Xanthe's Choice [Grey River 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Maia Dylan

  “I know, mine, too.” Hunter ran frustrated hands through his hair. “I don’t like leaving her alone. We need to convince her that we’re meant to be a part of her life. Maybe we should talk with Ty and Trent. They’ll know more about being fated to the same woman.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Dane said as they reached his truck in the car park and he saw Hunter’s parked just in front of it. “Xanthe’s going to want to stay here in Grey River and I gotta tell you, Hunter, I have no problem with that. I like this place.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You know what that means, right?”

  “Yeah,” Hunter growled. “We’re going to have to ask Ty and Trent to accept us, and pledge fealty to the pack.”

  “You think you can do that? Submit to another shifter? And, I feel I must point this out to you, o-he-who-thinks-he-is-king–of-the-jungle,” Dane couldn’t help grinning at the narrowed gaze his friend cast him. “But that shifter is, in fact, canine in species.”

  “Fuck you, Dane,” Hunter said as he stomped off to his truck. “You’re gonna have to bare your throat to him too, you know, and besides, the alternative is leaving Grey River and Xanthe behind, or trying to convince her to leave her home. Neither of which will make her happy.”

  “True, and making her happy is our new mission in life, so that means we ask to join, pledge, and learn to howl at the moon.” Dane grinned as Hunter stopped suddenly climbing into his truck and turned to shoot him a look that clearly said oh-hell-the-fuck-no!

  “And that is how I know I am more king of the jungle than you will ever be.” Hunter shook his head at him.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because,” Hunter said with a grin, “I sure as hell ain’t learning how to howl at the moon. I’m gonna teach these Grey River wolves how to roar!”

  Chapter 3

  “So, Faith, have you forgiven your men for signing up with the shifter council without telling you first?” Angel asked as she helped herself to half an apple danish. Xanthe grinned as she ate the other half of the danish and watched Faith’s face fill with frustration.

  “Forgiven? Yes,” Faith said as she wiped her pastry crumbed hands on a napkin. “Forgotten? No. And as is my right as the mate and wife of two extremely dominant alpha wolf shifters who forget that there are three people in this relationship with equal say in all things that may or may not cause them harm, I continue to whine and complain about it every chance that I get.”

  Xanthe loved the gleam in Faith’s eye. She was such a vibrant woman that it was sometimes difficult to think about what she had managed to survive to get to where she was now. “I’m surprised they let you get away with doing that.” Rowena chipped in as she settled into one of the chairs lining the wall of Xanthe’s hospital room.

  “Who said I do?” Faith winked and settled back more comfortably against the foot of Xanthe’s bed and then leveled her with a steady look. Xanthe fought down the frustration and sadness that swelled over her at not being able to see what Faith was thinking. Xanthe had often looked at her gift as a curse, but one that she had gladly put up with because if meant she was able to communicate with Melaina periodically. Not that it was gone, she had lost that link.

  “Xanthe?” Faith asked softly, and Xanthe realized she had lost herself in her own thoughts there for a moment.

  “Sorry, zoned out there for a moment.” Xanthe grimaced and tried not to notice the understanding looks her friends cast her. She had always hated being the object of pity.

  “Honey, it’s not the fact that you zoned out on us that has us concerned.” Angel sat forward so she could place her hand on Xanthe’s hands, which were currently clenching and unclenching in the sheet almost uncontrollably. “It’s the sadness in your expression and the pain we can all see radiating in your eyes.”

  “Not to mention,” Faith said as she sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I felt your grief like a physical thing just then. What were you thinking about in that moment?”

  Xanthe looked at the women in the room, all of them looking at her with an acceptance she had never experienced before. She had come to Grey River knowing that her future lay here. She knew it the moment she first drove into the town and stepped out of her car. And now, she recognized that each of the three women who sat in that room with her had ended up here for the exact same reason. They were kindred spirits, and if anyone would understand her past, it would be them. They had all faced their demons and lived to lead lives filled with love, laughter and joy they enjoyed now.

  “Before the attack—” Xanthe began but stopped when she saw Rowena flinch and then move as if to say something. “No! Rowena, please, I can’t know what you are thinking anymore, but I can tell that you want to apologize. Again. Well, don’t. The only person to blame for that whole fucked-up night is Martin Baxter, and although I would like the opportunity to lay as big a smackdown as I could on the crazy bastard, I have to remain satisfied that your mates were the ones who made that man suffer for all that he did here. Okay?”

  Xanthe waited until Rowena grinned sheepishly and nodded before she continued.

  “As I was saying, before the attack I had a pretty high level of psychic ability. I wasn’t born with it like shifters, or people like you Faith, I was—well, for lack of a better word, trained to see what people were thinking.” Xanthe waited for that little nugget of weird that was her life to settle in, expecting for there to be some reaction, but what surprised her most was the extreme lack of reaction. “You guys don’t seem to be that surprised.”

  “You think?” Rowena said, her voice positively dripping with sarcasm.

  “Xanthe, honey,” Angel said with a smile, “do you honestly think that we wouldn’t have noticed that you could basically pluck what we were thinking right out of our heads and answer questions before we could ever ask them?”

  “Well, it’s not quite like that,” Xanthe said with a shake of her head. “I can’t actually hear what the person it saying, it’s more like I see a picture of what they are thinking.”

  Xanthe took a moment to think about how to explain it better.

  “You’re talking about spatial thinking,” Rowena said and Xanthe heard the change in her tone as she went from Rowena mild-mannered—well, not so much—woman and friend, to Dr. Rowena Whitley the walking psychological digest. “Also called visual thinking, and it’s a phenomenon of thinking through visual processing. I would hazard a guess that you are also someone who adopts spatial-temporal reasoning to visualize special patterns and mentally manipulate them over a time-ordered sequence of spatial transformations. That in itself is amazing because people who are picture thinkers are almost always visual thinkers to the exclusion of other more rudimentary thinking methods and make up a considerably smaller percentage of the population.”

  That was met with silence and then a huff from Faith. When Xanthe looked at her it was hard for her not to laugh as she rolled her eyes at Rowena. “Jesus, woman! We need to have a rule. As self-proclaimed queen of the pack here in Grey River, and one who will never admit she calls herself that whenever she is within hearing distance of either of her mates or any other males within this pack who have a habit of telling on her, I say we instigate a Rowena rule. You,” she pointed a finger at Rowena, “are no longer allowed to use words of more than three syllables and must at all times filter whatever you are about to say with the caveat that if Faith won’t understand it, then it’s better left unsaid!”

  Rowena harrumphed as she crossed her arms and slumped back into her chair. “Is it my fault that I am an intelligent woman who has a large vocabulary that tends to take over whenever she finds someone with an interesting psychological anomaly?”

  “Ding, ding, ding! Rule starts now!” Faith sassed as she winked at Rowena and Xanthe burst out laughing, all three women following suit until the room was filled with their laughter, and Xanthe felt more relaxed than she had in a long time. She had always been able to see what people were thinking
and sometimes that took the fun out of just hanging with friends. Now, especially with Faith Jamieson in the room, it was like being in a TV sitcom.

  “Would you two let the poor woman finish?” Angel said as she wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and smiled at Xanthe.

  “So as I was saying, I see pictures of what people are thinking. Where you would think a sentence, I would get more of a visual representation of it. Which is fine until,” Xanthe turned a sly grin on Rowena, who frowned quizzically at her, “you are standing next to a woman who is thinking about three insanely hot builders doing some work on her new bookstore with their shirts off and what it would be like to taste the sweat from their skin.”

  Rowena’s eyes widened and her face bloomed with color.

  “Ha! Busted,” Angel singsonged as she leaned over and nudged Rowena’s shoulder.

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to laugh, Angel.” Xanthe laughed at how quickly Angel stopped laughing and her own eyes widened. “You may know how to shield, having lived with shifters all your life, but whenever you get, shall we say, distracted, you tend to project quite loudly. And some of your thoughts about the good doctor even before you had Mateo were triple-X-rated.”

  Rowena leaned over and nudged Angel, and they started to rib on each other as the best of friends who were as close as sisters always did, and Xanthe sighed.

  “There you go again,” Faith said softly as she nudged Xanthe’s knee. “You’re thinking sad thoughts, and we are back to being concerned. What has you so sad, Xanthe?”

  Xanthe took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “I have a sister. She was the only happy part of my childhood, but when we were sixteen our world was ripped apart. I lost her and haven’t been able to find her since. And to be honest with you, it wouldn’t be at all safe if I were to find her and have her with me the way I so desperately want.” Xanthe swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “She’s special and has certain abilities like I do. Since we’ve been apart, she has been able to use her ability to send me a picture of what she was thinking, and we could have a conversation for as long as we were able to hold the connection. Since the attack, and losing my ability to see what people are thinking, I’m afraid I’ll never talk with her again, and I have no idea if she’s safe or scared or … n-needs me to help her.”

  Xanthe’s voice grew breathy as she spoke and eventually broke on the last four words. Tears fell unimpeded and she buried her head in her hands. As she cried she felt Faith wrap her arms around her and then Rowena and Angel did too, effectively surrounding her with love and comfort. And she soaked it up as much as she could.

  “Xanthe,” Faith said with tears in her voice, and Xanthe raised her head to look at her. “If there is one thing this pack is known for, it is protecting our own. Strong alone, but stronger together. Ty has always said that, and I have always believed him. We have some of the best trackers in the shifter world in our rank, and as much as I think Ty and Trent being on the Council of shifters might hinder my plans of bringing up our pup in a safe and normal household, they can pull some fairly serious strings. And there are some pretty powerful people at the end of those strings.

  “Ability or not, we will not rest until we have found your sister and made sure she is okay. And if we can’t have her here with you, then we’ll devise a way for you to contact each other. I don’t know your history but I have a feeling that your past has a lot in common with many of the woman who are finding sanctuary and love here in Grey River. We can keep you both safe. If you’ve been keeping away from each other out of fear for what might happen, then screw that. Family is the most important thing in the world and you deserve to have yours with you. We will fight as a pack to make that happen. When you are ready to tell us about her, and let us try to find her for you, then we’ll do what we need to in order to bring her back here. We will come up with a plan to bring the two of you back together. Okay?”

  Xanthe stared into Faith’s eyes and knew that she firmly believed what she was saying. There was a reason why Faith was the one woman in the world that completed Ty and Trent. She was as alpha as they were, but she had a nurturing instinct second to none. For Faith, the pack’s safety and happiness came first and she would move heaven and earth to make that happen. And even though Xanthe wanted to believe with everything in her that the picture Faith had painted could become a reality, the danger of them being found together was too much to ignore.

  Not knowing what to say, Xanthe took a shaky breath and turned to look at the other two women, who had stilled and become quiet. Angel and Rowena were looking at each other with strange narrowed looks, then turned in almost perfect unison to stare intently at Faith. Confused, Xanthe looked back at Faith, who had an obviously fake expression of innocence on her face and, if Xanthe was not mistaken, a warm rush of color in her cheeks as well.

  “Well, now, there was the most interesting turn of phrase you used in that fantastic, and I must say, truly inspirational speech you just gave, O self-proclaimed Queen of Grey River,” Rowena drawled, and Faith grimaced. “And I do believe that Angel caught that too, right?”

  “Oh, yes, I most certainly did,” Angel grinned. Xanthe frowned as her gaze flicked between the three women.

  “Oh … pooh,” Faith said as she struggled to remain straight faced. Then giving up she smiled and—oh boy, what a smile it was! It completely lit up the room. “I made Ty and Trent promise that they wouldn’t tell anyone until we were absolutely certain that everything was okay, and here I am practically swallowing my foot whole.”

  Yep. Xanthe had definitely missed something.

  “Well, are you?” Angel asked excitedly. Xanthe suddenly had a very good idea what she had missed. At first, Faith just grinned, but when she slowly nodded her head, the room erupted with squeals of joy and laughter as they all scrambled to hug her.

  “Oh, Faith, you’re gonna be a mommy!” Rowena squealed.

  “I know!” The moment became a joyous mixture of tears, congratulations, and laughter. Xanthe was happy for her friend, sensing from the way Faith talked about her pregnancy that this was something the young woman wanted very much. But it was difficult for her to feel truly joyful. Not when she felt as if she were missing a large portion of herself. Without having her sister or being able to contact her in any way, Xanthe knew she would never feel whole.

  * * * *

  Dane stood with his back against the wall just outside Xanthe’s room, listening to the women congratulate Faith. He was happy for the mate to the two wolf-shifter alphas he now considered to be friends, but his heart bled for his mate.

  “Dane, what’s wrong?” Hunter’s voice came to him down their link filled with concern, and had Dane closing his eyes. Sooner or later, either he or Hunter was going to have to initiate the conversation about this bond that shouldn’t exist between them but did. And the emotions that came along with it.

  “I’m standing outside Xanthe’s room, listening to her talk about her sister with Faith, Rowena, and Angel, and it’s fucking breaking my heart,” Dane sent back, then pushed off the wall to walk down to the visitors’ lounge at the end of the hall. The last thing he needed was to be caught standing there listening to conversations he shouldn’t be.

  “Yeah, I can feel it. Did she say anything more than what we already knew?”

  “A little. She explained a little about how her abilities worked before she lost them, and it’s as you suspected. Her sister has a similar talent, but is able to project images into Xanthe’s head. Now that she can’t see people’s thoughts, she believes her sister is lost to her. She talked about it not being safe for her to find Melaina.”

  “Bullshit! Hell, there’s a whole fucking town here that would keep her safe.”

  “I know that, but I think our Xanthe is worried about bringing trouble to town, which is crazy considering that trouble finds its way here without any help from her. She cried.” That had been the hardest part for Dane. Hearing Xanthe sob quietly, he wanted no
thing more than to pull her into his arms and never let her go.

  “Damn. What did the others say? I’m sure they wouldn’t have let her hurt more than she is already.”

  “Faith took the lead, which is not surprising,” Dane made it to the kitchen and started making a coffee. “She told her that Grey River looks after its own, and that they had access to some of the best trackers in the shifter world. She said everything we would have, but better and softer, and had Xanthe believing it.”

  “That’s good. I hate to think of her hurting or upset. I’ve finally got the office set up and am running a couple of searches for a Melaina White but so far I have sweet fuck-all.”

  Hunter was a fucking genius with computers and could sit for hours in front of his screen, tippy-tapping away, looking for answers or leads, hacking into databases, and all sorts of shit that had Dane’s head spinning. If Dane were sitting in front of a computer screen for hours, he was probably gaming online with a couple of their Enforcer friends who enjoyed the same pastime.

  “Let me know if you hit on anything.” Dane plopped down on the lumpy couch and looked out the window at the forest that surrounded the hospital and the town itself. “I’ll stay here until Chris has completed his rounds. He mentioned something about her being able to be discharged tomorrow, and I want to know what sort of care she’s going to need once she gets home.”

  Once the conversation was over, Dane gently closed himself off from the link so he could think for a moment. It had been difficult in the beginning, when the bond first formed, to learn how to close it off, but he and Hunter had perfected it quickly.

  Sighing, he put his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. It was getting harder and harder for him to keep his emotions in check when their link was open. For the first five years the two of them had ignored the bond for the most part and would only use it when they needed to during missions or operations. But then they had been sent after Baxter and it all changed.