They said their goodbyes and hung up. Kassie sat there for a long moment, and then everything hit her. She closed her eyes and felt tears begin to roll down her face. More and more, she was realizing that she was not as alone as she had felt she was for so long, being a single mother as she had been for the past few years. There was Cole now, and there were the friends that had helped her in her time of need.
And maybe, just maybe, there was hope for her on the horizon.
Chapter 15
Though it had been a while since she’d last spoken to Norah and Abram Young, Kassie still counted them among her best friends. It was just time and work that had gotten in the way of keeping up with them and seeing how they were doing. It made her feel a little guilty that she was suddenly calling on them for a favor, especially one of this magnitude, but if it meant keeping Taylor safe, she was prepared to call on them for her safekeeping.
They lived in a remote section of Spartanburg, far from the hustle and bustle of the main crowd. She had first met them purely by chance, not long after Taylor was born. Back then, she had been unemployed, living off benefits, and doing her best to try and find a job that would accommodate a single working mother with a baby at home. It hadn’t exactly been easy.
Norah had pretty much offered her the job out of the blue, and out of desperation more than anything Kassie had taken it. But soon she had come to find that the Youngs were kind and trustworthy people, and she enjoyed their young son, Logan. Taking care of them had been some preparation for her own journey into motherhood as well, though he was far more rambunctious than Taylor could ever hope to be.
Back in the driver’s seat, Kassie looked into the rearview mirror and smiled to herself as she watched Cole playing in the backseat with a still-fussy Taylor. The little girl was definitely not happy about being on the move again, but she hoped that having new friends around would help to cheer her up a bit, especially since one of those friends was going to be another child, even if he was a few years older than her.
Following along the road and feeling a twinge of anxiety as she was forced to once again cut through the main portion of town on her way to the area where Norah and Abram lived, Kassie eventually let her mind wander. She wasn’t sure what was going to come next. The idea of having to rely on the Youngs for help wasn’t exactly reassuring. She just hoped that she was doing the right thing.
According to Cole, though, the shifters hadn’t yet found them at their new motel, so they still had a good bit of time to travel. And unless they were unlucky, it would be far more difficult for the shifters to find them if they were staying with friends rather than in motels on the side of the highway where anybody or anything could come sniffing around.
They had set off in the early morning, and the day still hadn’t gone on for too long when they finally pulled up to the house where the Youngs lived. Kassie was immediately besieged by memories of her time in this place as a young mother, where she had lived while taking care of both Taylor and the little boy, Logan, in those earliest days after her pregnancy.
Turning around, she started to say something about this to Cole. However, she immediately saw that he was on high alert from the moment she turned off the car.
“What is it?” she asked, furrowing her brow and feeling her heart start to hammer in her chest immediately. Already she could tell that there was something very, very wrong.
“There are shifters around here,” he said. “Not the same ones though. Not those men.”
Kassie automatically reached for the key in the ignition. If there were shifters here, then they ought to just get out of there as quickly as possible. But before she could even think about driving away, the door to the front of the Youngs’ house was opening, and there was Norah, smiling and waving at her.
“There she is, my friend,” said Kassie, relaxing just a little bit. “I’m going to go and speak with her.”
“No… wait.” Cole leaned forward, peering through the front window at Norah, who was still standing there and gesturing for them to get out of the car and come meet her. “It’s her,” he said then. “She’s a shifter.”
“What? Cole… What are you saying?”
“She’s a shifter, Kassie. I can tell.”
“But… I’ve known her for years.”
“Yeah. So you said. Did she approach you first then?” he asked. And immediately Kassie realized that was true. Norah and Abram had been the ones to approach her and Taylor first. And if they were shifters… Well, they would have been able to sense that Taylor was a shifter too, wouldn’t they? Immediately her head started to spin with these new facts.
And yet…
“We can trust them,” she said. “Cole, I know we can.”
“Kassie…”
“I’ve known them for so long, Cole. They’ve been really good to Taylor and me. And besides that…”
And besides that, she was just realizing that the same feeling she got from them—the feeling of comfort and relaxation, the feeling that she would always be protected when she was around them—was the same feeling that she got when she was around Cole. They couldn’t possibly be bad, like those other shifters, if that was the feeling she got when she was around them.
“Okay,” said Cole, and then they all got out of the car. Cole was the one to pick Taylor up this time, and she nuzzled herself into his chest as she looked at Norah. Meanwhile, Kassie made her way across the stone pathway and toward the woman, more cautiously than she would have if it weren’t for what Cole had just said, but still remembering everything that they had done for her in the past.
“Kassie?” said Norah. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. Yeah. It’s good to see you,” she said, running her hands through her hair. “Sorry. I’m just feeling a little bit overwhelmed.”
“I can imagine. You look tired. Why don’t you all come in, and I’ll make you some breakfast? Abram is just inside. He’s excited to see you.” And then, as she spoke, her eyes shifted to Cole. There was something there in that gaze that struck Kassie. Why was she looking at him that way? It was an especially intense look, as if she had just found something that she had been missing for a very long time. But the moment passed quickly, and she turned around, leading the small group into the little house.
At once, a little boy of around six years old came running and threw his arms around Kassie’s legs, threatening to knock her off her feet. “Kass! Kass!” he called out.
“Hey, Logan,” she said, reaching down to tussle his hair with her fingers. “Wow, you’ve gotten so big since the last time I saw you.”
“I’m a big bear!” he said, and he let out a small growl before collapsing once again against Kassie’s legs in a fit of giggles. At this though, Kassie exchanged another glance with Cole. It was at this moment that Abram walked into the room.
“Kassie, Kassie! It’s really been too long!”
“Hello, Abram. It’s nice to see you,” she said, turning toward him. Though he was an older man, Abram was still incredibly handsome. His dark hair had become flecked salt and pepper in the intervening years since Kassie had last seen him, and there seemed to be a few more lines on his face, but that didn’t seem to have done anything to change the fact that he was still a very attractive man. In many ways, he reminded her of what Cole might look like given another twenty years or so.
And just like Norah had done, after greeting Kassie, Abram’s eyes turned to Cole. There was something in his gaze that struck her. What was it about Cole that had made such an impression on the Youngs when he hadn’t even spoken a word to them yet? Was it just because he was a shifter, because he was the father of her child, or was there something more that the two of them weren’t quite saying?
“Hello, nice to meet you,” said Cole, sounding a bit reluctant as he extended his hand toward Abram.
“Why so formal?” said Abram with a light chuckle as he took Cole by the hand, seeming to surprise Cole with that statement.
“Sir?”<
br />
“Ah… military, were you?” he said. “You’ve got that tone in your voice. I’ve met a few veterans over the years. No shifters who ever served, though.”
And there it was, the truth of the situation, laid out bare, right out on the table for everyone to see.
“So… you know,” said Kassie. “You knew? About Taylor?”
Abram and Norah both turned toward her. This time, it was Norah that spoke.
“Yes. We could sense it about her, and we could tell that you didn’t know. It was certainly a delicate situation for you to be involved in. But I’m glad that you’ve reunited with Taylor’s father. It will certainly make things better for her when she begins to come into her powers. Better than having a couple of old strangers tell her about what it means to be a shifter.”
“We didn’t mean to keep this from you,” said Abram. “It’s just that you already had so much to deal with… We thought it would be better to wait.”
“Yeah. Well, now I’m in a lot of trouble because of this stuff. Not that I regret what Taylor is,” she added quickly. She would have hated for them to get that impression. “But…”
“What do you know about the Iron Fur Clan?” asked Cole.
At those words, both Norah and Abram seemed to freeze up, as if the world had dropped out from under their feet.
“The… Iron Fur Clan?” It was Norah who spoke. “How do you know about them?”
“Because they’re chasing us,” he said. “They want me. And they want to kill Kassie and Taylor. Needless to say, I’m not going to let that happen.”
Norah and Abram exchanged looks. There was something in that, thought Kassie, but right now wasn’t the best time to try and figure out what it was that they knew. She was weary, exhausted, and she didn’t even know how to start thinking about what tomorrow would bring.
“You’ll have our home and our protection,” said Abram. “All of you.”
“Thank you,” said Kassie. Of course, she had known that she could rely on them, but finding out that they were shifters too… Well, it had certainly thrown her. But she knew that they couldn’t all be like the Iron Fur Clan and those men who were chasing her. Cole was proof enough of the goodness that a shifter could possess.
That night, as she lay in the bed that Norah and Abram had provided for her with Taylor at her side, she thought back to those early days when she had known them and whether there had been anything then that might have indicated they were different. Suddenly, she was being flooded with memories of little offhanded comments the two of them had made now and then, and she felt almost foolish for not picking up on something. But then again, how could she have known?
“Do you like Mr. and Mrs. Young?” asked Kassie of Taylor, running her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Taylor nodded enthusiastically.
“They’re really, really nice,” she said. At that, Kassie smiled. Somehow, the fact that they had won her daughter’s seal of approval meant for certain that they were good people. Children were inherently good judges of character after all.
Despite all that, though, as Kassie drifted off to sleep, she was assaulted by the sense that she was missing something. What could it be, though? She had uncovered one mystery about the Youngs, and that was enough. Certainly, there weren’t more.
But barely a day would pass before she realized just how wrong she was. Kassie had brought Taylor into the kitchen for lunch on Norah’s suggestion, and the two of them were just sitting down at the table when they heard Abram and Cole traipsing through the house on their way out to the backyard.
“It’s really easy work. I’ll show you everything you need to do,” Abram was saying as he led Cole outside, a toolbox in hand. As she looked up at them, Kassie was struck once again by the resemblance between the two. It was almost if…
No. It couldn’t be, could it? She knew that Cole had lost his parents, been raised as an orphan, and the Youngs were certainly about the right age to have been young parents to Cole, but that couldn’t mean that they actually were his parents. And yet, once the thought had entered into her mind, nothing that Kassie could do would get it out. In fact, it seemed like every little thing she took notice of seemed to confirm her initial suspicion.
There was the specific color of blue of Cole’s eyes, which was exactly the same as the blue of Norah’s eyes. And there was the way that his eyes creased at the edges when he smiled, just the same as Abram’s. The timbre of his voice was the same as Abram’s too, not too deep, but holding something rugged in it that encapsulated something of his nature.
Then, there was the fact that the littlest member of the Young family, Logan, looked very much like what she would have imagined Cole to look like as a child. He had the same eyes and the same cut to his jaw. The only marked difference between the two was their attitude, as Logan possessed none of the shy or cautious nature of Cole. But that was the way with brothers, wasn’t it?
Kassie went over and over these thoughts throughout the day, feeling almost like a conspiracy theorist. But the final straw, the thing that made her almost sure of her convictions, was the way that she kept catching Norah watching Cole. There was something in her eyes when she looked Cole’s way, a peculiar mixture of love and melancholy, that struck Kassie. Being a mother herself, she couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be separated from her child, but the look in Norah’s eyes encapsulated something of what she imagined it must feel like.
So, finally, when it was just the two of them and the men had gone off to do some more work somewhere else around the house, Kassie approached Norah.
“Hey,” she said cautiously. “This may seem like a strange question…”
She had barely even finished that statement when Norah turned to her, tears filling up her eyes.
“Oh,” she said, feeling and sounding rather surprised. “Norah…”
“Kassie. You know, don’t you?” she said. “You know about Cole and us? You’ve been watching today, I’ve seen it. And yes, it’s true. I’m Cole’s mother.”
The wind went out of Kassie. She had to sit down, fast. Searching the kitchen, she found a chair and dropped into it, lest her legs give out from under her. After a long moment Norah pulled up another chair and sat down across from her, gently wiping the tears from her face and letting out a laugh.
“It’s a long story. But I can tell you now, Kassie, we never wanted to give Cole up. But the Iron Fur Clan… They were chasing us.”
The same men who were chasing them now had been chasing the Youngs back then? What was it with these people? Kassie shook her head.
“They were after you? But why leave Cole alone?”
“We watched him, you can be sure of that. We saw him grow up in that orphanage, until… Well, he ran away when he was a teenager, didn’t he? And we never really found him after that. That entire time, we were fighting the Iron Fur Clan. Trying to find some peace. Trying to reach a point where maybe we could escape and find a way to be a real family, away from all this fighting and this chaos. But it never happened.”
“And then one day, you ran into me and Taylor,” said Kassie.
Norah smiled. “Yes. I could sense that Taylor was of our blood. And you needed help, so we were more than happy to give it.”
Kassie shook her head. “Cole’s parents. Lord. What is he going to say when he finds out—”
“No,” said Norah immediately. “I don’t think we should… Not yet, anyway. He’ll only be angry, finding out he was abandoned, won’t he? And right now, you need to stay here and be safe.”
Ah. And there it was. The secret was now also Kassie’s to bear. She couldn’t imagine keeping something of this magnitude from Cole, but what could she do? It was true that he was likely to be angry upon finding out that he had been left at that orphanage when his parents were perfectly safe and alive. Wouldn’t she be angry? Her head suddenly became clouded as a million different thoughts went through her.
“I can promise I won’t say anything,” said
Kassie. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t encourage you to tell him the truth. He needs to know. He deserves to know. He’s been through so much.”
Norah nodded slowly. Whether she was really listening or not, Kassie didn’t know. But one thing was for certain. She wasn’t going to let the Iron Fur Clan tear her family apart now the way it had done Cole’s family in the past.
Chapter 16
Kassie had never had so much to think about in her life, not even when Taylor had just been born. Right now, she was in the midst of shifters, something that she had never before known existed or even thought possible. Her own daughter was a shifter. And now, she was bearing the weight of a secret that had the potential to completely change the world of the man she now realized she loved more than she could ever have thought possible.
It was so much weight to have on her shoulders that there were many passing moments where Kassie thought she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Nevertheless, she managed to get through those moments, promising herself that soon this would all be over and she could focus on building a new life—a proper life—for herself and her daughter. A life with Cole in it.
She just wished that she could see beyond the horizon, that she could actually feel hopeful that they could somehow get the Iron Fur Clan to leave them be. Days passed at the Youngs, and though she felt at least confident that they now had strength in numbers, she still had the feeling that it would be any day now that they were once again confronted by the Iron Fur Clan.
Taylor at least seemed to be quickly adapting to her new surroundings. Though he was several years older, she had found a steady playmate in Logan. Despite everything, it brought a smile to her face to see Taylor playing with the older boy, and if he made the occasional comment about shifting, about how he couldn’t wait for her to come into her powers, then perhaps it was good for all involved. The best thing for Taylor was to grow up realizing what she was and that this was normal. Kassie didn’t want her daughter to suffer because of her powers the same way that Cole had.
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