Home is Where the Heart Is (Cloverleah Pack Series Book 15)

by Lisa Oliver

  “Yeah, about that. You didn’t miss your patrol shift.” Cass waited as the puzzle pieces fell into place.

  “But how? Who? Couldn’t they tell by the difference in scents an imposter wasn’t me? When did they realize the imposter wasn’t the real me?”

  “I don’t know all the details, babe.” Cass knew the conversation was only going to get worse, and despite being worried he’d be left with looking after eleven kids permanently, just so he could claim his mate, Cass knew his mate deserved an explanation. “From what I was told, the night after the dark elves were rendered useless, someone called from the San Antonio pack and said that the Wesley they had in the jail there was suddenly a pile of clay and sticks – a golem, in other words. The magic used to animate him must have died when the dark elves went into stasis. It wasn’t until then that the pack realized you were actually missing.”

  “Hang on one fucking minute.” Wesley shot up, his fists clenched, a bundle of clothes tumbling at his feet. “You’re telling me, that my substitute fucked up badly enough to end up in a shifter jail and yet, none of the pack, with all their fucking powers or anything else, knew there was anything wrong until after the dark ones were vanquished. They didn’t even notice they had a golem in their mix?”

  “Apparently not.” Cass held out his hand to his mate, who ignored it. Ouch. Cass used the same hand to rub the ache in his chest.

  “What did I do?” The pain and anger radiated from Wes in waves. “What did the fucker do to have me thrown in the fucking San Antonio jail?”

  Cass closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “I don’t know all the details, but I was told your double tried to seduce Cathair, Marius’ mate in a shower, using zombie dust to enforce a hard on, and he came close to succeeding. Apparently, he was trying to break up the mating on the dark elves’ orders to sow dissention in the pack and weaken the bonds between the other mates. You know, it’s quite interesting, how allergic to love those dark ones…”

  “I don’t give a shit about the dark ones’ bloody psyche,” Wesley roared. “And you have the gall to sit there, all calm and logical, when you lied to me from the moment we first talked.”

  “I did not lie to you ever.” Cass didn’t take kindly to the slur.

  “Oh yeah?” Wes challenged him. “You told me the pack were looking for me. They’d employed the gods and even Death himself to try and find me. I’d already been put in jail so that is BULLSHIT!”

  “Why else would I be looking for you then? It’s not as though I knew who you were until a couple of weeks ago.”

  “So, what? You take me back and I end up in the San Antonio jail to pay for the sins of a fucking double I didn’t even know existed?”

  “No, the pack…”

  “The pack want a scapegoat, just like the dark elves wanted a spy. Fuck, do you have any idea how sacred a true mating is to wolf shifters? Can you sit there and tell me with all honesty, hand on heart, a vow on our fucking mating bond, that Marius won’t want to rip my throat out the moment he sees me? Can you? Because, he’s a fucking assassin – he’d have me dead in seconds after seeing me if Adair or Teilo didn’t get me first.”

  “They talked…”

  “Fuck, there’s no way I can go back, now.” Wes stomped around the laundry, all of Cass’s neat piles of clothes flying everywhere. “None of the pack members will ever trust me again. Vassago will probably zap me to some djinn eternal firepit or something equally horrid, or the Fae will send me to the ice realm. Shawn and Kane…” Wes’s voice caught in a sob. “They’ll never take me back. I’ve lost them. I’ve lost my pack. The first and only pack who ever made me feel welcome and all because of something I didn’t even do.”

  “Wes, it’s not like that. They’re worried about you.” Cass wanted so desperately to hold his mate close, but he didn’t think the move would be welcome.

  “Are they truly worried about me, or more like worried you would find me?” Cass could see tears lingering on Wesley’s lashes. “Why else would they send a demon, if they truly wanted me found?”

  Cass was sure there was an insult in there somewhere. “What’s wrong with using a demon? No one else can access the Underworld like we can, and here was the only place left in all realms you could be.”

  “You were sent on a fool’s errand. I can tell you that for nothing. They never expected me to be found, but sending you means they are going through the motions of caring, because it was expected of them. When in truth they’d be happy if I was dead and buried so I could be wept over and forgotten just as quick. Fine. They’ll get their wish.”

  Wes looked around at the scattered piles of kiddy clothing on the floor. Cass knew it wasn’t a good sign when his mate wouldn’t even look at him. “I want you to take the kids. I know it will mean more than one trip, but I’ll be here to care for the ones left, until they are all at Cloverleah. Those baby shifters deserve a proper home, where they can run under the sun and the moon and learn about growing up on the earth realm. Make sure Kane and Shawn know they are all to be kept together – if the pack won’t take them, then they can go to San Antonio, or Denver, or even the Tulsa pack, but they are all to stay together. Give me your word, you’ll make sure that happens.”

  “Of course, I will, I promise.” Cass felt a fissure of panic under his breastbone. “Then I’ll come back and get you. We don’t have to go to Cloverleah. We can go anywhere…”

  “No.” Wes shook his head violently, causing his unshed tears to run down his face, as he stumbled towards the door. “I know you don’t get this, or understand how I feel, but my life is over. The only thing that kept me going through all this time was the fact that I had a pack to go home to, and now, I clearly don’t. I’m just glad I didn’t bite you the way I so desperately wanted to, but you deserve so much better than me. You’re damn near immortal, so I know you’ll be all right, and I pray the Fates will grant you another mate real soon – someone a lot less broken than me. Please, as a last boon to me, please take the children to Cloverleah.” The slam of the door had a finality about it, and somewhere in the house Cass heard a baby start to cry.

  “I don’t want another mate,” Cass whispered. “I just want you. Fuck, mate, we could go anywhere. You didn’t need a pack. We would have had each other.” But, guessing there was more to Wesley’s cryptic comments than he knew, Cass decided to deal with the more immediate problem, one highlighted when wee Frankie opened the door and poked his head around.

  “Wes says you’re taking us to a real pack, with sunshine, and lots of food and people who’ll love us,” he said grimly.

  “The Cloverleah pack are apparently good at that – feeding and loving at least.” They didn’t do right by my mate. “Are you okay with that idea?”

  “Beats the heck out of staying here and having to feed babies through the night.” Frankie shrugged. “Is there any chance I’ll get my own room?”

  Cass slid off the washing machine. “There are a lot of couples at Cloverleah; I think they are all true mates, and they are all male couples or ménages. What I suggest, is that I’ll take you with the first wave. You size up the groups you see, and then you pick who will go with what couple, right? Because you know what they need, and then, when you’re doing the picking, you pick out the couple you want to live with. It’s okay, they all live on pack grounds, so you’ll see the others anytime you like, but you pick out your people, all right?”

  “And tell them I want my own room? After all this crap, I have to have my own space.”

  It always amazed Cass how someone could still smile when their heart was broken. “If you pick a couple who doesn’t take any of the others, I can guarantee you’ll have your own space. Mated couples prefer sleeping alone, if you get my drift.”

  “Well, I sure learned what the stink of arousal was after being around you and Wes the last couple of days.” Frankie crossed his arms as if daring Cass to contradict him.

  “Yeah, well, speaking of my mate, I need to get you lot move
d so I can patch things up with Wes. He’s not very happy with me at the moment.”

  A look of indecision crossed Frankie’s young face. “He’s not coming with us, is he? I thought it was his pack we were going to, but when he told me we were going, he never said anything about himself.”

  “Those dark ones didn’t only fuck with your lives, Frankie. They did a huge number on Wes’s too. He doesn’t think he’ll be welcome there and he doesn’t believe me when I tell him he is, so it’s something I have to work on, after you’re all safe.”

  “We’ll tell them,” Frankie said decisively. “We’ll tell that pack just how amazing Wes is and how he jumped in to help us when we didn’t have no adults around. And then… and then… if they don’t agree to have him back and make him feel like he belongs, then we’ll all threaten to leave with you and him, and we can have our own pack somewhere else, right?”

  Oh, Lucifer’s balls, please no. Cass nodded anyway. Because even as a demon, he recognized Frankie’s staunch loyalty for what it was, and he wasn’t going to diss that in any way. “Let’s go introduce you to some new prospective parents.”

  Chapter Seven

  The house was silent, except for the ticking clock. Wes had laid on his bed behind a closed door, unmoving, hearing the kids prepare to leave. Carrie wanted her doll; the triplets didn’t want to shift long enough to put clothes on and Wes heard Cass grumbling that they could go as they were. Zeke, the sweet sloth was worried that no one would pick him to live with them when he learned they were all predators in the pack. Wes could’ve told him, anyone of the couples would have taken in the cute little boy and loved him for all time.

  Frankie, so precious and so grownup, insisted bottles needed to be taken for Emily, Terry, and Tommy in case they didn’t have any on pack grounds, as well as diapers and wet wipes. Wes wanted to tell them that so many of the pack had magical powers, it wasn’t as though the kids would ever be deprived of anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to watch any of them go.

  None of them were mine, he told himself angrily as tears formed for the tenth time in the past hour. Now the pack is safe every one of those little ones will have an awesome and amazing pack life for as long as they want it.

  Unlike me. Alone, except for that damn clock, that sounded suspiciously like the drip Wes remembered from his cave, he could feel the pain and shame of actions done in his name covering both of his spirit halves. To attempt to interfere with a true mating, and even use magic to do it, was the greatest of all crimes a shifter could commit.

  The only thing Wes didn’t understand was why Kane and Shawn insisted on his doppelganger being detained at the San Antonio pack jail, instead of allowing Marius to kill him instantly. It was an automatic death sentence, but then if his double had mentioned working with the dark ones, chances are Kane and Shawn would’ve thought they might get more information out of him, the golem, or whatever. Shawn was canny like that and always seemed to look at the bigger picture. But Wes could imagine how livid Marius would’ve been, seeing his claimed mate with another man in such an intimate situation like a shower. Someone must have held him back, he thought imagining how he would feel, if someone approached Cass that way…

  Fuck. Fresh sobs erupted, and Wes was too tired to stop them. He’d sent Cass away, he was the one who rejected his mate and while it seemed like the right and honorable thing to do at the time, after being alone for hours, Wes realized a tiny part of his heart had hoped that Cass would come back anyway, once the kids were safe. But the time was marked by the ticking of the clock, and the demon didn’t come.

  /~/~/~/~/

  “Where’s Wesley?”

  The pack house was in chaos, just as Cass thought it would be. As soon as Kane realized how many children were coming and that they didn’t have parents of their own, he sent out a group text and the living room was flooded with men, all willing and wanting to give the shifter children a home. Just as Cass had instructed, Frankie took charge, explaining to each prospective set of parents the needs for the child or children that flew to the adults for safety, choosing his own special couple for himself.

  But now the house was quieter, Shawn upstairs with the two wolf cubs he and Kane had taken, and Kane was grabbing Cass by the arm and stopping him from leaving, which was not a good idea considering Cass had one more stop to make before getting back to his mate.

  “You said you found Wesley looking after the children. Why didn’t he come back with you?”

  The day an alpha wolf shifter could intimidate Cass was the day he turned up his boots and sucked dirt. “Why do you care?” He pointed across the room where Marius and Cathair were sat huddled together on the couch, throwing suspicious looks in his direction every five minutes. “Those two are shitting themselves, worried that I’ll bring Wes back. Fucking oath, I didn’t see it before, but my mate was right.”

  “Mate? What the hell are you talking about?” Kane growled. “Marius and Cathair have a right to be concerned, but we want Wesley back. He can fill in a lot of details about how the dark ones infiltrated this pack in the first place.”

  “Oh, I see.” Cass allowed his demon form to take over his eyes and steam poured from his nose. “You don’t care about Wesley’s wellbeing, or where he was held, or even if he was all right? No, you just want to pump him for information about beings that are already fucking frozen and buried. What about what Wes has gone through all these months, while you’ve been sitting pretty, thinking your shit don’t stink?”

  “Of course, we’re worried about him. We asked you to find him, didn’t we?”

  “But you never said why.” Cass could feel his second form taking hold. “When I first told Wes that I’d been sent to find him, the hope and joy in his voice was overwhelming. He truly thought he wasn’t worth finding. But then, I was the one who had to tell him why you’d only just started searching for him, and I was the one who had to explain why the shell of himself was in the San Antonio pack jail. And do you know what he plans to do? Do you?”

  The last words were roared as Cass manifested himself in his true form. Cathair and Marius jumped up, hurrying to flank the alpha, Cathair had his hands raised, and Cass felt the tingle as magic was used against him.

  “You piffling fool,” he sneered at the elven battle lord. “Your magic won’t work on me, and neither will your sword, claws, or teeth. I’m not going to kill your precious alpha. I’m not going to kill anyone in this worthless pack, but only because that would break Wes’s heart, and his is battered enough. He’s down there, where I left him because he asked me to see the kids were safe. He’s alone, planning on ways to take his own life. He’s going to kill himself or at the very least let himself pine away to nothing, all because of what a fucking golem did in his name.”

  “Why is he feeling guilty?” Marius looked shocked, and Kane and Cathair didn’t look much better. “It wasn’t him that tried to come between me and my mate.”

  Cass slapped his own black lips. “You say the words, but you don’t believe them. You pay lip service to everyone here, even your mate, but you still hold Wes responsible. Huh. What does it say about your love and your trust for your mate, when the thought of seeing Wesley again fills you with fear? Wes was right. You’d kill him in a heartbeat if you could, just so you don’t have to face the depth of your fear. That fear of being alone.”

  “Marius?” Cathair turned to his mate. “Is that true?”

  “For fuck’s sake, you’re just as bad, big bad battle lord,” Cass shook his massive head. “You’re terrified that somehow when the golem approached you, you somehow gave him mixed signals and you wonder if you were responsible all along. You don’t want Wes back any more than your shaggy mate does.”

  “Regardless, of how these two cope with their horrible ordeal, Wes belongs back with us. We all need time to heal, and talk…” Kane was throwing his alpha power around, which just annoyed the crap out of Cass.

  “Oh, look at you, trying to be the big alpha and take co
ntrol of the situation,” Cass sneered. He peered into Kane’s soul. “Ah, I see why you want him back now. Who is it? Who is it? Hmm. You’re hoping if I bring Wes back then I can do the same for Raff’s home pack of red wolves. You think they’re being kept against their will the same way Wes was, am I right? Probably in the Underworld, just like he was, under wards and unable to be found in any other way, except by a mangy demon you haven’t got a clue how to fight if I decide to get stroppy.”

  “We’d pay you, anything you wanted,” Kane said quickly, his face pale. “We didn’t believe Wes could be found especially when even Thanatos couldn’t pick up his essence. But clearly you found him, and eleven missing kids who were all captured by the dark ones too.”

  “Don’t any of you care about Wes?” Cass was ready to smite the entire population of Cloverleah to the ground. He probably would, but then he’d be left looking after eleven kids again until he could talk Wes out of pining away to nothing. Contrary to popular belief, Cass was not a stupid demon.

  “I care about Wesley,” a voice came from the doorway. It was Diablo, who, with his mate, had taken on the task of taking care of the cheetah triplets. “I was the one who told him he’d find acceptance and a safe place in this pack before he’d ever heard of it. What happened to Marius and Cathair was horribly cruel on a mated pair and hard for any of us to cope with, but we are strong enough to get past it. I’m not sure we can do that, any of us, until Wes comes home.”

  “All Wes wanted was to come back here, until I told him what happened in his absence.” Cass could feel his blood boil. “Now, he’s taken on the guilt as if he’d done the deed himself, and I can’t shake it from him. He truly believes you’d all rather see him dead, that he’d be easier to mourn than live with.”