by Jena Wade
I needed to be extra cautious, not letting my weakness become a weakness for my pack. This would be over soon, one way or another, and it was up to me to make it a success.
Memories of all the times she bled me peppered my consciousness as I thought about what needed to be done. What had she done with all that blood, and was my blood really the way to her demise, or would I inadvertently make her stronger?
Eventually sleep did come, sleep out of exhaustion and not orgasmic bliss, and when we woke up and ate the cracker candy goodness, neither of us talked about what was to come, instead focusing on the right now. Our ignoring it wouldn’t make the impending future go away, but the pretense gave us a moment of peace and for now, I’d take it.
Chapter Seventeen
Gio
The mood around the house was rather somber after I explained to Thorne how we would take down the dark healer and the role that he would play.
The next morning, we didn’t say much, just sat together in the living room. I drank my coffee, Thorne drank his tea. He spent more and more time as a human lately, which was encouraging. But we both knew that he’d never have complete control over his shifts, and his life, until we took down the dark healer.
“We really ought to take you to town and get some clothes for you,” I said.
He jumped when I spoke, then looked down at himself. He wore a pair of my sweatpants that were tied tightly around his waist, but still hung loose around his legs. He had folded the bottom of the pants so they didn’t drag on the floor.
“I like your clothes. They smell like you.”
I grinned. “I like having you smell like me, and wearing my clothes, but I’m sure it would be more comfortable if you had something of your own.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really go many places.”
“We can change that,” I said. I had the sudden urge to show him a supermarket. He had probably never been to one, and would marvel at the sight of so many things. So many foods he’d never tried, tastes he’d yet to experience. “We’ve already put out the word that we have a lost wombat shifter here. It’s possible that we could find your family.”
He sighed. “I want to hope that we can, but it is possible that…” He trailed off, and I knew what he meant.
Had the dark healer gotten to them? Or someone else, perhaps? How was it that no one had seen or heard from them for years? Even Sanford, in all of his travels, hadn’t heard anything about them.
Thorne stood and looked out the window. I had noticed that he enjoyed fresh air and being able to do what he wanted, when he wanted. A side effect of being kept in captivity for so long.
“Gio?” His voice hitched in alarm. “Are you expecting someone?”
I stood up and followed Thorne’s gaze outside. A man stood at the edge of the forest behind my house, the treeline that separated my yard from the pack territory. It shouldn’t have been accessible by anyone except a pack member. I growled, my wolf on edge, clawing at me to let him loose to defend our mate.
“I’m not expecting anyone,” I said. I pushed him behind me. “Find my phone and call Byrom. Then hide.”
“Where?” Thorne asked, not seeming concerned at all.
“Anywhere,” I said.
“I don’t get the feeling that he’s a threat.” Thorne’s head cocked to the side, as he contemplated. “He seems nice.” He studied the stranger outside, as if we had all the time in the world.
“Thorne. We don’t know for sure if he’s a threat or not, can you please just—”
Thorne was not listening, though. He was moving, going to the door. He had it open and stepped out onto the back deck before I could catch him.
“Hey!” he called, and he waved his hand. “What are you doing here?”
“Holy full moon, Thorne!” I put myself between my mate and the stranger. I was ready to shift at a moment’s notice. Nothing would threaten my mate, not if I could help it. Even if I was saving him from himself.
The man stepped forward. He put both hands in front of him. “I mean you no harm,” he said.
The hairs on my neck stood on end. “Then why sneak in through our territory and not come in through the front, meet with our Alpha, like a proper shifter would?” Fuck. I may have said too much. I scented the air. What animal was this man? If any? If he wasn’t a shifter, I may have just outed us unintentionally like an idiot.
No, he wasn’t human. But I wasn’t close enough to tell what he was exactly. Or his scent was masked somehow. I couldn’t scent anything on him. If he was human he would smell that way. Without a smell it was obvious he had something to hide.
“I’m lost,” the man said.
“I don’t believe you. Why don’t we escort you off of this property and you can be on your way?”
“Thorne?” the man said. He stepped closer, completely ignoring me and looking directly at my mate.
Thorne hitched in a breath. “Yes?” he squeaked.
The man nodded. “You look a lot like Canin.”
Thorne gripped my arm. “What do you know of my brother? Tell me.” His fingertips turned to claws and the thudding of his heart pounded in my ears as if it were my own. I sent calming vibes his way, hoping that would keep him calm enough to stay human. I was hanging on by a thread myself, so I had to will my wolf down.
“Your brother’s safe. Your family is safe,” the man said.
I wanted to believe this man, wanted to believe that he brought good news to my mate and meant us no harm. But how the hell had he found us? What was he doing here?
“Why don’t you come inside?” I said. “After I call my Alpha,” I clarified. No way was this man getting near me or Thorne when I was without back up.
“I promise, I’m only here to see if this was really Thorne. And it clearly is.”
“Why didn’t you come through the front entrance then and meet with our Alpha?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t be sure if you were all friendly or not.”
Thorne put a hand on my shoulder. “I want to know more about my family.”
I softened. “I know, sweetheart. But we don’t know him. I want to keep you safe.” I kissed the side of his head, then ushered him into the house. I kept my eyes on the man as I got my phone. I sent Byrom an alert to have him come to my home as soon as possible.
It didn’t take long and all of the Betas were there, their mates reluctantly left at home for their safety. Though, I was sure each of them wanted to be here for Thorne. They were his fiercest defenders.
The man who hadn’t introduced himself yet sat at my kitchen table. Four alphas and Thorne surrounded him.
“Who are you? What is your name?” Byrom asked.
“My name is Charming.” The man sat still, his back straight. He didn’t cower under our scrutiny.
“Your name is Charming? What kind of name is that?” I asked.
Thorne slapped my arm. “Be nice.”
“I’m a private investigator or I was, up until a few years ago.”
“What do you know about us?” Byrom said slowly. “I can tell you aren’t human, but am unable to scent you.”
“You are the Greycoast pack. Alpha Byrom, twin brother Lyle. Your mates are Cord and Emmett, respectively. You have one child and another on the way, your brother also has one baby girl and another on the way. Your mates are due around the same time. Your Betas are Kade, mated to Ozzy, they have one child—”
“Okay, okay. we get it. You know us. What are you?” Byrom asked.
The man’s lips twitched. “A bear shifter. I simply masked my scent in order to observe what I needed to observe before letting you know I was here.”
“Why the secrecy?” I asked.
Charming crossed his arms over his chest. “For Thorne’s safety and the safety of his family. When you all started talking about having a wombat shifter here, we got wind of it. We wanted to follow this lead to see if it was real.”
“Where is my family?” Thorne asked. He sat down at the tab
le across from Charming.
“Someplace safe. Where they’ve been since you were taken.”
“My brother?”
“Doing just fine. He welcomed his first baby just last year.”
“He’s mated?” Thorne’s breath hitched.
Charming nodded and his lips pulled into a smile. “To me.”
“You’re my brother-in-law?”
“How do we know what you say is true?” I asked. I put a hand on Thorne’s shoulder to keep him close to me so that he wouldn’t get any closer to the man in question. His body rippled with excitement. I didn’t blame him. This was the first information we had gotten, and it gave both of us a lot of hope. I hated that my mate missed his family. I wanted to provide him with them so he wasn’t alone.
“How is it that you got free from the dark healer?” Charming ignored my question and continued speaking to Thorne. “Your family tried for years, even before I met them, to find you.”
Thorne looked at me, and I exchanged a look with Byrom and he nodded slightly.
We launched into the story about how we tracked the dark healer down after they had abducted Ozzy and brought Thorne back here. We touched on the struggles we’d had since then, but didn’t reveal too much. I sensed this man was telling the truth, but I was not taking any chances.
Charming let out a low whistle. “So you haven’t even been free that long?”
Thorne shook his head.
Charming scrubbed a hand down his face. “Your family had hoped that maybe you were someplace safe, but had forgotten them, had your memory wiped or something. They never gave up hope that you were alive. To know that you were in captivity that whole time…. Mom’s not gonna take it too well.”
Thorne nodded. “Sometimes I have trouble believing how long it’s been.” His eyes glazed over and a wave of sadness hit me. For a moment it was if I watched from the inside of a cage, the world darkened around me and my world grown small. I grasped his hand and squeezed.
“You’re here now. With me, Thorne.”
He shook like he was coming out of a daze and his eyes refocused. A single tear fell down his cheek and I kissed it away. I pulled him to his feet and wrapped him in my arms.
“How soon can we see his parents and brother?” I asked.
“We’re not… far. I don’t want to give away too much information about our location because we’ve kept it secret for many years. If the dark healer—”
“We get it,” I said. “We have a plan, or the start of one anyway, on how to get rid of them.”
Charming’s eyebrows rose. “You have a light healer and pack powerful enough for that?”
I nodded. My confidence rose with each passing moment that my pack was capable of what we had planned. Lissy had never let us down before, and as a pack, we’d been through so much already. We had the strength needed for this.
“Yes. We do,” Byrom said. His confidence in us only solidified what I already felt was true. We were capable of this. “My Betas and I have met this dark healer before. We don’t know a lot about them, but we do know that we can’t allow them to continue hurting others. We will do whatever we can to make sure their evil is eradicated,” Byrom said.
The conviction in his voice filled me with determination. We would do this.
Charming grinned. “Sign me up,” he said. “I can get my family here, to see Thorne. Can we stay under your protection until the dark healer is killed?”
Byrom nodded. “Of course.”
Thorne squealed. “You’ll bring them here? My mom? Canin? …My dad?”
Charming nodded. “And my son as well. Your nephew.”
Thorne sobbed into my shirt as he hugged me. My arms tightened around him.
“Thank you,” I said to Charming. “This… this means the world to him.”
Charming nodded. “To Canin as well. We will see you soon,” he said. “But don’t be surprised if we show up unannounced.”
“We understand.”
Chapter Eighteen
Thorne
My body was thrumming with excitement.
My family was coming. They were coming here. To see me, to meet my mate.
When Charming came, I instantly felt a calm I hadn’t in so long. I understood Gio’s trepidation. How could I not? A stranger appeared out of nowhere, his scent human, but not, his knowledge of us too deep. It sounded like a big pile of set-up wrapped in bullshit.
But my wombat—he could sense my brother even before the man had said his name. Canin was all he said over and over again, almost silently at first, and then building to the point I almost blurted it out first.
My brother was alive and my mother and my father. My father. That was the part that struck me the hardest. My memories of him were all but depleted...so far gone I half-suspected he passed’d before my capture, before this all began.
But he was alive. They were all alive and they were well.
The two days until I could meet them felt like an eternity. I understood why they had to wait. Byrom needed to protect his pack first and foremost, and investigating Charming to make sure he wasn’t somehow connected to the dark healer had to be done.
Knowing that didn’t make waiting any easier.
“Mate,” Gio’s arms wrapped around me from behind as I stared out the window, “a watched pot never boils.”
I leaned back into him. “A watched pot still makes a nice cup of tea,” I teased. “They should be here by now.” What if the dark healer got them? Went unsaid.
“They are going through the proper entry. It will take time to go from arriving to being at our home.”
I turned in his arms. “I won’t really believe it, you know… not until I see them.” And even then it might take a while to fully digest.
“I’m here and if you need a way out… pears.” He kissed my neck. “And don’t feel bad about it if you feel overwhelmed. It’s been five years, your brother was still a child and now? He has a mate and a babe.”
I tried to digest what he’d just said. This wasn’t the family I knew—it was the family they were now. He was right. Being overwhelmed was fine… normal even. But so was feeling like I was about to explode from excitement.
“They’re here.” He spun me around and sure enough, there was Charming leading the group, Lyle taking up the rear. My family was here.
“Should I?” Gio let me go and stepped around to open the door for me.
“Go,” he whispered, and I bolted out the door, past Charming and straight to my parents, who wrapped their arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe. I loved it. I had been held by no one for so long, and Gio’s hugs were great, I loved them, but nothing was the same as being hugged by a parent.
“Thorne, my dear sweet boy,” my mother sobbed, “we thought…” she couldn’t finish her thought. She didn’t need to.
“Mom. Dad. I missed you.” And I did, not even fully realizing how much until I saw them walking up the path… memories rushing back to me, feelings resurfacing. I loved them so much. Of course I did. Yet, somehow in that hug it was as if I felt it for the very first time.
I stepped out of the hug needing to see Canin. “I’m so sorry. I—it was my fault.” Tears broke through as the guilt from that day resurfaced stronger than ever. “I am the one who disobeyed.”
He opened his arms and I stepped right into them, inhaling his familiar scent. “You saved me that day. You withstood years of horror to save me. It is I who is sorry.”
“Papa.” A little sound cut through everything. “Papa, up?”
I looked down to see a small boy barely toddling, yanking on my brother’s pant leg. “Sure, little sprout.” He reached down and picked him up. “I want you to meet someone very special. This is your uncle.”
“Unca?”
“Yes, your uncle. He’s my brother and I love him very much.”
The child reached out for me. “Tortor.”
“That’s right, your Uncle Thorne.”
He reached
out for me and I waited for my brother’s nod of approval to hold him. “What’s your name, little bean?”
“Tortor.”
My head snapped to my brother, who was now joined by his mate. “This is your nephew Thorne.” Thorne. Charming and Canin had named their son after me.
I melted into a pile of sobs and I sunk to the ground and hugged my family. I don’t know how long we were there, but it was quite a while, and many pack members stood around and watched as we embraced each other. I didn’t mind at all.
It wasn’t until much later that afternoon after little Thorne had fallen asleep that Canin told me his version of that day long ago, both of us carrying guilt for things that were not in our control. Both of us taking the blame for evil done to us, but not by us. Both of us agreeing to set that guilt aside and enjoy our present and future together.
And we would, after I helped destroy the evil that separated us all those years ago.
“I figured it was a fitting name to have my little bear named after his strong, brave uncle who put others ahead of himself and could find all the best roots.”
“He’s good at finding fiddleheads too.” Gio came to my side, right where he belonged.
“Things are fine here, then?” Lyle interrupted.
“They are, but you’re welcome to stay. We have lasagna for lunch,” I offered. Lyle loved lasagna. “Or we can pack you up some.”
“Lissy’s?” His eyes went wide.
“Lissy’s.” Gio laughed, bringing the alpha inside for his take away meal.
“You’ve met my mate?” Canin leaned against Charming. It was odd to see my little brother all grown up and mated to the huge bear, but they were oh so happy. And clearly fated, like my mate and I were.
“I have, and he smells much better today.” I scrunched up my nose and Charming burst into laughter. “Let’s eat and talk and maybe you can show me all the baby pictures?”
“I think we can arrange that.” Charming side eyed my brother, who already had his phone out and was scrolling away. “I hope you’re not in a rush.”