Page 28 of Scarred Resolve

“Not right now, Ranger.” I wasn’t going to open up to him, not at this exact moment. I stepped further away from him, my mind still tracking the speed of Niko and Davor’s approach. “You should head back inside.”

“Okay.” He didn’t argue or try to linger. The front door closed with a soft click. Because it was Ranger, I knew Heath wouldn’t get onto him too hard for checking on me, if at all. He was one of the top werewolves in the pack, looking out for his Alpha’s fiancée. It was a respectable thing. I didn’t want Heath to get onto him. I just wanted space. I wanted air to breathe that didn’t tell me I was being watched by everyone, that didn’t smell like roughly twenty people all waiting on me to say something or do something.

When Niko parked in front of my house, I started heading toward him and Davor.

“I hope the flight was comfortable,” I said as Davor got out, dragging a bag with him.

“It was a flight. Even the most comfortable… aren’t,” he said with a wavering smile. He and I stared at each other as Niko popped the trunk and started taking out a few other bags. It was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t hostile.

“You, uh, look good. Got enough stuff with you? Who is going to carry it all?” I asked, trying to find something easy to talk about.

“Some of this is for you… for Dirk, I guess, but to help protect your territory while you aren’t here.” Davor looked back at the bags as well, but not for long. He turned to me again. “You look good. Healthy, like the Black Forest never happened. Are you ready for this?”

“Probably not,” I muttered.

“None of us ever really are,” Niko said, bringing over the bags. “Let’s get this done and send all these wolves back to their own homes.”

Niko beat us to the door, and before I could get around him to open it, Heath was there, holding it open for us.

Three of the youngest—and at that moment, most awkward—werecats walked into the living room of rogue werewolves.

“Everyone, this is my brother, Davor, son of Hasan. He’s a little older than Niko. Come introduce yourselves and get his scent. Let him get yours, then you can all head out.”

I watched it unfold, stepping back so the werewolves could go. Shamus went with both his children, and Teagan went with his foster boys, but other than those outliers, everyone else went in rank order, allowing the most dominant single werewolves to test the waters before risking younger members of the pack. Davor was quiet, subdued compared to all of my other siblings meeting the werewolves. I could catch the scent, very light, of fear from him, and if I could catch it, so could the werewolves. It was very light, though, so I had a feeling everyone would pass it off as nerves.

Once they were all gone, and it was only the family, Heath stepped up to shake Davor’s hand.

“Thank you for coming to help Jacky and Niko with this,” he said.

“No need to thank me. I’m not the best in a fight, but I have some tricks up my sleeve that should be useful.” Davor was surprisingly sheepish in front of Heath.

Every time he had snapped at me, every mean word or cruel remark, was lost to this version of Davor. Not forgotten but further pushed into the background, left in the past.

“Dirk and Landon?” Niko asked, looking around. “Are they around?”

I whistled, and the boys were inside with us less than ten seconds later.

“There you go,” I said, smiling a bit at my brother before finding a place to sit down.

“These are for you,” Niko said, shoving the bags at Dirk.

“Some pieces I’ve been working on,” Davor quickly explained. “Including a prototype automated drone. You can set its path with a flight, save it, and it’ll navigate that path on a schedule. You’ll figure it out. I’m certain.”

“A prototype?” Dirk seemed interested, but his confusion was also clear.

I guess Davor doesn’t give out prototypes all the time.

“There are some bugs I’ve been dealing with, and I think you trying it out while I go to Alaska may give you some insight into a solution I’ve missed or just give me more data to work with. Either way, you’re the person I trust with testing it out safely and giving me good data when we’re back.” Davor shifting into a discussion about his tech was another facet I saw very little of. Everyone knew he was probably the most tech-savvy person in the room and he was happy for someone else to benearly on his level. He was excited, proud, and comfortable, not condescending, rude, or dismissive.

“Yeah, I’ll test it out,” Dirk promised, smiling. “Let me lock this stuff up, and I’ll be right back.”

“Why don’t you and Landon head home?” Heath suggested softly. It made Dirk and Landon look at him, his son narrowing his eyes.

“Come back for dinner,” I said, reinforcing Heath’s not-a-real-suggestion with an invite back to dinner. It was about the silent implication that they were going to leave that mattered.

Landon looked away from his father to me, staring me down, knowing in the end, I would win because I wasn’t the one who felt the need to do this. I could smell his respect for me as he gave up, telling me that something about his stare-down had been a little test of sorts.

“Fine.” He threw his hands up as he started walking to the door. “Dirk, bring all that stuff home. You’ll just be distracted by the thought of it all day if you leave it here. Bring it back at dinner to secure it.”

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