The damp cloth covering my eyes lifted, and I looked up to see Konrad smiling at me.

"Your Betas have asked me to tell you that they received a new Alpha notice but might have agreed to let you sleep rather than tell you something that you already knew was happening."

"Great," I said, sighing as I wriggled back on the lounge.

Sitting down, Konrad lifted my sore feet onto his lap and began massaging one of them. It was everything that I never knew I needed.

"They are worried and currently formulating a schedule with precision. It was recommended that I warn you not to argue, but I said that would take all the fun out of your day."

"So true. How's Ezra?"

Konrad shrugged.

"It's just another day for him, really. When we returned after the defeat, he pulled me aside and said that I was only fooling myself if I didn't accept that my future was with you. If it was here or there, it was always going to be with you. He said that I had to figure out where our happy home was going to be. I looked around and saw a pack that was pleased that we survived but unimpressed that we had lost. We could argue until the end of time about whether it was a loss or just a temporary setback. At the end of the day, we walked away with our lives and nothing else. The reality of it was that it actually sent us down a few rungs on the rank ladder so my value as Alpha was slowly diminishing. I had to accept that I was responsible for the failure. My choices were to become a lost wolf or to return the pack to our former placement. I didn't deserve to stay but I didn't want to leave my brother with a sinking pack."

"So you used the mate meet-up to rank jump."

"Perhaps."

"You know that's not allowed, right?"

"Are you going to tattle on me?"

"Only if you neglect my other foot. Dish the information that you couldn't tell me at Midland."

Konrad grinned, changing feet.

"Ezra came up with this plan after I said that I wanted a life with you. He said that I was not allowed to leave him with a dumpster fire and I had to fix the issues. It would be easy enough to find some drunk idiot. They'd see me as an easy target and I had to ensure I could win. Ezra also warned me that it was guaranteed that someone would target you to make everything worse."

"Target me?"

I frowned, pulling my feet back.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sure there is no better way to prove how pathetic my pack is than by showing everyone how easy it would be to take you down. We received intel that said that the Millers were seen in Blood Moon land, so we figured they would be the ones that would start something. Given that their land is nowhere near ours, we thought that Brian might have been trading secrets for a guarantee to manage this land. The elders warned me that if you, my lovely queen of locks, were doing that, it was guaranteed that you'd be pregnant already. So, they insisted that we turn the light away from you."

Konrad rolled his eyes.

"Like I wouldn't anyway. That was the beginning. Ezra and the elders followed me around as they discussed our options. I'd be working out in the gym, they'd be there. I'd be duking it out with one of my teachers, and they'd be asking me what my opinion was. I quickly learned to tune them out and concentrate. Eventually, we formed the plan that was to watch the Alpha and Beta who were in attendance as well as any of the more louder members."

"That's why you were standing near him."

"Yep. He was watching you all night long. I did not think for a second that would be how he approached you, but I am glad that I decided to shadow him at that moment."

"You wouldn't have knocked the drink if it was clean?"

With a scoff, Konrad grinned.

"I don't care if someone buys you a drink. If they were clean, then the loser could have bought them all night for you. Me too. I'm always up for free booze."

"Oh, I see. Like that is it?"

"Nuh. I'll take the booze, and they can take themselves to the bathroom."

I chuckled, shaking my head.

"You're such an idiot."

Moving onto his lap, I gripped the lapels of his shirt.

"But thank you for all that underhanded reconnaissance work and not telling me what was going on."

"I didn't want to implicate you. If Midland had found out that we were rank jumping, we would have been booted out of the place. But that's it. That's everything that I've been doing so that I didn't leave my brother to take over a pack that was so close to the bottom we were considered buried."

Oh, that lovely term that no one liked. Dead and buried. That was a term for a pack that had hit rock bottom, was no longer on the ladder and had members leaving like rats on a sinking ship. To return from a placement lower than the bottom of the ladder was nothing short of a miracle.

Stanley appeared, looking a little frazzled.

"Everything okay?"

"Yes. Kind of. We've formed a plan, and we are on a tight schedule. You two need to go home, dump Konrad's things and return dressed for the initiation ceremony."

Konrad looked at me with a subtle smirk.

"We really should get going. Got a lot of things to move by myself."

"Good, you've got half an hour," Stanley called out as he began to walk off in a hurry.

"That's not nearly enough," Konrad muttered.

"It is if you leave your car in the garage."

He turned back with the naughtiest smile I'd ever seen. It was like he was a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and didn't care, openly eating the biscuit.

"I don't mean for that. It's been far too long."

"I know, right?" I scoffed. "What's it been? A day?"

Konrad stood, lifting me upright as he moved.

"Far too long. Hurry up. We've got a bed to break in."

As Konrad dragged me by the hand to the door, I said nothing. Not even a hint of a smile on my face. He was in for a rude shock, and I wasn't going to say a single thing.