Chapter 201: The Road To Hell Is Slippery

Landon looked at his brother and the looking was not a challenge anymore, it was a warning.

"The elders stripped her as your mate today, Derek. They were going to take her from Thunderfang back to Starborne for sterilization at the end of the month. I claimed her as my fated mate and Luna of Thunderfang before they could."

Derek’s lip curled. "Oh, I’m sure you were just waiting to do exactly that."

A laugh left Landon that sounded like it had been dragged out of him against its will and arrived angry.

"Wrong," he said, voice cold. "I fought for you but I was backed into a corner. She didn’t perform the initiation with you. The High Council forbade us to have you do it. I tried that angle. But that doesn’t matter. She absorbed my aura, Derek, in front of every elder and officer in Thunderfang. That is proof she’s my fated mate. You can hate it all you want, but everyone saw it, including Gran. And she was marked by me, in front of the whole pack, and every soul in Helix knows she’s my fated mate. That’s not a plan. That’s reality. She is mine."

"Backed into a corner," Derek repeated slowly. "That’s a very convenient wall to find yourself against, little brother. The one that just so happens to end with your mark on my mate’s neck."

"For the record," the High Luna cut in, raising her glass, "I told Landon to take her from you days ago. Multiple times. I practically drew him a diagram. Claim the girl. Mark the girl. Make the girl yours before someone else does. We’ll get Derek a new one. He refused because you were in a coma."

Derek stared at his grandmother. "We’ll get Derek a new one? I’m not a dog who lost a toy, Gran."

"You were in a coma, dear. But I bring this up, so he gets credit where it’s due. He did sleep with her every night and carry her everywhere. But that aside, he has a spotless record."

"But that aside," Derek echoed. "That aside. Sleeping with her, buying her things, and carrying her everywhere aside. Other than all of that, he showed tremendous restraint. Is that your testimony, Gran?"

Landon’s head turned toward his grandmother with the slow rotation of a man who had just been defended and insulted in the same paragraph.

"She was in my chambers for her safety," Landon gritted. "I carried her because there was ice outside on the road where she and I went every day, Gran. She had a dislocated shoulder and could have fallen and hurt it more."

"The ice on the road. Naturally." She took a sip of her drink. "Very slippery. Very dangerous. He also bought her things, Derek. Quite a lot of things. For the shoulder, presumably."

"Buy her things?" Derek repeated. "What the fuck did you buy my mate?"

"Clothes, Derek. She had nothing. She arrived with nothing."

"I BOUGHT HER AN ENTIRE CLOSET. SHE HAD CLOTHES."

"He wanted his own closet," the High Luna provided helpfully. "He also bought her a holo band. She wears it every day. Doesn’t use it, but she wears it, which is adorable. Oh, and he had Don shop for her before her initiation. Seven boxes, I’m told. Five thousand for the dress. Two thousand for the shoes. Twenty thousand for the jewelry. He picked out the jewelry. Don got the shoes and dress, because, let’s face it, neither of you would do a good job at that. It was the correct move, Landon. Those are exactly the kinds of gifts a man buys his sister-in-law. Perfectly normal expenditures for a woman you are housing for medical ice-related purposes."

"I was going to get her a holo band. You took that from me." Derek’s voice climbed. "And you personally selected twenty thousand in jewelry for my mate. Tell me that’s not true."

"She didn’t have an ID, Derek. She didn’t have a name in the system. She didn’t have pack protection. She didn’t have a single thing tying her to any legal structure on this continent. The holo-band was so she could exist as a person. The closet was so she had something to wear that wasn’t covered in your blood. I didn’t want her going in and out of your room to change while it’s under investigation and couldn’t move her things into mine."

"He even married her for you, dear," the High Luna chimed in.

Landon turned his head slowly to look at his grandmother. The rotation was slow enough to be measured with a sundial and carried the energy of a man turning to face a firing squad that was his own grandmother.

"Don’t give me that look. You did. You married her while he was in a coma."

"That was because he had to be conscious to sign it. I wanted her to have protection immediately."

The High Luna raised both hands in surrender, which on her looked less like surrender and more like a woman pausing between rounds.

"That’s being reversed. Immediately. I don’t care who has to file what. Undo it," Derek snapped.

She leaned back in her chair the way a woman leans back when the show is getting good and she wants to take it all in.

"You’re third, dear. Emberclaw has her legally at the current moment. Processing period applies. Landon’s filing is second."

"You had her arrested for his attempted murder, Gran," Landon interjected. "You are forgetting that part. You also tried to sell her to Emberclaw."

The High Luna waved a hand like she was clearing smoke from a room. "Details, Landon. Ancient history. We’ve moved past that."

"It was this week. When I asked you to apologize, you served her dishsoap for wine."

"That was an accident."

"You gave her a gift with Celeste’s initials on it."

"Also an accident."

"You gave Maria something from the vault and you gave Nova a bracelet with the tag still on it from the hospital gift shop."

"And she loves it," the High Luna said.