Souls Entwined

Chapter Thirty-One

I nodded, swallowing, trying to dislodge the uncomfortable feeling from my throat. 'Kaden,' I began, squeezing his hand in mine, hoping to portray some kind of rightness to ease his mind. 'How much sleep have you gotten these last few weeks?'

His preternatural stillness gave him away before his easy lie did. He shrugged, 'Not sure. Enough.'

'I love you,' I stated, making sure he was still looking at me as I said it. 'But you're clearly not getting enough sleep. What's going on?'

He dropped his gaze to the table and then swept his eyes over the shelves behind me. 'I'm fine.' He answered gruffly, his fingers rapping against the edge of his desk.

I didn't believe him, but if he had taught me anything over the last couple of weeks, it was that sometimes silence allowed a person to think through their thoughts enough to put them into words.

Kaden squirmed under my gaze, and I wondered if it was the first time he had ever felt so uncomfortable. He didn't usually give his emotions away, so something was clearly bothering him, and my question had hit closer to home than he was ready for.

I waited, and while I waited, I found the documents I had been working on earlier and continued making notes. It was on the alliance between us and the Pecus pack. Peter, the Alpha of the small pack, will be returning soon to review the amended contract. He had waited patiently while we sorted out the policies for the Umbra pack's return, but a rogue attack had threatened his family, and he needed to close on the deal soon, so we could send some warriors to help them.

I was neatly rewriting some notes I'd made earlier in a rush when Kaden cleared his throat. His brow was pinched as he peered at me with sad eyes. 'Do you actually wake up every night, or have you just been coming to check on me?'

'A bit of both.' It was sort of true. If I woke up before my alarm went off, I would come earlier, but I had always set the alarm, knowing I'd find him at his desk.

We settled back into the silence, and since I didn't want to distract Kaden from his thoughts, I read over the Pecus alliance again, giving Kaden the time he needed.

The Pecus pack saw at least four attacks a month. They had the biggest land mass per capita, which appealed to their neighbouring packs, who caused the most problems. They mostly wanted to scare the Pecus pack into forfeiting some of their lands, and deaths were so rare that the other packs usually found casualties instead of them.

Their biggest concerns were the rogues, as they posed more of a threat to the safety of the Pecus pack. Rogues who still had a semblance of their old identity would attack Peter to try and claim his title. They were so desperate they didn't care who they hurt to get to him. They'd killed a little boy five months ago, devastating the whole pack. Even worse were the rogues who had been untethered for too long, and any semblance of rationality had been thrown away. They targeted the Pecus pack because it was easier than going for the surrounding, bigger packs.

When Kaden saw the first draft of the proposal, he'd been cautious. It has been a good deal. All Peter wanted to do was have his pack linked to one that would pose more of a threat. He gambled that just having the packs in an alliance in name only would be enough to scare some of his neighbours.

Kaden is nothing like his father because Leon would have accepted and charged an exuberant amount for hardly doing anything. Since Kaden didn't want to charge Peter for doing the bare minimum and politics meant Kaden couldn't give anything away for free, even using the pack's name, they'd negotiated.

A new contract was formed somewhere between the long nights and busy days. This one would allow us to exchange a few warriors for stock in their sheering company with some bonus mutton throughout the year when they had some to spare.