My Son Is the Secret That Will Break Them novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Welcome Committee
Thea lands at Logan with Arlo and walks between three powerful men who wronged her; in the car Arlo says that man smells like his blanket.
Three men were waiting at the arrivals exit at Logan Airport, and they were waiting for me.
I knew it before I saw their faces.
My four-year-old's hand was warm in mine, and his grey flannel blanket hung out of his backpack.
The air outside the doors was hot and smelled of asphalt and a pack I no longer belonged to.
A cedar crest hung over the exit.
Every wolf who walked under it was told that this pack's law began here.
My wolf looked at the crest and said nothing.
It had said nothing for five years.
"Mom, it's hot," my son said, and sneezed into his sleeve.
I crouched and tightened his backpack straps.
His name is Arlo, and he is the best thing that ever came out of this city.
Under his collar, my fingers found the scent patch and checked it was still stuck down.
The law lets a child who hasn't awakened hide his father's scent when he crosses into another pack's land.
I had used it on every trip he'd ever taken.
"This is where you used to live," Arlo said.
"A long time ago."
"Then where do we live now?"
A shadow fell across us before I could answer.
I stood up.
The three men stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the exit, and not one of them let his power show.
They didn't need to.
On the left was Talbot Newhall, the Ironwood Alpha's heir, in a dark blue suit with his family crest on his tie pin.
His jaw was sharper than I remembered, and he still had that look of someone who expected to be obeyed.
He and I had a courtship pledge five years ago that we never filed with the inter-pack registry.
There was no mating mark and no fated bond, thank God.
In the middle was Rowan Keohane, who ran Tidewatch's external trade, in a white T-shirt and jeans, standing in the middle because he had been the first to arrive.
I had known him since I was fifteen, and he had never once come to a fight with his hands out of his pockets.
On the right was Torin Maddox, my stepbrother, the acting Beta of Tidewatch, in a black shirt buttoned to the collar.
He didn't look at me.
He looked at Arlo, and kept looking.
The patch hid the boy's father's scent, but it couldn't hide the Maddox bloodline underneath it, the smell of moss after rain.
Torin's eyes flashed gold and went dark again.
"Get in the car," he said, flat and administrative. "I'll take you to the estate."
No hello.
He opened with transportation.
I didn't move.
Talbot spoke next. "Thea, what happened back then was our fault. But you came to update the bloodline registry, so don't make it hard on Cora."
Five years, and the first thing he said to me was still about her.
"She runs the relief fund and the estate now," he went on. "If you challenge her in public, you embarrass the whole pack."
Rowan kept his hands in his pockets. "If you need to be angry, be angry at us. Cora's wolf has always been fragile. She can't take that kind of pressure from a high-ranking wolf."
Fragile.
I nearly laughed.
Cora Penrose had forged messages from the pack and got Torin's name on an order freezing my stipend.
She had gotten Talbot to slap me in front of twenty people at a pack dinner.
She had talked Rowan into driving me to this airport and watching me board a plane.
That was the kind of weakness I couldn't stand.
Torin moved on to his next point. "The riverside house is Cora's now. There's a guest room in the east wing. It's been cleaned."
I looked down at Arlo.
He was studying the three of them with a four-year-old's open stare.
He didn't understand rank, but he understood the mood.
He tugged on the hem of my shirt and whispered, loud enough for all of them, "Mom, why are they all bullying you together?"
Nobody breathed.
Talbot's composure slipped.
Rowan took his hands out of his pockets.
And Torin finally looked at my son directly, and the pressure he'd been holding back went out of him completely.
I smoothed Arlo's hair and crouched to zip his backpack.
I used the same voice I used at home to ask if he wanted milk or juice.
"Nobody's bullying Mommy. They're just bad at saying hello."
Arlo said, "Oh," and looked at them again.
He gripped my hand harder and said nothing else.
I stood and turned to Torin.
"We'll talk about the house later. Does the guest room have its own bathroom?"
He hadn't expected that.
He hesitated for half a beat. "Yes."
"Is the hot water steady?"
"..."
"Arlo's skin is sensitive after a long flight. His bath has to stay between a hundred and a hundred and four degrees, or he gets a rash. If your healer wants documentation, I'll send his care notes."
It wasn't true.
Torin stared at me, and bitterness leaked into his scent.
My wolf noticed it and dismissed it.
"Let's go," I said, and I walked straight between them with Arlo's hand in mine.
They didn't move at first.
Then, as I got close, they stepped aside.
None of them would use their power on a mother and her child in a public airport.
Outside, the town car was waiting.
I lifted Arlo into the back seat.
My investigator from Mercer & Veil's West Coast office, a fellow Pacific Ridge wolf, was already behind the wheel.
He watched me in the mirror. "Boss, all three came?"
"Mm."
"Warmer welcome than I expected."
I buckled Arlo in and pulled my collar straight over the scar on my left shoulder.
The crescent had never faded.
Arlo pressed his nose to the window and looked back at the terminal.
"Mom," he said. "That tall man smells like my blanket."
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