by Kat Keppeler
Chance shrugged and a wry smile kicked up the corner of his mouth, “Come on, man, you wouldn’t kick him out of the pack even if Skye wasn’t involved, you’d just grumble about it and maybe you two would end up tussling a time or two but that’s about it. I can’t imagine you exiling anyone for anything short of causing outright harm. You’re more upset because it’s not the same sharing with Finn as it is with the rest of us. We were already yours when you met Skye. Finn, though, that’s different.”
“He doesn’t want to share.” Rory said with a sigh, taking a long pull from the beer in his hand.
“He doesn’t want to share Skye. He wants Skye to himself, and… I don’t know, Chance. That scares me.” Rory sighed again, looking at the light colored linoleum. “It really scares me. The change scares me too. You’re right, she’s changing us. Lee is stronger, sassier, more… I don’t know but I wouldn’t even call him an omega at this point anymore. It’s like he’s changing and becoming stronger. Finn? He’s stronger too, I can feel that. I feel like if he and I were to tussle he’d probably wipe the tiles with me. But not only that, it’s like the whole pack is stronger with her in it. Betty is fertile! We’re about to have a litter of pups, it’s unprecedented. I have to wonder what exactly Skye is or what she’s brought to us.”
“It’s in the mark she’s left, in their skin. Skye didn’t bite us, we bit her,” Chance said, making a gesture for Rory to wait as he padded off to sneak in and out of the office. He came back toting a leather tome that had cost him a small fortune on the black market. It bore the markings of a long dead pack on its leather bindings. Apparently, Chance had been doing more than arguing with their accountant in that office. He picked up his glasses and perched them on his nose once more.
“Here, look,” he said as he carefully flipped through the pages. “This is one of the books of a Norwegian pack - died out in the late 1800s. Killed by the council and no, don’t ask how I got it. How’s your old Nynorsk?”
Chance gave Rory a side long smile, well aware that he didn’t tend towards being a polyglot like the London born beta, “ - ‘and the queen marked them - in flesh and in blood - and so the pack grew by her will beyond the bindings of their birth -’ What do you think? Sound familiar?”
“Extremely. How….” He didn’t even want to know. “How do you know which pack this was, Chance, and are you sure that you haven’t been bamboozled?”
Rory was old enough that he couldn’t deny the writing or the smell of the tome. “I thought the council destroyed the tomes when they quelled a pack. Clearly someone either failed at that or they’re keeping them as record…”
He watched as Chance’s turned the pages and showed him the written words and diagrams drawn there by the lore keepers.
Pieces and ideas clicked in his head but he wasn’t ready to dive headfirst into his conspiracy theories. Chance was the one with boundless curiosity, especially in all things forbidden. To Rory, it meant the hoarding of the females by the dominant pack members meant his father was sitting on some truly untapped power. Of course, that was only if he had a queen. Rory wasn’t sure any of the females in his father’s grasp came close to that.
“How rare is a queen, do you think? Or an alpha female? Is there a difference in the two, Chance? Skye is different from any alpha’s I’ve ever met. She doesn’t rule by power, she doesn’t impart her reign by casting fear”
“Neither do you,” Chance pointed out as he carefully set the book down and relaxed back against the counter. “In terms of what I can glean from the book, it’s something about alpha females from specific bloodlines that they consider to be of note but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct either. I’ve been thinking about it, though, a great deal of late.”
Chance frowned and rubbed his hand over his jaw again, that nervous tick that he’d had as long as Rory had known him before he heaved a sigh and added, “I don’t think that alpha, beta, omega shit is even all that accurate. I think it’s less about power and potential and more about what you’re well suited for. I mean, I was named a beta and you were an alpha and of the two of us, you are more dominant and your wolf is stronger but you’re a front line fighter, I’m not. I’ve been good at books, music, math… keeping things in order. Lee’s an omega because he’s submissive except he sometimes isn’t. Hell, I’ve started to wonder if half the shit we buy into as fact is just social conditioning and then my head starts to hurt.”
He reached up to pull his glasses off his face and then rub his hand over it, “I don’t know. I think there’s a hell of a lot more magic and lore than we’ve ever been allowed to know about and the deeper I dig, the more I think that’s true. And it scares the piss out of me.”
“Brainwashing.” Rory parroted on the ebbs of Chance’s theories. “Sounds a lot like brainwashing.”
Rory was silent for a few long moments, his mind mulling over the possibilities. Of course Chance was right, a lot of them given certain statuses in the pack line up weren’t matching on. One of the new pack members, an elderly man named Walter, boasted of beta status but acted far more submissive than a beta might. Liam and Betty were both omega and yet they were expecting, something that all of them were told was near impossible. Things were not making sense and his father’s more reckless actions began to make a certain cruel sense to Rory. “Make them think they are the weakness through fear and it spreads like sickness. Do you think that’s why they are killing male pups?”
The notion that they murder the omegas was ridiculous, Rory had always thought so. “Strength in numbers so thin the numbers?”
“I don’t know,” Chance said, his expression solemn. Concern added lines to his features. “But however hard it might be to make allies of non-pack, I think that Skye’s right that you have to try, Rory. The Westmores are assholes but they’re our assholes and those witches might be able to help us unlock some of the secrets that we just don’t have the tools to figure out. What I do know is we can’t let the Council know about Skye. I don’t know if it’s the magic in her blood or just that she was raised without being told what her potential was, but she’s a threat to the order that they keep cramming down our throats.”
They both caught her scent as the office door opened and she padded out looking stressed from her call with her mother. Chance’s expression shuttered as he quickly pushed his worries away. Skye didn’t need that headache to fret over as well, not with everything else on her plate.
“Hey, Princess, not a good chat?” Chance asked, reaching down to close the tome carefully as Skye headed for the comfort of Rory’s arms and buried her nose against his chest.
“I told my parents I was dating multiple men, at the same time,” Skye said, her voice muffled against Rory’s shirt, “And they’re coming in June. Maybe July. After their cruise around Italy.”
“Oh. Bummer.” Rory said too quickly and when Skye looked up to give him a horrified grimace he smiled.
“Bummer that it has to be that late in the year, they’re going to miss out on the spring. Montana is best in the spring.” He covered quickly, tucking her back against him with a sigh. He’d never met parents before of any of his lovers, except Chance and Lee’s. Of course, they had been pack mothers so it was a little different. Not to mention, they had never been ‘officially’ mated. “We will get through it honey, we will. We'll all be gentlemen.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next couple of weeks drifted by. Rory had taken a lot of what Skye and Chance had said to heart. Though he might not be willing to admit it, he had listened to what Finn had said too. They wanted to stay in Belcrest, and the more he thought about leaving the more uneasy Rory became. Two days after the altercation with Finn, Rory had walked into town with a box in one hand. ‘Abbott for Sheriff’ the flyers had boasted, done in tasteful greens and blues. He began walking around town talking to people again, shaking hands. Apologies were given from the many townspeople who had doubted Rory, he couldn’t help but admit it made breathing a little eas
ier. When he’d walked into Ruby’s bar, Shooters, with a stack of fliers. The ginger haired proprietor had burst into tears upon seeing him, hugged him tight as she explained that she had just been so scared. All of them gave him their sympathies on the loss of Seamus, something that stung Rory deeper than he’d like to admit.
With fliers hung around and the chatter of Rory Abbott taking part in the race for a sheriff, the the cloud of tension that had hung over the town for the last few months began to lift. He walked into the house with two boxes stuffed of what smelled like Chinese food from Mama Jiao, something that made Betty wrinkle her nose at.
“Ugh, I can smell the shrimp…” Betty said, turning away into Liam’s shoulder. “Makes my stomach turn.”
She wasn’t the only one who could smell it, when Skye and Finn walked in from a day of work at his clinic, she inhaled the scent of take out food. That tang of seafood was so strong. All day, Skye had felt just a touch under the weather. Nothing she could put her finger on but she felt tired even after her morning coffee and nothing had tasted good at lunch. She’d eaten very little which was probably fortunate as when she started heaving, there wasn’t all that much to spatter on Finn’s shoes.
Skye promptly heaved the contents of her belly up on Finn’s boots, the giant man stood there and let her. He reached down to sweep her blonde hair up and out of the way while she dry heaved, his expression one of concern rather than disgust. Betty heard the sound of retching and started gagging as well. It certainly paused everyone from divvying up the takeout as Rory and Caleb jumped up from the table.
“Rory, maybe something in there’s bad.” Finn offered and Rory started to protest. “Someone get me a towel?”
It was Anna who sighed and stood to grab a towel. Skye apologized profusely and made a motion to help though Finn put an end to that when she continued to look green.
“Come on, Skye.” Finn was firm, stepping out of the way with Skye tucked under one arm and heading right back out the door again toward the clinic.
Finn's mind spun, he’d noticed a change in her over the last few weeks and he had tried to ignore the seeds of hope churning in the pit of his stomach. Reason told him that it was utterly unlikely. He was a doctor, he’d been a medic for shifters for a long time. Ovulation almost never resulted in pregnancy in their women, even when it did happen. None of them expected that Skye would get pregnant in her first cycle or even in the first hundred cycles. Still, despite all that knowledge, Finn couldn’t fight the flicker of hope.
She had been tired, lately, blaming allergies or a lack of sleep the night before. This wasn’t the first day he’d watched her pick at lunch. Not to mention, her hips and waist had been thickening, something she had attributed to bloating one day and lack of exercise another. No, Finn had his suspicions but right now he had to be more her doctor than her husband.
They were back in the office, Finn helped her into his bed and placed a cool cloth on her head before he shed his now ruined shoes and moved to clean the vomit from his prosthetic.
“You’re feeling like shit, aren’t you?” Finn asked when he got back, his hands full of a few instruments. Skye hadn’t moved, she curled up in the bed, looking wan and uncomfortable. Nausea hadn’t abated despite the fact that her stomach was empty; a fact that felt grossly unfair. He took her temperature first, pressing the thermometer into her ear and mashing the button for it to beep.
“Normal.” He said, his heart pounding so loud that he almost thought Skye would be able to hear it. “Cuz you look exhausted.”
She made a face at him when he stated the obvious.
“Well, I feel super,” Skye teased as she dutifully let him poke and prod her until he was content. “It’s probably just a bug going around. Shifters can get sick, as you well know, it's just less common. Micah was miserable when he caught that cold at the end of March.”
Finally when he’d satisfied the normal going’s on, he took her hand in his and sighed, shaking his head a little at her theories.
“Skye.” Finn said, trying to bite back a smile. “I’ve already unwrapped a pregnancy test and set it by the toilet. Moment of truth, sweetpea.”
When her eyes grew wide and panicked, he just kissed her head. “If you’d rather I can grab the doppler that we’ve gotten for the clinic. But I say we ease into it.”
He helped her up again and sent her to the bathroom. As the door clicked, the remaining three of her mates were already knocking on his door. He opened it, told them to wait a damned minute he was busy, and then shut the door again. Right in their faces.
“Damnit, Finn, I just want to know if she’s alright!” Rory hollered through the door, his temper clearly fraying from being denied access to Skye. Finn might be the pack’s doctor but he was also a giant pain in the ass. No, he needed three minutes. Maybe five. Finn's eyes were on the bathroom door.
“Move,” that was Chance’s growl and without fanfare, the pack beta broke the lock on the door, swinging it open with a bang, his grey eyes narrowed on the large alpha male between him and his potentially sick mate.
Skye had just been hiding, frankly. She’d been numb as she was shuffled into the bathroom and she stared at the pregnancy test like it was a snake that might bite her. No, that wasn’t possible. They said it could take years for her to conceive. It might be never. Skye had been okay with ‘never’. This was all going too fast and Skye just wanted everything to slow down so she could catch her breath.
She heard the banging and the arguing but it barely penetrated until the sound of Chance kicking the door down out in the apartment penetrated her haze. She banged on the bathroom door with the palm of her hand.
“If you all start fighting in there, I am going to jump out the bathroom window and sleep in Caleb and Micah’s room tonight, so help me,” Skye shouted over the noise of whatever ruckus her mates were getting into out there, “Just sit down and be nice for five minutes. Can you keep it together for five minutes?!”
On the other side of the door, Finn stood there like a stone wall between Chance and the bathroom door. He was clearly annoyed that his front door was broken open and equally determined that Chance wouldn't try it on the bathroom door next. Rory and Lee were directly behind the beta. All three of them looked ready to murder Finn. The giant held up a hand, made the motion to be quiet by placing one finger to his lips in a clear ‘Shhhhhhh’ gesture.
“Listen..” Finn said, when Chance’s expression made it clear that he wasn’t going to back down, his voice barely above a whisper. “She just needs, like, five minutes. She’s fine, I checked her out, but if you don’t give her five minutes to herself you’re really going to regret it.”
It was not a threat, despite the fact that Finn would wipe the floor with Chance, it was merely the honest truth. Of all of them, Chance would be really sad if this moment was ruined - he just didn’t know what it was, yet. All of them had assumed infertility would plague Skye as it did for all of their women.
“All of you, take a seat out there, and when she’s ready…”
Lee squinted at Finn, catching a glimpse of the desperate joy that he was trying to hide. Of all of the men, Lee had the best handle on his wolf and any temper. Realization dawned swiftly.
“Chance…” The smaller man said, walking to his lover’s back. His hand was light on the small of Chance’s back, the touch soothing, “Chance, come sit with me. Rory you too... Let’s give her some space.”
Lee felt the pounding of apprehension in his chest, both Chance and Rory could hear the thumping of rapid heartbeats.
“Five minutes.” Finn repeated as Lee led the three of them to the chairs in the ‘waiting room’.
“Oh god. Oh my god.” Lee began to chant, unable to contain his suspicions without verbalizing some of the suspense that he’d begun to feel.
“The hell, Lee?” Rory demanded with a frown, taking his gaze from the bathroom door for a moment.
Finn gently rapped on the bathroom door. “Skye. We’re all worri
ed, and we’ll all be in the waiting room for you. All four of us. I… wouldn’t keep those two waiting too long though, Chance’s apt to pull the bathroom door down next.”
Chance rumbled an agreement, balefully eyeing Finn for being a barrier to fussing over Skye when she was ill.
With that Finn stepped quietly away into the waiting room to prop against the wall and wait on Skye. He had a hard time keeping the smile that threatened to curl his lips. Personally, Finn knew what the results were going to be. He just knew it.
Chance assumed that Lee’s panic was over Skye’s potential illness and he anchored Lee to his side with one arm around his shoulders. He glared at the waiting room as if it was personally responsible for Skye being ill. All the damn sick people. Occasionally, Chance turned his glare on Finn who seemed far too… happy considering Skye had just vomited on his boots.
“Maybe we should find Skye a new job with less contact with people.” Chance muttered. It was not the first time, he’d made that suggestion to Rory. If Chance could stick her in a guarded tower, he absolutely would have and he’d have been happier for it, even if Skye would have strangled him.
Fortunately, before the beta could get too restless or decide she was taking too long and something was clearly wrong despite Finn’s assurances, the bathroom door clicked open. They all heard it.
Skye was pale and shaky, the test clenched in one hand and that fist curled against her chest. She looked like she might be sick again, or maybe burst into tears.
“I…” she tried to find words before she just thrust the test out at them as if it was explanation enough.