Rushing into things isn’t always wrong, no matter what everyone says.
Sei has had enough of dodging his mother’s and his aunt’s attempts to arrange a bonding for him since Clea mated with Christian. They don’t see a reason for him not to bond with someone they choose, but he doesn’t care about traditions. He wants the real deal when it comes to mating—love, lust, and a happily ever after.
Donovan is the liaison between the pack and the federal government in Washington, D.C. His job isn’t running around the city rescuing street kids, but he wants to help the pack, and those kids. The last thing he expects from his impromptu mission is to meet his mate.
When Sei is overwhelmed by a crowd of reporters who have come to Gillham to find out more about shifters, he’s rescued by a bear shifter. He recognizes Donovan as his mate only once Donovan shifts, and he doesn’t let the occasion slip away. They mate within hours of their first meeting, but Sei hasn’t considered the complications that will come with it.
The attacks on the pack are escalating, Donovan’s son is vehement about his dislike of Sei, and Donovan doesn’t know what to do. Will he have to choose between his mate and his son? What can he do to keep the pack safe? Will this be the moment everything falls apart?
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Sei
Copyright © 2017 Catherine Lievens
ISBN: 978-1-4874-1000-1
Cover art by Latrisha Waters
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Sei
Gillham Pack Book Twenty
By
Catherine Lievens
Chapter One
Sei sighed. “I’m not going to bond with her.”
His aunt cocked her head, as if she didn’t understand what he was saying or why he was saying it. “But why not?”
Sei had already been over this more than enough times that his aunt should know the answer. It obviously didn’t mean she wouldn’t ask again, though.
He gave her one of the two answers he always gave her. “Because I’m gay.”
Sei’s aunt waved his words away. “I don’t see how that’s a problem.”
“Uh, maybe because you expect me to have sex with her.”
Her gaze flickered to Sei’s groin and he resisted the urge to cover himself. “Will that be a problem?” she asked.
“Unless she grows a dick, yeah.”
“Seisyll!”
He sighed—again. It seemed to be something he often did when he was with his aunt or his mother. How had Clea managed to grow up sane of mind with Aunt Pryderi? “Sorry. I know you mean well, but I don’t think I’ll ever have sex with a woman, let alone bond with her.”
Aunt Pryderi pouted. “But what about children?”
“You’ll get grandkids from Clea.”
“How will you give my sister grandchildren, though?”
“I’m sure I’ll find a way once I’m in a relationship. I could adopt.”
Sei’s aunt sighed. “But Nadhia is such a sweet girl. She was looking forward to bonding.”
“Yeah, with Clea. I don’t really like the fact that Clea and me seem to be interchangeable to her.”
“She’s already thirty-three. She knows she probably won’t have another chance.”
Sei snorted. “Thirty-three? God, does that mean she’s old or something?”
“Well, she’s not in her prime anymore.”
“She’s only thirty-three!” Sei leaned against the back of his chair. “We live more than a hundred years. How is being a few years over thirty not being in her prime anymore? She can probably have kids until well in her seventies.”
Sei didn’t think there was a way to get through to his aunt, no matter how much he insisted. He didn’t really care unless she continued to insist in bonding him with Clea’s rejected bride. No matter how wide Nadhia’s hips were, Sei wasn’t going to have sex with her in any way, shape, or form. He’d rather cut his dick off. Well, not really, but he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to get it up for a woman, even if he was willing to try.
He reached over the table and patted his aunt’s hand. “Look, I understand you want me to be happy and everything, but that’s not the way to do it.”
“Arranged bondings can make you happy.”
Sei knew how he wanted to answer that, but he also knew both his parents and his aunt had bonded after their own parents had arranged it. It didn’t matter that he thought it was an antiquated tradition and that they really should stop doing stuff like that. His aunt believed in it, and she wouldn’t budge from that opinion.
“I know that,” he finally said. “I know you’re happy with Uncle Chaltan, and that Mom and Dad are happy, too. It’s just not for me.”
His aunt bit her lower lip. “I could find you a man.”
Sei shook his head. This was a big concession for her, and he loved her for trying. It wasn’t enough, though. “I know you could, but it wouldn’t change anything, not for me. I don’t want to bond with someone I don’t love.”
Sei wasn’t exactly waiting for his mate to pop up anytime soon, but he hoped the man would anyway. There was no way he was getting bonded to anyone but his mate, and his aunt would have to understand that.
“You’d fall in love eventually,” his aunt insisted.
“I want to be in love before I bond. I want to choose who I’ll spend the rest of my life with, and I want to know him before we do. I want to know his good sides and his bad ones, and I want him to know mine.”
Sei’s aunt was looking at him with what might be pity in her eyes. She probably thought he was a fool for expecting love from a bonding. Arranged bondings didn’t care about love—they cared about what was practical and what would bring advantages to the families involved.
Sei thought it was a cold way to deal with something that should be anything but cold, but who was he to argue? Unless it involved him, he wasn’t going to. Everyone had their own beliefs, and his happened to be different from his aunt’s. It didn’t mean he didn’t love her, or that she didn’t love him. Just that they didn’t understand each other.
“So you’re saying no?” she asked, and Sei hated to squash the hope in her voice.
“Yes. I’m saying no. I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.”
She stared at him. “You might never meet him, you know?”
Sei didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. “I know, but it doesn’t mean I’ll stop hoping. Maybe in twenty or thirty years I’ll have lost hope, but even then, it doesn’t mean I’ll say yes to an arranged bonding. I want to choose the man I share my life with myself, Aunt Pryderi. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She shrugged. “I didn’t expect you to agre
e.”
Sei gaped at her. “Why did you even try, then?”
“I had to. I know you’re as stubborn as Clearrain is, though.”
Sei wrinkled his nose. “He’d have said yes if he hadn’t met Christian.”
“Maybe, but I know he didn’t want to bond.”
“Why did you go ahead, then?” Sei knew his aunt loved Clea. She’d never willingly hurt him. That was why Sei had never understood why she insisted that Clea bond even though she knew it would make him unhappy.
She cupped both hands around her herbal tea mug. “I thought it would do him good, in the end. When my parents told me they’d arranged my bonding, I wasn’t happy. I was like you—I didn’t want to bond with someone I didn’t know. I wanted love. I didn’t have a choice, though, and I’m glad I didn’t. I’d have missed the best thing in my life. I wouldn’t have been loved for so many years, and I wouldn’t have Clearrain.”
Sei kind of understood her reasoning. She’d been through an arranged bonding and she was happy, so why wouldn’t it be the same for her son and her nephew? Still, he was glad he and Clea hadn’t been forced to bond.
He drank down the last drops of his own tea and got up. He placed his mug in the sink and kissed the top of his aunt’s head. “I need to go. My shift starts soon, and I have to go into town for a bit before going back to the infirmary.” He squeezed his aunt’s shoulder when she started to get up. “Stay here. I know the way out.”
She snorted. “As you should. You’ve been almost living here since you were born.”
“So there’s no reason for you to walk me out. Stay here and relax.”
She patted his hand. “Tell Clearrain to come see me, all right? And to bring that mate of his.”
Sei grinned. “You’re going to ask them when they’re going to have kids?”
“Of course I am.”
“You know it’s not going to be anytime soon, right? They’ve only been together a few months.”
“I know. It’s not going to stop me from asking, though.”
Sei laughed. “I’ll come by with him when he does. I need to be here for that conversation.”
He moved around the table, and she arched a brow at him. “You think it’s funny? Remember, you’re going to have to answer those same questions as soon as you finally get a man.”
“Oh, I know.” Sei didn’t tell her it would be worth it. Answering a few questions about when he was going to have kids would definitely be worth having a man he loved by his side.
* * * *
Donovan glared at his phone and wondered what would happen if he didn’t answer. Would whoever was on the other side call again? Would they at least wait until he was done eating lunch?
The phone stopped ringing, and Donovan raised his fork toward his mouth. He never looked away from the phone, and sure enough, it started ringing again after only a few seconds.
Donovan sighed and put his fork down. He cleaned his mouth and reached for the phone, took a deep breath, and answered as calmly as he could. “Donovan Reeves.”
“Uh, hi.”
Donovan frowned. “Who is this?”
“Uh, I’m William? The guy who answers the phone for the kid shifters?”
Those sounded like questions, and Donovan had the urge to ask William if he was sure of what he was saying. “How can I help you?” he asked instead.
“You’re in Washington, D.C., right?”
“Yes.” Shouldn’t William know that, since he was calling?
“Okay, great. I got a call from two kids over there. You need to pick them up.”
“I what?”
“You need to pick them up and bring them here.”
“I’m sorry, are you sure you wanted to ask me to do this?” Donovan wasn’t a babysitter. No one had asked him to do anything like this before, and he wasn’t sure why this William guy was doing so right now.
“Uh, yeah. Donovan Reeves. You’re a big guy in the government, right?”
“You could say that.”
“Now I’m sure I have the right guy. You need to go pick up the kids as soon as you can. We’ll send a Nix to you to bring you here.”
“Why don’t you send the Nix to them right away?”
“Wouldn’t be able to find them, not unless the Nix knew the place, and I can’t contact them anymore, since they called from a pay phone. They need help. They’re scared.”
Donovan sighed. This might not be his job, but it did have to do with the Gillham pack, and the pack was his job. He was the link between the pack and the government, after all. “What happened to them?”
“They got kicked out by their families, one because he’s gay, the other one because she didn’t want to mate with the man her parents had chosen for her. They’ve been on the streets for a while, as far as I can tell. Ages fourteen and sixteen.”
Damn. There was no way Donovan could say no to helping those kids. “They called the number?”
“Yep. Said someone was after them after seeing the boy shift. He’s a skunk shifter, and he thought shifting would be a good way to get food. He almost got caught, and the guys who saw him ran after him. They just had the time to call and tell me where they’d be hiding. I could send someone else, but you’re already there, and you know what you’re doing. You know the city.”
“Fine. Give me the address.”
Donovan wrote everything down and hung up before William could add anything. He’d apologize to the guy later.
He almost ran out of the office, ignoring everyone he passed. He had no idea whether the kids were still hiding in the same place or if the guys after them had found them, so he had to hurry. At least the park where they were hiding wasn’t far from Donovan’s office.
When he got there, everything seemed normal. He passed a few mothers and their children, an old couple slowly walking under the trees, teenagers kicking a ball around. The bench wasn’t hard to find, especially since two scared teenagers were huddled on it, looking around as if they expected to be attacked any second.
Donovan hoped he wasn’t looking too threatening when he walked up to them. The boy tensed when he noticed, but he didn’t move. Donovan raised both his hands in what he hoped was a soothing gesture or at least a non-threatening one. “I’m Donovan. William sent me.”
The boy tried to push the girl behind his back, but there wasn’t much space on the bench. “How do I know you’re not going to hurt us?” he asked.
Donovan was impressed. He could smell the fear on both teens, but the boy was doing a very good job hiding it, at least physically. “You’ll have to trust me. Like I said, my name is Donovan. William called me because I work here in town and I was the closest person who could help.
“You don’t know I won’t hurt you, not for sure. You’re going to have to trust me and the person who’s going to come pick us up.”
The boy looked like he didn’t want to. Then he looked at his friend, and his face softened. Donovan might have thought he was in love with her if William hadn’t told him why the boy had been kicked out of his home. He obviously cared for her, and Donovan knew he’d agree so she’d be safe.
The boy slowly nodded. “All right. What do we have to do?”
Donovan looked around. The bench was hidden from most of the park. It was in a secluded area and hidden by bushes and thick trees. “I can call the Nix who’s going to shimmer us to Gillham and tell them to pick us up whenever you’re ready.”
Would it be pushing too much to ask for their names? William hadn’t mentioned them, so Donovan wasn’t sure he even knew them. It was actually impressive that William had managed to find out all that stuff about them in such a short amount of time. Maybe he’d just forgotten to tell him. Donovan wished he hadn’t, though. It would have made things easier for him.
“You can call,” the boy said after having a silent conversation with the girl. The way they managed to communicate with only glances was impressive.
“Donovan. I didn’t think I’d have the pleasure of talking to you again so soon.”
“Your guy didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“A guy named William called me about fifteen minutes ago. He told me I had to rescue two kids who’d called the number you guys created and to call when I had them so they could be shimmered to Gillham.”
Bran sighed. “No, he didn’t tell me. It doesn’t surprise me, since he seems scared to death of me, though. All right. I’ll send someone to you. Where are you?”
Donovan explained where the Nix could find them and hung up. He went back to the kids, who still looked like they were waiting for someone to jump them. “So, you know I’m Donovan, but I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m Alice,” the girl said, surprising Donovan. It was the first time he’d heard her speak.
“Alice!” the boy protested.
“What?” she asked. “This guy’s going to help us.”
“You can’t be sure of that. Remember what happened the last time we trusted someone?”
They both shuddered, and Donovan made a mental note to ask someone to look into the kids’ past. Maybe William knew what had happened to them.
“I know, but Donovan’s going to help us,” Alice insisted. She turned to look at Donovan. “He’s Gabriel. I’m a deer, and he’s a skunk.”
Donovan nodded. “You can trust me, kids. I know it won’t happen just because I say it, but that phone number was created to help kids like you.”
Alice squeaked and scrambled to get closer to Gabriel, her gaze fixed on something or someone behind Donovan. He turned around, ready to fight whoever was scaring the girl so much, but he relaxed when he saw it was Mael.
“This is my friend, Mael. He’s going to take us to Gillham.”
“He—he appeared out of nowhere!” Alice said.
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