Spring

by Viola Rivard

  As soon as Beka and Quinn had departed from the river, Taylor had begun to cry and had not yet stopped, though she was making a miserable effort to hide it. Alder had done his best to console her in gesture, but preferred to wait until they were alone to talk.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Shadow pressed.

  “No,” Alder told him. “And I promise she’ll be okay. If you can bring Fawn home, I’m sure that the four of you can help cheer her up.”

  Shadow could question any issue to death, and Alder had learned that often the only solution was to give him a task.

  He set to it at once, shifting and dashing off towards the den. As he passed by his mother, he slowed just enough to rub up against her side, before accelerating again.

  Taylor had insisted on carrying both of the pups back. Whatever animosity had sparked between Henry and Belle, it had dissolved and in its place appeared to be a mutual concern for their mother. Both of them clutched tightly to her, their faces scrunched in bemusement.

  Though she cried often, at least compared to most females Alder had known, it was rare that Taylor allowed any of the pups to see her crying. She was so committed to shielding them from her sadness that she always kept a spare onion in the cupboard and would start cutting it up the instant her eyes began to glisten.

  He put an arm around her waist as she reached the porch and kept it there until they entered the cabin and she pulled away. With both pups still in tow, she went straight for the bed and sank down, holding them both tightly as she cried against the pillow.

  Alder gave her a moment of space before coming over to collect Henry. Taylor released him to her, and Alder took the pup into his lap and pulled back the bandages. The bite was not as deep as it had initially appeared, but it was pretty bad. Had Henry been older, he might have recommended stitching, but he wasn’t keen on threading a needle through such a small pup. He decided to re-bandage it and monitor the wound.

  “Was she right?” Taylor asked, punctuating the question with a sniffle. “Aren’t they mine?”

  Alder finished replacing Henry’s bandage and then tucked him into Taylor’s arms. Climbing over her, Alder got under the covers and pulled her to his chest, his arms encircling the three of them.

  “I think you both said some things that deserve reflection,” Alder said. “Beka shouldn’t have said that they aren’t yours. You took them in and nursed them and have cared for them every bit as much as you did for the twins.”

  “But?” Taylor said. “There’s a but, right?”

  Alder kissed the top of her head in hopes of softening the sting of what had to be said.

  “But, Beka and Quinn love them, too. Quinn has been watching Henry since before he even learned how to shift, and Beka is the only one besides you who knows how to get Belle to sleep. They adore them, and it’s not fair to them or the pups to decide that they can’t see them anymore.”

  “I never said they couldn’t see them again, I just…” She paused to wipe tears from her cheeks. “I was so angry and so hurt. I shouldn’t have said that, I know. But I also can’t have them watching the pups if they’re not going to intervene when something like this happens. Especially to Henry. He… Alder, that’s his only arm.”

  Alder knew they’d reached the crux of the issue, and he held Taylor close as a fresh wave of tears hit her. He waited until they subsided to say anything further.

  “I worry about him, too. But play fighting like this is important. It’s what will prepare him for the future when—”

  “When what? What is he going to be able to do out here, Alder? How is he ever going to be able to fit in with his pack mates when he can’t do the things that they can? Please, tell me because I have two good arms and I still haven’t figured it out.”

  Alder sighed and stroked her hair, willing her to calm down. It was already a complicated issue to discuss, and he had a tough time thinking straight when Taylor was crying. He envied Hale his ability to tune Taylor out when she cried. For Alder, each sob was like a kick to the gut, and the longer it when on, the more inadequate he felt for not being able to soothe her.

  “He’s a great pup, Taylor. There isn’t a person in Halcyon that doesn’t love him. I don’t know what role he’ll be able to fill as he gets older, but I have faith that he’ll always be surrounded by people that love him and have his best interests at heart.”

  Taylor tilted her head to look up at him, her big eyes glassy. “I’m sorry for unloading all of this on you. You’re right. About Henry, and about Beka and Quinn. But… I don’t think I can get over everything Beka said, at least not right away. Can we talk about it again tomorrow?”

  Alder kissed her forehead. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  Chapter Four

  “What do you mean, he’s in Whiteriver? What the fuck is he doing there?”

  Fawn stirred in Hale’s arms, prompting him to inwardly berate himself.

  He still didn’t know how Fawn had made it all the way up to the den and into his bed that afternoon. Unlike her twin brother, Fawn was still small and in need of constant minding to ensure that she didn’t get hurt or lost. After taking a moment to cuddle with her, he’d gathered her up into his arms and gotten out of bed, determined to find whoever had been responsible for her and see them punished.

  Instead, he’d barely made it to the central chamber when he’d run into Fenix. The hawk shifter was fresh from a flight and had come to report that he’d finally scouted Shan.

  “I don’t know,” Fenix said. “I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the wind, but they seemed to have known one another.”

  “Was there anyone else with them?”

  “I saw Silas’s beta Olive, and two females from Shan’s pack. I think one of them was the girl he brought last time.”

  Hale didn’t like this one bit. Though their packs had a tentative agreement to share hunting grounds, Whiteriver was not their ally. Hale had no interest in throwing in with Shan either, but he sure as hell didn’t want Shan making any alliances with Silas. If Silas were able to turn Shan against them, it could put their pack in serious jeopardy.

  “We need to get over there and find out what’s going on,” Hale said.

  Before he could say more, he caught sight of Shadow entering the den. He glanced around, and upon noticing Hale, started straight for him.

  According to Taylor, Shadow was the spitting image of him. To Hale, his son looked exactly like Alder had when they were pups. He recognized that this was probably due to the fact that he saw Alder more than he saw his own reflection, but he still sometimes felt like he was talking to his little brother, rather than to his son.

  “What are you doing here, pup?” Hale asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching your mother?”

  When Shadow was still small, Hale would instruct him to guard Taylor to make sure that no Whiteriver wolves came and snatched her away. Taylor, of course, would have plenty of real guards posted to do just that, but the pretend assignment appealed to Shadow’s fondness for responsibility and kept him from wandering far from his mother. Nowadays, when Hale gave him the instruction to watch over his mother, it wasn’t a tongue-in-cheek order. In his wolf form, Shadow was nearly the same size as Glenn, and although he’d yet to be in any real fight, Hale had no doubt that he could hold his own against an attacker.

  That knowledge was one of the few things that terrified Hale. With each month that passed, Shadow was not only getting bigger and bigger, but also more mature. If his growth continued as it was, he’d be functionally an adolescent within the year.

  Shadow was scowling as he approached. “You tell me to watch mom, mom tells me to watch the pups, and Alder tells me to get Fawn. How can I possibly do all of those things at once?”

  As Shadow arrived at his side, Hale put a hand down on his head, mussing his hair. “Go tell him that Fawn is sleeping.”

  “I can’t,” Shadow said, swatting at Hale’s hand. “I need to bring her so mama will stop crying.�
�

  “Why is your mom crying?”

  Shadow rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  Recently, Shadow had gone from having an opinion on everything to feigning ignorance even when an answer was obvious. It annoyed the hell out of Hale, but he knew that in this case, Shadow’s confusion was likely genuine. Even Hale didn’t know why Taylor was crying half of the time.

  Hale rubbed the side of his face and looked to Fenix. “Do another pass over the valley. I want to know where they are and what they’re doing.”

  “On it,” Fenix said, before taking his leave.

  Though he’d grown up in a pack comprised exclusively of wolves, Hale could no longer fathom how any pack got on without an avian shifter or two. Fenix had unparalleled scouting capabilities and could deliver messages in a fraction of the time it would take any of his wolves by foot.

  “Come on,” Hale said, taking Shadow by the hand. He no longer had to bend down to do so. “We’ll bring Fawn together.”

  “You don’t have to hold my hand,” Shadow said. He struggled to free himself from Hale, but Hale only tightened his grip.

  “Shut up. I won’t be able to do this soon. You’re gonna be as big as me by your next birthday.”

  His son stopped struggling and perked up. “You think so?”

  Hale grinned. “Not a chance, runt.”

  Though he looked like Alder, Shadow reminded Hale of himself in his speech and mannerisms, more so with each stage of his development. Hale wasn’t sure he liked that. Unlike Alder, who always seemed so at ease with himself, Hale often did and said things without thinking and was exasperated by his inability to control his impulses. He hated to think that Shadow might inherit that quality from him.

  Just outside of the den was a bluff that afforded a broad view of the land below. To the left were the forests that they hunted in, miles upon miles of deciduous woodland that stretched on as far as he could see and extended up the mountainside. Hidden beneath the lush canopy was a winding river that fed into the twin lakes at the center of the valley. Beyond them was a long stretch of rolling hills, and past that, Whiteriver’s mountain.

  Years ago, when it had just been he and Alder, Hale would stand on the bluff and stare at Whiteriver, his insides burning with an unquenchable lust for more. Back then, it hadn’t mattered to him that he and Alder had acquired the largest and most abundant piece of territory in the region. All he’d cared about was that when he stepped outside, there was something within his view that didn’t belong to him.

  Nowadays, when he stepped outside, his eyes went straight for the cabin where Taylor resided. Three years ago, when she’d first come to the valley, Hale had been in the midst of a plot to take Whiteriver. It had required a great deal of planning and finesse, not because Whiteriver would have been difficult to take by force, but because Alder had been opposed to another pack war. Ironically, less than a year later, it would be Alder calling for war and Hale standing between he and Whiteriver.

  From the very first day he’d met her, Taylor had turned Hale’s priorities upside down. He could still remember returning home that day, confused by the scent of a human female in his den, and then pissed when he’d found her sleeping in his bed, the scent of sex still clinging to his bed furs. In an effort to get back at his brother for taking a female in his bed, Hale had climbed into bed with her and began a liberal exploration of her body. Thinking he was his brother, Taylor had reciprocated in earnest, and Hale had never been more turned on in his life.

  After that day, he hadn’t given two fucks about Whiteriver. All he’d cared about was figuring out how to get his brother’s human, and preferably without killing him. In that regard, very little had changed over the years, except that now he considered Taylor to be his mate, occasionally on loan to Alder.

  Fenix flew overhead, dipping low and then rising with the current as he made his way towards Whiteriver. Hale spared the mountain another glance, and then lowered his eyes to where the cabin was, nestled in the mountain’s foothills and near to the lake. He began walking again, his daughter slumped over his shoulder and his son trotting at his side.

  This was not the life he would have ever imagined for himself. He hadn’t wanted pups. He’d only wanted to have a lot of sex with her, and as often as possible, while allowing Alder to take care of any pups that resulted from said activities. Thinking back, he wanted to groan at how stupid he’d been when he’d told Taylor he’d make a better uncle than a father. Even before they’d been born, when they’d just been a tangle of little limbs squirming inside Taylor’s belly, they’d meant the world to him. Now, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for them. They, and their mother, were his life.

  “Will I be alpha of Halcyon when I’m big, like you?”

  Shadow was looking out over the valley as they descended the mountainside. The path from the den to Taylor’s cabin had become well-worn over the first year. The spring rains tended to make the descent muddy and slippery, so Hale had ordered rocks to be quarried to pave the pathway.

  “If you’re alpha, what am I doing?” Hale asked.

  “I don’t know. Being old?”

  “Smart ass,” Hale said. “Odds are, you’re not gonna want to stick around once you’re grown. You’ll want your own territory, and probably a mate, too.”

  Shadow wrinkled his nose, briefly looking more like Taylor than either of his fathers. “I don’t want a mate. And I’m not going to leave mama, ever.”

  Good answers.

  “That’s all in the future, kid. And as far as I’m concerned, Halcyon is yours if you’re willing to wait for it.”

  Shadow smiled at that, and then dove into a lengthy and one-sided discussion about all of the things he would do and change once he was alpha. Hale listened to every word, as he always did with Shadow. More so than with any of his pups, he felt responsible for being attentive to Shadow. His childhood was rapidly nearing its end, and Hale didn’t want to miss any of it.

  When they arrived at the cabin, Hale let go of Shadow’s hand to reach for the doorknob. Shadow grabbed his wrist to stop him.

  “You have to knock and wait for mama to say you can come in.”

  Hale gave him a dry look. “My territory, my cabin.”

  He grabbed the knob, twisted, and opened the door.

  The curtains were down, which usually meant that someone was sleeping. His eyes went straight to the bed, where Taylor and Alder were laying, Henry and Belle in their arms. Taylor was looking at him, her lips pursed and her eyes red from crying.

  “I told you to bring Fawn, not him,” Alder said, running a hand along Taylor’s side as he spoke.

  Sometimes, seeing Alder touching Taylor turned Hale on, but only because they were twins and he could imagine it was himself. Most of the time, however, it annoyed him. Particularly when Alder was knowingly baiting him, which was far more often that Taylor realized. She had it in her head that Alder was some sort of paragon of virtue, and maybe towards her he was, but to Hale, he could be a real fucking asshole.

  “She was napping,” Hale said, making his way over to the bed. He inserted his foot between Alder and Taylor, giving his brother a firm push with his heel. “Move.”

  If he didn’t listen, the next request would be a kick. He must have known that, because he acquiesced with only a roll of his eyes. Hale passed Fawn off to him and then settled in beside Taylor, who had turned to give him a look.

  “I don’t know how any of our children have good manners with you as an example.”

  “Shut up,” Hale said, grabbing her by the chin.

  Pleasure spread through his chest as he brought his lips down on hers. Hale had never been overly fond of kissing, but Taylor had the softest lips he’d ever felt, and it was rare that he could look at her without wanting to kiss her. In spite of her irritation, she kissed him back eagerly, though she kept a hand pressed to his chest, as she always did when he kissed her in front of the pups. Hale was pretty sure that it was her way of pr
eparing to ward him off, should he lose control. It was insulting, but also amusing that she thought she was capable of stopping him.

  It had been two days since they’d had sex, and Hale felt a pang of frustration as he pulled away from her. The only time when he missed not having pups was when he wanted sex. Back before Shadow and Fawn had come along, he and Taylor, sometimes joined by Alder, spent entire days doing very little outside of fucking. Now, it was a challenge just to get her alone, let alone get inside of her.

  “What are you upset about this time?” Hale asked, brushing his thumb over the side of her face. It was something he saw Alder do a lot, and Taylor seemed to like it, especially when she was feeling sad.

  “Just…” She looked into his eyes, and shook then her head. “It’s not a big deal. Henry got hurt and I got a little emotional, that’s all.”

  Hale was certain that if Alder had asked her the exact same question, he would have gotten a lengthy account of whatever had happened, peppered with detailed descriptions of her emotional state at each point in the story. By his own admission, Hale wasn’t good at listening to her, but it also annoyed him that she didn’t trust him even with an abbreviated version of events.

  “Where’s he hurt?” Hale asked, propping himself up to get a look at Henry. “Let me see.”

  Henry was curled up on the other side of Taylor. Until then, it hadn’t occurred to Hale that the pup was sleeping in his human form, something that was quite unusual. His gaze fell on the bandage on Henry’s arm, and he felt his temper flare.

  Hale had distinctly different feelings for Henry and Belle than he had for Shadow and Fawn. Henry and Belle weren’t his pups, but they were pack. They were also small and vulnerable creatures in need of guidance and protection, and he cared about their wellbeing. However, he didn’t feel the same deeply intimate bond with them as he did with Shadow and Fawn. The one time he’d tried explaining this to Taylor, she had cried a lot and hadn’t spoken to him for over a day, and hadn’t had sex with him for almost a week. Since then, Hale had put in extra effort to be fatherly towards Henry and Belle.