Chapter 26 27

Chapter 26 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Xavier

The letter arrived on a Tuesday.

Bruno brought it in without comment, which meant he had already read the outside and formed an opinion he was waiting to be asked for. He set it on the table in front of me and stood back with his arms crossed and his mouth doing the thing it did when he was being deliberately neutral.

Blood Moon pack seal. I recognized it from the war, from documents signed before battles, from the correspondence that had preceded Pablo's death. Red wax, the howling wolf impression, slightly uneven in the way of a seal pressed by someone in a hurry or someone angry.

I opened it.

The handwriting was large and sprawling and did not waste time on pleasantries.

Alpha Xavier. My son has returned to this pack changed and diminished by his time in your territory. He refuses alliances I have arranged and speaks of restructuring pack law in ways that would weaken our position considerably. I hold you responsible for whatever influence your household has exerted on him. Furthermore I am aware that you have claimed a mate who carries a connection to this pack. I am requesting a formal meeting to discuss terms. Alpha Ares of the Blood Moon.

I read it twice.

Bruno waited.

"He knows about Carmen," I said.

"Someone told him. Someone who was at the extraction or who knows someone who was." Bruno came forward and took the letter and read it again as if it might say something different the second time. "The mate connection comment. He's fishing. He doesn't know the specifics."

"He knows enough."

"What does Hannibal say."

I had already picked up my phone. The call connected on the third ring and Hannibal's voice came through tense and clipped, which told me he already knew.

"I just received it," I said.

"He sent it three days ago. I found out this morning when one of the pack members told me." His voice was controlled but only just. "He went around me. He has no right to contact you directly without going through me first, I'm the Alpha."

"He doesn't appear to agree with that assessment."

"He hasn't agreed with any of my assessments since I got back." A pause. "He's been talking to the old guard. The ones who supported Pablo's campaign, who still think the war was winnable and the only problem was execution. They're using my reforms as leverage."

"What reforms."

"Pack law. Treatment of humans and wolves without status. The trafficking networks that run through our border territory." His voice was flat. "Apparently wanting to close them makes me weak."

I looked at the letter on the table. Bruno was watching me think.

"He wants a meeting," I said.

"Don't come here," Hannibal said immediately. "Not yet. He'll read it as weakness on my part and strength on his. Let me get further along with the old guard before you're on his territory."

"I wasn't planning to go to him." I paused. "Neutral ground. My choice of location."

Silence on the line.

"He won't like that," Hannibal said.

"Good."

Another pause. "Xavier. Carmen. He mentioned—"

"I know what he mentioned."

"She's not a card he gets to play. I need you to know that I won't—"

"I know," I said. "Handle your pack, Hannibal. I'll handle mine."

I ended the call.

Bruno sat down across from me. "Options," he said.

"We respond today. Neutral ground, our terms, our date. No concessions in the language, no softening." I looked at the letter again. "And we say nothing to Carmen until I know how she wants to handle it."

Bruno looked at me.

"She'll want to know immediately," he said.

"Yes."

"So why wait."

"Because I want to think about how to tell her rather than just dropping it on her at the breakfast table."

Bruno was quiet for a moment. "That's different," he said.

"What is."

"You. Thinking about how to tell her rather than just telling her." He wasn't teasing. He said it with the particular tone he used for things he found genuinely significant.

I wrote the response myself, four sentences, and Bruno read it and nodded and sealed it.

I found Carmen in the library after lunch.

She was reading something she had clearly borrowed from the third shelf, her legs folded under her in the chair, her violin case against the wall beside her in the habit she had of keeping it near. She looked up when I came in and read my face with the speed she read most things.

She set the book down.

"Tell me," she said.

I sat across from her and put the letter on the cushion between us. She picked it up and read it and I watched her face move through it, not performing anything, just actually processing. When she finished she set it down and looked at the middle distance for a moment.

"He knows about me," she said.

"Partially. He knows you're my mate and that you have a connection to Blood Moon. He doesn't know specifics."

"He'll find out specifics." She was calm, the particular calm of someone who has already started thinking practically. "The Betas. My parents. They'll tell him what I was." She paused. "What they thought I was."

"Yes."

She looked at me directly. "Does it change anything."

"No," I said. No pause, no qualification.

Something in her face settled. "Ares is a man who mistakes cruelty for strength," she said. "I grew up watching him operate. He'll push until he finds something that bends and then he'll keep pushing." She picked up the letter again. "He's not actually angry about Hannibal's reforms. He's afraid of them. There's a difference and it matters strategically."

I looked at her.

"What," she said.

"Nothing." I took the letter back. "Fabrizio is going to enjoy working with you."

She picked her book back up. "What did you write back."

"Neutral ground. Our terms."

"Good." She found her page. "Don't let him choose the date. He'll pick something that inconveniences you and call it coincidence."

I stood up. "Already specified."

"Xavier." I stopped. "Thank you. For telling me directly."

"Always," I said, and meant it, and left her to her book.