Page 41 of Lucius

“Well, whenever you’re ready to go through with it, we can have the ceremony after the park is closed. I’m asking about the timing of things because it’s very clear to me that Sidney is all-in with keeping our secret, but for the other alphas, they’d like to wait to loosen restrictions until after the mating ceremony.”

“What does that mean for me?” she asked.

“You are free to be with Lucius anywhere in the park, and if you leave the park with him, you’ll have an escort—but that would happen even if he was leaving the park by himself. You won’t be given any of the security codes or a swipe card until after your mating ceremony, but as long as you’re with Lucius, there’s nowhere you can’t go.”

“My phone?”

“You can have it back,” Caesar said. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Thank you for being so gracious about everything. Rhomi said it was difficult at first to keep things from her family because she couldn’t tell them how sure she was that she wanted to be with Mercer when they hadn’t been together very long. Celeste went through a similar situation. They’ll be happy to talk to you about how they deal with the stress of keeping a huge secret from their family.”

“I imagine it will be more of a burden once they have kids because they might worry about their kids saying something,” she said.

Caesar nodded. “It is on the minds of the alphas when it comes to having human mates. But the children will be taught how important the secret is. We have a school here in the park, so the only humans they’d come into contact with will be park patrons and human family members.”

She hummed and looked between Caesar and Lucius.

“I’d like to get to know Lucius better. We basically jumped over everything because he shifted while we were sleeping and spilled the beans.”

“Yes, he definitely let the cat out of the bag,” Caesar said with a wink.

Sidney laughed. “Thanks for dinner tonight. It was really great getting to know everyone.”

“You’re welcome. Goodnight.”

“Night, Dad.”

Lucius took Sidney’s hand and they walked back to his house. He stopped before he opened the door. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Where?”

“Topside. We can just walk around and talk. The park is closed so it’ll just be us and the security guards roaming around.”

“Sure.”

He took her up to the park by way of the employee cafeteria. They grabbed drinks from the refrigerator before they left the cafeteria, and walked toward the safari.

“I think,” she said as they stopped in front of the norms’ paddock, “that even though I like you a lot, Tank was my favorite to sketch.”

“He’s pretty impressive.”

Tank had also been helpful a few times in keeping their people safe. Just recently, when August’s mate Ginny had been attacked by her murderous grandfather’s people, Tank had defended her and stomped a few bad guys into the dirt.

She took a drink of lemon-lime soda and leaned against the bars of the gate.

“Can I plan a date?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“For tomorrow night.”

“Absolutely. What did you have in mind?”

She gave him a curious look. “It’s a secret.”

He hummed in interest. “Does it happen to end with me sending you into orbit with a few orgasms?”

“Ugh, dude.”

Sidney squeaked in surprise as Benjamin walked by.

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