It’s hard to control my anger if I let my mind wander for even a single second.
“I’ll check with Mathew and Derrick, but I would feel better if we could bring some of our security team with us. To boost your numbers. I’m not worried about our own safety, and I’m sure Mathew’s team is great, but I would feel better if...” She lets out a long sigh. “Just for a short while.”
I meet Timothy’s gaze, who shrugs. The more people the better, but having people from multiple packs and organisations in a single location for more than a couple of days might also lead to tensions that we really can’t use right now.
Timothy crosses over to where I’m standing. “We’ve got two houses where your pack and any other people can stay for a while. It’s at the edge of Mathew’s property, still within the secure perimeter, but not too near the main house.”
He looks at me. “The option is there, if the others agree to it. We’ve got enough on our hands as it is, getting some outside security might not be the worst idea, as long as everyone gets along.”
“How are we going to bring this to Mathew?” I glance to the door of the library. “We’ve got about another minute or so, max, before he’s going to barge in here. Because that’s how his ‘something’s up’ senses work. Way too well.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Timothy looks to the guys from his team, thinking. “You go talk to Vera, Riley and Jorge. Let them know what’s going on. See if you can get them caught up about everything going on without worrying the kids or Luca’s family.”
“Sounds like a plan.” And it’s less likely to get me in that destructive headspace again, at least for a while. “Erika?”
“I heard. You go talk to the others. We’ll talk to Mathew.”
I nod. Well, let’s do this, then. I really don’t feel like it, but I also know that it’s better to let everyone know as soon as possible.
Oh, also... I don’t think Jorge knows yet that Erika and some of her people are coming over. With how he’s reacted to her name or even any reference to her in the past, that’s also going to be fun. Let’s hope that jealousy has lessened now we’ve been a pack for a while, but I have no idea.
Erika and Mathew’s organisations getting along might not be our biggest concern, our pack members might pose a much greater risk to all of this going well...
Fuck.
It turns out, my worries were misplaced, mostly.
As long as I don’t use Erika’s name or even refer to her by something related to me, like her being my ex, Jorge won’t growl. I can call her Nathan’s mum just fine or even Vera’s friend. So, that’s... somewhat helpful, for now.
What I should have been worried about was some of our pack members already knowing about the new names from the bounties and dealing with their own things.
When I got to the floor with our bedrooms, there was a strange mix of not-good pheromones coming from Riley’s room, a blending of Riley, Vera and Luca. Knowing that that was going to take a while to deal with, I decided to get Jorge first instead.
I worried that getting Jorge out of the room with Luca’s family and the kids without raising any suspicion could be tricky.
It turns out, telling them that we need him for ‘important work stuff’ and asking for them to please not worry too much and promising them that everything is going as expected, worked just fine.
At least, all the adults wordlessly agreed to pretend that everything is normal so that the kids wouldn’t catch onto any nervous energy.
Getting Jorge to Riley’s room also wasn’t too complicated because as soon as he stepped into the hallway, he sensed their pheromones and rushed over.
Turns out, Riley, Vera and Luca already knew what’s going on and getting Jorge up-to-date wasn’t too complicated either. I should have guessed as much, especially since I knew that Nathan was in contact with Riley and Vera through the day, it makes sense that he would tell them as soon as he knew about the bounties.
What I hadn’t accounted for was Luca’s terror when he’s around Vera and my pheromones, but also his inability to let her go or Vera’s strong instincts to protect him. And trying to get the two on opposite sides of the room to try to at least lower how much pheromones Luca gets didn’t work either, that only got very protective growls from Riley and Jorge.
Good to know that everyone seems to be on the same page about Luca’s status, he’s part of our pack. But it’s not helpful that any solution I come up with gets at least someone in the pack very upset.
How the fuck am I supposed to resolve this? Their mix of pheromones is starting to mess with my head too and there’s only so long I can stay in control.
Getting Mathew up here isn’t going to help either. He’s going to be affected by everyone’s pheromones but won’t be able to use his own to calm things down.
“Jorge?” I try to get the guy’s attention as he’s staring at everyone. “Can you use your pheromones to flood everyone, try to calm them down?” The only two people whose pheromones Luca doesn’t react negatively to are Jorge and Riley, and Jorge is the one with the clearest head out of the two right now.
I try to suppress my pheromones as much as possible, so I won’t be adding to the problem, but the moment Jorge sends out his —much too tense— ‘calm down’ pheromones, everyone else seems to get even more distressed.
Fuck.
This is very, very bad.
