Chapter 458: Chapter 458

Chapter 458

Mason The air in Xander’s office crackled with an electric tension as we gathered around his desk. He’d called for the pack meeting to be held in the town square and put out the word that every pack member able to make it should plan to attend. There’d be many who couldn’t make the journey in time, but according to Zane’s statistics with confirmation from Maxim and Monroe, we were looking at a huge group.

“Zane, you’ve got the lead on the speaker system and all of that?” I asked.

Zane nodded. “Yep. Maxim and Monroe have put together an amazing communications setup, too.

Great job.”

Maxim laughed and jerked a thumb at his partner. “Blame this guy. I’m just the one who installed the equipment. He’s the one who planned the system.”

“It looks state of the art to me,” Xander said with admiration lacing his tone. “Something my father would never have embraced. Too much access to information, too much transparency about what the Alpha was doing? Fuck no.”

“But you’re not your father,” Zane told him. “And this is no longer your father’s pack. Or the High Council’s.”

Maxim and Monroe nodded. I was still having a hard time telling them apart. They were the same size, same shape, their voices sounded the same, all of it. They looked more alike than Xander and I did, but Zane had told me they weren’t brothers.

Not so far as anyone knew anyway. That was my private thought, which, admittedly, was probably formed by my own existence as the son whose father hadn’t known about for a long time.

I looked out the window toward the town square. I couldn’t see it from here, but the rest of the mansion grounds were bustling with activity. I let the curtain fall and turned back to the room.

“We want there to be a solemn but also joyous feel to the meeting. We want the pack to be assured that Xander and I are a team, working together, to protect and lead. But we can’t promise that every threat’s been extinguished. There are still those hybrid testing places out there, for one thing,” I said.

“On my list to immediately disassemble,” Xander added. “But we can’t just go in with teeth and claws. There are innocents in those places.”

“They’ll need compassionate care once they’re released,” Zane said quietly. His gaze darkened.

“Some of their families may not be around any longer to take them back in.”

“Got it.” Maxim tapped the keys on his laptop and squinted at the screen. “Fuck. I think I need glasses.”

“I’ve got the catering team working on putting out snacks and drinks,” said Monroe, tapping on his own laptop. “Unless you think it would be more appropriate for the Luna to handle this?”

“Let’s give Lanie a bit of time to get acclimated, especially since you two have been doing such great job handling shit while we were gone.” Xander got up from his seat and went to the same window I’d looked out of. He turned back to his friends and grinned. “I gotta be honest, guys, I thought I’d be coming back to a real mess.”

Maxim and Monroe both grinned back at him.

“Gotta say, kind of the same thing on our end,” Maxim said with a look at me. “We figured you might be returning in pretty rough shape. Looks like your co-Alpha and your Beta took good care of you.”

The fact they were clearly accepting and making the effort at acknowledging me went a long way, but it was still going to take some time before I could fully get comfortable here. In Stillwood, I’d known my place. My friends had become my family. Here in Constantine, I had friends, and I had family, but I’d also need to join this pack. That was something I’d never been a part of.

“Hey…Mason. I just got a ping,” said Maxim, looking at his laptop. “Some new arrivals. A…Quinn and Sable from Stillwood?”

A wide grin spread instantly across my face. “Yeah? They’re good. You can let them in. Is there anyone else with them? A man? Asher?”

Maxim tapped a message into his computer and waited a couple of seconds before shaking his head. “Nope. Just the two women. They said they know the Luna?”

“They’re the mom and sister of my best friend from Stillwood. Yeah, they know Lanie. Sable delivered Stella. Can you have someone let her know so she can greet them at the front door?” I told him.

Maxim nodded and took care of it while Xander let out a small whistle. He put his hands on his hips.

“I guess this shindig’s getting bigger by the second.”

“Should we hold it off?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The pack is going to be eager to see us, and we owe it to them not to fuck around much longer. They deserve to be told as much as we can. And, you deserve to be greeted and welcomed as their new co-Alpha.”

“Right,” I said, but inside, I wondered if that was how all of this was going to go.

I’d have to face a crowd of people Orion had betrayed. What if they decided I was a good target to take the punishment he’d never had to face?