Badger slowly nodded. “Yes, feckin’ way. One of his sons left Scotland for America on a ship and nothing else was ever reported on him again in any of the packs’ lines. No mate, no pups. A lot of people apparently assumed he died on the way over.”
“But he didn’t?”
Badger shook his head. “Tracin’ backward from Nami’s mother is how I found him. He arrived on a ship in Boston and settled in workin’ fer a blacksmith. The time frame is right, and it’s not like it’s a common name. Wife and three pups, all boys. I’m still tracin’ out the other two siblings to see if there’s any remaining kin there. One of the boys ended up fatherin’ three sons with a free-born black woman—again, still tracin’ the lineage out there—and thus leading me eventually to Nami and her siblings.”
“So…they all have traces of wolf blood in them?”
Badger nodded. “Not just wolf blood, but a Prime Alpha. Explains how two sisters in the same family ended up mated to wolves, now, wouldn’t it? And maybe why Malyah was able to throw off what ye did to blank her memories despite Joaquin not being a Prime. Because ye thought she was pure human and ye might not have given it an extra kick, as it were. Then maybe when she mated with Joaquin, she thew it off.”
“Yeah.”
“And why Marcy Stafford was pantin’ after Da’von like a lovesick pup herself, and it explains all of Bebe’s behavior.” He studied his fingers. “That day ye women went to brunch and I watched little Bebe? We were all sittin’ at the table and talkin’, and she laughed and let out a howl herself.”
He finally glanced up and met Dewi’s gaze. “I’m guessin’ when Bebe gets older she likely won’t be a shifter, but we’ll be takin’ her back to Idaho for a Muster to introduce her around. Maybe Gillian and Asia will have to have a sit-down with her and see what tendencies she has.”
The more diluted a family’s line, the less likely they were to produce shifters.
Just as average human families had genetic mutations, so, too, rarely, did shifter families. Every once in a while, a child from a shifter line with one or more humans in their direct lineage would still turn out to be a shifter, if enough recessed genes combined to make a dominant one.
“What about Reggie’s family lines?” she asked.
“He’ll be the next one I do,” Badger assured her. “One trace at a time, but I’m bettin’ there’s a wolf in his background, too. Maybe more than one. Who knows at this point?”
Dewi sat there, stunned, trying to process it. “What are the odds?”
“Oh, lots of people runnin’ around with a little hair of the wolf in their veins,” Badger said. “Ye know that. Still tracin’ Ken’s lineage, but when I saw what was happenin’ I decided it was best to figure Nami’s line out first. Wouldn’t be surprised if Ken has a wolf in his woodpile, so to speak, somewhere along the way.”
The old shifter leaned forward, a smile appearing. “But here’s the real kicker. There’s not just one wolf in Malyah and Nami’s mother’s line, there’s two. Their great-great-grandfather on her maternal grandmother’s side was also a distant wolf by blood.”
Dewi could tell by his grin that he was dying to lay this punchline on her. “And?”
“Guess where that lineage plays out when it’s traced back and out again?”
“Do I want to know?”
“That man’s brother shows up in the line of another wolf.”
She wanted the tl;dr version. “Just freaking tell me, Badger.”
“That man’s brother is a great-great-grandfather of one Aleana Falcone, to use her maiden name.”
“Who?”
His grin widened as he rested his hands on the desk. “You would know her as Aleana Carlomarles. Who, along with her husband, is a distant cousin to your father. Ye just saw them last weekend…at yer weddin’.”
Dewi’s jaw dropped—literally fell open—as she mentally connected the dots. “No!” she gasped, stifling a giggle. “Joaquin’s mother…” Her giggles threatened to turn into howls.
Badger nodded and stood. “There’s more than enough distance and depth to not make it an issue for Malyah being’ mated to Joaquin, of course.” He smiled. “But can I have the honor of tellin’ Beck he’s mated to Joaquin’s distant cousin on Joaquin’s mother’s side, or are ye gonna be wantin’ to do that yerself?”
Dewi covered her mouth with her hand as she stared at Badger. She desperately struggled not to burst out into howls of laughter. “Holy. Shit.”
“I don’t know if ye’d call it irony, or the Goddess havin’ a fun time with us mortals, but it’s a bit of poetic justice, I think. Especially after all these years of Beck hatin’ Joaquin.”
She dropped her hand. “How did no one ever figure that out before?”
“No one had a reason to. We’re talkin’ distant lineage, humans mixed in, all that. Only ones who ever really keep track of their lines are the full or mostly full wolves. Ye know that. People trace back, not out again, usually. If people aren’t connected to a pack by a strong, direct bond, the more intermarrying with humans that happens, the more distant they grow through their lines…” He shrugged. “Pretty soon, ye have people with no idea they even have shifter blood in their veins.”
“If you want to tell him, I’ll let you. Because, honestly? I think I’d rather be filming it to show Peyton and Trent later. This is going to be fucking priceless!”
* * * *
It was three o’clock in the morning. Manuel Segura stood in the shower, letting the hot water beat on his head. It’d been nearly three weeks since the incident in Idaho. He’d taken his time returning, trying to find out some information first and figure out the best way to do damage control, but it was good to be home.
And I came so close to not getting back here at all.
He still wasn’t sure exactly what the hell had happened in Idaho.
And he wasn’t sure how to explain to his other men, to the families of the men he’d lost, what had happened.
No one will believe me. They’ll think that I was somehow behind them all dying.
His wife, Marciella, walked into the bathroom. “Manuel?” She sounded half-asleep. “Why didn’t you wake me and tell me you were home?”
“Because I didn’t want to awaken you. And you can’t tell anyone I’m here.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s…complicated.”
He knew he’d have to get revenge. He’d sworn on Raul’s body, and to his own mother, that he would avenge his brother’s death.
Unfortunately…
He would need help. More help than he had now. He’d have to track down Carlomarles himself before figuring out what to do about the slaughter in Idaho.
Some would probably counsel him to leave it alone, that whatever those…people were, they were far more dangerous than him.
They certainly were more than human. Far more.
And no one would believe him if he told them.
But now? He had nothing left to lose. Not really. His reputation, once word got out that he was the only one to survive Idaho, would evaporate. Someone would try to take him out, take over the cartel.
Rumors would spread about his mental state if he dared talk about what he saw.
Rumors that he was dangerous, and not in the good way.
“What is going on?” Marciella asked. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry, my love. But I need to finish my shower, I need to sleep, and you cannot tell anyone I am here. There are some things I still must take care of. Go back to bed. I’ll be there shortly.”
He heard her shut the bathroom door behind her.
He took a deep breath. Yes, there were things he had to take care of.
But for the first time since he’d seized the reins of power of their cartel, he had no fucking clue what to do or how to take care of them.
However, getting vengeance for Raul’s death was one of those things he had to accomplish, if it was the last thing he did.
The
End
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About the Author
Author Lesli Richardson, who is better-known by her wild-child pen name Tymber Dalton, lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida with her husband (aka “The World’s Best Husband™”) and too many pets. She writes a wide variety of heat levels and genres, from mainstream all the way to scorching erotic ménage. Active in the BDSM lifestyle, the skeet-shooting novelist is a two-time EPIC winner and the bestselling author of over eighty books, including The Reluctant Dom, Cardinal’s Rule, Cross Country Chaos, Out of the Darkness, the Love Slave for Two series, the Triple Trouble wolf shifter series, the Drunk Monkeys post-apocalyptic series, and many more.
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A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3) Page 35