Page 97 of Fate Unchained

However, he seemed to be in the minority. Hans had purchased a home for the vulk in Ryba, and he wanted to add it to their brownie network. And Lilah absolutely loved Darbywimple.

He growled at the brownie. “Scram.”

Darbywimple drew herself up to her full four foot height. She was half the size of him, but had a glare as vicious as a vulk’s. “I brought the papers for the estate.”

“Oh. Good.” With Boris dead, it took a while, but they’d managed to finally get a note to the king’s Exchequer about Lilah’s estate. Suggesting they could fix it up and take care of it, Kyril offered to buy the estate but Lilah said she didn’t want it, so they’d sold it last week. Darbywimple’s cousin worked for a barrister, and had helped take care of everything.

He still wasn’t ready to admit brownies were useful though.

“You ready to leave?”

She nodded and looked around. “Ayren said he’d finish the bookcases and start organizing the books for me.”

His pack brother had become a devoted admirer after Lilah threw Ayren a large birthday party. Although it may have also been to try to convince her to make him another cake. That vulk was obsessed with cake.

“Ayren’s going to finish making them?” Kyril’s lip rose up his eyetooth. So far, Ayren’s furniture skills consisted of a three-legged stool no one could sit on because it would topple over, and a side table so lopsided it wouldn’t hold anything.

“Yes. I got him a book on how to build them.”

He smiled and closed the distance between them. “Of course you did.” He hugged her close.

The brownie coughed in the annoying way she always did whenever he touched Lilah. “Am I setting up a brownie connection site at your den?” the brownie said.

He growled. “Absolutely not.”

Darbywimple’s lips pinched together. “Then how am I going to keep in touch with Lilah?”

With the snow now melted, they could easily travel down to his den in Stok. He couldn’t wait to share his den with Lilah, and have her all to himself, but for the first time, he was going to miss the pack den. He no longer felt the pressing urge to be alone, keeping his pack at a distance.

Over the past several months he’d spent time with his brothers. He talked to them, far more than he ever had before. He let the connection to the pack truly flow through him. And he was at peace in a way he hadn’t thought possible.

“I’ll find a place for you near my den. Even if I need to build it. But you announce yourself before you join us, yes?” He glowered at the brownie, who glared right back. “We’ll be naked a lot.”

She sniffed, nodded, then popped away, leaving them alone.

He picked Lilah up and sat her on the desk. He brushed his jaw against her cheek and purred. She reached to her right and pulled a newspaper off her desk. “Look at the headline.”

“King Buys New Horses.” The words didn’t swim on the page because Lilah had helped make reading easier for him.

Although he could read more comfortably now, they hadn’t stopped their nightly habit of her reading to him. The best part of his day was when he got to curl around her, feeling her warmth, inhaling her scent, and letting her words wash over him.

“Exciting.”

She nodded. “There’s never anything in here. They’re still saying a tree fell over and that’s what caused the damage to Herskala Hall. And all of Brooke’s stories are about Coromesto society, without a hint of Morana. The paper must not be publishing her articles.”

He shrugged. “The magicwielders aren’t going to want anything printed which hints they may not be in control of their city.”

“Brooke must be so angry.”

He nuzzled her neck again. “Have you gotten a letter from her lately?”

“No.” She tilted her head, giving him better access. “But now winter is past, she can travel to get her story on the vulk.”

“That’s Hans’s problem.”

Lilah ran her hands up the back of his neck. “No, she made the agreement with Finn. And he’s the one she keeps asking me about.”

He drew back. “Well, Finn’s in Ryba to use the scrying bowl to search for the Dark Cabal. And if Brooke does find him, he won’t talk to her.” Neither the scrying bowl nor hunting had yielded anything yet about the Dark Cabal or Morana. Morana might be dead, but until Kyril saw her body, he’d never believe it. But eventually, the pack would find them.

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