Page 66 of Primal Bonds 1

Nolan ruffled Lan’s head. “You poor boy. No wonder you love Adam’s food so much.”

“I like your cooking, too, Master Nolan,” Lan said, giving him a toothy grin.

Nolan chuckled, pleased. “Do you, now? So I’m not such a bad cook, after all.”

Lan said, “Yes, you’re not bad, but Master Adam is definitely a better cook than you are.”

Nolan shook his head. “It’s unfair being compared to a man born with a gift of everything.”

“I’m not gifted with everything, Nolan,” Adam said. “You of all people should know that.”

“Yes. Yes.” Nolan waved nonchalantly.

When dinner was done and the boys disappeared off into Shiro’s room and continued with their seemingly endless catching up of sharing stories and reminiscing the memories of their past, Adam, Chase, and Nolan retired to Adam’s study room, which was located across the living area on the other side of the penthouse away from the bedrooms.

Crossing one leg over the other and taking a sip of his wine, Nolan said, “I hear you two are planning something fun with those filthy rich bastards.”

“What?” Chase asked. “You want to join in?”

“Most definitely,” Nolan said. “Besides, you’ll need me to hack into their memories. I don’t know, passwords, safe codes, bank accounts, and whatever else that could be deemed useful as blackmail, won’t you need those?”

Chase burst out chuckling. “You’re right on that. We’ll definitely need those. Hmm, we might be able to add even more millions as donations to my clinics fromwillingfilthy rich bastards.”

“Right?” Nolan said, chuckling.

Leaning back in his seat, Adam asked, “Nolan, have you figured anything out yet?”

Nolan knew what his brother was referring to and smiled. “What if I tell you that I… may have?”

“Then let’s hear it,” Adam said. “I can’t afford to have my life essence this low for too long.”

Nolan snorted. “You know it’s dangerous, both for your life and the clan’s, and yet you still go nonchalantly giving it away just to save a boy, and I bet he doesn’t even know it. That little fox would have been dead, I bet, if you didn’t give him some of your life essence.”

Chase raised a brow. “So my suspicion is correct? You did give Shiro some of your life essence, Adam?”

Adam nodded. “Mm-hmm. If I didn’t, Shiro wouldn’t have survived. His body was already very weak from malnutrition and other shit that happened to him even before the beating. Tony and his gang gave him the final blow.” He sighed, remembering the horrendous sight and condition Shiro had been in. “He had multiple bone fractures and organ failure. His heart was very weak and I knew it’d stop if I didn’t do something.”

Chase nodded. “In that case, life essence would be the best option. No way a surgery would have helped, with multiple organ failure. Even if you did get him to me in time, I wouldn’t be able to save him throughnormalmeans.”

“Mm-hmm,” Adam agreed.

Nolan sighed. “All right, so the situation called for it. I wouldn’t want to see a fellow beastkin die from shit like that, and more especially the likes of a boy that beautiful and a boy my brother has taken under his angelic wings. Come to think of it, Shiro is kind of like my nephew now that Adam has adopted him.”

Chase chuckled. “True. Aren’t you lucky, Nolan, to have such a beautiful nephew.”

Nolan snapped his fingers. “Which means this beating the shit out of those filthy rich bastards is calling out to me. Seriously, what man doesn’t want to avenge his nephew?”

Adam chuckled. “You’re going off topic, Nolan. And I haven’t adopted Shiro. Can we get back to the subject of life essence, please?”

“Still the same. You taking Shiro under your angelic wings translates to you adopting him,” Nolan said. “But yes, life essence, let’s get back to that. Ways to increase an alpha’s life essence are, as you both know, through sucking it out of another alpha by either beating them into submission or murder, obviously.”

Chase sighed. “Which is why it’s never safe for an alpha to be too unguarded because one never knows when an alpha psychopath decides to go on a killing spree just so he can become an almighty.”

“Aren’t we glad New York City has three big clans with powerful alphas to keep each other in check?” Nolan said.

Chase continued for him. “But with Adam’s life essence down, that balance of power is no longer in place.”

“Only if the other two find out though,” Nolan said.