by DD Prince
Tyson carries me in.
“Don’t put any weight on it. Come, Tyson.”
“I’m not leaving her.” He looks at his mother like she’s insane.
“I have to go pee,” I tell him.
He frowns. “So, do it.”
“I need privacy for that.”
“Why?” he asks.
Cat’s eyes go round and she gives her head a shake. “Just wait outside the door for her. Women don’t like to do that in front of men.”
Tyson’s eyes bounce between us and then he sets me down carefully and I hold the metal rail on the wall so I can keep my weight off my foot. He steps out of the bathroom and I shoot Cat a relieved look that gets me a half a smile from her before she shuts the door.
“Don’t pull those jeans back up, Ivy,” Cat calls from outside the door. “I’ll zip upstairs and bring you back a pair of shorts.”
“That’d be great, thank you.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m back and you can let me in to help you change.”
“Okay, Cat. Thanks.”
***
“Riley, Joel, Jason, and Lincoln want a meeting with you. You can use the waiting room while I go upstairs.”
He shakes his head at his mother. “I don’t want a meeting. I need to stay with Ivy.”
We’re back in the room with the hospital bed, I’m on the bed and I’m wearing a pair of grey jersey shorts which are much more comfortable than jeans. The sight of my now torn Lucky jeans that were brand new and not bought on sale is sad. I could cut the other leg and turn them into boyfriend cuffs, or maybe just capris. Boo.
The TV from the waiting room has been wheeled in and a 24-hour news station is on.
“She’ll be absolutely fine in here while you use the waiting room. Or, you could have the meeting in here so that you don’t have to leave her alone.”
He looks at her like she’s nuts.
“You think I’m stupid enough to be in a small room with four men and my woman in the midst of that?”
“Stupid enough? What about that scenario is stupid? This is your pack, Tyson. We’re your family.”
“I don’t know any of you.”
Her expression falls. There’s a long moment before she says, “I see you don’t trust us. What lies did that man’s poison tongue and demented mind poison you with? What did he say about where you came from?”
The room goes dead silent.
“Riley Savage didn’t tell you?” Tyson asks.
“Tell me what?” Cat’s eyes look haunted.
Absolutely haunted. Goosebumps rise on my arms watching the exchange.
Tyson leans toward her and his voice takes on a sinister tone. “He told me you were dead and that the pack raped and devoured you after killing my father. He told me this when I was a small child. He said he’s my father’s brother and that he took me to save me from the pack that would have me dead as well.”
I swallow.
She straightens her back and says, “Cornelius is one of your father’s brothers, all right, but other than that, the rest is a pack of lies. You believe that I’m your mother, don’t you?”
“I recognize your scent.”
Her face changes, it half-crumples, but she composes herself.
“Tyson, six years ago, I caught your scent on the breeze and it made no sense. I couldn’t figure it out. I thought I was going crazy. The grief of losing you both has never left me, never… but I was living life at that point and then I could smell you. And then you showed up. You showed up and I didn’t see you with my own eyes, but I caught your scent in the air and knew that what they said was fact. A great black wolf was our Tyson, the alpha, son of Tiberius and Catrina Savage, prophesied to be the pack’s top alpha of this generation and they knew not only your scent, but they knew by your bearing that you had to be him. Larger than any alpha in our pack and an air of authority that could not be mistaken. Not to mention pure black like Tiberius. Just like him, except with my green eyes instead of his amber ones. We hadn’t lost you. Just before this, Cornelius’s scent was caught on the wind. In fact he’d been caught a few times but never physically, because his scent would simply vanish. I don’t know when you came to spend time at that home Riley visited you at but…”
“Cat grass,” Tyson says.
She jerks and her back goes rod-straight.
“We ate it daily,” Tyson said. “Disgusting as it was. I’ve lived there my entire life. He couldn’t bring himself to leave the region, saying a shifter couldn’t leave his territory for more than a few days or else go mad. We ate it and we lived on the fringe. I lived in that house until he died. We denned underneath, hibernated there each winter as he couldn’t stand winters and each spring lived as men for a month before returning to wolf. When he died, I stayed in the bush, denned at the house in winters, but stayed in the forest otherwise.
“Almost under my nose.” Cat shook her head. “Cat grass.” She dashes a tear off her cheek and then reaches her hand out and cups his jaw. He leans into it just a little and his eyes drift shut. A lump forms in my throat. “And hibernating? That’s insane. We don’t do that unless we need to due to food shortages. And we haven’t needed to for centuries. Why would he make you hibernate every year?”
“I don’t know. He told me we had to. He despised the cold. Couldn’t regulate his body temperature the way I can. I think he hated himself, could barely stand to look in the mirror more than necessary.”
“It’s not true about the territory. Shifters can go where they like.”
Tyson’s lip curls in anger.
“Where is he now?” she asks.
“The bottom of a gorge halfway between this village and my house. If you knew he took your child, why didn’t your pack go after him?”
She blows out a breath and then looks at me before looking back to Tyson.
“We couldn’t find him. We didn’t think you were alive before six years ago or I’d have moved mountains to find you. We knew we couldn’t approach you. Rye said you were feral and thought of us as enemies, would destroy us on sight. Then, you came back, and we could tell by the surge in certain facets of your scent that you’d found your mate. We decided to make an approach. We hoped it would mean you would calm down and be open to the truth. We didn’t know what lies were told, we didn’t know what he’d done, we didn’t know why his scent would show up occasionally, but we never caught yours until six years ago and since then, we’ve never smelled him again. And yours came up often, but we suspected you didn’t know you were ours. Didn’t know we were yours. If you did, you’d come h-home.”
Tyson leans forward.
“I stopped eating the disgusting grass. He wasn’t there to insist, and I didn’t give a fuck whether any of your alphas ran into me or not. In fact, I wanted them to. I wanted to run into them in the forest or even to come here and destroy all of them, for what they did to my father and you. But something stopped me.”
“What?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he growls and thumps his chest. “Something in here.”
“Feeling like you know, deep down, there’s more to the story?”
“That and mostly… your scent. Something about it was familiar. And I smelled it on him once… when he…”
Her eyes close and she raises a hand. He stops speaking.
“If I knew he had you with him all this time?” Her eyes open and they are filled with wrath. “If only I could deal with him now. He knew something about a habit of mine to collect a healing mushroom and he found me in the spot I’d usually go that year. He wouldn’t have found me otherwise because he had a poor sense of smell.”
“He had no sense of smell. None. He made use of mine to survive. He made use of me for many things.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Food for Ivy, please.” She freezes and stares at him a moment, then seeing he’s done talking, I suppose, she nods and turns on her heel and leaves the room.
He sits back down and completely ignorin
g me, props his elbow on his knee and puts his chin to his palm.
I tilt my head to the side. “Wow, ” I say. “I’m sorry, Tyson.”
His eyes sweep over me and then they drop back to the rug.
Fine. Silent treatment. I’ll close my eyes. I’m feeling like crap anyways.
***
“Ivy?”
Cat is jiggling my arm.
“Sorry, sweetie, I have to check your vitals.”
Tyson is sleeping on the couch, sitting up, head back. The television is still on, still playing the news station.
She catches me looking.
“If anyone else were here, he would’ve woken as soon as I entered. It’s nice that something inside him knows me, knows I’m no risk to you.”
“It’s a lot for him to digest, I bet. After thinking one thing his whole life and then finding out it wasn’t true.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “You slept for six hours; your swelling is way down. How do you feel?”
“Sleepy.”
“That’s the pain meds. I’ve got more fluids here since you slept, and I didn’t want you woken. Talk about coercion to convince him not to wake you up to force-feed you a tomato and bacon sandwich.” She smiles. “He likes bacon. He ate your sandwich. Though he tossed the lettuce.”
I smile. And then my smile falters. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through,” I whisper. “I just can’t imagine.”
“Tyson is a lot like his father from what I’ve seen so far. I’ve heard you call him Ty. I called my Tiberius Ty as well. That’s why we named our boy Tyson. It’s astounding to see him all grown up when I hadn’t seen him since he was eight months old. It hurts but it feels good at the same time. Because he met you, we might have a chance at a real relationship.”
Tyson straightens up, eyes open. He’s awake and it’s obvious he’s heard what she said. I grab her hand and give it a squeeze. “I’m so sorry for all you’ve lost. Words just aren’t enough.”
“No, but hope is everything. I’ll let you get some more sleep. I’ve given you more pain meds. How’s the pain?”
“It’s there, but it’s pretty dull.”
“Good. I’ll send you home with some more. You’re gonna be fine.”
“Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
“I’m gonna get back to bed but here.” She lifts the phone I used earlier from the table where it must’ve been moved to at some point. She puts the phone beside me on the bed. “If you need anything, anything whatsoever, please just hit the intercom button. It’ll ring on the phone in my apartment at my bedside. I’ve put some ice water, some apple juice, and a few pieces of fruit there if you get hungry before morning, but I have a feeling you’ll just sleep.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
She squeezes my hand. “We have lots to talk about, you and me. I look forward to some girl time. I can help you navigate this strange new world you’re in. My niece, Leona, as well as some other of our younger community members will be even more help as there will be things, I’m sure, that you won’t want to talk to me about.” She winks.
I feel my cheeks flush. “Goodnight, Cat. Thanks again. Sleep well.”
She stops in front of Tyson. “Do you need anything?”
“I need to leave,” he grumbles. “But as you’ve said we need to wait until morning, we’ll do that.” He folds his arms across his chest stubbornly.
She leans over and drops a kiss on his forehead and then slips out.
He looks sort of shell-shocked.
The door clicks shut.
I close my eyes, feeling like I should give him privacy for whatever emotions he’s having right now. I can see emotion all over his face and it looks just too personal for me to ‘eavesdrop’ on.
I really am tired from the pain medication, so I drift under again in no time.
26
Tyson
I watch her sleep, filled with urges. I long to wrap her up in my arms, to take her home. The need to punish her is still there, but it’s simmering under a layer of other emotions, specifically the need to nurture her.
It still hurts that she was put in harm’s way because I allowed it.
It still hurts that she was hurt while trying to leave me.
The fact that my efforts with her so far haven’t convinced her that what we can have would be worth walking away from her old life feels terrible.
There’s also all that’s being revealed around me to contend with. And the feelings I have about these people. I’m confused about it.
I feel affection for Catrina Savage. I feel connected to her. I’ve felt no affection for anyone other than Ivy and I’m conflicted about all of it because I don’t know what this means. I know very little about this pack’s culture and history. My culture. My history.
I’ve been told lies. I’ve done reading but I don’t know if what I’ve read are myths or not because the ones who wrote those stories and those facts have either written it as fiction or under the guise of fiction. As for what Cornelius told me, are they only lies or is some of it true?
And despite my efforts to remain distanced from the alphas in this pack, I feel a strange sense of connection to them, too. I don’t know how that works, but I am curious about the fact that two of them showed up when I was in that gorge under the haze of anger about Cornelius because I somehow summoned them.
I slip out of the room to empty my bladder and sense other shifters close, and I know Riley’s scent already but there are others with him, close. I see out the window that Riley is there with two other men, talking near this building’s entrance. I don’t know either of them but by their scent and stature, I’m certain they’re other alphas in this pack. Their heads all swing to the window simultaneously, sensing me.
Riley gestures for me to come out. I shake my head and open the window instead. No chance I’d leave Ivy in a building while I’m outside it this soon, certainly not when there are three alpha shifters outside, even if one of them is supposed to be a member of my blood family.
“Tyson, this is Jason, and this is Joel.” Riley gestures.
My eyes meet the eyes of Jason, light brown hair, light brown eyes, and built like Riley, which is to say like I am, though like Riley he is an inch or two shorter than me. Next, my gaze connects with Joel who is even taller, as tall as I am, possibly taller, and not as heavily built though definitely muscled. Joel has dark hair and vivid blue eyes. Both men look at me with what I think feels like affection and respect.
“How is Ivy?” Riley asks.
“Better. And thank you for yesterday.” My words can’t possibly convey how grateful I am. And that’s another thing that angers me. That I needed help to save her, that I didn’t have the capability to save her myself. I feel like I should’ve been able to. I despise that helpless feeling and never want to experience it again.
“Anything for you. We wanna talk with you. We understand that your mate is your focus right now but need to talk about a few things.”
“Talk.”
“While Linc tracked her scent to find the snake that bit her, he found a car that was also filled with her scent. He had it towed out of the valley. It’s at Larry’s Auto Repair in Drowsy Hollow. He wanted you to know he’s having it fixed for her. There was a damaged windshield and damage to two door handles as well as some bumper and hood damage.”
He stops speaking and I wait to see what else he wants to say. I know there’s more, but I’m unable to fight the urge to narrow my eyes at the notion of Lincoln filling his attention with the scent of my woman.
“Lincoln has above average tracking capabilities. He did it to help.”
How does Riley so easily read my thoughts? I stiffen.
“Rye thinks the way you think, Tyson. We all do,” Joel says and then he folds his arms across his chest and waits for me to reply, I think. I say nothing.
Riley breaks the silence. “I know you’ll be taking her home today, according to Aunt Cat, but also that Cat
will be coming out tomorrow to see her unless you’re coming back here…” He lets that hang.
“I won’t be coming back here tomorrow,” I answer. “My woman needs to rest.”
“Then, if it’s acceptable to you, we’d like to come out with her and bring the car. Talk to you. Most of the team. This is Ivy’s phone.” He hands me a device he’s pulled from his pocket. “Linc said it was under the car.”
I look at it. It’s a flat square panel with a red sparkled back.
“It’s dead. I grabbed you a cord in case she didn’t have one. I figure she might have calls she needs to make or return.” Riley reaches into his pocket and passes me a power cord attached to a block-shaped square with electrical prongs protruding from it.
“No to a meeting, but yes to you bringing the car,” I say. “Just you.”
The other two men don’t look bothered.
“It’s a start,” Riley says. “And I appreciate that. See you then. I’d invite you to come with us for a morning run tomorrow, we’re just back from that, but I’m sure that’s not something you’re ready for. So you know, we meet behind the barn at the four corners of the village every morning at five. Whoever wants to come meets us.”
“Good to meet you finally,” the one called Jason says, extending his hand.
I reach out the window and grasp his hand. Something crackles between us. I flinch. He sees it.
I don’t know how he reads it from me but there’s nothing but respect in his eyes and emanating from him.
The one called Joel steps up and reaches to shake my hand. I get the same sensation.
He steps back; Riley steps up, and so I hold my hand out and instead of shaking it, the man embraces me with both arms around me. The window area isn’t big so it’s awkward, but he slaps my back and gruffly says, “Means a lot to me to have you in my life. It really does. See you tomorrow, cousin.”
I slap his back once in reply and he promptly releases me.
They turn and go.
I stare after them for a long moment before I hear my name being called from behind me.
It’s Cat. I turn to look at her.
“She’s awake. Everything looks good and she’s hungry. I’ll make you both some breakfast and then I’ll drive you home.”