Chapter 157: A Perfectly Normal Family Gathering

THUNDERFANG KEEP — LIGHTNING LOUNGE - ONE HOUR LATER

Tavian set two Lightning Nectars on the bar, the blue glow catching the amber light of the room.

Landon looked at the drinks. Then at Tavian. Then at the drinks again.

"Nova has wanted one of these since the day her cuffs were removed," Tavian explained. "Astra took hers. Physically removed it from her hands. Then drank it in front of her. It was cruel and hilarious and I will never forget the look on Nova’s face."

"Why did Astra take it?"

Tavian poured himself a whiskey. "Because she threw up blood, Landon."

The whiskey glass in Landon’s hand shattered. Pieces hit the bartop. Amber liquid pooled between his fingers. He didn’t notice.

"She what?"

"She threw up blood." Tavian grabbed a cloth and started collecting glass shards from the bar. He had watched Landon and Derek both destroy drinkware before and had internalized the cleanup as part of the experience. "You wanted her to go work for your bridezilla. She wasn’t medically cleared. She went anyway because that’s what she does. Threw up blood on the way there. Then we removed her cuffs, which were low-key bombs."

"I ordered her to go work for Celeste?" Landon repeated, his voice flat in the way that flat becomes dangerous.

"Well, not exactly." Tavian waved his hand. "She offered, because her cuffs were going off and Celeste was pinging her. And you said that was the best idea you’d heard all day." He dropped the glass shards into a bin beneath the bar. "She’s fine. Resilient, that one. Probably for the better she didn’t make it to Celeste’s quarters because she was in the hospital by that night."

Landon’s jaw worked once.

Tavian poured Landon a new glass of whiskey, set it in front of him, then gently pried the remaining shards from his Alpha’s hand with the bedside manner of a man whose mate was a healer’s worst nightmare and whose Alpha was a bartender’s.

"You feeling alright, big guy?"

"I’m fine," Landon grunted.

"If you want to go to sleep, I can smooth things over with Maverick and Nova. Are Derek’s chambers cleared?"

"She’s in my chambers until further notice," Landon replied.

Tavian looked at Landon for a long moment. The kind of moment where the jokes get set aside and the Beta underneath does the reading. Then he gave a knowing nod.

"Probably for the best. The High Luna is trying to murder your brother’s mate. Safest place for Nova is behind your locks and your guards."

Voices traveled down the corridor before the door opened. Maria’s was the loudest because Maria’s was always the loudest. The door swung wide.

Maria entered mid-sentence, gesturing with one hand, the other looped through Nova’s good arm. Nova was beside her. Maverick walked on Nova’s other side, close enough that his shoulder nearly touched hers, the positioning deliberate in the way that bodyguards position and something else entirely.

Landon’s wolf growled in his chest. Low. Fast. There and gone so quickly it could have been a heartbeat that misfired. Nobody noticed because the room was already in motion.

Tavian was across the floor before Maria finished her sentence. He picked her up, one arm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head, and kissed her forehead. Then her cheek. Then the other cheek. Then her nose. Then her mouth. Then the spot below her ear that made her squirm.

"Tavian, you’re supposed to be taking it easy," Maria protested, her voice muffled against his neck.

"I am taking it easy. This is easy. You should see hard."

He set her down, turned, and held out his hand to Maverick with the effortless pivot of a Beta whose social programming could switch from romantic to diplomatic in under a second.

"I’m Tavian."

"He knows who you are," Maria said immediately.

Maverick shook Tavian’s hand. The grip was firm and brief, the handshake of two wolves who had been on opposite sides of a blade standoff less than a week ago and were choosing to start fresh because the women in their lives had decided they were all friends now and the women were not accepting counteroffers.

"Whiskey?" Tavian asked.

"Please."

Tavian poured it. Maverick accepted the glass with a nod, unaware that the amber liquid in his hand was the same brand that had lived in Thunderfang for three generations and was the drink of choice for both brothers and the Beta who served them. The coincidence went unnoticed by everyone except Tavian, who clocked it and filed it under interesting.

Landon grabbed a Lightning Nectar from the bar. Crossed the room. Held it out to Nova.

She looked down at the glowing blue glass. Then up at him. The expression on her face was the expression of someone being handed something small and having it land somewhere enormous.

"For me?"

He gave a single nod.

She took it with her good hand. Her fingers wrapped around the glass carefully, like it might change its mind.

"Thank you, Alpha."

The words came out soft and sincere and carrying the weight of a woman who loved this drink and was receiving it from the last person she expected, and the gratitude in her voice was so disproportionate to a beverage that it cracked something in the room that nobody was going to acknowledge.

Tavian turned to Maria, glass in hand, leaning against the bar.

"So, Maria. I heard you used the pepper spray I got you on a SWAT team."

Maria lifted her chin. "Yes I did."

Maverick closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose, the long, controlled exhale of an older brother whose sister had just confirmed something he had been hoping was an exaggeration and it was not.

"They were loud. Very rude. Scared both of us. We screamed," Maria continued. "And the spray worked beautifully. You got me the good kind, Tav. Industrial grade."

"That’s my girl. And six counts of verbal intimidation," Tavian said. "Every single one of them earned."

"Seven. They missed one. I intimidated the booking photographer too but she didn’t report it because I complimented her hair first."