Kade, her father, looked around the room at each of his wolves and nodded. “Yes. It is time.”
Their formality intrigued her. Yes, they were two Alphas who held a treaty and worked together in times of war, but she had thought they were also friends.
Maybe today was even more important than she’d realized.
Gideon released a sigh that spoke of years of angst and worries. She didn’t know the history of the Talons as well as she probably should have, so she didn’t know exactly why there was always an air of sadness and pain around the Alpha.
Maybe after this meeting, she’d be able to find out more.
Of course, in doing so, she’d have to not look at a certain wolf in the corner. His gaze was so intense she was sure he was studying her. She felt it down in her bones, like a fiery caress that promised something more.
Or maybe she was just going crazy and needed to find a wolf to scratch the itch.
She might not be looking for a mate, but she wouldn’t say no to something else. Wolves were tactile creatures after all.
“Gina?”
She blinked at the sound of Kade’s voice and turned to him.
She was the only one standing other than the two wolves in charge of security—her uncle Adam, the Enforcer, and the dark-eyed wolf.
Well, that was embarrassing.
She kept her head down and forced herself not to blush. From the heat on her neck, she was pretty sure she’d failed in the latter.
“Sorry,” she mumbled then sat down next to another uncle, Jasper, the Beta of the Pack.
Although the Alphas had called this meeting, she wasn’t sure what it would entail. Each Alpha had come with their Beta, a wolf in charge of security…and her father had decided to bring her.
Her being there didn’t make much sense in the grand scheme of things since it put the power on the Redwoods’ side, but she wasn’t about to question authority in front of another Pack. That at least had been ingrained in her training.
“Let’s get started then,” Kade said after he gave her a nod. “Gideon? Do you want to begin?”
Gina held back a frown. They were acting more formal than usual, so that hadn’t been her imagination. The Talons and the Redwoods had formed a treaty during the latter days of the war between the Redwoods and the Centrals. It wasn’t as though these were two newly acquainted Alphas meeting for the first time. Though maybe when it came to Pack matters, Alphas couldn’t truly be friends.
What a lonely way to live.
“It’s been fifteen years since the end of the Central War, yet there hasn’t been a single mating between the two Packs,” Gideon said, shocking her.
Gina blinked. Really? That couldn’t be right. She was sure there had to have been some cross-Pack mating.
Right?
“That means that regardless of the treaties we signed, we don’t believe the moon goddess has seen fit to fully accept us as a unit,” Kade put in.
“What do you mean?” she asked, then shut her mouth. She was the youngest wolf here and wasn’t formally titled or ranked. She should not be speaking right now.
She felt the gaze of the dark-eyed wolf on her, but she didn’t turn to look. Instead, she kept her head down in a show of respect to the Alphas.
“You can ask questions, Gina. It’s okay,” Kade said, the tone of his voice not changing, but, as his daughter, she heard the softer edge. “And what I mean is, mating comes from the moon goddess. Yes, we can find our own versions of mates by not bonding fully, but a true bond, a true potential mate, is chosen by the moon goddess. That’s how it’s always been in the past.”
Gideon nodded. “There haven’t been many matings within the Talons in general.”
Gina sucked in a breath, and the Beta of the Talons, Mitchell, turned her way. “Yes,” Mitchell said softly. “It’s that bad. It could be that in this period of change within our own pack hierarchy, our members just haven’t found mates yet, but that doesn’t seem likely. There’s something else going on.”
Gina knew Gideon—as well as the rest of his brothers and cousins—had come into power at some point throughout the end of the Central War during a period of the Talon’s own unrest, but she didn’t know the full history. She wasn’t even sure Kade or the rest of the Pack royalty did.
There were some things that were intensely private within a Pack that could not—and should not—be shared.