"Cole," I said, sighing, gazing at my pacing mate in the living room. "Will you please just sit down?"

He was adamant on doing the house work- even though he had only awoken from being unconscious the other day. He had made a full recovery, and we had my blood to thank for that. I had made sure that I had dropped round a beautiful bouquet of handpicked yellow and red flowers to the nurse that had come up with the theory.

She had basically saved Cole's life.

I couldn't describe how happy I was that he was okay and at home with me. I had promised myself that I was never going to take him for granted again. I was going to enjoy every moment with him.

My shirtless mate placed the duster in its designated cupboard, turning to me and shaking his head. He had been on edge since waking up. He had demanded I told him everything that he had missed, and he was more than on board with our plan. I had been blushing for practically an entire day when he expressed how proud of me he was. He has told me I was Alpha female material.

"Let me do it," I muttered as I tried to take the vacuum from his hands, but Cole scowled, pointing back to the dining chair I had been seated on.

"No, you're pregnant," he stated. "I'm doing it."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, I'm pregnant, but you just woke up from being shot with a wolfsbane bullet."

Cole's eyes travelled down to my side where my wound had once been. I had been given his blood shortly after he had woken up, and I had healed within ten minutes. It was incredible. My muscles stopped aching and my headache diminished. My skin knitted itself back together and the colour returned to my skin. It was as if I hadn't even been shot.

I wasn't putting up with Cole's stubbornness though. I had promised him that I would do the house work while he sorted out the fine-details of our plan, but he wanted to take on both tasks. We hadn't found the time to clean the house for a while, and today was the first day we had had a free moment.

We were waiting for the wolves that had been granted access to the nearest pack near here to return. They had gone in search of their mates, and would ask them to come back to the pack with them if they discovered them.

Of course, we knew that there was always the chance that their mates could decline, but Cole doubted that it would happen. The mate bond was almost impossible to deny. We had learned that the hard way.

"Reya, sit down," Cole ordered, making me smile, and he growled playfully, crouching down to my level and cupping my cheeks. "Why are you so intent on defying me?"

I laughed. "Because it's fun."

Cole hummed. "Oh, is that so?"

He leaned in for a peck, but I deepened the kiss, hearing Cole groan as he gently tugged me closer to him with his hand that wasn't clutching the vacuum. Running my tongue along the front of his teeth, I felt him shiver, and I took my opportunity to yank the vacuum from his hand, making my way over to the cupboard and throwing it in.

Cole watched me with narrowed eyes, allowing me to take control. I knew that he secretly loved it. He had explicitly told me that it was a turn on.

"How long have we got until the meeting?" I questioned, trying to change the subject so that Cole didn't try to move past me and begin cleaning again. He had already dusted and mopped, and I was intent on finishing off the rest tonight.

My mate widened his eyes, glancing at the clock on the dining room wall. "I told Rowan we would head over there a little earlier that everybody else, so actually, we need to leave in a minute."

Cole had requested that meetings were held at Rowan's house from now. He claimed that he wanted no more negative energy inside of our home, explaining how all he really ever thought about was work. He wanted our house to be our safe space and a place where we could both relax and forget about our stresses. I had agreed and so had Rowan.

Grabbing my coat, I yanked it on, and Cole disappeared upstairs to get dressed. I quite enjoyed watching him clean shirtless- in nothing but dirty low hanging jeans. I was going to get an apron for him to wear for sure. The image of him vacuuming in nothing but a maid apron with his ass hanging out made me laugh.

The walk to Rowan's was pretty quiet, both of us taking in the sun. It wasn't summer yet, but it wasn't cold either. I enjoyed the temperature. Although the wind around these parts was a bitch. My hair was almost constantly knotty from being swept around my face.

Rowan invited us in with little to no enthusiasm, and I glanced to the side of his living room to take a look at the communication device he had taken from Bill. Cole and him had been examining is last night, and they had come to the decision that it was to be destroyed.

It was too risky to have it around here, even though they had come up with the idea that they could learn from the technology. It wasn't worth it though.

Rowan unrolled a large map of the surrounding area onto the dining table, and I gazed at it, immediately spotting the area that Bill had told me the rich colony was. It was quite a way away from us, and would probably take at least a day to travel there.

The discussion didn't begin until everybody had arrived, and once Kassandra and Anthony had walked through the door, we began.

I could tell that Rowan was silently questioning why Anthony was here, but he had wanted to prove how much he wanted to sort this out since Amber had a part in this. I had asked Amara to join too since I trusted her and her input, but she was working with the kids. I could tell Rowan was secretly glad though. He was a self proclaimed moody bastard, but with good reason really.

"Alright, so according to Bill, the clan is situated North of these trees. It's a large colony with over one thousand members, but he believes that only about three hundred of them are actually hunters- possibly more now though. They'll be recruiting."

"So have we," Cole reminded me, nodding. Fighters who hadn't made it as warriors in the past had been accepted now. We needed the numbers, and the wolves that weren't as skilled had promised to attend extra classes and run every morning. I often saw them sparring in the space behind our house. They appeared to be improving tremendously and I was proud.

"We probably have almost two hundred warriors, but we're more powerful than them," Cole said, his eyes focused in on the area that I had circled in bright red pen. "The colony have been trying to taunt us with the videos of Finn, and it's clearly their way of asserting their dominance."

Rowan laughed unironically. "If they wanted to assert their dominance, they should have taken a wolf instead of a human."

Kassandra scowled at him, and he scowled right back. Rolling my eyes, I stepped between the two so that they couldn't see each other, and I directed their attention back to the map, gesturing for Cole to continue.

Kassandra had been informed of the video of Finn, but the detail had been left out, and Rowan had claimed that it had been deleted. We all knew it was just because he didn't want her to see it though, and a part of me thought that Rowan actually cared about her wellbeing.

Otherwise, he would have handed her the laptop and loaded up the video ready for viewing. I had a feeling it was because he knew what it was like to lose the love of your life.

"They won't be expecting us to come for Finn," Cole said. "They don't believe that we'll put ourselves at risk for a human. However, I don't doubt that the thought has crossed their minds. They'll be prepared just in case." Cole leaned across the map, pointing on the outskirts of the colony- the part furthest away from us. "They won't expect us to attack from this side. They know that our pack is in the other direction. We also need to make sure it's dark out. Our eyesight is much better than theirs, and that will work to our advantage."

Anthony furrowed his brows. "Won't that take about two days? You'll be cutting the travel time in half if you attack from here." He pointed at the trees closer to our pack.

Cole shook his head. "I'm aware of that, but the element of surprise is going to be our best friend in this instance. My idea is that Finn will be being held somewhere near here too, since they'll be wanting to keep him further away from where they believe we'll attack."

We all nodded in understanding.

"What about all of the blood we need to store? It'll need to be refrigerated," Anthony said, and I nodded.

"Nurses are going to be travelling with us. All warriors will be injected with the blood of their mates before we attack. We have cool boxes we can bring with us," I said, and this caused Anthony to hum, a small smile playing on his lips.

Cole tapped his fingers against the wooden table, biting on his lip as he thought. "The wolfsbane trials have been scrapped since this new theory has come into play, correct? Doctor Rygard said something about it."

I nodded. "Doctor Rygard didn't see the point in continuing it since this has worked. He's still keen to test everyone's resistance to human blood though, and he collected some of Kassandra's yesterday. His thinking is that if he injects the warriors with it before you weaken, then perhaps you won't feel the need to kill the host of the blood as the body will become used to the scent and may view it as part of them. It's just a theory right now, but we're going to test it next time you weaken."

"Test it how?" Anthony asked.

"Spreading some human blood around and seeing if the injected wolves react to it when weakened," I stated, shrugging. "It's a long shot and we'll still evacuate just in case, but there's no harm in trying."

I had read in the book I had discovered in the library a while ago that Cole needed to claim me in front of his pack members when they weakened to stop them from attacking me, but I was a little too afraid to test out the theory yet. Especially since I was pregnant. I was not risking it.

However, the ides of not having to evacuate every six months sounded great. I wouldn't need to click the mountain tirelessly, afraid that a wolf from my own pack was going to slit my throat open.

Cole hummed. "He mentioned the experiment yesterday to me, and I'm definitely interested to hear more about it. We didn't have too much time to talk."

Rowan cleared his throat. "Anyway, back to this." He gestured to the map. "Do we know when the unmated warriors will return from the packs they are visiting? They left early this morning."

"They should be back anytime now," he responded. "If any of them have returned with mates, we'll collect their blood." His jaw tightened, and he scrunched his eyebrows together. "Then we'll head off. We have a two day travel to get through, and we need to get to that colony as soon as possible. Finn's life is hanging in the balance."

•••

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