Bec Adams

by A Guardian's Awakening [Shy River Pack 3]

  “Who’s Ryan?” Hensen asked, unwilling to leave the safety of his family to someone he didn’t know.

  “He’s a bighorn sheep-shifter who went into medical research rather than join the family business.”

  Hensen tried not to shudder. Just the idea of a shifter that could turn into a massive, hard-headed sheep with huge horns was a little unsettling. “Can we trust him?”

  “He’s a good friend of mine,” Brigden said with a nod. “And he understands genetics. If anyone can tell us the effect of the wolf that bit Maggie, it’ll be him.” He turned to Gideon and handed him a small electronic gadget. “I put the coordinates Jay gave me into the GPS. Hurry home.”

  “Thanks, baby,” Gideon said as he reached for his mate and held him close. “We’ll be back as quick as we can. Stay safe.”

  Brigden rolled his eyes, but smiled at his mate’s obvious concern for his welfare. It was great to see them enjoying the type of relationship they should have been able to share thirty years ago. If Gideon and Brigden hadn’t been so brave, and if Donovan and Sogarn hadn’t helped pave the way to acceptance by the pack, Hensen could have found himself trying to make the same difficult choices. He couldn’t imagine trying to pretend indifference to Gavin and Kade. Just the memory of avoiding Kade for seven months filled him with a huge sense of loss now. He couldn’t imagine being forced to do it for three decades.

  Suzanne smiled indulgently and threw a handful of clothes at Hensen while she waited for her turn to embrace Brigden. Hensen glanced down at the jeans and T-shirt a little surprised to realize they were out of his own wardrobe. Suzanne shrugged. “The rest is already in the car.”

  “You broke into my house?” he asked with a half smile.

  “The door wasn’t locked,” she said, defending herself with a smart-ass smile and an exaggerated shrug.

  He laughed softly. There were no locks on pack housing in Shy River. There had never been a need. “Suzanne,” he said as emotion tightened his throat, “I really appreciate everyone’s help.”

  She nodded, gave him an understanding smile, and then turned to her mates. “Come on,” she said pushing Gideon aside so that she could hug Brigden good-bye. “Let’s get moving.”

  * * * *

  “They’re coming back in Gideon’s four-wheel-drive,” Kade said as soon as he felt his lover touch his mind.

  “Who are ‘they?’” Gavin asked. Outwardly he seemed calm, but his emotions were very specifically focused on protecting his mates. Kade loved him all the more for it.

  “Hensen, Gideon, and Suzanne.” They were still too far away for him to sense Hensen’s emotions, but the very fact that he had the beta of the Shy River pack with him had to be a good sign. Ironically, Kade was also looking forward to seeing Suzanne. They’d been fairly close friends in the months it had taken Brigden and Gideon to rush through the install of security equipment at Dry Creek. Hensen had stayed several more months to iron out any problems in the computer system, which was when Kade had struggled to stay away from the man. Without Suzanne’s friendship to fill the empty days he’d wondered more and more what his mate was like.

  Kade smiled at the woman fast asleep in his embrace. Thankfully he hadn’t needed to wonder about his mate for too long. Reality had surpassed his wildest dreams.

  “Do they want us to meet them somewhere?”

  “I think so,” Kade said as he tried to concentrate on their traveling mate. “But we’re going to have to wait for details until they get a little closer. My connection to Hensen keeps fading in and out so they’re probably driving along some of the winding roads on this mountain. It’ll probably be a couple more hours yet.”

  Gavin nodded, but it was clear that most of his attention was on their surroundings. They couldn’t smell worth a damn past the horrific smell of human urine, but they still had werewolf hearing. They knew their “neighbors” had returned from wherever they’d gone and had come home to party. The first gunshot had made them both jump in reaction, but it had become clear over the past couple hours that they were just young men shooting cans—or whatever else they could find—for target practice. As unnerving as it was to hear the wild partying with alcohol and guns, it was yet another reason for shifters to avoid the area. That could only be a good thing for them at the moment.

  Ironically Maggie seemed able to sleep through it all.

  “Do you think she’s all right?” Kade asked worriedly.

  “I hope so,” Gavin said, obviously not trying to sugarcoat the situation. “Traumatic blood loss can take a long time to recover from without a transfusion. If she were still human I’d say several weeks or more, but I don’t know how that translates in werewolf terms.”

  “Faster, I think. Suzanne insisted that Brigden and Gideon stayed in bed for a week after they both suffered attacks resulting in heavy blood loss.” He remembered his relief that Brigden had survived. He hadn’t even known at the time that Gideon was recovering from being attacked by Shaw only minutes earlier. Kade grinned at the memory of some of the sounds he’d overheard a time or two. “But I don’t think they did a lot of sleeping.”

  Lisbeth’s attack on Brigden had been swift, vicious, and with the very clear intention to kill. Kade still had no understanding of why she turned him into a werewolf so long ago. Her hatred for humans had only grown since then, but her unexplained hatred for Gideon and his mates had completely destroyed her. Kade hadn’t even been able to muster sympathy for her or her mate when they were banished from the pack.

  Usually banishment meant a very difficult life, if not an early death, but he suspected that Lisbeth and Shaw would not only find a way to survive, but perhaps even make the Dry Creek alpha pay for his leniency.

  “Revenge?” Hensen asked into his mind when he apparently picked up that last thought.

  “Would they really put the whole shifter world in danger?” Kade asked, trying to deny the scenario that was building in his mind. “They were misguided, but their intention had been to protect the pack, not destroy it.”

  “True,” Hensen said, “but history is full of examples of men and werewolves destroying the thing they loved the most.”

  “And the unusually well-appointed den we used is on Dry Creek pack lands. It’s possible that Shaw considered this his plan B.” Kade shivered all over. “Oh, hell, what if we’re right?”

  “It’s okay, baby. We knew someone had to be behind this,” Hensen said, sounding just a little bit freaked out. “I’m going to discuss this with Gideon. We’ve still got a couple more hours on the road, so try and get some rest.”

  “Okay,” he said, turning to look at Gavin. It was obvious that he realized Kade was talking to Hensen via their link. He’d explain what was going on, and then he’d take his mate’s advice and try and get some sleep. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

  * * * *

  “Hey, sis,” Gavin said as he climbed into the backseat of her mate’s four-wheel-drive, “you’re purple.”

  She laughed. “Thanks for noticing. Any explanation for why you’re not?”

  He shook his head. With everything that was happening with Maggie, his own unusual reaction to being made a werewolf had seemed unimportant.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said sincerely. “It’s been too long.”

  “Way too long,” she said with a soft laugh. “It’s kind of ironic that we should both end up mated to werewolves who are also best friends.”

  He blushed slightly. He hadn’t been certain if Hensen had explained their connection or not. Suzanne gave him a soft smile. “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy for you.”

  “Ditto,” he said, glancing at the man beside her. “Hopefully when all of this blows over, I’ll get to meet Brigden as well. Kade thinks very highly of him.”

  “So do we,” Gideon said with a wide smile.

  Gavin reached over to shake hands with his sister’s mate. “I guess this makes us brothers-in-law?”

  Gideon nodded. “I guess it d
oes. Welcome to the pack.”

  “So now what?” Gavin asked. He already knew that Hensen and Gideon had a plan, but he was a little short on details. His mate seemed willing to trust Gideon, and Gavin was willing to follow Hensen’s lead on that, but he’d always preferred to have some idea of what problems may lay ahead.

  “Now you and your mates get to go on a nice little vacation while we sort a few things out.” Suzanne had reached for a bag that looked to contain medical items and was already explaining to Maggie the types of samples she was going to need. “Brigden has a friend ready to investigate the genetic modifications. We plan to drop by Dry Creek pack to collect samples from the wolf-creature after getting you and your mates to safety.” He glanced at Hensen and Kade as they climbed into the front seat beside him. “Thanks to Kade, we have a few solid theories on who is behind it all, so hopefully it won’t take very long to find a solution. But, who knows, the place we have in mind for your vacation might even be a great honeymoon destination. You’ll probably never want to come home.”

  Gavin laughed as the car started to move. He was fairly certain they weren’t being shipped to a tropical destination, so it was unlikely to be a luxurious setting, but he looked forward to some time with his mates where they wouldn’t need to worry about imminent danger all the time.

  Lord knew, after the stress of the past three days, they all deserved some downtime.

  Chapter Nine

  Maggie was very glad she was a werewolf now. The hike deep into the mountains was long and arduous, but also quite enlightening. She was fairly certain that few humans, if any, had ever ventured this far into the wilderness. Gideon and Suzanne had driven them as high up the mountain as the roads would allow, and then they’d literally climbed several hundred feet straight up the same type of cliff face she’d fallen down eleven years ago. In the past four days they’d done that twice more.

  They were probably several miles above sea level by now. Nights were damn cold this high up, and it would be impossible to survive a full winter without some serious planning, but with the summer months ahead of them it should be quite a nice little vacation. She almost didn’t notice the cabin built into a cliff face, but once she spotted it she was very glad for the GPS device Gideon had given them. It would have been impossible to find otherwise, especially with the wild growth in an area that was likely a small clearing at one stage.

  “You two stay out here while Gavin and I check the inside for wild animals and structural integrity.”

  “Yes, boss,” Maggie said with a sarcastic salute. She didn’t mind following Hensen’s lead in things she knew nothing about, but his “orders” were starting to get under her skin. The fact that they’d traveled practically nonstop for the past four days probably had a lot to do with her annoyance. None of them had slept much, but even reminding herself that Hensen had probably slept less than all of them didn’t seem to pull her irritation back under control.

  Gavin raised an eyebrow at her attitude but didn’t say anything.

  Kade stayed by her side and watched their mates enter the long-abandoned building. “Suzanne called it ‘werewolf PMS.’”

  “I don’t give a fuck what Suzanne called it,” she said with an almost animalistic growl in her voice. She managed to surprise both of them with her reaction, but instead of turning away or berating her for her rudeness Kade simply wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to fall, and tried really hard to relax as Kade ran his fingers through her hair in a soothing rhythm.

  Unfortunately, all it did was remind her that she hadn’t washed her hair or had a proper shower in days. Diving into an ice-cold stream was so not her idea of a good time.

  “Things will feel a whole lot better when you can morph into your wolf shape.”

  Thanks to her link with Hensen, she already knew that was going to take several more weeks at least. The idea didn’t make her feel any better. She shook her head against Kade’s chest as the real reasons for her emotional outburst moved to the front of her mind.

  “I can feel him pulling away from me.”

  “Hensen?” Kade asked sounding really shocked. “He’s not pulling away from you. Why would you even think that?”

  She couldn’t put it into words. She shook her head again even as she tried to compare the closeness she’d felt to Hensen in those first couple days to how she felt now. She didn’t even realize she was crying until the werewolf himself came up behind her and lifted her into his arms. She clung to him, crying harder, as she struggled to comprehend everything that had happened in the past week.

  “Don’t cry, baby girl,” he said as he carried her over to a large tree and sat them down in the shade. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so focused on getting us here I didn’t realize you were feeling ignored. I promise to make it up to you.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said haltingly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I feel it, too,” Gavin said as he sat on the grass beside them. He reached over and pulled Kade into his lap. “To be honest, I’m starting to admire the control human women have over their hormones. I can’t imagine going through this shit every month.”

  She smiled at that but didn’t loosen her grip on Hensen. Kade had held her in his arms every time they’d stopped to sleep, but Gavin and Hensen had stayed on guard, never truly relaxing. In fact this was as close to unwinding as they’d gotten in five or six days. Maggie dragged in a deep, calming breath and then they all lapsed into silence. It felt wonderful just to know they didn’t have anywhere to go.

  “The cabin is in pretty good shape,” Gavin finally said. “We’ve got a bit of cleanup to do and the bed will need to be restrung, but otherwise we should be pretty comfortable.”

  “Restrung?”

  “The wooden frame is massive—big enough for three grizzly bear-shifters—but the mattress is long gone and the ropes that held it up have decayed,” Hensen said. “We should be able to replace them with the climbing equipment ropes, but it’ll take a few days. The sleeping bags should do until we can build a mattress.”

  “You know how to do that?” she asked skeptically. It wasn’t exactly a skill modern humans required.

  “Except that I’m not human,” Hensen said, clearly reading her thoughts. It felt kind of nice to have him back in her head even if he was just listening in on random snippets. “And yes, I know how to restring a bed.”

  “So do I, by the way,” Gavin said with a smile. “I spent a lot of time with my grandfather when I was a kid. He was very much into conservation and self sufficiency.”

  “He owned the cabin Suzanne was living in?” Kade asked. Gavin nodded. “I think I met him a couple of times—in wolf form of course. He seemed unusual for a human. Back then they mostly shot first and well…okay, that was pretty much all they did. Shot anything that moved. Your grandpa was different.”

  Gavin nodded again. “He was definitely different. My mother called him the family kook, but she found raising four kids alone was hard so my brothers and I spent a lot of summers with our grandfather.”

  “What about Suzanne?”

  “She barely knew him. Her dad was more involved in her life than mine or my brothers’ fathers, so she never got to stay longer than it took to drop me, Quinn, and Oliver off. I think that’s why Grandpa left her the house. He wanted her to have a chance to know who he was even if she didn’t actually get to spend time with him.”

  “Does that mean you spent a lot of time near Dry Creek pack lands?”

  “I guess so.”

  “As horrible as it sounds I’m really glad I didn’t run into you back then. I don’t think I would have survived knowing I had two mates out there—both human.”

  Gavin laughed softly. “I don’t think I would have reacted very well to learning I was destined to have three mates, two of them werewolf and male, either. Maybe we met exactly when we were meant to meet.”

&nb
sp; “I’d certainly call it good timing,” Maggie added, remembering with frightening clarity the moments she believed she was going to die. They lapsed into silence as they took a little time just to breathe. They hadn’t seen or scented any evidence of other shifters in the last day or so. Gavin and Hensen had already thoroughly checked the surrounding area. They’d have to be damned unlucky for anyone to find them here.

  “We have a surprise for you,” Hensen finally said. She couldn’t resist the temptation to look at his memories. He laughed indulgently when she found the surprise he was talking about.

  “A bath?” she asked.

  “We’re going to drag it down to the edge of the stream. It’ll be easier to warm the water—“

  She cut off his explanation with a kiss. “Thank you,” she said as their thoughtfulness made her weepy again.

  “Hey, don’t get too excited,” Gavin said, leaning over to tickle her behind the knee. “It’s a huge tub, so there’s a good chance you won’t be the only one in it.”

  She grinned as the tension finally started to flow out of her muscles.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  * * * *

  Hensen couldn’t remember looking forward to having a bath more than he did right now. The tub was large enough to wash three adult grizzly bear-shifters at the same time, so they’d used all seven metal buckets they’d found stored beside it to warm the water. Maggie had insisted that they all wash quickly in the cold stream so that the water in the tub would stay clean enough for them to soak their tired muscles.

  They’d quickly agreed and now Maggie, Kade, and Gavin all sat soaking as Hensen waited for the final set of buckets to boil before joining them. He heard Maggie giggle and turned his telepathic senses to her to find out why.

  He smiled when he realized that Gavin had produced a tiny travel bottle of shampoo and offered to wash her hair for her. It was a truly sweet thing to do, and coming from such a masculine man quite endearing. Maggie groaned as Gavin used his strong fingers to rub the shampoo through her hair and massage her scalp. Hensen wanted to groan with her.