Sebastian looked down at his wife’s sleeping face with a softened expression, feeling the urge to just close his eyes and fall asleep beside her, but this time of the month was not a time he could afford to sleep. Tomorrow was the day he had dreaded for so long that the thought of it sent spikes through his chest. He wanted to stay here, enjoy every moment of this newfound bond between them.

Sebastian had always told himself he didn’t know a name for the kind of relationship he wanted to have with this little woman, who was so small compared to him it had scared him last night, but now he knew. He wanted her. No, he loved her. A very dangerous, risky game he had played that might cost him so much in the future.

He had fallen into something he had tried unsuccessfully to avoid and now that he was in it, he couldn’t let it break. She was now his as much as he was hers.

He slowly traced his fingers around every feature on her face and touched her hair that had gone wild against his arms and the chest she was laying on. He leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to the top of her head, breathing in that intoxicating daisy scent that clung to him like a second skin, and then gently, like a snail crawling, he disentangled himself from her body and laid her properly on the pillow.

She stirred, moved and twitched her fingers that were resting on both sides of her head before she relaxed, exhaled deeply and slept on. Sebastian smiled at that reaction he found dangerously endearing and adorable.

He covered her with the sheets and moved out of the bed, reaching for his robe in the room’s closet. Putting it on, he reached out to Matt through the mind link and almost immediately his friend’s words flowed into his head as if he had been waiting for him to become available.

"You know what, Seb? One of these days," Matt complained, "you are going to make me lose my social life and become old at twenty-nine. I have been trying to reach you to fill you in on what’s been going on here."

"Quit the drama. You are a werewolf, and aging for you is hardly the same as it is for humans. What’s the update?" Sebastian asked, not giving Matt the chance to continue with the complaints that were clearly meant to make him feel guilty.

Unfortunately for Matt, those tactics had stopped working on Sebastian a long time ago. He was already used to them, and besides, Sebastian was fairly certain that if Matt were not occupied with beta duties, he would not know what to do with himself anyway. The werewolf barely had a social life outside of work as it was.

"I have been trying to reach you for hours now. You can’t believe who stepped out demanding the right to the seat." Matt reported. "Javier has laid a claim to the seat. He called for a meeting last night and gave them all the reasons to hand him your position."

"What reasons?" Sebastian’s brows drew together, his eyes never leaving his sleeping Luna despite his displeasure at the news he was listening to. That stupid cousin of his. He should have banished the idiot a long time ago to live with the packless.

"He displayed some surprising energy that came close to people with Alpha blood, it was weak compared to the supreme Alpha but strong compared to a small pack Alpha. You should watch the Silver news across the packs. People are agreeing for him to be crowned rather than leave the seat empty since you don’t have an heir."

Sebastian’s scowl darkened even more like a brooding storm about to rain hell onto earth. His silver eyes turned the darkest shade in rage at this outcome, but despite that intense anger burning in his chest, his eyes softened the moment they landed on the woman turning on the bed in a way that dragged the sheet down her chest, exposing pale milky nipples with hickeys all over them from his handiwork, and he found his lips pulling into a smile as he went forward and adjusted the sheet over her chest.

"Javier is going to dig his own grave sooner than the moon goddess predicted for his fate." Sebastian said unemotionally.

"Is he our man then? Do you think he’s responsible for the assassination?" Matt inquired curiously, as all he needed was the Alpha’s command to send the warriors to catch Javier and put him somewhere worse than where Evan and his Luna were being held. The dungeons in Silver were graded according to one’s crimes, and the biggest criminal got the worst treatment.

Sebastian didn’t even hesitate as he replied to Matt’s question with a, "No. I don’t think it’s Javier. He is too stupid to have any connections to get those weapons made or to manipulate the systems of Silver and wipe clean all the CCTV footage from when Zoe was shot. Javier doesn’t possess the common sense humans have, let alone werewolves."

"What if he has other hidden connections we don’t know about? I mean he could still have gotten those weapons made without anyone knowing. And don’t forget Mrs. Kade. Camila has crazy connections." Matt said, as he couldn’t think of anyone who wanted that seat as desperately as Javier had since childhood. The man was a greedy, short-tempered moron who could do anything to get what he wanted.

"I also got reports that Javier has been moving around the High Tower at night lately. The camera footage caught him sneaking in more than once during the days you were in Nightshade. If that is not a giveaway then I don’t know what is."

"Javier and Camila don’t have the connections to make those bullets." Sebastian said. "I know this because I have people keeping eyes on them, and as for the sneaking, I have already received a report from one of my men. The fool is sneaking out to meet Ember at night."

Matt was taken aback by that. "No shit? You mean Ember, the North pack princess?"

"Do you know another Ember apart from her." Sebastian deadpanned flatly. "The person who reported to me yesterday said it seems he is very taken with her. He is promising to make her his Luna."

Sebastian wasn’t a fool to keep green snakes in the grass without marking them so he could identify them before he got bitten. Camila and her son had been a threat to him since day one, they had made it known what they wanted and Sebastian had acted like he didn’t know.

He kept his enemies close so he could watch them. Every one of them had people keeping a close eye on their movements, which was why Camila’s attempts at assassination had always failed, Sebastian always saw them coming.

Javier, his cousin, got too emotional to keep things cool. He would blow his own attempt even before making it, that was how foolish he was. Sebastian had ruled them both out of this attempt because he knew them well enough.

"Un-fucking-believable. I can’t believe Ember is seeing a mated man. What about Sofia? What is he going to do with her?" Matt voiced out, unable to see how Javier planned to make Ember a Luna while his wife was still alive.

"You could always go and ask him yourself if you are that curious, Matt," Sebastian deadpanned once again as his friend predictably drifted off-topic the moment something juicy came up.

"Oh, come on. Javier is the last person I want to talk to or ask anything. Motherfucker would challenge me to a fight again," Matt remarked with a small laugh. "But still, I can’t believe Ember fell for him. Thank God she didn’t end up becoming our Luna."

He clicked his tongue before waving the matter aside.

"But anyway, man, who do you suspect?" Matt asked, steering the conversation back to their main topic.

"A lot of people. Some of the elders have been acting suspicious, they move around at night but the footage always gets cut off and never shows where they go. Elder Halvrek and Elder Thorne in particular."

"Do you suspect them?"

"I suspect they know who our man is, but we can’t accuse them without evidence, which brings us back to the rat." Sebastian replied, his fingers absent-mindedly moving through her silky hair, stroking it gently, and loving the feel of it on his fingers.