Isaiah nodded and flexed his hands. “Yeah. It’s just a bit of nerves. I’m sure it’ll disappear once I’m on the road.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
John pressed one last kiss on Isaiah’s hair then moved away. He closed the door and moved away, knowing Isaiah wouldn’t leave if they went on like that. John would have been all for that, but he knew it wasn’t what Isaiah wanted.
Isaiah started the car and waved. Their gazes met and locked, and John had to wrench himself away. He looked at the gravel under his feet and didn’t look up until he heard the car actually driving away.
He stayed outside until the mansion gate closed and the car disappeared from sight. Only then did he turn around and headed back inside the house. John was planning to have a little moping session in his room, maybe an hour or so, then going to train with whoever he found in the gym, but he should’ve known that wouldn’t happen, not with some of the pride members being who they were.
Keenan, Jayden, Derick and Nysys stopped him before he could even put a foot down on the stairs. “John!”
John said a little mental prayer to keep his calm, plastered a fake smile on his face and looked at the little group. They were striding toward him with purpose, and John had to bite his cheek to keep the laughter in. They looked like the heroes in a bad movie, walking down the hallway with Keenan and Nysys in the lead. The only thing missing was the wind that should’ve been blowing in their faces.
“What?”
They stopped as if they were one and John couldn’t keep the chuckled in this time.
“Why are you laughing?” Keenan asked with a suspicious expression.
“Nothing. What can I do for you?”
“I think the question is what we can do for you.”
“That’s not a question,” Jayden pointed out, earning himself a glare.
“Whatever,” Keenan answered before looking at John again. “So, what do we do?”
John sighed. There went his moping around and probably even his training session. “About what?”
“About Isaiah,” Nysys piped in.
“What about him?”
“We have to—”
“We need to—”
Keenan and Nysys glared at each other and John was reminded of two kindergarten kids. They even had the same stubborn expression on their faces, and he was pretty sure he’d seen Keenan stomp his foot.
Nysys slapped a hand on Keenan’s mouth and puffed his chest out. “As I was saying, we need to get him back. Oww!” he exclaimed, pulling his hand away from Keenan and shaking it. “You bit me!”
Keenan stuck his tongue out and John felt the beginning of a headache loom over him.
“You shouldn’t have tried to shut me up.”
“I bet a fist on the nose would shut you up too!”
“You just try, Shorty. I can beat you up anytime.”
John gave Derick and Jayden a helpless look, but Jayden had his nose in a thick book and Derick just shrugged as if he’d seen the same scene a hundred times. He probably had, actually.
“I’m not short!”
“You’re shorter than me, so yeah, you are!”
Nysys lunged at Keenan and John grabbed him around the waist before he could actually do any damage. It probably wouldn’t have been too bad, considering both of them had as much force as a cooked noodle, but still. The house was full of shifters who could smell blood, and one of those shifters was Keenan’s mate. John didn’t think Keenan really wanted his mate to kill Nysys. Probably, anyway.
Nysys wriggled in his hold but John wasn’t about to put him down. It wasn’t like it was hard to keep the guy up anyway, even without shifter force. “Are you two done, or do I have to take you upstairs in the kiddie section?”
Both heads snapped his way at once and John would’ve been intimidated by the twin glares if he hadn’t seen much worse during the time he’d spent in the army.
“Don’t insult him!” they yelled at once, pointing at each other.
John’s eyes went wide and he dropped Nysys. The man clearly hadn’t been expecting it and flopped on his ass. He gave John a shocked glance as Keenan rushed to his help.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Keenan helped Nysys get back on his feet and they both narrowed their eyes at John. He’d felt better when they were at each other’s throat rather than at his. He had to admit those two small guys were scarier than Dominic sometimes.
He held his hands up in surrender. “What did you need to talk about?”
“We have to take Isaiah back,” Keenan said while Nysys nodded enthusiastically at his side.
“In case you missed it, he was the one who decided to go. I tried to stop him for weeks, but I wasn’t able to.”
“But you know he didn’t want to go!” Nysys cried out.
“Yeah, he went only because his mother told him to,” Keenan added.
“And now he’ll have to marry a woman!” Nysys said with a shudder.
“Hey, women aren’t bad, you know,” Keenan pointed out. “They’re softer than men and you obviously have to do the penetrating part, but they’re nice.”
Derick, John and Nysys looked at Keenan in disbelief while Jayden just kept on reading.
“What? Its’s true!”
“I don’t think this is quite the point you wanted to make, though.”
“Well, no, but it sounded like you thought women were yucky, and they’re really not. I’ve had quite a bit of girlfriends and they were nice.”
“Guys,” Derick finally intervened. “Say what you needed to say about Isaiah and stop thinking about girl parts.”
“Eww,” Nysys exclaimed, the grimace on his face enough to let everyone know what he thought about said girl parts.
“Guys!” John yelled above the noise they were making.
Everyone looked at him, and yeah, there was the headache John had been expecting. “Can we go back to what you were saying before you actually forget about it?”
“Okay, so Isaiah clearly didn’t want to go,” Keenan said.
“But he did anyway because his mother asked him to,” Nysys added.
“Maybe we can convince his mom that he really doesn’t need to marry a woman.”
“And that he doesn’t want to be alpha. Honestly, I think he’d suck at it.”
“Yeah, he’s not good at making decisions. Remember that time he had to decide what costume he wanted to wear for Halloween?”
“It took him a month and he changed his mind right before the party.”
“Guys, you’re going off topic again,” Derick pointed out.
John smiled at the Derick gratefully and Derick smiled back. He was obviously used to dealing with those two.
“Anyway, we all know Isaiah doesn’t want to marry a woman and become the alpha,” Keenan declared.
“So we should do something about it,” Nysys went on.
“Try to convince his mother.”
“Or kidnap him if she doesn’t change her mind.”
“Guys, you can’t kidnap Isaiah,” John said. “He decided to go, knowing what was going to happen.”
“But you’re his mate!”
“That should count for something!”
“Yeah, Nysys, it should, but it obviously doesn’t. I’m not going to run after him only to be told to go back home without him.”
“But—”
“But—”
“But nothing. I’m going now. I have a headache.”
“I can heal that for you,” Nysys said, but John shook his head. He needed a bit of quiet—right now.
* * * *
Isaiah stopped after only ten minutes. He wasn’t even out of Whitedell yet, but he couldn’t see the road in front of him with the tears pouring from his eyes.
He wiped them with his hands, but it wasn’t enough, so he reached behind his seat into the first box his han
d encountered and took out whatever fabric he touched first. It turned out to be one of John’s T-shirts.
Isaiah frowned at it, because he didn’t remember packing it. It wasn’t like he and John had shared a room, and he sure hadn’t packed anything from John’s room. His mate hadn’t even spent that much time in Isaiah’s room, so the T-shirt didn’t make sense.
He used it to wipe his tears anyway, and the scent that still lingered on it soothed him. It smelled of John, and his fox needed that.
Once he was calmer, Isaiah turned the car on again and he drove. He had to resist the urge to go back, and his fox was ignoring him.
It took Isaiah a little over four hours to leave Wyoming and enter Utah. Isaiah stopped for lunch somewhere near the Willard Bay reservoir, then got back on the road. It took another two and a half hours to enter Idaho. From there, it was another three hours before Isaiah was home in Boise.
Isaiah’s family had always lived near the Boise River. They weren’t big when they shifted, but they still needed the space to run and the green areas around the river were good for that. They didn’t expand very far, but it was enough.
Isaiah turned into the driveway that led to the house he’d grown up in. It’d been built in the early nineteen nineties but it still looked good, thanks to all the work and money his father had put into it. It wasn’t as big as the mansion, but then the skulk wasn’t nearly as big as the pride. They only had twenty members, well, twenty-one now, probably twenty-two with the woman Isaiah was supposed to marry.
His mother had to have been watching the road like a hawk because he wasn’t even at the gate when it started to open. He sighed and followed the road until he got to the house. It looked as well cared for as it had when his father had been alive. Isaiah knew his mother was a good alpha, better than he’d ever be. His sister should be the one to take over, not him, but it wouldn’t do because she was a girl. No one seemed to care about the fact that Isaiah sucked at making decisions while Talia had leadership in her blood.
Isaiah parked the car in front of the door and took a deep breath as the door opened. His youngest sister came bowling out of the house. She bounded to the car and he hurriedly opened the door and got out. He was just in time to catch her when she launched herself in his arms.
“Isa!”
Isaiah laughed. God, he’d missed her. “Hey, Jules.”
“Don’t call me that!” she huffed.
“Fine, sorry. Hey, Julie.”
She stepped away and smiled. “Better. You look good, Isa.”
He wouldn’t tell her he might look good but felt like he was dying inside. Instead, he plastered a fake smile on his face and nodded. “You too. Gosh, you grew up so fast.”
Julie was only nineteen, a pup, barely an adult as far as shifters went. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. Isaiah knew more than one shifter who was barely twenty and was already mated. Not that that could happen to Julie, not with the iron fist their mother used to rule the skulk.
If Julie met her mate while she was still so young, the man would have to court her for at least a year, if not more, and their mother would have to approve of him. Julie would probably let her do just that, because she might be the spoiled baby of the family, but as far as Isaiah knew, she’d never gone against their mom’s wishes.
Talia was a whole different story.
Isaiah smiled as his other sister appeared at the door. Talia didn’t look as happy as Julie was, but Isaiah knew it had nothing to do with him. She didn’t like what their mother was doing at all, and she’d told Isaiah more than once on the phone. She didn’t even know he’d met his mate, yet she’d tried to convince him to live his life like he wanted and not like their mom wanted.
She knew he wouldn’t do a good job as alpha, but more than that, she knew he wouldn’t be happy. That was what made her a better candidate. She cared about the skulk members and about their happiness. Isaiah didn’t want to think badly of his mom, but his well-being obviously wasn’t her first thought.
“Hey, Tal. Don’t I deserve at least a hug?”
Talia smiled and walked down the stairs a lot slower than Julie had. They hugged and she took the occasion to whisper, “You’re an idiot.”
“I know, Tal. I know.”
“We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Isa. How was your trip?”
Isaiah and Talia moved away from each other and he turned to look at his mother. He hadn’t seen her since his father’s funeral, and it was quite a shock to see how much older she looked now. The alpha position had clearly taken a toll on her, and Isaiah couldn’t help but wonder if he’d look so bad in one year, or maybe even worse.
“It was all right. I stopped only for lunch, so I’m pretty beat.”
“Language, Isa. Now come here and give me a hug.”
Isaiah complied and hugged her tightly. She felt smaller in his arms, lighter, and now he realized why she’d been so adamant to have him back. She wouldn’t be able to go on for much longer. Still, it didn’t mean he was the better choice, but he’d given up on trying to convince her of that.
“Why don’t you go to your room and rest a bit? Your sisters can help you unload the car and you can stay there until it’s time for dinner. It shouldn’t be long now.”
“Yes, all right. I could use a little rest.”
Julie carried only a few boxes before she disappeared somewhere in the house, but Talia helped Isaiah until the car was empty. She didn’t go away once they were done. She closed the door to Isaiah’s room and sat on the bed.
The room was still the same as it’d been when Isaiah had left the skulk seven years before. His mother had kept all his stuff and the room was neat. He sat next to his sister and reached into one of the boxes. He took John’s T-shirt out and wound it around his hand. It helped to keep him calm, even if it wasn’t enough. He wanted more, wanted John.
“That’s not yours.”
Isaiah looked at his sister and shook his head. “No.”
“Is it... your boyfriend’s?”
“Not exactly.” Isaiah wondered if he should tell her about John. He knew she’d be even angrier with him for leaving his mate, but he also needed someone close, someone who knew about what Isaiah had sacrificed and who he could talk about his mate to. “It’s my mate’s.”
Talia gasped. “Your mate? You met your mate?” Isaiah nodded. “What the fuck are you doing here, Isa? Why aren’t you with him?”
“Because mom wants me here.”
Talia shook her head. “Sometimes I think I’m the only smart one in the family.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not joking. We already went over why you shouldn’t be here, but now that I know about your mate, it’s even worse. You’re going to meet your bride tonight, Isa.”
Isaiah grimaced. “Please, don’t remind me.”
“Did you tell mom? About your mate?”
“Yeah.”
“And she still asked you to come back?”
“I’m here, right? She didn’t seem to care much about John.”
“You should have told me.”
“What would it have changed?”
“I’d have tried to talk some sense into her. This isn’t fair, Isa.”
“I know it isn’t. You should be the one to take her place, not me. And I should be able to be with my mate, not have to marry a woman I’ve never met. But life isn’t fair.”
Talia’s hand tightened in fists. “Life might not be fair, but I’m going to try my hardest to make both of us happy, Isa. Mark my words.”
* * * *
John was trying to forget Isaiah, he really was, but for some reason Nysys and Keenan had decided it was their job to make sure he didn’t.
They constantly mentioned him in front of John, and the only way he could avoid it was to put as much distance as possible between himself and them. That was why he was still in his bed when he should’ve already been in the k
itchen eating breakfast. He couldn’t bring himself to push the covers away and get up, though.
John buried deeper in the nest of blankets he’d created and tried to ignore the whispers and giggles that came from right outside his room. Keenan and Nysys. Again.
“Nysys, don’t you have a mate and a house far away from here?” John yelled at the door.
Silence suddenly fell when the two men realized they’d been caught, but John should’ve known it wouldn’t be enough to actually make them stop.
“I’m a Nix. I shimmer around.”
“Ssssh!”
John groaned and rolled on his back, opening his eyes. He yelped and jumped from his bed, his gaze still glued on the ceiling. “What the fuck?”
Isaiah was staring down at him. From the ceiling.
It was a nice picture, big enough that John wondered if it was real life measurement. Isaiah was leaning against his car, in front of the mansion, his hair whipped around his face by the wind. He was looking straight at the camera, at John, not really smiling, but John could detect amusement in his eyes.
“Guys? I know you were the ones who did this,” John said at his door.
There was a giggle, then Keenan asked, “Do you like it?”
John hesitated. Did he like it? He’d been trying to forget about Isaiah, but it wasn’t working, not yet anyway. The picture wouldn’t help, but it made John feel good. He didn’t have a picture of Isaiah, except on his phone. The only time he’d seen him naked, he hadn’t had the time to really see the black dragon tattoo Isaiah had on his right arm, from shoulder to just past his elbow.
“Can you take it down?” John yelled at the door again.
“Why?”
“Because.” John didn’t want to admit that he’d rather have it on one of his walls, because then he wouldn’t have to lie on his bed to look at it.
The next time the terrible twins, as John had started to call them, tried to convince him to go after Isaiah, they did it by leaving some of Isaiah’s clothes on John’s bed.
He came in one night, stripped and gone to shower, and didn’t even notice there was something on the bed until he got back in the room. He lowered the towel he was using to dry his hair and his eyes fell on a small mound of fabric.
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