by R. E. Butler
He never regretted opening his front door that night in June. He knew he wasn’t perfect, but he loved her and the boys as if they were his flesh-and-blood children. He didn’t think a child could ask for much more than that.
Chapter 1
Whisper Callahan sat at the side of the bar while her father, Mack, filled a pitcher with draft beer and set it on the counter. After accepting payment from the customer, he turned his attention back to her.
It was hard as hell having a whole conversation with a bartender. Too many interruptions.
“You were saying, Sweetling?” Mack said.
“That I don’t know why you want me to go to the get-together in Pennsylvania.” She twirled the narrow red straw around in her tumbler, the ice swirling in the amber-tinted liquid of her Crown & Seven.
“Because it’s important for you to explore your roots before you decide to settle.” His large, weathered hands rested on the marred surface of the cherry bar. “And it’s called a gathering. All the unmated hyenas go to them.”
She lifted the straw and chewed on the end for a moment. “Why do you think I’d be settling if I stayed here with the pack?” She had been taken in as a toddler by Mack and joined the wolf pack when she was sixteen. They’d never cared that she was a hyena. She didn’t know why she’d been abandoned, but she really didn’t want anything to do with hyenas, no matter how good her father’s intentions were.
Mack shook his head. “Honestly, Whisper. What are you afraid of?”
Old worries tugged the corners of her lips down. “They didn’t want me then, why would they want me now?”
“You don’t know that, honey. The police were never able to find anyone related to you. It doesn’t mean that they’re not out there somewhere, wondering about you. All the police knew was that you weren’t related to the woman they found you with. They never figured out how you came to be with her or where you came from. Your whole past is a mystery up until you came to my front door.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. A bar was no place for a meltdown.
As if sensing her emotions, her adopted brothers Kross and Kayne moved to either side of her. Kross, who towered over her five-six frame by a solid foot, leaned on one muscular arm and laid his big hand on her back. “Whatcha sad for, Mouse?”
Mack answered, “She’s upset because I want her to go up to Pennsylvania to the gathering and meet other hyenas.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Kayne asked, stealing a swig of her drink and settling on the other side of her.
“Yeah. We go to the multiple-pack parties to hook up. Why wouldn’t you want to meet hyenas?” Kross asked.
She didn’t want to get into this because the root of the problem was bigger than the fact that she was a hyena. It wasn’t about that. It was about the fact that no one had ever come looking for her. Social Services had shown up at Mack’s door when Whisper was four. Twenty-one years later, she’d never had anyone try to contact her.
Taking a slow, deep breath, she placed her palms on the cool bar top and let the air from her lungs out slowly. “Can we not talk about this now?”
Mack shrugged. “Suit yourself, Whisper, but you’re going if I have to make Hekyll and Jekyll drag you up there themselves.”
Kayne barked out a laugh. “When have you ever made Mouse do anything she didn’t want to do?”
Mack narrowed his eyes at Kayne, and her brother abruptly stopped laughing. Turning his gray eyes to her slowly, Mack said, “This is about connecting with your own kind. If you don’t know where you came from, how can you really know who you are? I’m not telling you to go up there and marry the first hyena you meet. I’m just telling you that there’s nothing wrong with finding out about your own people and then making an informed decision. If you go up there and decide that you’re better off without any hyenas in your life, then at least you went. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life wondering what if.”
She really hated it when he was right, which was most of the time. “Okay, Dad. If Kross and Kayne will go with me for moral support.”
Kross and Kayne agreed immediately to go, and she had never doubted that they would. Kross and Kayne were adopted by Mack the same as her, and she couldn’t imagine any two guys being better brothers than they were. Her fiercest supporters.
“Now, enough of this emotional bullshit. Go play your set before I have to hire a new house band.”
Kross and Kayne saluted and grabbed Whisper under both arms. They hauled her through the bar while she laughed and then lifted her onto the stage. Their band, Silver Moon, had been playing together since they were young kids. Mack had been told by one of the she-wolves that music lessons were good for kids, so he had enrolled all of them in after-school classes. Whisper had taken to piano immediately, Kayne to drums, and Kross to guitar. Before long, they’d figured out they could sing, too, and that Whisper had a real talent for writing lyrics while Kayne could write music. Two more wolves from the pack, Tyler and Rik, had joined up in high school, and they’d been playing at the bar for years now, even before it was really legal for her to be there.
As the band tuned up, she rolled her neck and flexed her fingers, casting her eyes across the bar. She found her best friends Bliss and Angel sitting at a table and waved. Bliss and Whisper had known each other since grade school. Bliss was one of those rare wolves that had two shifting wolf parents but never shifted herself. She was the only pack member who was a full-blooded wolf but couldn’t shift, and because Whisper was the only pack member who wasn’t a wolf, they had gravitated to each other to commiserate in their oddness. Angel had joined the pack a few years ago. She was human, but her step-dad was a wolf, which was why they were part of the pack.
Her mind wandered to the gathering, and she mentally grimaced. Mack had tried in vain to get her to contact hyena groups on the East Coast in the past. Yes, she was curious about her people, but she was more afraid of finding out that what she’d believed to be the truth was an actual fact: That she’d never been wanted in the first place and had been tossed aside like so much trash. Mack, Kross, and Kayne were her family. It didn’t matter to her that she sometimes felt like an odd duck out hunting with the pack because of her beast, because they made her feel loved and wanted. No amount of hyena camaraderie in the form of a big party was going to make her want to be part of whatever hyenas called themselves when they got together. She was part of her father’s wolf pack, and nothing in the universe was going to change that.
Kayne whistled at her, and she turned to look at him. “There’s nothing wrong with checking it out, Mouse. But if you absolutely don’t want to go, then Kross and I will help you get into the Witness Protection Program so that Mack can’t find you and drive you to the gathering himself.”
She smiled. Kayne always knew how to make her feel better. “You sure you want to come?”
The drumsticks twirled in his fingers. “Why not? We get out of work for the week and get to go on a road trip.”
“I was thinking about asking Bliss and Angel to come along.”
Kross snarled, “Bliss is not allowed to be in charge of the radio.”
Bliss had a serious love of all things country, and Whisper’s brothers were die-hard rock fans. The last time they’d taken a trip and Bliss had come along, she commandeered the radio and tortured her brothers with twangy country tunes until they complained their ears were bleeding.
Whisper put her hand on her heart. “I promise to do my best to keep her country-loving hands off the radio.”
She heard Kross grumble under his breath, and she smiled. Whatever came from the gathering, she knew that she would have a good time with her brothers and her best friends. If she tried really hard, she might even decide to have an open mind about meeting hyenas. She nodded at Kayne, and he counted off and started the song. She shoved the worries of what she might face when she went to the gathering away into the far corners of her mind, and lost herself in the music.
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nbsp; * * * * *
Angel sat on Whisper’s bed the night before they were scheduled to leave for Pennsylvania, watching her pack. Her long, blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders, and if she’d had on something other than an old heavy metal t-shirt and ripped jeans, she might have actually looked like an angel.
“I’m bummed you can’t go,” Whisper said, peering inside her toiletries bag and making sure she had all she needed. Bliss was coming, but Angel, a receptionist at a veterinarian’s office, couldn’t get off work.
Angel grimaced. “I know. I wish I could. The other receptionist is off on maternity leave, and they can’t get anyone else to fill in for a week just because I was invited to go hang out in the woods in Pennsylvania. I’m sure you guys are going to have a blast, and I’m going to be stuck here.”
Whisper smiled sadly. “What if I promise to try not to have any fun?”
Angel laughed. “That would make me feel better.”
From the hallway, Kayne called, “Mouse, have you seen my car keys?”
She thought for a moment and called back, “I took them out of your jeans’ pocket when I did laundry this morning, check on the washer.”
“Thanks.”
She turned her attention back to her friend and began to fold a sweater. It was still warm for early November, but the gathering was at a campground in the mountains in Pennsylvania, and she knew that it would most likely be colder there. As her adopted Grandma Francis used to say, it was better to have a sweater and not need it, then to need one and not have it.
Angel leaned back on her elbows on the bed, her legs dangling off the edge. “It’s probably better that I don’t go anyway.”
Whisper looked at her. “Why would you say that?”
Angel’s pretty face darkened. “Any kids that I have will never be able to shift.”
“So?”
“So? No shifter in his right mind would pick me as a mate. I should probably stop trying to date shifters and just go human.”
Whisper opened her mouth to tell her that she was being ridiculous, but judging from Angel’s face, she knew the argument would fall on deaf ears. When Angel joined the pack with her parents four years ago, Mack had assured them that he didn’t care that Angel and her mom were human. Angel’s parents had both been human, so she was understandably human. Her father died when she was a teenager, and her mother remarried a werewolf, which allowed the entire family acceptance in the pack. A lot of single males in the pack had dated Angel – she was very pretty, after all, and sweet and funny – but no one dated her seriously. Eventually it became clear that the males didn’t consider her mate material. Her brothers had never dated Angel because they had a rule about not dating her friends, but they told Whisper that when males started to think of mating and family, they tended to want their kids to shift.
Whisper said, “So none of the males in the pack are your mate. It doesn’t mean that your mate isn’t out there somewhere. Maybe he’s a wolf or maybe he’s human, but just because he’s not in the pack doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s not a wolf.”
Angel opened her mouth as if she might protest, but then just shut it and shrugged. It was a sore topic with Angel, and Whisper didn’t want to get into an argument with her. She and her two friends were quite the trio. A hyena, a non-shifting werewolf, and a human.
Whisper’s phone buzzed, and she lifted it from the bed and read the screen. Making a face, she tossed the phone back down and went back to arranging her hiking boots into the suitcase.
Angel’s brow rose. “Gregor?”
Whisper nodded. Gregor was a wolf who’d been chasing after Whisper since high school. He was mildly attractive, but he said stupid things like I’m willing to overlook the fact you aren’t a wolf and it would be smart of you to take me as a mate before you get old and saggy and no one wants you.
“I’ve told him I’m not interested, but he’s gotten more insistent since I decided to go to the gathering.”
“At least you have a male that’s interested in you.”
“Do you really want Gregor? He’s so slimy he glides when he walks.” Whisper shivered.
Angel grimaced. “No, not really.” She stood, stretched, and hugged Whisper. “I need to get home and thaw something for dinner. Have fun, and I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“I’m not looking for anything but to get Mack off my back about my heritage,” she reminded her friend, who was heading towards the bedroom door.
Angel looked over her shoulder. “If you say so.”
Putting in the last item, she zippered her suitcase and tugged it off the bed, using the extended handle to wheel it out the bedroom door. She left the suitcase near the front door for her brothers to load up. The three of them lived together in a three-bedroom apartment over the bar. Kross and Kayne had moved in first, after high school, and when Whisper graduated she moved in, too. The bar was in the center of the pack’s territory, and Mack’s home was behind it, nestled in the woods that surrounded the bar.
Beyton was a heavily wooded town near the Mullica River. It was a small town with several wolf-run businesses including the bar where Whisper worked on the weekend singing and the music store where she gave piano lessons. She loved Beyton and thought of it as home.
Maybe that was what bugged her most about the whole hyena thing. If by some ridiculous chance she happened to find her mate and he was a hyena, then he was probably part of a hyena group somewhere and would want her to go back with him. Then she’d lose everything she had here. She wouldn’t be part of the pack, she’d be a visitor. No more working at the bar. No more living with her brothers. No more Sunday dinners with Mack.
She looked at her left wrist and the tattoo that she had gotten when she turned eighteen. It matched ones that her brothers had, and was a scrolled letter C surrounded by wolf and hyena paw prints.
Unhappiness settled over her. She didn’t want to change her life so drastically. Snorting inwardly, she wondered what the odds were that the first time she met hyenas she would actually happen to find her mate. Probably slim to impossible. So she’d go and just hang out with her brothers and Bliss. Then she could come back after a week and find a wolf to settle down with and start a family. Mack had been a great dad, and he would be a wonderful grandfather.
Pushing away the nagging worry that nothing about her life was going to be the same once she went to the gathering, she went to see what her brothers were up to, plans for her future firmly planted in her mind.
Chapter 2
Nyte Stone rolled his neck with a groan. The flight from Louisville, Kentucky, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, should have been short and simple, but the flight coming into Louisville had been delayed and they’d gotten stuck at the airport all night. It would have been faster to drive.
His brothers Azrael and Fade were standing behind him as they waited in line at the rental car company to pick up their vehicle. The gathering of unmated hyenas was taking place in the mountain town of Grand Hope, Pennsylvania, in the Fresh Water Campgrounds. They had reserved one of the cabins that were available, and judging from the picture, it was little more than a bedroom and bathroom with a miniscule kitchen.
The woman behind the counter confirmed their reservation and directed them to the SUV line of vehicles. They chose a dark blue Highlander and climbed inside. He took the wheel while Azrael programmed the GPS to the address of the main office of the campground and Fade settled into the second row. He and his brothers formed a clan together. They lived with two other hyena clans in a baro, which was a group of clans that lived together. Their two sets of cousins made up the other two clans, and both clans were now mated. Hyenas shared a mate — three males would find one female to share between them.
He wasn’t sure that he believed that they would find their mate here at the gathering of single hyenas, but he was keeping an open mind. His mother was lamenting the fact that both of their cousins’ clans were having babies and he and his brothers were still
single. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to find his mate and start their family, but they just hadn’t found her yet.
The drive from Philly to the campground was going to take two hours. It had been a long, hellish night. All he wanted to do was check in at the campground and grab a few hours of sleep. The activities didn’t start until that night, when there was an informal meet-and-greet for people who got there in time on Sunday night. The gathering didn’t officially start until Monday afternoon and was pretty much just a solid week of hanging out at the campgrounds. There was fishing, boating, hiking, and plenty of cookouts. If nothing else, he and his brothers would get in a week of R&R before they headed back to Dalton and their jobs at Stone’s Gym. Turning his thoughts back to the road, they left the Philly airport behind and headed towards the gathering.
* * * * *
Azrael fiddled with the satellite radio and settled on a top-twenty station, keeping it low enough to talk, although neither of his brothers were speaking at the moment. Nyte was watching the road intently, lost to his own thoughts, and Fade was in the second row, playing a game on his cell.
He was looking forward to the week off work. He didn’t mind working as a trainer at Stone’s Gym, but his passion was cooking. He hadn’t gone to college for it, but he had taken culinary courses since high school. He was what was known in the hyena community as the caretaker of his clan. Nyte was the oldest at twenty-nine and was their clan leader. Fade was the youngest at twenty-six and was the protector of the clan. He was a graphic artist who freelanced for a company based out of Tennessee, where they’d grown up. When they moved to Dalton, Fade redid the logo and marketing materials for the gym. He worked the second shift at the gym with them, but stayed in his office handling the marketing. Azrael, like Nyte, was a trainer at the gym and had gotten his certificate, but what Azrael really enjoyed doing was taking care of his family. Making sure that Fade ate dinner when he was working hard on a project, seeing that Nyte didn’t miss appointments because he was too busy doing other things. Someday he would be watching over their mate and making sure she was deliriously happy. And eventually their children as well.