by T. S. Joyce
Chapter Three
Genie’s legs dangled from the low-hanging limb that she laid on. The last of the snow had melted yesterday, so that was cool. It would be spring soon if the new buds on the tree were any indication. Below, Colt and Trigger were arguing over whether a fart made steam behind a butt in cold weather. Genie rolled her eyes and hated everything.
“That’s why I don’t fart when it’s cold out,” Colt said matter-of-factly as he broke up a bale of hay with a pitch fork. “I would get busted. If it’s warm out, who cares? I’ll rip a freaking dragon roar back there, but if Karis saw me steaming up the early morning air from my south end? She wouldn’t blow me for at least a week.”
“Dude, if we have to talk about your steamy farts for one more minute, I’m gonna Change and eat you.”
“Well, the joke would be on you because I’d probably taste like a fart. I read an article online last week that talked about couples who are comfortable with farting in front of each other lasting for the long haul—”
“I’m out,” Trigger muttered, mounting his asshole black stallion, Harley. “I can’t do this anymore. Talk to Genie about this.”
He kicked the horse and blasted out of the pasture toward the barn. Colt watched him leave, leaning on the handle of the pitch fork, and then he looked up at Genie. “So, anyways—”
Genie got up in a rush and ran down the trunk of the tree. She bounced through the mud until she was out of earshot. That was the disadvantage to being a pet. That man told her any and everything, and especially the shit he should probably keep buried deep in his own head. He didn’t realize it, but he’d basically traumatized her for life with his weird thoughts.
She aimed straight for the cattleman’s cabin with plans to crap on Colt’s pillow like the classy lady she was and then fall asleep in the nesting box Karis had built for her on the wall in the loft. And wait for 4 a.m. when she would stare at that goddamn red door again and think about Kurt and Gunner.
But then halfway to the house, a familiar engine sounded from faraway, and she froze, thinking she, surely, was imagining things.
That sounded like Kurt’s truck.
Genie stood in shock as she watched the black, jacked-up Dodge Ram pick its way through the clearing, spraying up mud when it hit the wet parts. She blinked hard. How many times had she imagined him coming home? Back to Two Claws Ranch, she meant, not home. That was a silly thought.
Oh my God, he’s here.
Kurt’s face was somber as he pulled to a stop in front of Colt’s cabin. She could only see his profile until he shoved open his creaking door and got out. Her little squirrel heart had gone from ninety to nothing and, surely, she would die from it giving out!
He stood to his full height, tall and lean, wearing an orange plaid shirt and ripped-up jeans over boots. He wore a dark brown cowboy hat over his jet-black hair, and he hadn’t shaved in a while, at least three days from the stubble that dusted his jaw.
Looking exhausted, Kurt scanned the clearing and then halted his attention on Colt, who was staring back at him with his mouth hanging open. Colt wouldn’t hear it from where he was, but Genie did. Kurt grunted as he lifted his hand in a two-fingered wave, and then when he forced a smile, it looked more like a grimace of pain. Oh no, oh no. He still smelled body-sick.
He wasn’t ready for what was coming. He wasn’t healed enough for what Red Dead Mayhem was going to do to this Clan.
Relief at seeing him again warred with her fear for him.
“Hey Genie,” he murmured in a gruff voice, casting her a quick glance before he began to make his way to Colt.
Genie couldn’t help herself. She lost her ever-lovin’ mind and went bounding over to him, attached herself much like a barnacle to his leg, and held onto his jeans for dear life with her muddy little paws.
Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, my Kurt, you are here! You came back for me!
“I’m back to help with the crows, and then I’ll be on my way again,” he called to Colt, frowning down at Genie and shaking his leg to dislodge her.
Whatever. He was back, and she was still going to pretend it was for her.
“Okaaay,” was Colt’s reply.
In her head, Genie laughed like a psycho because she’d never heard Colt sound so shocked before. That’s what he got for that grody steamy fart conversation earlier.
“I’m gonna move us back into the barn,” Kurt said, giving his frown to Colt now.
“Okaaay,” Colt repeated, his gold eyes gone round.
“Okay. We’ll talk later then.”
“Yeah,” Colt murmured. “Talking would…be…good.”
Kurt nodded and then scrunched up his face at Genie but, fuck it all, she wasn’t letting go. She wasn’t a hugger in general, but Kurt was back!
Kurt shook his leg again. “Later, man.”
“Layer. Later!” Colt corrected himself. “I meant later. We’ll talk later. Soon. We’ll talk…soon.”
“Jesus,” Kurt muttered as he made his way back to the truck, dragging a happy Genie along for the ride. “This is the weirdest reunion I’ve ever had.”
Now Genie was squirrel-sobbing with happiness, which wasn’t really comparable to human sobbing since she didn’t make noise. Mostly, her shoulders shook as she rubbed her face all over his jeans like an affectionate cat.
She’d been prepared to just lay around until the crows came to get her and/or die of sadness, but now she didn’t have to! Kurt and Gunner were home!
When Kurt opened the door to tell Gunner, “Get on out, Boy Boy, and grab your suitcase,” Genie scrambled up Kurt’s leg and into his truck. Kurt was yelling obscenities behind her, but she liked to pretend that when people yelled the F-word at her, they really meant the L-word. She sailed through the air and landed on a startled Gunner, who looked so cute and just like his dad. He was six and all squeaky-voiced and I love you I love you I love you.
“Dad! Is she going to bite me?” Gunner yelled as she nestled into the unzipped top of his jacket.
Silly boy. He didn’t get squirrel bites! Only squirrel kisses. She went to plant one on his chest, but Kurt yanked her off by the scruff of her neck. Helloooo, sexy man! When he dangled her in front of his face, his frown grew deeper. So cute. She wanted to squirrel-kiss him, too.
“I think she has rabies,” Kurt muttered.
I love you, too.
He threw her out into a mud puddle, but that was okay because she landed on all fours. Cute, cute man. She wanted to have all his squirrel babies.
Kurt and Gunner took off toward the barn at a crisp pace.
I’m coming! She bounced after them, splishing and splashing through the mud as they tried to flee. Silly boys. They couldn’t escape her love.
She followed behind them right up until the point Kurt yanked open the red apartment door and ushered his son inside. Kurt turned around and gave her a concerned glance, but that was okay! Everyone found her concerning. She was probably smiling with her buck teeth hanging out. Invite me in!
But then Kurt stepped inside, his boots making thud sounds against the dirt floor of the barn, and shut the door behind him with a soft, but deafening, click.
Genie stood there, frozen.
What had changed? Kurt still didn’t know she was a shifter, and Gunner was still scared of her. And she still wasn’t allowed in the apartment. Suddenly, her chest felt empty again, except now it was so much worse, and so much more painful. Why? Because for a few minutes, she’d known relief. She’d known what it was like to live outside the cage of sadness. For a few minutes, she’d forgotten who, and more importantly what, she was, and now she had to go back to being her secret self.
And Genie-Tenlee-Genie-Tenlee was left staring at the red door once again.
Chapter Four
Kurt chugged the last of his thermos of black coffee and strode toward Colt and Trigger. Best to get this out of the way.
They were saddling Ranger, Colt’s Bay, and Harley, Trigger’s awful, mean, and spiteful black stall
ion. The monster snapped at him the second he was close enough.
“I have something to say.”
“It better be a fucking epic apology,” Trigger muttered.
Genie was twitching her bushy tail from where she sat clinging to the fence between the horses lead ropes.
Kurt frowned at her because, holy hell, she’d been so weird when he’d come back. She’d hugged him. Hugged. Him. His leg, and then held on like a tick latched onto a stray dog. Everyone else had ignored his return, which was understandable, but the damn squirrel had welcomed him with little open arms. Literally.
“Look, I didn’t mean to abandon you.”
“Not us, man,” Trig growled out. “The girls. Ava and Karis were in a war alone, and where did you go? Where were you? Feels pretty fishy that your people came for them while you weren’t here.”
“My people? Fuck you, Trig.” Kurt was good and pissed at such an unfair call-out. “You’re my people. Wasn’t that clear at the last war? The one I fought without you askin’? The one where I killed my Alpha—my Alpha—to protect Ava? I got a note, man. I explained that in my goodbye letter. I got a note and I trusted it. I thought I was keeping you guys safe by leaving.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But I was trying. I have no Clan, Trig! You get that, right? I have no Clan. And I’m back here even though you killed off all my old Clan. Here to help you. So don’t you go accusin’ me of skipping out on a fight. I didn’t do that. I thought I was making a decision that kept everyone safe from the trouble I brung.” He spun and made to walk off, but turned because he wasn’t fuckin’ done. “And you know what? You can’t say shit.”
“What?” Trig asked, his eyes blazing an angry gold.
“You can’t say shit! You abandoned you entire MC. Dissolved us, and for no reason other than you fuckin’ felt like it. So don’t you call me out for leaving. Until your glass house is fuckin’ bullet proof, don’t go casting stones at me.”
“She’s a polar bear now, Kurt!” Hairpin Trigger chucked the brush he’d been using on his horse, and it blasted against the wall. And then he neatly dodged the kick Harley aimed at him. “She ain’t human no more. Have you seen her yet? Huh? Have you seen Ava? Have you looked into her eyes? Smelled her sick soul? Because I have. I do all the time, and that’s on me, Colt, and you. Karis did her job. She was laying over her getting fuckin’ murdered when we got to them, just to protect my mate. You seen Karis? She’s still healing up, but look at her arms. Look at her neck. You don’t even want to imagine her torso—”
“Trig,” Colt murmured, “she’s beautiful. She’s perfect.”
“That ain’t the point! She shouldn’t be scarred, and Ava shouldn’t be Turned, and you should’ve been there, man!” Trig shrank back and looked off to the side at the ground. “You should’ve been there, and I should’ve been there, and I’m mad.”
“My mate died.” Kurt gritted out the worst three words he’d ever uttered aloud.
“What?” Colt asked, his tone shocked.
“I ain’t lookin’ for pity, but you think I don’t understand what it was like, that fear? You think I don’t understand what it was like in those minutes you were racing back to the ranch, hoping the girls were still fighting? Ava’s Turned. Karis is scarred. My Laney—” Kurt’s voice broke on her name. He cleared his throat, once, twice, and then willed his voice to be steady. “My Laney wasn’t so lucky. I didn’t get to her in time. You can’t be harder on me than I’m being on me, Trig. You think I wanted them scarred and Turned? No. You’re my friends. I came back, putting me and my boy at risk because I got sent a video of the burning bear. Of the death oath. Don’t question my loyalty, Hairpin. I got a letter and thought I was helping by leaving…that’s all.”
“How did she die?” Colt asked.
“Laney wasn’t a mountain lion shifter. She was a bear, and our pairing wasn’t accepted by the Clan I was in. So I tried to take the Clan and force her acceptance. I put her and Gunner at risk going for that Alpha rank, and now she’s…” He swallowed hard. “She ain’t with us anymore.”
“Fuck, man,” Trig whispered so soft Kurt barely heard it. “I didn’t know.”
“No one does. It’s not something I sing from the rooftops. And like I told you, I ain’t lookin’ for pity. If you give it, I’ll hit you both in the dicks with a baseball bat. I’m just telling you…I know that fear. And…well…I’m sorry. Sorry I left like I did. I haven’t had the balls to face the girls yet, but I wanted you to know I’m sorry.”
Genie was coming his way, and she looked like she was going to latch on again. Good God. Kurt stared down at his pant leg, now embraced by one emotional, or rabid, little squirrel.
“Genie, what the fuck are you doing?” Colt asked, staring at his little pet like she’d lost her mind, which clearly, she had.
She didn’t respond other than to nuzzle her face against Kurt’s shin.
“She’s been basically dead for two weeks, and now she’s a hugger?” Colt asked. “She ain’t even biting you! Trig! Are you seeing this? She’s got some kinda disease or something.”
Trig bent down at Kurt’s leg and slowly reached out. “Oh my God, maybe she is finally trained to be a nice squir—”
Genie bit him.
Trigger flinched back and held up his bleeding finger. “Mother fucker,” he whispered, staring at the red drop that welled up on his index. “I was wrong. She’s still a demon.”
Colt slapped his leg and laughed, Genie held on tighter to Kurt’s pantleg, and everything was weird.
“Right,” Kurt muttered. “Well, I’m gonna go say my apologies to the girls, and then we have a flock of crows to murder.”
As he walked away, Colt called out, “It’s funny you say that because a flock of crows is also called a ‘murder.’ I Googled it.”
Kurt glanced down at the little critter who wasn’t letting go of his leg to hide a private smile.
God, he’d missed this place.
Chapter Five
Gunner tromped along in the footprints Kurt made in the soft soil. The mud had dried out some overnight. Kurt couldn’t help himself and looked behind him again, just in time to watch Gunner step into his boot print and pause.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, Boy Boy?”
“Someday, I want to have feet as big as yours.”
“Someday your feet will be bigger than mine.”
“Really?”
“Really, really. You have my animal, but you are built like your mother’s people.”
“Will you tell me what animal Mom was yet?”
“How old are you now?”
“More than six.”
Kurt smiled and continued making his way to his truck parked in front of Colt’s little log cabin. “I suppose that’s old enough.”
“Really?” his boy squealed.
“You have a mountain lion, but you also have the blood of a…” Kurt cast him a teasing grin over his shoulder, drawing his answer out.
“Tell me!”
Kurt grinned huge and spun, picked up Gunner, and tossed him high in the air, then caught his giggling boy. “Your mom was a fearsome grizzly.”
Gunner stopped squirming. “What?” His dark brown eyes blazed to green, and he looked stunned.
Kurt shouldn’t have done it this way. He should’ve prepared him better perhaps. “Your mom was so beautiful. Blond hair, and blue eyes. You don’t look much like her, but when she turned into her animal, her eyes turned green, like yours do. She was a grizzly, like Mr. Trig and Mr. Colt.”
When Gunner buried his face against Kurt’s chest, he squeezed his son tight, cupping the back of his head with his big palm. “I maybe should’ve told you sooner, Boy Boy. It’s part of why I like being around the Two Claws Clan. They are like your mom was before she died.”
“You mean before she got killed.”
Kurt swallowed hard. “Yeah, before she got killed.”
“Who killed her? What animals?”
Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck. He wasn’t ready for this part, and neither was Gunner. But he couldn’t lie to his smart boy. Gunner would see right through it.
“Mountain lions.”
Gunner’s little fists clenched his shirt, and he kept his face hidden against Kurt’s pec. “But I’m a mountain lion.”
“But you’re a good one. And I’ll make sure you stay good, okay?”
Gunner nodded, but he was crying. Kurt could tell. These were the moments that ripped his guts out. Laney should still be here raising Gunner with him, but she wasn’t, and it was just Kurt to pick up the pieces and try to be enough. An impossible task since Laney had been so good at being a parent, while Kurt was only good at war.
Kurt startled when the little squirrel climbed up his leg, but he stayed still as she made her way slowly to Gunner. She only hesitated a second before she nuzzled under Gunner’s arm and clenched onto him with her little paws.
Kurt didn’t know what was wrong with her lately, but in this moment, when he didn’t know what to do, he was glad the little squirrel brought a tear-filled smile to his son’s face. Gunner snuggled her up close and rubbed his cheek against her. Kurt waited for the little cretin squirrel to punish Gunner’s affection with a nip, but she didn’t. Instead, she let Gunner scoop her up tight, right there in Kurt’s arms, and hold her.
And for the first time since he had known this bitey, vicious squirrel, he was glad she was around.
Chapter Six
Oh, this was awful.
Tenlee sniffed, shivering in the cold. She was in Kurt’s favorite thinking place, naked, freezing, staring up at the man in the moon who cared nothing for her. Kurt had told Gunner who had killed his mom. And oh, she’d broken over the pain in Kurt’s eyes when he admitted mountain lions had killed his mate.
This was it. A dead mate was what had broken him. He’d bonded, had a son, had a family, had everything, and he’d lost it. And now Tenlee couldn’t stop crying.
That woman was dead, but she’d still had everything that Tenlee would never have. She’d had a family for a little while. She’d had Kurt. She had him still.