The retro chrome of the diner booth felt like a completely different universe from the sterile airport terminal we’d just left behind. Amara was tucked securely beside me, her small legs swinging under the table as she wrapped both hands around a metal milkshake cup that was almost as big as her torso. The pink strawberry whipped cream was already dotting the tip of her nose, and for the first time all morning, the tense, guarded posture of a child who had seen too much was starting to melt away.
I dug my spoon into a thick vanilla bean shake, letting the rich sweetness do its familiar work of numbing the jagged edge of the rage still simmering in my throat. GG was nursing a double chocolate shake, her eyes watching the front windows with a quiet alertness that told me her new role as my Beta wasn’t something she took lightly.
“Roni,” GG murmured over the rim of her glass, her voice low enough to stay beneath the cheerful diner music. “What Rachael handed you… that changes things. If Jackson is the kind of monster who leaves those kinds of marks, he isn’t going to just let them walk away. Especially not if he thinks he has a claim on a cub.”
I took a slow sip of my malt, my eyes tracking a semi-truck pulling out onto the highway outside. “Let him try,” I whispered, the Ohio stubbornness hard and cold in my jaw. “Rachael gave me legal custody as Veronica Lane. It’s signed, sealed, and delivered. If that ‘Red Moon’ wolfie thinks he can just march onto Moon Shadow land and take this little girl, he’s going to find out exactly what happens when ya fuck with a country girl… and those she loves.”
GG gave a slow, respectful nod, her hand dropping beneath the table to give my knee a supportive squeeze. “Stormy is going to want to see those papers the second we get back, Roni. Knight too. We need to brace the perimeter.”
“We will,” I agreed, looking down at Amara, who was currently giggling as she tried to feed a drop of whipped cream to the plush cat we’d bought her. “But right now? We finish our shakes. The pack business can wait until the Little is full.”
By the time we pulled the SUV back onto the gravel trails of Pinecreek, the afternoon sun was high, filtering through the dense canopy in long, golden shafts. The heavy atmosphere of the morning had been replaced by a quiet, sugar-induced drowsiness in the back seat. Amara was fast asleep, her head tilted back against the car seat, the legal documents tucked safely into the glove box right in front of me.
We were heading back to a house full of burly wolfies preparing for a ceremony that would officially name me their Luna, but as I steered the vehicle toward the leadership wing, I knew my first official act wouldn’t be a speech or a ribbon-cutting. It would be showing Storm Maverick Kinkaid exactly what kind of fire he’d brought into his forest.