Mason


    I''d taken the spot next to Lanie, and now | reached for her hand under the table. She linked her fingers with mine and gave me a


    small smile as she squeezed them.


    else


    I''d heard Charlotte say that nobody knew we were here, but | wasn’t sure | could believe her or anyone


    Since when did we start trusting vampires, anyway?


    Since we found our Luna had vampire blood, and since they weed us into their enve,” Zane thought to me.


    Sh it. Id been sending without meaning to. At least to Zane. Xander and Lanie didn’t seem to have heard


    I''s troked my thumb over the back of her hand, but she was focused on everything Braden was saying


    “Like Charlotte said, nobody seems to know that you, or Gabri, or the children, are here,” he began, and Lanie interrupted


    him.


    “Do they know about Ste?”


    Braden tilted his head. “What about Ste?”


    Til bring you up to speedter, Mchi cut in. The two vampires exchanged a look.


    Huh


    Those two?


    | wasn’t sure anyone other than me noticed. Lanie took her hand from mine to put them both on the table. She leaned toward


    Braden, pinning him with an intense gaze.


    “You''re sure nobody knows the children are here?”


    she asked


    i didn’t hear a peep about it if anything the general rumor seems to be that you and those three ran off together and left the kids


    somece with Gabri”


    Braden had left a pause significant enough to show he’d meant to call us all something else


    Xander grumbled Zane gave him a little burst of Beta calming | thought Lanie would, too, but she was too intent on what Braden


    was saying | could hear her heart beating with my wolf''s ears. She was tense


    We all were


    “When the High Louncil put out the announcement that tanie was a hybrid, they only told the council members though Hight?


    Xender had stopped shoveling his mouths full of food to talk. They couldn’t or


    “They couldn''t reveal that Lanie was a vampire-wolf hybrid without revealing to every pack that hybrids exist,” Zane said firmly. “If


    they admitted that hybrids exist, they’d have to admit purebloods exist, and since they’ve been keeping the entire reality of other


    supernaturals a secret since the Great Wars, there’s no way...


    “They can’t announce a broken Treaty without revealing that there was a Treaty in the first ce.


    Or why it was put in ce, Mchi said smoothly and paused like he was waiting for all of us to put the pieces together.


    Da mn, | was so f ucking tired of all the intrigue. In the early days, back in Stillwood, all I''d wanted was to get some normal-sized


    revenge on my deadbeat father and the brother | thought | had to hate. | wanted to make a life with a mate and the baby I''d


    come to love as my own.


    We could still have that, | thought, being very, very careful to shield my thoughts from everyone.


    Lanie sat back in her chair hard enough to rock it on two legs. Her voice trembled. “They''ve undone everything they worked so


    hard to put into ce after the Great Wars. All those years of lies. | had to have a spell put on me to forget my life because of


    what they did. They can never repay me for losing myself! Never!


    | can never get that lost time back! And now they''re just tossing it all away and putting the me on me?”


    he didn’t let me take her hand. S


    | reached for her again, but was shaking, her fury palpable. The fact that she’d said she wanted that lost time back stuck with


    me, and | frowned.


    No, the way we met hadn''t been ideal, but | would never have wished it away.


    Was Lanie?


    “| figured they just told all wolf-kind some other kind of lies about us,” Xander said with a growl edging his voice. His eyes shed


    as his wolf rose.


    Mine did, too.From N?velDrama.Org.


    “If they''ve admitted that they''ve been lying to everyone they’re supposed to protect, why hasn’t everyone risen up against them?”


    Zane questioned.


    Braden’s shoulders lifted and dropped as he gave a deep, heavy sigh. “It seems your High Council is spinning things in a very


    different direction. They put out an official announcement revealing the existence of vampires. I’m not sure if they mentioned any


    other supernaturals.”


    “And...nobody’s rioting about this? Everyone’s just totally peachy keen with it all, right?” Xander’s voice dripped with sarcasm.


    Braden’s expression twisted. His gaze found Lanie’s and held it, and a small sliver of jealousy made the existing cut I’d been


    trying to ignore a tiny bit deeper.


    “They convinced everyone that vampires brainwashed all of wolf-kind to forget about them. Both councils


    Included”