by Kat Keppeler
“Plans don’t always work out the way you want.” Lee continued, turning his body to face her while he waited on the water to boil. “Something happened. Finn had left us, left the pack, a year before. Just up and left in the middle of the night and it wasn’t really a surprise. A lot of them had been leaving after the way Aiden had been treating us, treating their families.” The kettle was starting to whistle but only gently, he waited another minute after it was starting to whistle to pull it off the burner.
“He wasn’t very smart about leaving, Skye, he didn’t go far enough. Aiden used to send out scouts for deserters and they found Finn a few hundred miles away. He’d met a girl, gotten married…. Except the girl wasn’t a wolf or even a shifter. Human.”
Skye leaned her hips back against the island, listening to Lee talk. Her worried blue gaze followed his graceful movements and, at his words, she winced. “That has to be rough. Even with just the differences in how shifters and humans age.”
Lee might look like a young man in his mid twenties but he was over a hundred years old. Chance and Rory were over two centuries and Finn was older than that although Skye didn’t actually know by how much. Finn didn’t like to talk much about his past, though this was probably part of the reasons why.
“Was that forbidden? Is it forbidden, I mean? That’s awfully harsh. You can’t help who you love,” Skye commented and stepped forward to wrap her arms around Lee once more but she was calmer in his arms now, less of the awful tension that had filled the air when he’d stepped into the kitchen. Skye still had questions, and guilt, but she wanted to understand.
“Council law says we aren’t supposed to reveal the nature of ourselves to mortals. There was a time long ago that we walked free but now?” Lee shook his head, “Now they’d only see us as monsters. Preservation is key.”
There were so many holes in that logic, Lee knew it. “There was a king a long time ago who’d let on their nature and had done unspeakable things. He was death to the mortals but also to the others of his kind. Bloody, ruthless. The council made the laws for the preservation of all. At least, that’s how the story goes. If you ask me it all seems like bullshit.”
“I don’t know his side, of course, just my own. I know they drug him back here and beat him demanding to know why he deserted. He broke and confessed about his wife, and then they asked if he had revealed us. The pack, our nature, all of that.” Lee shrugged, “I don’t know what his answer was. I know his obstinance and their paranoia led to them dismembering him. They were going to quarter him, Rory wouldn’t allow it. Rory stood up and fought, he won, but he didn’t finish the job. And well, the rest is history.”
Lee gave her a half smile. “Suffice to say that his wife isn’t around anymore Skye, she’d be in her nineties I think. I forget how old she supposedly was at the time but I think it was middle aged. Anyway, she’s not here and he is. So, I think it’s more about Finn and his issues than anything to do with you.”
Skye leaned up to press a kiss to Lee’s lips, her cinnamon and orange scent as familiar as her touch to Lee by now.
“Poor Finn, I couldn’t imagine losing you. I still have nightmares about that rogue wolf and her teeth around your throat.” Skye said softly, pulling back to look at Lee. He was, by far, the prettiest of her three mates with his fine boned features and stunning turquoise eyes. The other two were well over six feet but Lee was smaller. Skye was just about even in height with him when she wore heels.
Skye shuddered a little at the memory and pushed it down. She could probably have benefited herself from some of the meditation and centering that Finn led some of the pack in but the big wolf was just a constant distraction if she tried.
“I’m afraid to tell Rory and Chance about it,” Skye admitted softly. “The attraction, and all of that. I’m your mate. Yours and Rory’s and Chance’s and I couldn’t be happier about it. You know that, right?”
“I do.” Lee said, tipping her head up to kiss him again. “I know. You’re not the type to get your fill and cast us aside, but Skye… If you did it’s okay, alright? Rory says the way the new pack will be as far as females go means they get their choice. So if you do decide that you’ve had your fill of any of us we’ll respect that and abide.”
Lee turned to pour the cup of tea despite her horrified expression. “And if Finn allows you to mark him as a mate he doesn’t have to join all of us either. He’s always been different, so if he wants moments to himself with the female that chooses him as a mate, then that’s what he gets.”
Raising his cup of tea to his lips so he could blow on it, he gave her a half smirk. “I think Finn’s the type that makes you take him to dinner and a movie before he’s down with kinky stuff anyway. But who knows what makes that big guy tick.”
Skye was still frowning at the idea of telling any of her mates to go, despite Lee’s teasing.
“Lee, the only way I’d want you to go is if that was what you wanted. I’m not ever going to ‘have my fill’ of time with you - any of you,” Skye said as she wrapped her arms around him from behind and pressed a string of kisses along his bare shoulder. “If I’m taking anyone on a date, it’s going to be you. Or you can take me on a date. Whatever. Honestly, I still barely get this rank thing outside of pretty clear cut situations.”
Her hands splayed across the bare skin of his belly and only when the rhinestones of the sweatpants he’d stolen dug into her skin through the robe did Skye pause with a hint of her usual humor back in her voice, “Why are you wearing my pants, by the way? I mean, they make your ass look great, don’t get me wrong.”
“Cuz I am juicy as fuck baby, and you know it.” Lee joked, pulling from her with a smile. “I couldn’t find my pajama pants from last night and I found these first. I thought they were fitting can I keep them?”
“You can keep my sweatpants, of course. They’re all yours,” Skye laughed, finally feeling a bit more herself. The color was back in her cheeks and the awful tang of her guilt had left the room.
Lee snorted then, setting the cup of tea down as he returned to the earlier topic, “I’ll take you on a date alright, just not here in Belcrest where it’s population greasy cheeseburgers and they still play movies from nineteen ninety three. Not even the good movies from nineteen ninety three. What’s that sequel they’re screening now, the one about that Indian burial ground and people coming back to life? It was the worst.”
Lee sighed, lifting his hands in exasperation. “I better shower, love, I have to be ready for Finn so we can go back to debating making the basement into bedrooms. He says no one will stay down there. I mean I get it, basements, but we aren’t fitting well into the few rooms we have and we have to expand. I mean I told him we could take the downstairs but he said Rory wouldn’t have it. I don’t think Rory is as unwilling as he thinks he is.”
Skye watched him move, shifting easily from his complaints about Belcrest to trying to ease the tensions between the pack’s dominant males. She wondered briefly if Lee knew that he was the most grounding of the three of her mates. Rory made Skye feel safe and loved, Chance made sure she felt coddled and precious, but Lee never failed to remind Skye of who she was, anytime she felt uncertain or unsteady.
Leaning in, she pressed a sweet kiss to his lips, “Go shower. If I join you, we’ll use up all the hot water and have some grumpy wolves on our hands. I’ll make sure both Rory and Finn know that I have no problem being in the basement - that might be the sticking point. Honestly, any of it is going to be a stop gap because this house just doesn’t have the space for twenty adults living in it, even if we don’t mind sharing beds and rooms. I think we’re going to have to look at building a compound or something like it, so people can have their own spaces and so that meditation isn’t right out the bedroom window at five thirty in the morning, but that means deciding if we’re moving and where that’s going to be. To say nothing of paying for it.”
“Well, that’s not the issue,” Chance said, his deep voice still husky
from sleep as he shuffled out of their bedroom. He’d managed to find his pajama pants and they hung low on his lean hips. It was plain weird seeing Chance without tattoos but they’d faded with multiple changes and he hadn’t had them redone yet, in part because he didn’t have anyone he trusted to ink his skin in a drivable radius. He had, however, had the studs put back in his ears.
The pack’s dark haired beta padded in to the kitchen to bracket Skye between himself and Lee and claimed her mouth for a bruisingly fierce kiss until she groaned and began to sway on her feet. Once she was clinging to Chance and trying to catch her breath, he stole an equally devastating kiss from Lee’s lips before he went over to flick on the coffee maker to set up a new pot. Ruffling his hand through his dark hair, Chance bit back a yawn.
Their pack’s beta managed to look like the consummate bad boy, from his shock of violet hair that hung into his eyes to the tight pants and leather jacket he favored. Despite that, Skye had learned that Chance had a serious inner nerd, which is why he was also the pack’s bookkeeper and lore keeper.
“Lee, have you seen my glasses? I need to work on the records today, and then I have a call with the accountant to go over some of the liquidation of assets to cover what we’re going to need for whatever gets decided on the house. We’re fine, by the way, stop worrying, Skye. I told you, we can cover things and set up a proper house for the pack while the new kids get their sea legs again. We’ve been working toward this for sixty years, stop fretting.” Chance instructed, still half asleep as he waited for the coffee to brew.
“I have seen your glasses. I saw them come flying off your face last night, pretty sure you threw them wherever they may lie now. Because you just didn’t have time to put them into their case all nice and proper.” Said Lee with a teasing smile. “Next time I’ll go easier on you to give you time to put them away cuz they’re probably broken. Maybe broken. You want me to go find your spare pair?”
Lee came over to Chance and rubbed his face against Chance’s shoulder, it was all a pretense for what he was really doing. The hard reality was that he was using the nuzzling as a guise to reach one hand between Chance’s legs. There was a mischievous laugh as he let Chance go, walking away to the foyer where they had set up coat racks and a few side tables with drawers for the extras and shoes. He dug through a drawer and found an orange case that had a permanent marker scrawl of ‘CHANCE’ on it.
“Found eeeeeem’,” Lee called in a sing song voice, walking back to the kitchen and setting them on the kitchen counter. “Okay, going to shower now. Anyone here a plumber? We have to see about installing a commercial water heater I swear, this whole ‘shower schedule’ is for the birds.”
Chapter Three
Not long after Lee was gone from the room to shower, the sounds of meditation going on outside with throaty hums came to a close and a file of people came into the house kicking their boots clean and hanging their coats while the frigid Montana air crept in.
“Good session today, guys, let’s keep working forward for that inner healing. Who’s got work today? Who’s on food?” Finn asked, bringing up the rear and closing the door behind them. There were hands being raised. “Okay, kitchen duty first shift go. Work get gone. Who’s hunting today?”
Because there was an abundance of raw food out there, they just had to go shoot something.
Chance watched with amusement as Finn organized the motley crew they had rescued, snagging Skye and anchoring her between his legs as he leaned against the counter. Her ass rested right against his groin and Skye could feel the length of his erection that Lee had teased before he’d waltzed off to the shower. The kitchen very quickly filled with bodies and Skye was grateful to have a place to stand, tucked under Chance’s chin as it got crowded.
She smiled at Micah as he went to file past her to get ready for work and she gave a little squeeze of his hand.
“You have a good day today, honey,” she told the omega who was close to her in age but felt so much younger. He brightened at her attention. Skye had felt his nerves about starting work. It wasn’t that it was difficult but Lucy, the rogue who had captured all of these wolves and held them for months in the basement, she had caught him right outside of his job and so it was a real source of stress for him. It was a big day. “Don’t forget to grab your lunch.”
It was little things, a brief hug and a few words but Skye knew it made a big difference in settling his wolf and grounding him in that he was safe now. The cook that Micah was working under was a sweetheart and well aware of the young shifter’s nervous disposition. Despite Rory’s reservations, there were those in the town who did have empathy for the shifters who had been held and tortured, there was just also a healthy component who were afraid that any one of these new wolf shifters might turn and be as bad as Lucy. Or worse.
Chance watched as Finn finished sending off the wolves with calm authority. Betty, one of the two females, a sweet lady who looked in her mid thirties but was probably closer to two or three hundred, and Caleb; Micah’s littermate, agreed to lead a small hunt just on Seamus property. They were both omegas but surprisingly steady compared to some of the other rescues.
“I’ll clear out of the kitchen here for your work crew here in a second,” Chance offered to Finn. He pressed a kiss to Skye’s jaw and then nudged her towards her untouched coffee and turned to collect his own as well as his glasses. He gave Finn an easy smile, “I’m going to be in the office. If we’re going to be a proper pack, then we’ll need a record book. I’ve got one started but once I get done putting in all the shit I remember, I’ll probably be pestering you for some of your memories. You’re the oldest one of us so you should brace yourself for some time volunteering in the library. You’ve got a while, don’t worry.”
Finn’s wolf was stronger but Chance spoke with a surprisingly easy authority. He was Rory’s second in command and that hadn’t changed with the growth of the pack. Chance was well aware that Finn had no interest in challenging him and frankly, it was nice to share the load with so many wounded pack mates. Chance added over his shoulder as he turned to pour a cup of coffee for himself, “In the meanwhile, you and Skye should get on the same page about whether or not we’re fleshing out the basement, or moving and then see if you can convince Rory to your way of thinking. Right now we’re in a holding pattern and it’s okay but the sooner we can settle in to something permanent, the easier it’ll be on the pack.”
Skye frowned but she didn’t disagree, stirring her coffee with sugar and milk until it was pale, pale brown.
“If we’re moving, I want to move somewhere that has a halfway decent cafe,” Skye muttered only to get Chance grinning at her knowingly. Skye was always happy to make the trek to a bigger city for errands mostly to get her fix of fancy overpriced drinks from hipster cafes.
“City girl,” Chance teased as he bent down to steal another kiss, “I’m going to go lock myself in the office. I’ve got to go over finances before the accountant calls so I don’t waste time. He charges by the hour, you know, and we don’t always agree on a course of action for the stocks right away.”
Chance clapped Finn on the shoulder lightly, as he went to move past him, “If you have any questions, just send me a text or knock.”
“Don’t get used to that office, we’re going to be turning it into a bedroom soon enough.” Finn said which warranted a frown from Chance. “Or we could, you know, make a room in the basement for your ‘office’.”
Finn used air quotes as he spoke, talking about the room hypothetically. “More practical than bedrooms down there since there are no windows.”
Betty began pulling things out from the fridge to start making a batch of breakfast, Caleb moved in to help her her prepare scrambled eggs and biscuits with gravy.
“Out! Out, out!” Instructed the omega female, shooing them all with her hands in an ‘out of here’ gesture.
Finn walked out, the slight limp from his prosthetic clear as he followed Chance out of the kitchen
with Skye on their heels. Chance left the two of them as he turned into his office and shut the door, turning the lock on it. Finn continued past to walk into the open front room, choosing Rory’s grandfather’s old leather chair to sit down at.
“We do need to move, you know.” Finn said, sounding eerily like Rory when he spoke. “We can’t stay here, especially if Rory decides he’s going to take on Aiden. This place will not hold a few hundred people and we’d have to wait til spring to even start breaking ground on a complex. Belcrest can’t sustain a pack that big unless we took over the entire town.”
Skye picked up her coffee as she followed Finn to the room, picking the couch to settle on. It hadn’t been her turn on the shower schedule and wouldn’t be until it was closer to nine. Skye did not want to risk missing her shower because she wanted to sleep in. Of course, anyone in the pack would have let her sneak in during their slot but Skye really didn’t want to take advantage of her position. That felt impossibly rude to her even if the shifters treated it as absolutely normal and even expected.
Skye was still wearing her robe with nothing under it and she settled on the couch, drawing her legs up and smoothing the fabric over them.
“I don’t want Rory to have to kill his father,” Skye said softly, although she didn’t outright disagree. “And I like Belcrest. It has a certain amount of charm to it. Where would we even move to?”
She lifted her gaze to meet Finn’s directly, her stare not right challenging but certainly not submissive. She didn’t bring up the questions he’d refused to answer earlier but Skye hadn’t forgotten.
“The big pack generally moves around. It didn’t used to, Aiden started that because of the whole Irish Traveller family thing. Because they boasted a Traveller ancestor so the pack became a band of nomads. Before we lived in the mountains. There was a mining town up there… Of course all this was before running water sooooo… Well, not exactly running water but indoor plumbing.”