Chapter 452: Chapter 452

Chapter 452

Xander My hand slid over a bare spot on the bed, no longer warm from my Luna’s naked body. I shot up in bed, my heart hammering, before I remembered…we were safe. All of us. Back in Constantine.

With a slight groan, I fell back against the headboard and reached out with the mind link to see if I could sense Lanie’s location. She was in the mansion somewhere. Feeling fine. No hint of danger or fear.

“You okay?” Zane yawned and stretched, joining me against the headboard. He tipped his chin toward the still-snoring Mason. “Look at sleeping furry over there.”

I scrubbed at my face and looked around the luxurious room. It was familiar and strange at the same time. Our quarters in the enclave had been fancier in many ways, but this room was…home.

“We’re gonna need a bigger bed,” I said.

Zane laughed. “Yeah. My ass was hanging over the edge all night.”

Mason stirred with a snort and opened his eyes. For a second or two, it looked like he was going to leap up with his fists out, but he calmed down. He also yawned, ending it with a little yelp, and pushed up on his elbow. “Where’s Lanie?”

“Feels like she’s having breakfast,” Zane murmured. “Which sounds good. If I could manage to get my ass out of bed.”

Mason flopped onto his back. “Damn, it feels nice to just wake up without an alarm. I don’t just mean the kind that comes along with a clock. Just…no alarm, and nothing alarming.”

I raked a hand through my hair to get it off my face. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d had a cut, and it was way too shaggy. Now that we were back in Constantine and would be hosting official events and shit like that, I’d need a trim, at least.

Zane looked over at me, sensing my thoughts. “It’s going to feel weird. Getting back to regular business.”

Mason huffed out a low noise and, with a groan, got out of bed. He stretched widely and went to the window to peer out, twitching the curtains back and then letting them fall again as he turned to face us. “Xander, I’m going to let you take the lead on how we approach things, but we are going to need an official gathering meeting sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We need to let them all know that you and I will be co-Alphas and what that will mean for the pack.”

My brother’s expression eased. I could tell he was relieved that I’d brought it up so he didn’t have to. Mason and I hadn’t fully discussed how things were going to work now that we’d all returned to Constantine, and the truth was, I couldn’t really be sure yet. I did know that we’d figure it out together.

“The pack is going to be confused,” Zane said quietly. “There might be some pushback.”

“They’ve all dealt with what amounts to a reign of terror,” I said firmly. “Lies. Betrayal. The High Council kept them all scared, all the time, so they could be controlled. Well, that’s not how I want to run things here.”

“No, me neither,” my brother said. “But I am fully aware that I’m the new guy. The bastard son of Orion Constantine. It’s likely some of them are going to have a hard time accepting me for that reason alone. They’ll feel that I don’t have a right to be Alpha.”

“It’s not a question of feeling. Our father passed his Alpha powers to me, and then he also passed them on to you when he died. That’s something nobody can argue with, or take away from you,” I told him. “Is it kind of fucked up? Yeah. Will we handle it together? Also, yes.”

Mason chuckled, shaking his head. “You got it, bro. I got your back…and I know you’ve got mine.”

We’d come a long way from my brother hating me and actively planning my demise to this. We both grinned at each other. I got out of bed to stretch.

“The first thing I want to do is establish that Mason and I are a team, one they can count on to keep the pack’s best interests at heart. Two Alphas and a Beta, working together with our Luna. With the shit we’ve been through, we can handle a scared pack,” I said as I rummaged in the dresser to find a pair of sweatpants to pull on.

I felt a pulse of warmth emanating from Zane. Relief. Pride. Friendship. I turned to him.

“Your place is still by my side,” I reassured him. “I’ll make sure the pack sees that. More than that, that they feel it.”

He nodded. “We got this.”

That’s when all three of us heard the scream through the mind link.

“Lanie!”