Bailey Bradford - Southwestern Shifters 07 - Revolution

by Bailey Bradford

  “They look happy,” Luuk murmured. He clicked the link and Adam’s page popped up. Unlike Todd’s, several things appeared, numerous postings that said what Adam and Todd had done, how happy they were.

  “Click there,” Jameson said as he tapped the screen where one post said new pictures had been added. Luuk clicked, and Jameson stared at the photo, Adam’s eyes lit with a joy that was unmistakable. He was gazing at whoever was taking the picture, and Jameson would bet that was Todd. Luuk clicked the white arrow and another picture appeared, this one of the two men embracing, then a third was of them kissing, and Jameson was shocked to find himself crying, tears of joy and regret. He was happy for Adam, but he wished he’d been there in person to see the evolution of this blissful Adam. Picture after picture provided some of the details Jameson had missed in his friend’s life, but it wasn’t the same as being there.

  “Looks like he’s done fine without me.” Jameson blinked and swiped at his cheeks. Luuk swivelled in the chair and grabbed him by the hips. In seconds he was on Luuk’s lap being kissed until he had to pull away to take a breath.

  “He’s done fine, sure, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t missed you.” Luuk turned his head and nodded at the screen. Jameson looked and yeah, he could see a hint of sadness in Adam’s eyes, but maybe he was imagining it. “No, read the words under it.”

  Jameson leaned closer, his vision blurred from tears, then more began to fall as he read the words written by Langston Hughes decades ago.

  “‘I loved my friend. He went away from me. There’s nothing more to say. The poem ends, soft as it begins—I loved my friend. Langston Hughes.’”

  Luuk pointed to the date. “I wouldn’t say he has forgotten you at all. This was posted seven months ago.”

  “Loved,” Jameson sighed. He was being a moody jerk, but he couldn’t help it. The blackness was creeping in, making him want to curl up and cry for days. “That’s past tense.”

  Luuk cupped his chin and made him look at the picture. “Does he look as if he’s over you? Like he doesn’t give a shit what has happened?”

  Jameson tried to turn away. His eyes and his hateful brain were telling him two different things. “I don’t know. I don’t—” Jameson shoved up and ran for the bathroom. He needed a few minutes to fight the bad part of himself, to bury it.

  “No, you’re not hiding it from me anymore,” Luuk said, and it was only then Jameson realised Luuk was right on his heels. “Jamie, love, you don’t have to hide it from me. Why didn’t you tell me you were this depressed—?”

  “I’m not!” Jameson burned with shame even as he shouted the lie. It burned his tongue, his gut, and he shook his head, unable to keep lying to his mate. “I’m so weak. How can you look at me and not see how fucked up I am?”

  Luuk stopped mid-reach, and instead touched the back of his hand, his cheek, then rested his hand over Jameson’s heart. “You are neither of those things,” he growled, his gaze tangling with Jameson’s and holding it steady. “You are not!” Luuk’s certainty rushed into Jameson, pushing in and chasing back the dark. Eyes open, he saw nothing as Luuk’s love, his faith, his admiration flooded Jameson in swell after swell. “You are everything to me, Jamie. Everything.”

  Whether Luuk spoke the words or thought them, Jameson couldn’t say. He wanted to lose himself in his mate’s love, but the shame was hard to shake off.

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of. I have made your life so difficult, hurt you so much that you couldn’t trust me with what you were feeling. What kind of mate have I been that the one who should know he means more to me than anything else in this world didn’t know? Didn’t think he could trust me to support him and love him?”

  Jameson jerked at the words, his head snapping back as he starting shaking it. “No, no, that’s not it, Luuk. Please. Please, I…” He sniffled and slapped a hand over his mouth, wishing he wasn’t such a wuss.

  “Stop it, Jamie. You’re not. Please, tell me,” Luuk begged, his eyes pained, and Jamie dropped his hand away and sniffled again.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with…depression.” Jameson stiffened his spine and forced out the other words that he hated so. “Mental illness. It’s something I can’t help, but where I come from, it’s shameful, and I can’t get past that. I thought I had conquered it when we met, just had some bad days, but…” Jameson looked at Luuk and opened himself fully. “I can’t beat this, Luuk. I’m terrified it will get a hold of me and do me like before. I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t function. What kind of man, what kind of mate, does that make me?” Jesus, Luuk deserved so much better than someone fucked up with periods of major depressive disorder. He’d really thought after the hospitalisation over a decade ago that he was past it.

  Luuk was holding him. When had that happened? Jameson closed his eyes and listened to his own panicked mind for a moment before Luuk’s words penetrated. Promises of love unending and apologies, Luuk kept talking, kept talking, and Jameson’s tears kept falling, mingling with Luuk’s to drop onto their shirts. Jameson wished the shifter ability to heal rapidly also applied to his mind, but for now, he was comforted by the knowledge that he didn’t have to hide that part of himself from his mate anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “The next turn, there.” Father Norbert pointed over Luuk’s shoulder. Luuk looked at the barely discernible dirt…road. “That’s a road? It looks more like a rocky path.”

  Father Norbert snorted and patted his shoulder. “I am certain this, er, fine vehicle you procured will withstand the drive.”

  “I’m not,” Luuk muttered. “And I told you, I bought this piece of…junk, I didn’t steal it.”

  “Of course you did.”

  Jamie snickered and Luuk was fairly certain Father Norbert was just messing with him, possibly to try and distract him from his justified fear that they might be driving right into a trap.

  “We have to trust someone sometime,” Jamie had told him when he’d voiced his concerns over meeting with the Fathers’ shifter family members. He knew Jamie was right, but trusting someone—other than Jamie—had led to their current situation.

  No, being deliberately blind to Luther’s duplicity, that’s what led to this. Luuk sighed and slowed the car as he took the turn.

  “Piotr will be arriving tonight, his sister said. It will be good for him to be with his family.” Father Norbert sounded pretty damned happy, and Luuk tried to borrow some of that.

  “It’ll be good to see him, for us, too,” Jamie said, taking the thought right out of Luuk’s head. “I’m glad he’s being allowed to leave the hospital and stay with family instead of staying there and being cared for.”

  Father Norbert huffed with enough force that his breath made the back of Luuk’s hair flutter. Of course, the close proximity in the tiny vehicle probably contributed to that. “The poor staff at the hospital would no doubt quit if they had to deal with him much longer. Piotr does not make a good patient, at all.”

  “I can imagine.” As kind as the old priest was, Luuk would bet he didn’t like being hovered over, and treated as if he were feeble.

  Any further conversation was stilted by the violent bumps along the road. Jamie and Norbert both had hands pressed to the roof of the car in attempts to protect their heads. Luuk wasn’t so lucky, and the seat belts were useless, stretched out as they were. Luuk couldn’t do anything but creep along at a snail’s pace, and even then, he’d give himself a knot or two.

  “It is a deterrent,” Father Norbert explained. “Not many will drive this road, and it is the only access to where we are going.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be driven to be accessible,” Luuk pointed out. “This is nothing for us in our wolf form.”

  “Mmm. But a wolf, or wolves, would not need to follow a man-made road, so the point is moot. This is as safe as it can be, considering what you and Jameson are, what the others are.”

  The priest had a point, and Luuk knew there were on
ly so many precautions anyone could take.

  “We’ll be okay, Luuk. I feel it. Things are going to change. We aren’t going to have to run anymore.”

  “I shouldn’t have run in the first place.” He should have fought, but Jamie would have stayed and fought with him, and while Luuk would sacrifice himself, he wouldn’t sacrifice Jamie.

  “Stop. We did what was right for us,” Jamie scolded him out loud, and Luuk nodded.

  One tight turn after another, the switchbacks up the mountain were scary enough to make the hair stand up on the back of Luuk’s neck. The road smoothed out some, but he couldn’t go any faster or else he’d risk running off the side of the mountain. They hadn’t come this far to die such a stupid death.

  “I’d prefer us not to die at all, not for a long time, love.” Jamie squeezed Luuk’s thigh, and Luuk smiled slightly at the comfort. After another particularly sharp turn, Jamie sucked in a breath and pointed. “Look! I see a roof!”

  Luuk saw it too. Norbert leant forward, putting his head right between them. “Yes, that is cousin Mem’s home, where the remaining shifters reside. There used to be more in this area, but the fighting has depleted their numbers. Many are battling Luther’s followers. Some have been trying to find you, Luuk, and Jamie. Mem and the others will want to let them know that both of you are safe.”

  “After we leave here,” Luuk told him. “Perhaps we will have some plan in place then.” He wanted to find out if there were truly others sent by Alpha Anaxes abroad, and if so, who they were, whether he could trust them. “Is there any Internet connection up here?”

  Father Norbert chuckled and patted his shoulder again. “Oh yes, yes there is. Few places cannot be connected via satellite or with ever-changing technology. Mem would go crazy without her Internet.”

  “Good.” He’d been careless before, and it had cost him dearly, but Luuk wasn’t being careless by contacting his brother, nor was Jamie putting them at risk by attempting to reach his friend. They both needed support, either physically, as in bodies to help them fight, or morally, emotionally. Luuk thought that contacting Adam might help Jamie through some of the depression he’d been trying to keep at bay. Luuk wasn’t educated about mental illness, but he would be. He’d not let Jamie deal with it alone, and if, through their bond, he could carry some of that dark weight of depression, he would, gladly.

  The closer they got to the large home, the more tense Luuk became. Jamie stroked his leg, his side, but Luuk couldn’t help it. Trusting others was difficult even if it was necessary.

  “My ancestors built this themselves, from native rock,” Father Norbert said, and somehow, between his voice and Jamie’s soothing touch and thoughts, Luuk felt slightly less close to cracking. “It took my great-grandfather more than ten years to complete. He kept adding on, and so it is now a hodge-podge of rooms and, in many places, unlevel. Watch your heads at the doorways once we are into the interior. That is where the problems lie—a step up or down into a room does not always coincide with the appropriate height of the entrance.”

  Luuk frowned, trying to picture that. He couldn’t. “I guess we’ll just have to see it.”

  “I’m sure it’s very interesting inside.” Jamie leant forward, peering out of the window. “It’s, um, interesting on the outside.”

  “Interesting, indeed,” Norbert chuckled. “I am not certain my great-grandfather, nor that his sight wasn’t quite awful, when he was working on the house, but it is unique.”

  Luuk made the last turn and almost snickered. ‘Unique’ was certainly one way to describe the house, which seemed to meander in the oddest directions. Looking at the mismatched rocks, unsmoothed and protruding at odd places and angles, Luuk thought it appeared to be something vomited out from the mountainside. But—“I’m thinking there might be more to his design plan than meets the eye. With the native stone used as it has been, this wouldn’t look much different from the mountainside even through a scope. The windows are barely discernible with the turn of the walls. I suspect your great-grandfather was quite brilliant in his planning and execution of the design.”

  “Hm, I think you’re right,” Jamie said. “If the stones were smooth and the walls all straight, that would look unnatural, and would stand out. And the uneven exterior would mean the interior would also be varied in height and such.”

  “Ah, and I always thought of him as an unskilled builder. I have misjudged my relative,” Father Norbert murmured. “You have given me new eyes with which to view this now.”

  Luuk hitched a shoulder up and slowed the car even more. “Where do I—oh.” He blinked in surprise as a portion of the rock began sliding open.

  “Oh my God, it’s like, like the Batcave or something!” Jamie’s excitement was unmistakable as he bounced in his seat. “This is so cool!”

  “Yeah,” Luuk muttered, trying not to feel trapped as he pulled into the garage and the doors began closing behind the vehicle. Lights kept the cavernous space from being too dark, but there were shadows and places for attackers to hide. He was trying to spot any potential threats when a large woman, in both height and weight, stepped out of an opening he’d not seen before. Another mysterious sliding wall, no doubt. The man who’d designed this place was a genius, Luuk was certain of it.

  “Mem!” Father Norbert was out of the vehicle before Luuk could even shut it off. Luuk watched as the older man ran, dignity tossed aside for welcoming family, and embraced the woman.

  “It’s going to be okay here,” Jamie told him, and Luuk turned to him. The certainty in Jamie’s eyes was reassuring, but Luuk couldn’t just relax. “I’m not asking you to forget everything that’s happening, but I do want you to try to consider trusting these shifters. Norbert and Piotr—you trust them, and I don’t believe they’d ever put us in danger.”

  “No, I don’t either, but sometimes the people you trust are the ones who turn on you.” Luuk sighed and shook his head. “That’s not always true, though, and I didn’t trust Luther, exactly, I just didn’t think he was a true threat. That was my foolishness, not his. He was smart enough to almost take me out.”

  “He isn’t smart, he’s a conniving bastard,” Jamie snapped, “and that is a totally different thing than being intelligent. Of course you wouldn’t have thought he’d do what he’s done, because you aren’t an evil fuckhead. Now.” Jamie huffed and ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s get out and meet this nice woman who is going to hug the stuffing out of Norbert.”

  Luuk glanced at the two still hugging, saw Norbert’s slight grimace as he was hefted off his feet, and nodded. “Yes, he does seem to need rescuing.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jameson tried not to stare at Mem’s eyebrow, but it was…disconcerting, as the thing seemed to have a life of its own, squirming there on her brow. Stop it, he scolded himself, but as if it—she—whatever—read his mind, Mem’s eyebrow did something damn close to the ‘Wave’.

  “I think she’s doing it on purpose,” Luuk thought as they stopped in front of the large woman. Mem released Father Norbert, who gasped and stumbled. Likely he’d have fallen had Mem not caught a hold of his shoulder with one big hand.

  “Steady,” she said in a thickly accented voice that was, surprisingly melodic. “I would not have you hurt yourself.”

  Father Norbert snorted and rubbed at his ribs. “Saving that part for yourself, Mem?”

  “Humans.” Mem huffed and crossed her arms over her ample chest. Then she looked, really looked at Luuk, and she paled even as twin spots of red popped to her cheeks. “Oh. Oh, it is you! Alpha Anax…” Mem canted her head and dropped to her knees. “I was afraid to believe.”

  Jameson fought with the awkward feeling someone kneeling at his man’s feet caused him. It was just, well, weird. But, he could feel the low hum of power coming from Luuk, saw the way Mem’s skin prickled.

  “Mem, please stand. My mate isn’t familiar with many of our ways.” Luuk touched Mem’s nape and she whimpered, but rose to her feet. �
�This is my mate, Jameson.”

  Jameson was terrified the woman would kneel or squat or some other sign of respect he wouldn’t know how to handle, so he thrust his hand out briskly. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Mem’s expression showed some nervousness, but more hope and joy than anything else as she looked at Jameson and shook his hand. “It is my pleasure to meet you, Jameson. The Alpha Anax has been blessed with a very handsome mate, yes, Norbert?”

  “Er…” Father Norbert cleared his throat as Jameson’s cheeks burned. “Yes?”

  Mem grinned. “I live to make my cousin squirm.”

  That startled a snicker out of Jameson and he could feel Luuk’s amusement as well. Mem glowed, obviously aware of pleasing her Alpha Anax. Luuk’s ability to pour out the power he had in his core was something Jameson had witnessed only rarely, but he suspected it’d be much more of a common occurrence when he had his rightful packs and position back. Although, to Jameson and those who loved Luuk, he had never stopped being the AA.

  “Come, come inside. I have been cooking in case”—Mem glanced at Luuk and blushed again—“in case it truly was the Alpha Anax and his mate. I am not the finest chef, but I hope you will be pleased.”

  She opened a door and the scents rolling out of the house made Jameson’s mouth water.

  “Oh, Mem, you made your bread and the roast!” Father Norbert bounced, actually bounced, in place. “You have always been my favourite cousin!” The priest winked at her and bustled past Mem.

  Mem started to reach for him but Luuk stopped her. “No, Mem. He isn’t one of us, and he has been a good friend to Jamie and I. I take no offence in Father Norbert entering your home before me or my mate.”