by JL Madore
Lukas frowns. “So, she confirmed your whereabouts immediately before a hostile attack force moved in on your mate at a secondary location?”
Jaxx’s growl fills the air.
Fuck that sound is cool. I wish hawks growled like that.
Jaxx pegs me with an icy glare. “Hawk, if you can’t leash that bitch, I will.”
I nod. “I won’t try to stop you. Still, we can’t move until we know for sure who’s acting against us. Jayne’s a hostile, yes, but I don’t see her undermining the FCO. She’s worked long and hard to move the company forward.”
“If she tracked your travel logs to Oregon, we can’t just take the company helicopter and show up at the Ursine safehouse,” Jaxx says. “We have to be smarter than that. That puts not only our mates in danger but also Brant’s family.”
“Agree.” I sigh, tamping down the screech of my hawk as he realizes my intention. “Lukas, have the pilot change our destination to our corporate getaway property on Vancouver Island.”
Jaxx frowns. “Canada? Seriously? Can’t we figure out a way to get home to Calli to see that she’s all right with our own eyes?”
“We will. I have a boat in Vancouver. We’ll get there, stay a day or two to see if anyone takes the bait, and then tomorrow night or the next, we’ll leave under the cover of darkness and follow the coastline down to Seattle. It’ll be fine, Jaxx. Didn’t you tell me we should spend time hanging out and getting to know one another?”
Jaxx huffs. “Yeah, but I didn’t mean I wanted to give up three days without seeing Calli after she was just kidnapped. I need to reassure my cat that she’s unharmed.”
I close my eyes. “I feel the same way. But, believe it or not, Jaguar, three days without sex won’t kill either of us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Calli
The Kolter ranch where Brant was raised in Washington State is a nine-hundred-acre, farm with four-hundred bison grazing over their sprawling farmland. They have a meat business, a leather business, and run agritourism events on the weekends in the summer for those who want a taste of country life. It’s run by the grizzly Ursine Alpha, General Ben Kolter, and his honey bear mate, Margo.
“Call me Papa Bear. Everybody does.”
My hand is swallowed up by Brant’s foster father the moment we arrive. As impossible as it seems, I’d bet in his prime, Ben was even bigger and brawnier than Brant. “It’s good to meet you, sir.”
“And this is Margo. Our den mother,” Brant says, gesturing to the women with gray-streaked brown hair and kind, denim blue eyes. She’s dressed in a cotton t-shirt, worn, faded jeans, and dirty boots. Hard-working. No airs. I like her immediately.
“It’s a pleasure.”
Margo takes my hand and pulls me into a hug. “The pleasure is ours, Calli. We’ve only been able to get snippets of news from Brant about the quint and what’s been going on. We were so worried when he just drove off that first day. A phoenix rising. It shook our understanding of what we thought we knew but I bet it did the same for you five on a much larger scale.”
I chuckle. “You’d win that bet. I didn’t even know about the existence of fae or wildlings or any of it. Those first days weren’t my best and brightest.”
“Nonsense,” Brant says, hugging my shoulder. “She’s been our beacon since that first moment.”
I roll my eyes and laugh. “Your pants are on fire, Bear.”
Next, it’s Kotah’s turn to face the in-laws. I don’t know if they are aware of Kotah’s status as Fae royalty. Since the morning after his Prime in Waiting swearing-in ceremony, he’s taken the time and effort to conceal the Fae Prime tattoo branded into his cheekbone. He also wears the black, leather choker over the royalty band tattooed around his throat.
To anyone who doesn’t know his station, he simply looks like a handsome wolf wildling with wonderful posture and amazingly long hair.
Brant’s parents must know his station though because the exuberance they showed in shaking my hand and hugging me is gone and they make no move to touch him.
I catch the hurt as it flashes in his eyes.
Brant must’ve caught it too, because he pulls him close and kisses the side of his head. “And this is Kotah, our wolf. He’s the brains of the operation and the soul of our family.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, son,” Papa Bear says.
Please hug him, I think, repeating it in my head. Physical contact with the royal family is forbidden, but Kotah craves the affection so badly it breaks my heart.
Margo and Ben don’t seem sure what they’re allowed—
“Group hug,” Brant says, ending the hesitation and folding us all into the massive arms of him and his alpha. “Bears are big huggers,” he says, making sure his foster parents come in contact with him. “And we’re family now. S’all good.”
Margo takes the hint and gives Kotah a hug. “It’s a pleasure, Wolf. Brant speaks so highly of you.”
A wild ringing from the front porch of the main house brings our attention to the teenaged blonde girl striking the inside of a triangle with the metal wand. “Supper’s up.”
Brant smiles and pats his stomach. “Excellent. I could definitely eat.”
I laugh. “Is there ever a time when you turn down food?”
“No.” Margo and Ben both say at once.
The five of us are still chuckling when we enter the house. Brant takes us into the laundry room off the main entrance and we wash our hands. The room smells like a mixture of laundry detergent and bison manure. My guess is they come in here straight from the barn and shuck off their work clothes before they tromp through the house.
Good plan. It’s not a smell I’d want in my bedroom.
Maybe I’m too much of a city girl to appreciate it.
Dinner is a chaotic affair of close to thirty bears making plates and settling at the table, the island, and in the adjoining family room and den. A cacophony of cutlery clinking plates, chairs scraping, laughter, and people talking over each other is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
Then again. The biggest family I’ve ever had is now with the five of us.
“I was so relieved Grant introduced himself at that field. I didn’t know if I was in Oregon or Maine and am only learning the different fae species and their alignments. To say I felt exposed would be an understatement… and that’s without being naked.”
Margo hugs Grant from behind his chair and kisses his cheek. “Well done. The Fates were with us today.”
“That they were,” Brant says, holding up his wineglass. “We’re forever in your debt, my friend.”
After dinner, Papa Bear takes Brant and Kotah out to the barn to help him with a problem he’s having with a feed chute and I’m left for some private time with Margo.
She hands me a stack of small plates and a handful of spoons and forks. “Help me get dessert sorted for the horde and then the five of us will be able to eat ours in peace and quiet when they’re done in the barn, yeah?”
Peace and quiet sound wonderful.
The young blonde girl, Hadley, carries the pies and Margo’s got a chocolate cake as well as a cheesecake. I set the plates and cutlery down and shake my head. “You didn’t need to go to all this trouble for us. I’m so thankful just to be here.”
Margo laughs. “Oh, honey. This spread is the same as we had last night and the night before that. Bears eat. You get twenty-seven of them in one place, you need the food to fill them. But be sure, we’re happy to have you here too. Brant’s special to us. We wanted a chance to meet his new family.”
I look at all the food and can’t imagine what their grocery bills must be like. No wonder they’re bison farmers. They must have to fill their freezer with meat they raise themselves.
“I’m sorry Jaxx and Hawk missed out,” Margo says. “It’s quite the cross-section you have in your quint. A lot of strong personalities to blend.”
While she cuts the cheesecake, I cut the pies. “We’ve had a few bumps but it
’s coming together better now.”
“Brant and your corporate raider collide I’m sure.”
I nod. “Yeah, Hawk seems to rub Brant the wrong way about almost everything.”
“Be patient with him. He’s not one for authority figures or people making decisions that affect him. He’s hard-headed and opinionated, but he has a good heart and he gets there in the end.”
“Is that because of something in his childhood or has he always been like that?”
Margo shrugs. “Nothing that happened here that I know of. And honestly, we know very little of his life before he was found and brought to us. Either he can’t remember much or he refused to talk about it, we never could tell. Eventually, we let it alone and focused him on looking toward the future.”
I follow her lead and start making plates and pushing them toward the end of the table where the ice cream, whipped cream, and several sugary toppings are. “What was he like as a cub? I imagine him as a bit of a scamp getting into things and getting the others in trouble.”
She laughs. “No. That was Dillan. The two of them have always been inseparable and when D got into trouble Brant was right there following along.”
“Dillan? They were close?”
“Still are.”
“Oh, he’s never mentioned him.”
Margo chuckles. “He’s been with you since day one, honey. Dillan’s our black bear military man.”
“Doc? Oh. I guess I never asked his real name.”
She nods. “Yeah, well, Brant was our introvert. I used to call him my little shadow. When he first arrived, he didn’t change into his boy form for over a year. I don’t know what trauma he suffered, but something cut him to the quick. I didn’t even know what the boy looked like until I caught Dillan playing with him outside in the water barrel. Took me a minute to put it together, but the two have never been far apart since that day.”
“An introvert. That’s hard to picture. He’s very social.”
“Don’t be fooled by the class clown routine. With Brant, you’ve got to look deeper.”
The first wave of dessert takers pass through as we continue making up plates. “Calli, I understand it’s none of my business, but from what I’ve dug up about the phoenix and her guardians, I figured you two would be mated by now. You wear the marking scent of the other three on you, but not his. May I ask why?”
Umm… awkward.
“Honestly, I don’t know why. I feel like he’s less committed as time passes. He’s attentive and protective, but when we were first thrown together, he was all in. Now, I worry he’s having second thoughts. I ask him about it and he swears everything is fine, but it isn’t.”
“I doubt it’s anything as conscious-minded as him knowing what he’s doing or why. Brant is great out of the gate but has trouble connecting. He’s everybody’s friend and the good-time guy but I’d say there are only three people in this world close enough to him to truly know him and that’s me, Ben, and Dillan.”
“I lost my parents and had a bad childhood too. He knows that. I’d think that would make it easier for him to open up to me.”
Margo shrugs. “It took us years to break through Brant’s defenses. Maybe being mated will speed up the process because it’s more binding than us offering an orphaned boy a home, but I’d bet it’ll still take him time to trust in a future with the five of you.”
I sigh. According to the Fae Council and everyone weighing in, time isn’t on our side. We need to align as mates and get ready for what’s to come. “Thanks for the head’s up.”
It’s late by the time we say goodnight to Brant’s Alpha and the half-dozen other bears who live on the property of the Bison farm. Apparently, Papa Bear, is a collector of lost souls. Everyone in the ursine community knows that if a wildling cub is abandoned, orphaned, or without a home, he’ll take them in.
Brant was lucky to be one of his wards.
“You should’ve told me you grew up not knowing your parents,” I say as we bump along the laneway in one of the little golf carts they use to travel on the property. “You had to know I’d understand what that’s like.”
He shrugs. “It’s not the same as what you lived through. The people who took me in loved me. I was safe and nurtured. Sure, I don’t remember much about my biological parents, but the memory of them is so distant, it doesn’t hurt. I consider myself lucky to be part of this family.”
“So, you didn’t want me to feel bad because what didn’t work out for me worked out great for you?”
His smile is sad, and I don’t understand it. “Something like that.”
“Are you sure Kotah’s going to be all right?” I ask searching the darkness for any sign of my wolf.
“Will he be safe to run the acreage for the night? Absolutely. Will he bounce back from the encounter with his mother and his trauma of feeling responsible for your capture? I don’t know. Likely, not any time soon.”
“My poor, sweet prince,” I say, staring through the fencing of the fields, wishing I could catch a glimpse of him before we lock ourselves in for the night. I press a hand on the ache in my chest. “I love him so much.”
“It shows. He knows it too.” Brant gets out of the cart and keys in the code so we can park our little cart before heading back down to the bunker.
“Can we leave some blankets down in case he comes back and he’s locked out?”
“Sure.” Brant opens a tall cupboard in the corner and takes out two thick horse blankets. “He has the code to get in here and I told him if he wants me to unlock the hatch, he can use the intercom.”
I sigh. “I know. He said he wants time to himself. I’m just worried about him.”
Brant does his scanner thing and opens our way and a couple of minutes later we’re sealed into the bunker for the night. We walk, shoulder to shoulder and the tension is weirdly palpable.
“You tired?” he asks as we come to the end of the tunnel and enter the eight-bedroom living quarters.
“No. Full from dinner, but not tired.”
“Would you like a drink? We can shoot some pool in the games room and share a bottle of red.”
“Sure.” In truth, I’ll accept any offer he makes. I need him to let me in. “I’m pretty good at pool, though. You might be sorry you asked.”
The deep bass of his laughter feels strained.
It doesn’t matter. We have the next twelve hours to ourselves. Surely by tomorrow morning, I’ll know what’s up with us. At least, I pray I will.
The games room is furnished with all the testosterone-infused favorites: pool, foosball, darts, ping-pong, a projector screen TV, video consoles, and a bar stocked with enough booze to stay down here for two years if we need to.
I pick my cue and grab the chalk. “Do you want to break or shall I?”
“Ladies choice.”
“Okay, I’ll break, you grab that wine you offered.” While he trots over to the bar, I take out the triangle and rack them up. “What are the stakes?”
He chuckles again. “Do we need stakes?”
“Oh, yeah, I think we do.” I rock the balls forward and position the yellow on the button. “How about… for every ball sunk the other player has to speak one truth or answer one question.”
Brant comes back to the table with two flutes and a bottle. “That sounds harmless enough. Get us started.”
Leaning over the end of the table, I line up my shot and crack the cue ball into the house. Both back corners shoot straight into the pockets.
Brant’s eyebrow shoots up. “You rigged the rack.”
“Says you. If you were worried about cheating, you should’ve checked the setup.”
He chuckles. “Okay, am I offering two answers or are you asking two questions?”
I already know what I want to ask. “I know it’s been asked and answered, but under the oath of pool etiquette, you have to speak truthfully. Are we okay, Bear? You say we are but that’s not at all how it feels. If you’re having second thoughts abou
t me and the mating, I need you to be straight with me. Just be honest.”
Brant’s expression tightens. “Wow. You’re not messing around.” He tips back his glass of wine and draws a deep breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, honestly. I think you’re incredible. I want to connect. I want this mating to work but I keep making excuses to focus everywhere else.”
He gestures between the two of us. “I said I wanted it to be private and special our first time. That was true but since when have I ever cared about that? Then I got so caught up with my distrust for Hawk, I acted like a jackass.”
“True story.”
“My logic was sound, but my judgment was off. I’m usually smarter than that.”
“Everyone has their moments.”
“And the entire time since you resurrected, I’ve been obsessed with finding those kids and I realized last night when you were taken that none of that is real.”
He leans his ass against the air hockey table and drinks more wine. “I considered myself a lady’s man. Yeah, I treated them right and thought I had it going on, but when I think about the ones who came before you, not one of them moved beyond ‘a good time for a short time’. I’ve never had one meaningful relationship. I’m not sure I even know how.”
“You do,” I say sipping from my glass and then setting it on the floor instead of on the felt of the table. Standing directly in front of him, I reach up and clasps my fingers at the back of his neck. “I see you, Bear. I see your strength… and I’m not talking about your big, manly muscles. Your truest strength is how deeply you care for strangers. Like me when we first mated and I was lost, like the plethora of women who came before me, and like those kids you know are out there and in danger.”
“But that’s where things shut down.”
I smile, understanding him for the first time. “You have deep relationships with the other bears in your sleuth.”
“That’s easy. They’re my family.”
“No. They weren’t. Your family was taken from you at a young age. These bears were the people who stepped in and filled that emptiness. They became your family because you let them in. You trusted that they weren’t going to leave you and I’m guessing that took a great deal of time.”