you know, my father the beta. Both of them had to fend off public challenges more than once.”

The challenges would have been allowed, I know, because the fate of a pack alpha was in the balance. “How terrifying for you, and them, of course.”

“Mother told me the story once of being in the grocery store looking at apples when she was shoved from behind and almost fell into the pears. She turned around an found what she called ‘h half-deranged she-wolf’ saying she needed to cede her power over me.”

“What did your mother do?”

“Tossed her into a bin of ketchup bottles.”

I laughed. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “She said they were on sale.”

I laughed again, snickering into my tea. But I sobered up quickly when Zane didn’t join me.

“When I married Olivia, I knew I was painting a target on her back, but so did she. She said it was worth it to be able to help the pack.”

I would have said it was worth it to be your wife, I thought. But I just nodded.

“I bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate when Olivia got pregnant,” he said, his tone so thoughtful I wondered if he were talking to me or just thinking out loud.

He shifted his gaze to me. “Chloe’s the eldest, you know, by a good half-hour. I got to hold her for almost fifteen minutes before the doctor was suddenly telling the nurses to get equipment and toss me out of the room.”

“You wife had a problem with Grace’s delivery?” I asked.

He nodded. “Olivia was a strong alpha, the type who thrive in pregnancy. It never occurred to me, to anyone, that she would have trouble during labor, but something went wrong. Grace was born not breathing.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged, but it was a little rough. “The doctors have no idea what happened, not really, though they threw around a lot of words I had to Google later, things about “placenta praevia” and “uterine rupture. In the end, it just happened.”

He sat there while I felt too stupid to find something comforting to say.

“Then Olivia was dead, and Grace spent three weeks in the hospital’s NICU. I never wanted to leave her side, but just because Chloe was healthy, that was no reason to ignore her or foist her off on some caregiver. I’d sit there in NICU with Chloe in my arms.”

His eyes, usually so strong and determined, showed a man who felt lost. “People came to help, of course, like Ella, but she was mourning her sister and eventually left, supposedly for work, but I think mostly to get some distance from it all.”

“I can’t imagine,” I said, trying to think of what it was like to want to depend on Ella for emotional support. It would be like trying to use a paper straw for a cane. Fortunately, Zane couldn’t hear my thoughts, and he seemed to take he comment generally.

“I don’t remember the individual days very well.”

He seemed to snap himself out of his reverie then, and met my gaze with clear eyes.

“Then I finally got to take Grace home, and for two weeks, though I missed Olivia terribly, I had my two daughters safe at home.” Then he frowned again, and I knew he was thinking about the day he came home (or woke up, I didn’t know the details) and found out Chloe was missing.

He frowned and reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. He took a look at the screen and quickly put the phone to his ear.

“Yes?” He listened for about thirty seconds. “I see. We’ll discuss it when I get back.” He pressed the button to hang up and looked at me.

“What?”

“The man who shot at you, he hanged himself in prison.”