A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3)

by Lesli Richardson

  Nami looked at Beck. “Don’t be hard on her. Everyone knows the wedding isn’t for her.”

  Nami glared at Peyton and Trent. “Since we’re speaking plainly, I’m just gonna say it. Trent, Peyton, you two have placed an enormous burden on your little sister over this. Now, I went along with it, but seeing everything she has to deal with, the stress on her, I hope after you get the wedding you two have dreamed of that you’ll go a little easier on her in the future.”

  Now it wasn’t just Dewi standing there with her mouth gaping.

  Everyone wore an identical expression of stunned disbelief.

  Everyone except Beck and Malyah and Joaquin.

  It was only then Nami finally put it together that her sister probably shouldn’t have heard about matings and packs and stuff.

  That must be why Dewi is so upset, because she’ll have to do that Prime stuff again on Malyah to make her forget it.

  Then Malyah spoke, her voice quiet and low.

  “Sis, it’s me,” she quietly said. “Me and Joaquin.”

  “Shush, now. This don’t concern you.” Maybe she could salvage this so Dewi wouldn’t have to do that stuff to Malyah after all. “Peyton, you said someone in the family wants to get married?”

  Dewi slowly shook her head and turned to Peyton, throwing her hands up in surrender as she headed toward the kitchen.

  “Dewi, lass,” Badger called from where he stood. “Don’t ye be leavin’, now.”

  Dewi mumbled something that sounded like a swear and returned, standing behind Peyton, arms crossed again, but with her gaze fixed on the floor.

  Peyton coughed. He shifted from one foot to the other and stared at Beck. “You want to say it? I can tell you understand what I’m trying to explain.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Beck snarked.

  “Sis,” Malyah said, almost sounding hysterical. “It’s me!”

  “Will you hush? Why the heck aren’t you next door with Asia and the others anyway? Nobody asked you to stay behind for—”

  Beck gently squeezed Nami’s hand. “Honey, it’s Malyah and Joaquin. They’re mated.” He looked at Peyton. “Correct?”

  “Correct. As of Saturday night.”

  Nami couldn’t process that. She knew she couldn’t be hearing him right. Okay, yes, Peyton had specifically asked Malyah to stay behind, but so what? “Now, y’all have me a little confused, here. Malyah’s not marryin’ anyone, and she should get her butt next door right now to go help.” Okay, she’d resort to the “mom voice” that she’d used on all her siblings when they were kids.

  Badger pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bloody hell,” he grumbled.

  Malyah stared up at Joaquin as he took her hand in his. They almost looked like they were having a silent conversation. Sort of like she and Beck could, and she knew Dewi and Ken could.

  Peyton cleared his throat. “Jack, Moraine. Could you please drive Joaquin and Malyah to your house so Joaquin can pack his stuff and bring it back here to the cabin?”

  Malyah jumped up and bolted for the front door as if her butt were on fire.

  Then Nami realized Joaquin was going, too. Right on her heels.

  Jack and Moraine, who seemed like perfectly lovely people, were also quickly moving toward the front door, following Malyah and Joaquin.

  What the…

  “Waaait for it,” Dewi said.

  Nami stood, Beck standing with her. “Hold on a minute. Malyah, where are you goin’?”

  Peyton, Dewi, and even Beck stepped between Nami and the four who were departing. “Honey,” Beck said. “We need you to stay calm.”

  “Why do I need to stay calm?” Even she recognized the nearly hysterical edge to her voice. “You ain’t tellin’ me what I think you’re tellin’ me.” She pointed at her sister and moved past Beck despite him trying to stop her. “And she ain’t goin’ nowhere! And especially not with that man!”

  * * * *

  Houston, we have ignition.

  Dewi hadn’t thought it would take that long for Nami to grok what they were saying. She’d expected they would have already been in the fallout phase by now.

  Dewi also suspected that, now that Nami understood, she was about to light the world brighter than any NASA rocket night launch.

  Absolutely, Dewi did not want to have to lay hands on Nami to hold her back. She counted on Beck being able to handle his mate and keep her restrained. But she’d do what she had to do to protect everyone, Nami included.

  Beck latched onto Nami’s arm as she headed for the door, slowing her down enough so the other four could get outside.

  But she wasn’t stopping. Like a force of nature, an iceberg sped up to fast-forward, she was determined to follow the others.

  “Girl, you better git yourself back here, right now, and talk to me! Don’t you be walkin’ away from me when I’m talkin’ to you!”

  Dewi noticed Nami’s southern accent deepened the more stressed she became. Which was pretty amazing to witness in some ways, because Dewi hadn’t thought Nami could ever be rattled. By anything.

  During the whole wedding planning process, Nami had kept her cool while Dewi groused and growled and grumbled. The woman was an experienced county bus driver, used to dealing with unruly passengers and rush hour traffic and temperamental Florida weather, not to mention raising three younger siblings.

  When Malyah and Joaquin didn’t stop, Nami pretty much dragged Beck out through the front door after them, Beck barely doing more than slowing her down enough to keep her from catching up with the four before they got in Jack’s car and pulled away.

  The rest of them stopped just inside the front door, watching, as Nami started screaming, raging against Malyah and Joaquin, for them to get back there and talk to her, even as the dust began to settle in the wake of Jack’s car.

  Dewi felt badly for her friend, but knew the only way through it for her was to get through it. Malyah was an adult, and Joaquin hadn’t forced her. They had a legitimate mate bond.

  Peyton finally headed out to talk to them, not touching Nami, Beck barely able to keep his arms around her to keep her from running down the road and chasing after her sister. While Dewi couldn’t hear all of Peyton’s words, Dewi guessed he was telling Nami the story of what had happened, as related to him by Joaquin and Malyah.

  Maybe it was better coming from Peyton than from the newly mated couple. He was used to being the lightning rod in situations like this, dealing with human kin. Finally, Nami seemed to be listening to him, but Dewi knew Peyton wasn’t using Prime on her. He wouldn’t, not without Beck okaying it first, not unless the pack or Nami were in jeopardy.

  And from the way Nami was still fighting, struggling against Beck, Dewi knew Peyton hadn’t. Otherwise, she would have calmed and acted compliant.

  After a couple of minutes, Peyton returned to the house, a grim look on his face, while Beck still struggled with Nami out in the front yard. “I’m going to head over to Trent’s and make sure Da’von, Lu’ana ,and Reggie didn’t hear any of that. You got this?”

  Dewi wearily nodded. “Yeah, I got it. I don’t want it, but I got it.” She didn’t want it, but she had it. It was her responsibility, because she loved Nami and considered her family, not just pack.

  “Do you want me to have Badger—”

  She waved him off. “No, go. The sooner you get over there, the less we have to worry about later.”

  “Okay.”

  Gillian stepped forward, a sad look on her face. “How long until she accepts it?” she asked. “You guys know her better than I do but I hate seeing her so upset. Shouldn’t we calm her down?”

  Dewi didn’t even bother reining in her sigh. “I don’t know. Really, she should learn to deal with it. It all depends on how long it takes her to see reason and stop fighting us on this. She’s a stubborn woman who thinks she knows the best way to run the world. The only way—her way. And that goes for her younger siblings’ lives, too.”

  “Gee,” Badger said. “Not lik
e we’d be knowin’ anyone else like that, would we?” He arched his intact eyebrow at Dewi.

  She flipped him off. “I haven’t had nearly enough rest or coffee, and we have a week’s worth of pack bullshit to listen to while people waste our time whining about petty crap. Please, don’t rile me up.” She pointed to Ken. “I don’t want to break him.”

  Ken snorted. “I’d prefer things that way, too.”

  * * * *

  Three vehicles made their way north from I-90.

  Riding shotgun in the lead vehicle was one Manuel Segura, his point man, Jose, driving. It’d taken a lot of money spread around to get the information he’d needed, but all signs pointed to this little shit-hole town in Idaho. The registered agent for the shell company that owned the apartment Carlomarles had lived in was located here, a legal firm.

  In fact, when they rolled into the town, that was their first stop, the offices of Targhee International, LLC.

  But the door was locked, all the lights dark.

  “Don’t these fuckers work for a living?” Manuel muttered to Jose in Spanish.

  “Wait.” Jose pointed to a piece of paper taped inside the front window. Neatly lettered, as if printed on a computer, it said Closed Until October 21st.

  Manuel shook his head. “Dammit. We’ll need to see if we can find him by other means. If not, we’ll have to start ripping this town apart, house by house, if necessary. Someone in this place knows that animal, and we’ll find him.”

  Nothing would stop him in his quest for vengeance. He’d sworn on his brother’s body, as Raul lay bleeding out in his lap.

  He’d sworn it to his mother, now incapacitated by the shock of his brutal death.

  He’d sworn it to Raul’s widow and children.

  He would not be denied.

  It didn’t matter that he suspected he’d learned why Raul had been murdered. Yes, he’d overlooked some of his younger brother’s indiscretions over the years, but that was beside the point.

  The animal had cut him down in his own home.

  And he would pay.

  “Let’s go gas up the cars,” Manuel said. “We’ll start there. See what we find out. Can probably bribe someone there to talk.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Ken watched the struggle between Beck and Nami until Dewi finally shut the front door and headed for the living room.

  The rest of them followed her.

  Then Dewi turned to Badger. “Do you have the keys to the rental car?” When he nodded, she wiggled her fingers at him in a gimme gesture.

  He fished them out of his pocket and tossed them to her, where she deftly snagged them out the air.

  “Why ye be wantin’ those?”

  She turned and handed them to Ken. “You take Nami to Spokane,” Dewi said. “Right now. Go get the stuff on her list.”

  “Which stuff?” Ken asked.

  “All the stuff. Everything she needs to get, whatever it is, anything.”

  He stared at the keys in his hands. “Um, you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s going to take a while.”

  “The longer, the better. Take as long as you need. Hell, take longer.”

  Outside, they could hear Nami’s angry screams, threats against Joaquin’s genitalia, and rage-filled rants getting closer. Ken imagined Beck had his considerable hands full trying to wrangle his pissed-off mate across the front yard and back into Peyton’s house.

  “And spend as much as it takes,” Dewi added.

  “As much as it takes to what?”

  “To calm her the fuck down,” Dewi shot back.

  “Aren’t you going to Prime her?” he asked.

  “I—” Dewi pulled up short. “I might have to,” she said, “but let me clear that with Beck first. I don’t want to if I can avoid it. Especially now that we know there are issues with that. She needs to deal with this.”

  Beck and Nami burst through Peyton’s front door, Nami still trying to shake Beck off and go after Joaquin.

  Ken felt sorry for Beck. The man was softly talking to Nami, trying to calm her.

  “Babe, it’s okay. He didn’t hurt her.”

  “She’s my little sister!”

  “I know, but she’s his mate. That means—”

  “You were right about his skanky ass! I should have snapped him like a damn twig when he first showed up in the middle of the night at Dewi’s! I shoulda listened to you about him and killed him myself!”

  “Honey, remember how you felt about me when we first met, and what happened after we mated? That’s how she feels about him now.”

  Ken couldn’t ever remember hearing Beck sound that soothing, that gentle before. A drastic difference from Ken’s first ever meeting with the wolf. This obviously pained the wolf, that his mate felt so distraught over the situation.

  “I don’t care!” Nami tried struggling against him again. “I’m going to skin the hide off that boy!” she screamed out the open door.

  Beck nudged the door shut with his foot, keeping his arms wrapped around Nami as he guided her toward the living room where the rest of them still waited.

  Poor Beck. The wolf looked miserable. When Beck scanned the room, he locked eyes with Dewi and tipped his head, beckoning her over since he apparently didn’t dare let go of Nami.

  Dewi arched a questioning eyebrow at him, and he nodded. Ken didn’t need any explanations.

  Dewi walked over and gently caught Nami’s flailing hands in hers. She whispered, “Shh, it’s okay, sweetie. Please, calm down, and let us talk to you about this.”

  Ken watched as Nami fell still, but fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “She’s not even thirty yet! She’s still got a life ahead of her to live! She’s—”

  “She’s an adult,” Dewi gently said in that same calm, soothing whisper.

  Ken immediately realized what Dewi was doing. She apparently didn’t want to completely overwhelm Nami with her Prime. She just wanted to take the edge off Nami’s rage and allow her rational mind to take over again so they could all talk to her about the events.

  “Dewi, Malyah doesn’t need to know about all this wolf stuff, and—”

  “She already knows, and it’s okay.” Dewi pressed Nami’s hands against her own chest and stepped in closer. “She’s a full part of the pack now, even more than she was before. And she has her memories back about what happened. She’s okay, and she’s going to be okay as Joaquin’s mate. Loved and protected. Don’t you trust me?”

  Nami tearfully nodded.

  “I know you’re upset right now,” Dewi said, “but this isn’t a bad thing that’s happened. Do you think Beck loves you?”

  Nami looked up into Beck’s face. “I know he does,” she said. “I wouldn’t be marryin’ him if I didn’t know he loves me.”

  “Do you think he’d die to keep you safe?”

  Nami, still staring into Beck’s eyes, nodded. “I know he would,” she whispered.

  “Okay,” Dewi said. “Then know this—Joaquin feels the same way about Malyah that Beck feels about you. The same way that I feel about Ken. We’d kill for our mates. Die for them. And she feels about Joaquin the way you feel about Beck.”

  Nami cried even harder. “He didn’t even give her a chance to say no. He took her off into the woods. They just walked off together and—”

  “And did exactly what you wished you could have done with Beck the moment you first met him, if you hadn’t been driving a bus at the time and he hadn’t run off.”

  Nami swallowed and, eventually, slowly nodded.

  Dewi pulled her in for a hug as the older woman began sobbing against her.

  “Shh, it’s okay to be upset for a little bit, until the shock wears off. But Lu’ana and Reggie and Da’von, they don’t know about us wolves. We need to keep it that way. That means we need your help selling this. If you go along with everything, it’ll make it that much easier for them to accept. Maybe even pretend you knew about it all along and kept it a secret for Malyah a
nd Joaquin.

  “I need you to be strong for me, and for Malyah, and everyone else. I need you to be strong for our family and for the pack. You’re not alone. We’re all right here with you. But this isn’t a reason to be upset. Malyah’s met the love of her life. This is a good thing. This is a reason to celebrate.”

  “What if those guys come after Joaquin? Those drug guys? They might hurt her.”

  “There’s nothing bigger or badder in this world than we are,” Dewi said. “I don’t care what the Seguras think, the truth is, they’re nothing compared to us. We’ll keep her safe.”

  “She’s got a job.”

  “She’s part of the pack now, just like you are. If they need to live here for a while, they can. Or they can move in with me and Ken. They will be taken care of, one way or another. Joaquin will be able to provide for her, if nothing else. You have my word on it.”

  Nami broke down again. Dewi guided her over to the couch and sat with her while Gillian fetched a box of tissues.

  Finally, when Nami had composed herself, Dewi said, “I’m sending you and Ken to Spokane today for shopping, okay? You don’t need me there with you. With all this happening, Peyton really needs me here right now. Ken’s got the pack credit card, so buy whatever you think I still need for a proper froufrou wedding.”

  That finally drew a smile from Nami. “Are you doing that Prime thing to me now?”

  “Not now. I did just a little there a few minutes ago.” She held her thumb and first finger up, almost touching. “Not a lot, just a little. Just enough to calm you down so you’d listen to me.”

  Nami nodded and blew her nose again, then let out a tearful laugh. “Should we go for a triple wedding?”

  Dewi looked up at Gillian, where the wolf had been standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a sad look on her face.

  “What do you think?” Dewi asked her. “Do you think Peyton and Trent are really okay with that?”

  “They are,” Gillian said. “As long as you’re first on the list, they’d let the rest of the darn pack get married after you do. The official is one of our pack, a notary. Trent and I will take care of getting the marriage license for them.”