“Let me finish,” Mahon said, his voice calm. “You’ll never fully understand what it’s like and we’ll never fully understand you. But it doesn’t matter. You’re Pack.”

I blinked. I must’ve misheard.

“Why take their abuse?” Mahon asked. “I know it goes against your nature.”

“Because it’s not about me. It’s about the panacea, our people, and a pregnant woman. I can make them eat their words, but it will derail everything. They’re counting on me blowing my gasket, and playing to their expectations helps them and hurts us. I would rather win big at the end than win small right now.”

“And that’s why no matter what happens, you will always be Pack. Because you have that loyalty and restraint.” Mahon raised his hands, as if holding an invisible ball. “The Pack is bigger than all of us. It’s an institution. A thing built on self-sacrifice. We’re a violent breed. To exist in peace, we have to sacrifice that violence. We have to praise control and discipline, and it starts at the top. Having an alpha who is a loose cannon is worse than having no alpha at all. The world is falling around us in pieces and will be for some time. It’s all about stability now, about giving people a safe place, a reassuring routine, so they don’t feel frightened and so they don’t feel the need to resort to violence, because if we go down that road, we’ll either self-destruct or be exterminated. That’s why we build so many safeguards. In time, I’d like to see things change. I’d like the challenges to go away. We lose too many good people to those. But it will come with time, a long time, perhaps years, perhaps generations, and it will start at the top. We lead by example.”

I never knew that about him.

Mahon faced me. “You and us, we have things in common. You know what it’s like to not be ‘normal,’ except in this case you’re the odd one out. You may respect our ways, but you don’t have to try to be something you are not. Some people will take longer to adjust, but in time, you will be accepted just as you are. Not ‘human,’ not whatever, but Kate. Unique and different, but not separate. Kate is just Kate and you belong with us. That’s all that matters.”

I was the badass Consort and he was the grim Pack’s executioner. Hugging him in the hallways would be entirely inappropriate.

“Thank you for your help,” I said.

“Anytime,” Mahon said.

Barabas spun toward the stairs. Lorelei circled the landing and kept going up the stairs, her dark green dress with a diaphanous skirt flaring as she walked.

Barabas inhaled. “Is that . . . ?”

“Now isn’t the time,” Mahon said.