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She rolled her eyes. “He didn’t save my life.”
“See? Too stubborn.” Riaz cleared his throat. “Regardless of your dislike for his kind, we still need his help—not only at the St. Louis facility, but also for the recoding process at every single one of our dens. If you have to work with a Raeth, isn’t it better to do it with one who already has a soft spot for you?”
That calm she’d chased whilst baking was all gone now.
“Really? A soft spot for me, Riaz?” She turned a scandalized glare on him. “He’s the world’s most outrageous flirt. The ‘soft spot’ is just him being annoyed that I’m a woman and I’m not interested.”
Scoffing, she stalked off toward the gym, abandoning the empty cupcake trays and her alphas along with them. Ava had already been wearing yoga pants and a loose t-shirt, the most comfortable clothes that just so happened to be what she needed to kick some serious glute.
Minutes later, she was in her element. Claws tingled at the end of her fingertips, begging to come out and shred. Her wolf howled beneath her skin as she growled at the punching bag.
Around her, packmates steered clear, knowing instinctively that she wasn’t in a mood to be sociable.
The turmoil churning in her gut hadn’t been squelched even after twenty minutes of butchering the bag and several bleeding knuckles. She glanced around for a suitable sparring partner.
Across the room, Riaz was casually standing in the middle of the gym, chatting with another one of his betas. Gadriel, a red-haired wolf with enough charm to talk an eagle off their eggs, was one of Ava’s good friends and functioned as comic relief when Riaz wasn’t feeling up to the job.
The two were engaged in animated conversation, but Ava knew her alpha wasn’t here to chew the fat. Riaz was always around when his pack members needed to be talked off a ledge or kept from doing anything reckless.
It was the wrong day to pull that nonsense around her.
Feeling ruthless, she collided with him with the force of a freight train, knocking him off his feet. They tumbled end over end, crashing haphazardly into a weight set along the far wall and barreling into a group who were stretching in yoga poses. They scrambled out of the way when Riaz let loose a playful snarl. Ava took the sound as permission to express her stress.
Over the next half hour, the pair of them took turns beating the snot out of one another—in good fun, of course. Ever since they’d met five hundred years ago, Riaz had been one of the best at fielding Ava’s aggression.
In the moment, there was nothing she appreciated more.
Chapter Four
Remmus grabbed an apple before teleporting to the foyer of his sovereign’s home. He’d been there thousands of times since it’d been built, but lately, entering the home felt like he was walking on eggshells. He walked into the living room quietly, wondering what awaited him today.
A healer had been stationed next to Nina since the beginning of her pregnancy, though now that things had essentially leveled out, it’d been easier for them to come and go.
Kaien, her primary medical specialist, looked fast-asleep at the foot of the couch where Nina had her head together with her mate.
Like her mother before her, Nina was carrying twins. This was exceptionally rare for the Raeth species, and whenever a woman carried multiples, her life was always at stake. The first five months of her pregnancy saw his sovereign lose a substantial amount of weight. With it, her energy plummeted, and her ability to maintain the psychic web that connected her clan together had wavered.
At one point, the drain on Nina’s resources had started an inversion of energy from the neural web, pulling from her people instead of the opposite way around. It’d worried all of them, though none more than her overprotective mate.
In the end, Zeke, who had a secondary Amp talent, was able to bolster her reserves and solidify the neural net that connected everyone in their two clans. Nina’s mate was currently hovering beside her on the couch, the powerful punch of his energy feeding into her, the transfer coming as easy to him as breathing.
Remmus tipped an imaginary hat to Nina, smiling like the gentlemen he’d never been raised to be. “Sovereign. Reporting back.”
He instantly had her full attention. Striking features, perfectly proportioned, were framed by glossy brunette hair that fell just below her chin with a slight wavy curl. Her pregnancy had just recently begun to show—and that was concerning, considering that her due date was only two months away.
“Why do I smell blood on you?”
“An unfortunate collision.”
“With what?” Nina’s glacial blue eyes narrowed, conversation having pressed pause in the room around them to focus on their exchange. She scrutinized every inch of him, shrewd and worried.
“A bullet.”
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“The Raeth we previously encountered was at the St. Louis facility when I scanned.” Remmus shrug. “He must’ve taken offense. Needless to say, I don’t think we’ll be besties.”
“What did you find?” Zeke asked.
