“Thank you.”
Giving him a tight smile, I said, “You can thank me by bringing Their Majesties here.”
He nodded, clapping me on the shoulder another few times before he went to get Callum and Lucas. I accepted the scotch offered to me by tonight’s acting bartender and told Jackson he could stand down. It didn’t escape my notice that Morgan hadn’t moved from her seat once. Not that I would have made any great effort to defend her either, mind you.
Magnolia—showing an impressive display of strength—dragged Hank back to his table and gave him a dirty dishcloth to staunch the bleeding. “Serves you right, stirring up shit,” she told him.
He kept giving me the stink eye, but I wasn’t having it. Hank didn’t scare me.
“Are you planning to hide out on the porch all night?” I hollered to my hidden mystery guest.
Eyes pivoted from me to the door. Amelia was the first to react, with a gasped, “My God.” Ben was the next, staggering to his feet and sending his chair skittering back across the hardwood as he cleared the room in a heartbeat and lifted his sister off the floor in a crushing hug.
“You’re home,” he whispered, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“I’m home.” Eugenia buried her face in his neck, her cheeks wet with emotion as she hugged him back. “I’ve missed you so much.”
The room was far from quiet now. Newer pack members asked who the girl was, and others were just excited to have Eugenia home. She and I were the only two out of the loop on our relationship. Before Callum had told me I had siblings, I’d assumed Ben was either Callum’s own son, or my Aunt Savannah’s. Savannah, as it turned out, was out west shacked up with a prince there.
Now a huge chunk of family was back together, and everyone in the room was treating it like a damned reunion. Beer flowed as freely as water, and people were toasting Eugenia’s return when Callum and Lucas walked in a few minutes later.
Callum went to Eugenia and held her at arm’s length, getting a good look at her. His eyes glistened, but no tears fell. Kings don’t cry. They did hug, though, because Callum pulled her in for a hug so fierce it put our brother’s to shame.
Lucas couldn’t care less about Eugenia’s triumphant return to the fold. He cleared the room in a heartbeat and lifted me off the floor and up onto the bar, wrapping his arms around me as he kissed the breath right out of my lungs.
My vision swam. His fingers slid under my shirt, clawlike, trying to pull me closer to him than a human body could go. I returned his fevered kiss, then, begrudgingly, pushed him away. “Baby, we have an audience.”
He released me with a growl, telling me he didn’t give a hoot who could see us.
Callum, with one arm around Eugenia and another around Ben, beamed like a proud father. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for this.”
“About that. You and I need to have a little chat.”
A hush spread through the crowd. I guess I’d forgotten my manners in the swamp. Along with my give-a-shits. I shot back the scotch, grimacing, and grumbled, “Apologies. Your Majesty, might I request an audience?”
“Of course.”
We left the bar, Lucas insisting on coming along. I’d already impressed upon Eugenia the importance of not telling any of the wolves about Holden, and I had to hope she’d remain true to her word. The kings and I settled into Callum’s office.
“I suppose you want to finalize the details,” Callum said.
“Before we get into the agreement you and I made, there’s something way more important you need to know.”
“Secret, I doubt there’s anything more important—” Lucas began, but I silenced him with a squeeze of the knee, not wanting to interrupt him in any more obvious way in front of another king.
“There is a pack in Maurepas Swamp.”
“A what?” Callum shifted to the edge of his chair, suddenly very interested in what I had to say.
“A feral pack. At least twenty, not counting the women and children. Not that the women are wolves. They’re just incubators.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“There is a pack of fucking Lost Boys on an island in the swamp. They are kidnapping and raping tourist women and making them give birth to their offspring, and then turning the children.”
“How do you—?”
I drew his attention to the mud and blood.