Knowing what I know about the dangers of claiming a mate too early, and the constant fighting with my wolf not to claim Gabby, are proof it takes a strength of will to go against your wolf in the claiming process. A strength I would think many young are lacking. If I am honest with myself I don’t know if I have the strength to hold out against my wolf. Deep down I know I must, but fighting with the other half of myself is taking a toll. We, my wolf and I, are one but yet separate and neither of us lack strength. The only problem is, I feel like he is shredding my insides constantly.
But if I have to have someone else watch over my mate I could not chose anyone I would trust more than the Alpha who already watched over all of our young females. We trusted his pack with their lives and I could do no better than to trust him with my mate. Just the thought of trusting someone else with Gabby had my wolf tearing up my insides, again. I felt as though he was using me as a cat would use a scratching post. For a moment I withdrew from the others. I needed to calm my wolf. I needed to find a way to make him understand.
Mate hurting. Claim mate.
We can not claim her. She is not there to claim yet. She is too young. If I claim our mate for us you would lose your mate.
Mate hurting. We fix. Needs us. Claim mate.
Our mate is hurting because, because, she needs her sister. We have to find her sister before we can claim her.
Sister not mate. Need mate. Smell hurt. Claim mate.
She is too young. She would die. We would lose her. We can not claim her.
Protect her.
With every fiber of my being. I will always protect our mate. We will protect our mate.
Good. Mate stay. Protect here.
Trust me. We will protect her. But she needs her family also. She needs to find her sister. She needs to visit with her aunt. She is unhappy without the others of her family. We will let Gammon help us.
Gammon strong male. Good male. Protect females. Claim mate now.
NO! We would kill her if we claim her now. We will let Gammon help us. Mia is mate’s family.
When a deep sigh burst from my lips I heard Gammon snicker. I looked over at him and grandfather. They may not be able to hear my discussion with my wolf but it was obvious from the smirks on their faces they knew I was having problems. I envied them. Both of them were old enough they had mated before the catastrophe had struck our kind.
Cocking my head to the side I could feel my eyes narrow. I actually did not know how long Gammon had been mated. I wondered briefly if he had mated Mia since the problems started with our kind. I swung around to gaze toward the cabin door. I could hear Gabby and Mia talking. Stormie and grandmother had come out of the cabin while I was arguing with my wolf. Neither of them had bothered me, probably because we were all trying not to miss anything being said in the cabin.
Snorting I headed back toward the others. I had just realized something. Mia was not old enough to have been mated to Gammon long. It has only been in the last couple of decades the council and the elders have pieced together what was going on with the shifter community and Mia did not look to be more than four or five decades old. The problems had been increasing over the last few decades so Mia could have mated before the situation became critical. With a deep sigh I realize it does not matter. All that really matters at this point is Gabby and what will happen next.
As I settle back on the porch with grandfather and Gammon I hear my mate and Mia, and Stormie and grandmother speaking softly. At some point my grandmother and Stormie had rejoined Gabby and Mia in the cabin.
I have to admit I am worried, Mia has not mentioned the shifter community yet. I don’t think it is the time and hopefully she feels the same way. I need to speak with her and Gammon to make plans. She needs to go with them, but she can’t go until she knows what we are, what she is, or will become. I can not stop the smirk from forming on my face. Gammon may not like others much, well others outside his pack, but I was about to become family, had already in a way.
Now all I needed to do was get Gammon interested enough in our robotics company to keep him around for awhile longer and I could get to know my mate. After all, she would be invited to dine with us, every day, for as long as I could keep them from leaving. Perhaps I could convince Gabby she should come stay with them at my house until they leave. I grunted as I thought of them leaving, if the clawing could physically affect me I would have just been gutted by my wolf. It may not show physically, or leave physical evidence but damn it hurt.
Chapter Nineteen
Gabriella
It has been a week since I met Mia and Gammon. I am still nervous around people but something about Gammon and Trey makes me feel safe. I am slowly meeting people but I am not understanding them. I feel like they are hiding something from me. Mia comes to my cabin every morning to spend the day with me. Sometimes Gammon brings her and sometimes she comes without him but she always has two guards in the car with her. Gammon spends the day at some factory outside of town. If he brings her a guard follows in another vehicle and Gammon leaves from my cabin to spend the day at a robotics company or something. I think Trey owns it. I guess Gammon and Mia must be rich also, otherwise why guards? I have money, not an enormous amount, but I am beginning to think my trust fund must be small compared to Trey and Gammon.
Mia and I talk about my life before, and about Trina. She tells me stories of my mom and I tell her stories of Trina and I growing up. We talk about Nanny and Josh also. Tonight we are all suppose to sit down and discuss finding Trina and other things. What other things I don’t know, they just said other things. I heard Gammon grumbling about needing to get back to his compound. Drug lords have compounds don’t they? Religious fanatics have compounds also. I really need to find out what I have gotten myself into, or rather, what Trey got me into by finding my aunt.
I feel comfortable around Mia, and Gammon is growing on me. Mia has mentioned several times me coming to live with her while we look for Trina. I am not in favor of that plan. But then again, if they live on a compound I wonder how hard it would be for those guys chasing me to find me. And if they find me, could they even get to me. Mia has said they compound is heavily guarded, but she gets kinda quiet when I start asking too many questions about the compound.
I wish I had someone to talk to, to confide in about what I should do. Trey has been calling me every day this week after I get back home. I have been eating at his house, which is where Mia and Gammon are staying. When Gammon picks Mia up I follow in my car to Trey’s house and then Gammon insist on seeing me back to my cabin. I wonder if he is paranoid about something happening to me. I mean, I get the feeling he is, and I think it is because he loves Mia so much and he suffered with her all of these years while she searched first for my mom and then for me.
The first night, the day I met Mia, I agreed to eat at Trey’s house. Turns out he can cook so why Stormie can’t cook is a mystery I would love to solve. Trey wanted to follow me home that night, but Gammon turned scary mad. I hid behind Mia, not very brave of me but I swear they were growling at each other. I just labeled it as another episode for my rabbit hole. Gammon pulled family rank on Trey and followed me. I have wondered what family rank even means since then.
I don’t want to go with them. I want to stay here. This feels like home. I think I am going crazy trying to figure out what I should do and what secrets these people are hiding from me. I have not forgotten about my rabbit hole. I just figure, well, if I am not going crazy then at some point someone will talk to me about, about, stuff, right? At some point I will have to tell them I am on the run. I know I should have told them already, and maybe they suspect something, otherwise why do they want me to come live with them in Alaska. Do they even have drug lords in Alaska? Biting my lips I try to shake the notion Gammon could be a drug lord. I know it is the fact they keep calling his place a compound. I just equate compounds with drug lords, or religious fanatics but seriously, I have known Gammon a week, no way he is a religious fanatic. Maybe
I have watched too much television in my life.
Hearing a vehicle coming I jump up and run to the window and peer out. My porch wolf visitors have not been back since the day Mia and Gammon showed up but that does not mean other wolves don’t just appear and camp out on my porch for awhile. Lalala, must not think of the rabbit hole. I would almost swear the wolves are rotating out, like some kind of guards. Lalala, must not, really must not think of the rabbit hole.
Breathing a sigh of relief I realize no wolves are on my porch nor do I see any wandering around the area. After the first day I have refused to open the door if a wolf is anywhere in my sight. I may be going crazy but I am not going to get myself killed. In horror shows someone always does something stupid and I do not want to be that girl. That is why I do not own any high heel shoes, the girl always dies when she tries to run in high heel shoes.
Chapter Twenty
Trey
“I will kill him. I swear, oath or not, I will kill him.” I could not remember the last time someone had infuriated me so badly. Wait, yes I could, when we found out David’s dad was holding a young girl hostage. I stared at my phone a moment longer before putting it back to my ear.
“Explain to me one more time why we lost all communications with the outside world. Why did Donny kill our server?”
When Donny had told me his computer skills I had put him to work with my team to try to find any trace of Trina. Gavin was happy to have Donny on the team I had set up to find Trina. Apparently whatever computer skills Donny had were impressive. At least, Gavin seemed impressed and it took a lot to impress Gavin. We had, over the last week, gotten the information from Gabby to start our search. Now, for no apparent reason, Donny had just killed our communications system. If he had a reason he had not seen fit to share with my team. According to what they were telling me he had let out a shout and in a matter of moments my whole system was down. Now he was locked in our server room and refused to come out until I showed up, with Gabby.
Tim, my lead researcher, said he could hear Donny muttering through the door. “He won’t kill me in front of his mate.” Over and over like a broken record, interspersed with “we are all gonna die.”
Tim was trying to get us back up, every moment we were down in the middle of the current testing we were doing was costing us money. Thousands of dollars if not more was being lost because of Donny. Tim admitted he had almost no chance of succeeding since everything routed through the server room, and Donny had the door locked and Tim said he was pretty sure from the sounds made earlier the room was also now barricaded. Donny was muttering other things but even with our superior hearing Tim could not make out was was being said.
“We are on our way.”
As I hung up my phone I glared at Gammon and muttered, “You did not kill him, you should have killed him. Does he realize we don’t have a chance of getting Gabby to agree to come to the plant?” This last was just rhetorical, Gammon knew as well as I did how hard it was to get Gabby to agree to come to my house every night and meet one new person a night, sometimes two. I came up with that plan myself. I wanted her to feel comfortable with my pack, and I wanted the pack to get to know her. So far we had had no problems until last nights dinner.
Last night she had met Sam and Donny. Although she had met Sam before, she did so from a distance and last night was the first night she had allowed him close to her. Anyone with half a brain could tell she was scared of Donny but no one knew why. He was, so far, the only unmated wolf to meet Gabby besides myself. We were hoping Mia would be able to find that out today during her visit. Donny, though an immature pain in my ass, seemed fairly harmless. Gabby admitted she had never met him before last night but she had almost bolted when he got close to her. Even after being introduced as Sam’s future nephew she seemed scared of him. She spent the rest of the evening keeping someone between her and Donny. Usually that someone was me. My wolf appreciated her using us as a shield, we just did not know why she felt the need for a shield. Donny appeared completely oblivious to her fear. How he did not smell it concerns me.
And now Donny was holed up in one of the most secure rooms in the entire plant and refused to come out without a safety net of sorts. Sighing I scrolled through my contacts till I found Sam’s number. Sam was probably going to beat Donny, again. He was going to have to get in line though.
“Sam, you need to get down to the plant or your niece will be mate less. What? Yes we have a problem. What do you mean it isn’t your problem? I know it wasn’t your problem just a minute ago but I just made it your problem.” Gammon, who could hear everything being said, suddenly let out a growl. “What? No, that was Gammon. He does not approve of your suggestion of just having Gammon send Cara home and letting her deal with the little idiot. As your niece’s mate Donny is your family and you are responsible for him. What? No I am telling you, as your pack leader, you need to get to the plant and try to talk to that boy. He is, by default, your nephew. No, you listen to me, I don’t care if the ceremony has not taken place yet, that boy has tested positive for mate to your niece and he is costing me thousands of dollars right now. Just get down to the plant. Fine, I will owe you a steak.”
The last sentence, through gritted teeth, had tried my patience a bit too far. I could not blame Sam for not wanting to deal with Donny. I did not want to deal with him either. I understood his frustration all too well. Neither of us were given a choice in Donny becoming part of our pack. It wasn’t even like we could transfer Cara to Donny’s pack, even if we wanted to. Donny did not have a pack to go back to, and the way his father had been we wouldn’t let him take Cara to that pack if he did wish to return to it. I looked up at Gammon and closed my eyes, just for a moment I wanted to point out to him that Gabriella was his responsibility until we could mate but that would not change the fact the plant was my responsibility and so was Donny. I needed to get Gabriella to agree to come to the plant. Opening my eyes to look at Gammon I saw he had a strange look on his face while he studied me. I knew I was going to have to call in reinforcements.
Moments later I had called Stormie, mom and even my grandmother to help me convince Gabriella to visit the plant. My suggestion to them of surprise and overwhelm her and get her to the plant before she knew what was happening did not find favor with the women. They did not think surprise was the best answer but they assured me they would figure it out. While I was calling my family Gammon had called Mia to tell her what was going on. I wondered briefly why he sounded so strange when he told Mia what I was doing and what I wanted. She had agreed to hold up a bit and let the other women catch up with her and her guards so they all arrived close to the same time.
Now how we were going to stop that little idiot from making any comments about her being my mate and wanting her there so I would not kill him was still in the air. But I would figure something out by the time the others got her to the plant. I hoped.
Calling David to go with us, Gammon and I took off for the area of the plant where most of our computer set up existed. I trusted Mia and Stormie would bring Gabby to the plant if they were able. Until then, all I could do was try to get Donny to tell me what was going on, hopefully before Gabby was needed.
Leaving directions with the guards at the front gate to direct Sam to the break room nearest the server room David and I discussed how best to use Sam and his relationship with Cara to get what we wanted from Donny. I thought suggesting to Donny that Cara would be staying at the compound with Gammon was an excellent idea, and David agreed with me but Gammon was not so fond of the idea.
Turns out Gammon was not big on subterfuge, he was more the kill them all let God sort them out, tell them what to do and be done with it type. Normally that would work great, and I was totally on board with such a plan, unfortunately the server room Donny had commandeered was one of the most secure rooms in the plant. Locked from the inside even I could not get through that door, and I had the keys. This had brought to my attention a design flaw which would be fixed as soon
as we could get control of the room back from the little idiot currently hiding there. Never again would any room in the plant be designed in such a way as to keep me out.
Gammon stopped so suddenly David, who had fallen a bit behind was forced to sidestep to keep from running over him. When I looked at Gammon he had a pained look on his face, “You really don’t know do you? You either don’t know or you are just an idiot.”
I could feel my eyes narrow in confusion, “Know what?”
With a big sigh Gammon looked around, “Get us to the next secure room you have. A room with complete privacy. I do not want to be overheard by anyone. Better bring David, he is your beta after all.”
David and I exchange looks, I could feel his confusion though the pack bond and I had no doubt he could feel mine. With a shrug I led the way back the way we had just come. The next secure room in the whole plant was my office. It even had an escape hatch through the floor in the event of a terrorist situation or some other breach in security. The escape route was not there to protect me, but to get me to a secure place to gather the pack to attack from the outside any danger which could threaten the plant. Can’t do much to protect your people if snipers have you held down inside a building. Better to be able to get out and lead from the outside, where the danger would come from than inside where you are limited on resources and space.
Gabby (Safe Haven Wolves Book 1) Page 14