Page 67 of Haze

“Fine.” I lie, poorly.

Cade shakes his head. “Listen, if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. Don’t lie to my face ever again.”

“What am I supposed to say?” I’m so fucking angry, and it’s not at anyone in particular. I’m angry, and it’s burning me up inside. How do I explain that?

“The truth always works.” Cade steps over to his Yukon and opens the back. He pulls out two camp chairs, of all things. “Step into my office.”

I do as I’m told, sitting down in one of the chairs. Cade sits down in the other and waits for me to talk. I have no idea where to start. But I know I can’t start talking about her hiding who she is until I’ve had more words about it with Lena. It’s only fair that I talk about her with her first.

After a minute, Cade opens up the conversation for me. “I heard Doctor Thorpe’s request for you to return to work. It might be good for you to do something, not worrying, but I would absolutely have no problem telling the old bat to stuff it if you want to stay longer with Lena.”

“I don’t know,” I answer. Finally, a somewhat invitation to be with her. My finger runs over the seams of the armrest on the chair. “On one hand, maybe Lena needs the space. On the other hand, I want to smother her because, apparently, she believes I’ll reject her.”

Cade raises his eyebrows, and his jaw goes slack. I realize he doesn’t know. I cover my mouth with my hand, dragging it through my beard. Do I tell him what she told me?

Pack. My wolf encourages making a strong tie to him. Just because it’s new doesn’t make it any less our home. We could do well here. They love our mate.

“Lena’s convinced, in the event that she’s permanently damaged, I’ll reject her for not being able to have pups.” I get the words out, but my voice doesn’t sound like my own. A sinking feeling fills my gut, dropping lower and lower.

He hangs his head, running his hands back through his hair.

Despite the feeling in my gut, I keep talking. “I don’t understand what I’ve done to make her feel like I would care. Why doesn’t she feel the same way about me? What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing.” Cade looks at me and, with a stern voice, drills it into my head. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what to do, Cade. Do I smother her? Do I give her space? I know nothing about her despite all the time we’ve spent together. We spent time talking, and I thought we had made progress, and now this... it’s like she’s treating me as a stranger, and I can’t figure out what I did.”

“Yeah. That tracks.” Cade nods his head, leaning back into his chair again. He’s quiet for a moment. “Do you want advice? Or do you want to leave this as a solid venting session?”

No one has ever asked that before. Am I venting, or do I want advice?

I shake my head. “I fucked up. I’ll fix it.”

He shrugs, fighting a smile. “Plan on trying to work this week and coming out to the house on Thursday and staying the weekend. If it’s too much to be away from her, then let me deal with Thorpe and come out whenever you want. Gatehouse knows this vehicle and plate number. The house is staffed twenty-four-seven, so someone will show you to Lena’s room.”

Finally, a whole invitation.

Cade seems to have a contingency plan for everything. It’s nice, familiar, to have someone thinking through the options. It settles my stomach a bit. I’m capable of running things on my own, but fuck, it’s nice having a friend.

“Can I ask your advice on something?” Cade scrubs his hand down his face before dropping it into his lap.

The shock I’m feeling must pass across my face because Cade sighs, bobbing his head. “I know. Trust me, I know. But I’m smart enough to know when I’m in over my head, and you’ve a lot more experience on running a, well, not quite a country, but an army. The Leviathan has plenty of ideas on how to deal with my problems, but they’re not exactly best practices for this era.”

“You and he are quite different, aren’t you?” I can only imagine what an odd feeling it must be to have someone so different in my brain. My wolf is there, but we’re very in unison.

With an eye roll, he answers, “If I had a beer, I’d offer you one. But you don’t know the half of it.”

“I don’t know if I’ll have best practices. I’ve knocked more than a few boyos’ heads in for actin’ the maggot, but I hope they’re more up-to-date than The Leviathan,” I offer.

Hell, it’d be nice to use my actual life experience rather than whatever bean counting the school has me doing.

“I’ve got shit attendance at pack events. There are truancy issues with the kids still attending the human school. Worse issues with the kids who are supposed to be finishing their degrees through online school.” Cade draws a deep breath before continuing. “I’ve staff at the house full-time because I’ve enough people coming and going and hanging out. But I’ve literally had to hang velvet ropes and lock doors to keep people out of our personal spaces. I’m fine sharing the common areas, but I don’t need anyone snooping around my bedroom.”

I laugh. “I can only imagine.”

“I’m having issues finding new advisors, and the accountant is struggling to get the information we need for the pack fund from some individuals. They’re claiming they want to go back to the literal outdated ways, and I’m fairly certain it’s to fuck with me.” Cade shakes his head. “Honestly, humans and the media are becoming easier to deal with than our own people.”

“You have too much hay on the fork, but you already know that,” I tell him. “You’ve either got to make a massive statement that no one will be able to dispute or find a way to make the people meet you on your level.”

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