Forever in the Past and Forever in the Future

Bronx’s POV

Diane offers to keep Kas company in the apartment while we work out a plan on how to Keep her and Tessa safe from the rest of the Manae. I feel better knowing she is a nurse and Kas trusts her. When I get back in the afternoons, she reports that Kas mostly sleeps and spends a lot of time in the shower. Almost every day, after I dismiss Diane, Kas lets me hold her while she continues to cry from the lingering pain. I don’t know how else to help her and it’s killing me. She doesn’t leave the apartment except to come downstairs for dinner. She insists being with the pack will lift her spirits up.

Delilah comes to the apartment every evening after dinner with her bag of potion ingredients. She and Kas spend an hour with the bedroom door closed meditating and trying different remedies to help ease Kas’s pain and help her sleep. Some nights it seems to help. Other nights, I have to hold my sweet little mate while she whimpers and cries to her mother for mercy. I feel completely helpless. There is nothing I can do but be there for her.

Delilah easily convinces Kas that she shouldn't come back to work until she feels better and until there are fewer reporters hanging around in front of the bakery. They decide to let Kas work on accounting and purchasing from home while Delilah takes care of operations. To cover for Kas’s extended absence, the PR team puts out a statement that Kasis really shaken up by what happened at the charity event and is choosing to spend time out of the public eye for a while.

I meet with my Betas, Gammas, James, Marco, and Tessa every day, working out details on a better security plan. After a long three days, we all finally agreed on a strict strategy that ends just short of putting motion sensors in Tessa’s suite and my apartment. We place extra guards and put as many technological upgrades in place as we can in the packhouse and around the perimeter of the territory. Delilah sets up various wards around the packhouse and territory, but she explains she doesn’t know if they will work against attacks from deities.

Milo and Reggie go dark with their teams for a few days to handle the security breach at the hotel in Greece. Tessa could only provide limited information on Santoro Enterprises’ existing security systems since Alexandros and Katherine handled all of it. She gave us dozens of international locations to search to get whatever it is they needed.

“I don’t know what video and audio files you're talking about, Bronxy?” Milo smirks at me when they get back from wherever they have been, “And neither does anyone at Santoro Enterprises or Golden Mountain pack.”

“Even from the Australian servers?” Tessa crosses her arms, challenging him.

“I didn’t have time to get a boomerang from the airport gift shop. I was only able to get this,” Milo opens his duffle bag and pulls out five blade server cartridges, “There were fifty total in there, but these were the five that were

“Locked in the vault?” Tessa asks with her jaw wide open.

“Yeah, how did you know?” Milo gives her a goofy grin.

“Those...oh my Goddess...those are our files,” she stares at the cartridges wide eyed.

“No shit, Tessa. We got them from a Santoro Enterprise facility,” Milo raises his eyebrows and nods slowly at her, then hands the pieces to James, “ Careful, my dude, they're heavy.”

I watch Tessa rub her fingers on her forehead the same way Lenora does when she’s frustrated, “No Beta, you don’t understand. Those are OUR files.” “Can you give us some more detail about what's on the server blades, Tessa?” I ask before she gets mad at Milo.

“We used to have a library with all the information about each of the Manae, but once the technology was available, we switched it to be all digital. If those are the five blades from the vault, you have every bit of historical information there is to have about the five leaders of the Manae. Between the five of us alone, there is close to forty thousand years’ worth of data. Images of ancient scrolls, translations of tomes, born and death dates, identities throughout the years, information about our abilities. Everything,” she stops short and looks at Milo, “Wait. That vault requires biometrics from multiple people to get in. How did you do it?”

Milo holds his finger to his mouth like he’s keeping a secret and whispers, “ Black ops”.

James looks at the contents in his hands in awe. We watch him back out of the room, “I gotta go. I know just the person to help me with these. We've got work to do. I'll keep you posted!” “Arrogant Beta you got there, Bronx,” Tessa murmurs, smirking at Milo, who is pretending to swing a baseball bat and pointing to his imaginary home run.

“Yeah, he drives me fucking crazy, but I wouldn’t be here without him,” I lean back in my seat and watch him celebrate his acquisition.

Tessa leaves to meet with Marco and Musu. They have been discussing the inner workings of the Manae for the past several days so we can get a better understanding of how they operate in case we need to attack. When she can handle it, they discuss how cold and ruthless Katherine can really be.

When they report back to me, I’m not surprised by their findings. It turns out Katherine will do anything to keep power over the Manae. The more power she has, the happier and the more dangerous she is. Since Kas is the only one who is able and historically willing to challenge Katherine's position, she will do anything to get rid of her youngest sister. Even if that means killing her before Cora is reborn. If Cora isn't reborn, Kas can't be either. If neither Kas nor Cora are alive, Katherine will find a way to gain control of the Mavri Magea and the Agrios. Amari’s submissive Giatros will fall in line now that she is gone. By the time she is reborn and ready to take her place, it will be too late. Tessa’s obedient Frouros will bear the same fate.

kkk

I'm checking the last email in my inbox on Saturday when there’s a knock on

the door. I look at my watch, four forty- five p.m.

“Come in!”

The door opens slowly and I hear a high pitched little giggle as Codi toddles into the room with Lenora behind her. Even

Saint's brooding mood lightens up at the sight of her.

“Codi!” my smile is instantaneous. I put my arms out to her. She squeals happily when I pick her up and pretend to nibble on her cheek.

“Uncle Box!" she claps her hands at me. '

“Milo taught her that,” Lenora smiles, “ and now she keeps asking for you and for Kas. I figure, at least give her one of you guys.”

Lenora sits in the seat across from me and watches me play with Codi to get her to say Bronx.

“How's Kas? I mean, when she’s not faking to be happy at dinner,” Lenora asks with a tilt of her head.

“I can't say she’s doing great, but I don’t know what else to do,” I glance at her before I turn my attention back to Codi, letting her yank on my fangs and pretending to snarl at her. Her laugh gives me a couple minutes of distraction until it’s time for her and Lenora to leave.

“Bronx?”

“Yeah?”

“Everything is going to be okay,” Lenora reaches over the desk and squeezes my arm.

“I hope you're right, Lenora.”

“I love you, Big Brother.”

“I love you too, Leni. I love you too.”

“Uncle Box, Codi lub you.”

“And Uncle Bronx lubs Codi,” I give her a raspberry on the cheek before I hand her back to her mom.

I wait a minute until they leave and savor the silence before I get up and head to the apartment.

The smell of baked goods gets stronger as I get closer. When I turn the corner, I see Tyree on guard with two to-go containers on the bench next to him.

“Hey Tyree. Did Diane bake for you?” I ask him, already knowing that she didn't.

“No Alpha, the Luna must feel better. She's been baking all day. Diane wanted to give me more, but there’s only so many cookies a guy can eat. I’m gonna give those to Mom and Dad,” he says with a smile.

I nod with a little smile, glad to hear Kas is back to her old self, but when I open the door, I can’t believe what Iam seeing. Dozens upon dozens of cookies, muffins, cupcakes are stacked in containers all over the apartment. Pies and cakes in various stages of cooling are covering almost every surface that doesn't have a container.

Diane comes rushing out of the kitchen when she hears me come in, “Alpha, sir, I-I don’t know what happened. One minute she was sleeping, the next she insisted she needed supplies for baking and once the kitchen staff brought up what she needed I blinked my eyes and there was...well...this...”

“You blinked your eyes and there was this?” I look at her unconvinced.

“Yeah, not an exaggeration,” she looks at me with wide eyes, “The Luna won't stop baking. She says she needs to get the energy out of her system.”

“Okay, Diane. I got it from here. You can go home. Take some of these containers with you, please. Hand them out to whoever wants some.”

“Y-Yes, Alpha.”

I make my way to the kitchen where Kas is decorating cookies to look like little autumn leaves.

“Kas, did you freeze Diane and Tyree?” I ask calmly, even though inside Iam upset that she keeps freezing our pack members.

“Just for a little while, I needed more time. I just need more time, Bronx,” she puts down the icing bag and turns toward me. Her eyes are watery like she was crying and she has a little bit of icing on the tip of her nose.

“Baby, you and I have no idea how much time we actually have left in this life,” I step forward and take her by the shoulders, “Just like everyone else, we don’t know what is going to happen. The future isn’t set in stone. Everything is going to be fine. Just please, stop freezing people in time because that isn’t going to solve anything, okay?” She gives me a little frustrated look, “ Okay. Um, I need to let Lex out. She’s driving me crazy. I spoke to Marco and he said he and James and a few other guards can escort me to the western part of the territory on Monday. There shouldn't be anyone out there.”

“That's good, Kas. That will be good for both you and Lex to get out of the pack house for a while,” I pull her closer to me for a hug.

Even with as much as she’s done today she still feels like her energy is practically vibrating trying to get out of her.

“Yeah. It will be good,” she murmurs into my shirt.