Not only because of our father, but because of the gifts she’d been granted—and hers? Made mine look like springtime walks in the park.
She eyed my smile and released a soft breath. “I’m glad you’re happy, sister.”
“I am, Lara. I’m very happy. Every miserable day was worth it for the gift of my life now.”
My men tensed at that, and I knew they hadn’t anticipated such a reply. I couldn’t blame them, not when I hadn’t intended on saying it, but it was true.
I’d give anything for Joshua to live again. I’d give anything for Kian to have another chance at a life that was cut tragically short. But this me? This Sabina was so happy, I felt like I was high.
Sure, my emotions changed, and one of my guys might piss me off, or someone in the pack might make me grind my teeth, but that was life too. You couldn’t be happy all the time, and now, I was pain-free, loved, and blessed with a child who was safe—who the Mother had promised would never be harmed…in other words, I knew, the Mother had meant I’d never lose him like I had Joshua.
That was more than any woman could ever ask for.
I sucked in a breath as my eyes started to prickle with tears, not because I was sad, but because of the opposite. I just absorbed how happy I was, and I wanted her to know it. Wanted her to feel it so that she’d know she could open up to Austin, Ethan, and Eli, so she’d know they were family too and that they’d protect her like they’d protect me and Knight.
She stared at me a second before she graced me with a hesitant smile. Her hand reached out, and she traced my lips, traced my happiness, and whispered, “I can see your she-wolf. She’s silver, isn’t she? Or silvery-white. Bright blue eyes.”
I tensed at that, before I gawked at her some more. “How do you see that?”
She released a shaky breath. “Do you remember the spirits—?”
When her words broke off, I got it.
“Oh my god, Lara. Oh my god! You could see their animals? They were the spirits you saw?”
She gulped, nodded. “I just never understood it. Never—” Her hands came up to cup her face, and when she rubbed her eyes, I got it.
Totally.
All her life, she’d felt sure she was losing it, and when she’d told me why, I’d understood. But now, it was rammed home to me just how strong her gift was.
Especially when she turned to my mates and correctly identified their coloring, from their fur to their eyes, and when she turned to Berry, she did the opposite.
Only, I didn’t recognize the description she gave me.
My men, on the other hand, did.
And when Lara finished, Berry howled, but she didn’t move over to me. Didn’t move away, just stood in the circle with the twins, and her family came from out of the woods. Not the pack, just the male who I knew was her mate, who I’d nicknamed Silver, and the elder pup, Lucky, who was fully matured now.
When she stared at us from the circle of her family, Eli rasped, “How can this be?”
Austin and Ethan were just as somber, but it was Ethan who whispered, “They’re us.”
“This is impossible,” Austin rasped, but Berry howled. Then, with a yip, like they were bored, the two twins…twins—sweet lord—started bouncing around, teasing, nipping at their heels, and enticing the other males to play.
We watched them do just that, until another howl from the forest had them dashing off, back to where they belonged now.
Only, Berry stood up, her head turned back to us as she watched us watch her.
I gulped, then did the only thing I could do, “Go and be with them, Berry,” I told her, even though her name was Merinda.
I felt the instant fear that I’d never see her again, but she looked to her sons, then yipped, and responded to another howl I knew came from her elder son.
The wolf equivalent of Eli.
As she left, I felt my mates sagging around me. Not only with confusion but with distress.
I got it.
I did.
And whatever the Mother’s game was, I was pissed.
And I had no compunction in telling Her that. Even if She wouldn’t answer. Even if She was only going to ignore me, I had to figure out what the hell was going on, and only the Mother had the answers I needed.
Six
Austin
When Sabina stormed off, heading into the forest, the four of us hovered in shock, letting her go. I knew I, for one, was at a loss, and it figured that even my know-it-all brother was too, because he was just as still, just as stoic as he processed what we’d learned, thanks to our sister-in-law’s uncanny ability to see us for what we were.
I wasn’t sure why that was something anyone would be gifted by a deity, but who the hell was I to question why?
Was I even grateful that she’d somehow identified Merinda in a wolf’s body? A supernatural she-wolf at that?
For some reason, the thought put me on edge, and I swallowed before rasping, “Lara, if you’ll excuse us, we need to go and check on our mate.”
She hummed, but as I made to move past her, she grabbed my hand and forced me to look at her. “What is it? Where’s she going?”
“There’s a place in the woods that is special to us. We go there to commune.”
She showed no signs of disdain at what, to a human, might sound like a weirdass bullshit excuse, merely nodded her understanding—even though she couldn’t possibly understand the importance of the totem—and told me, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know you didn’t,” I told her, and Ethan repeated that sentiment too.
“It just came as a shock is all,” Eli countered before he started after Sabina, who was across the way by now, heading toward the forest line.
As he moved, Ethan took after him, and the urge to join them had me dithering as I wondered if I should look after her or go after my mate, who had two of my brothers to ease her stress.
Only, Lara reached up and stunned me by cupping my cheek. The move was more than just fraternal, even though there was nothing sexual about it. It felt more like it was her way of scanning me, which didn’t exactly put me at ease. Not when I knew she had mad skills that our mate hadn’t bothered to explain to us…
“It’s okay. Be with her. She needs you.”
I gulped because I could feel Sabina, could sense that she did need me. More than anything, she needed me to get her out of trouble because one didn’t just go into the totem and shout at the Mother and expect Her to talk back to you.
Until death, we weren’t supposed to be able to commune with Her again. Now we were mated and the claim had settled, but I would bet a hundred thousand dollars that wasn’t the case here. I just knew that in this, too, Sabina would be an overachiever.
Neither could I just leave Lara out on the drive, so I leaped up the few stairs to the veranda then hollered inside. “Elsa! I need you to come and show Lara to her room.”
I twisted around, saw Lara was there, hovering a few steps behind me, and I murmured, “Elsa will be along shortly. I’m sorry about this.”
She waved a hand. “It’s quite nice for my gifts to be accepted as helpful and not lunacy,” she told me sagely. “So please, go and deal with the repercussions of that. I just need a bath and bed.”
“You can have both. Your suite is one of the largest we have, or alternatively, you can stay on the property line in a cabin there.”
To be honest, I hadn’t asked Sabina where we were putting her sister up, so I had no idea, and my priorities were elsewhere. I gave her a tight smile, then I left her in the foyer without a backward glance as I shifted.
I knew my brothers had transformed too, even if Sabina hadn’t, and I raced toward them, shoving myself harder and faster so that I could catch up and beat them. When I did, when Eli took off after me as he ate the dust I left behind in my wake, we almost tumbled into her, which had her growling, “Back off. The Mother and I need to have a talk!”
“A talk about what?” Ethan asked, his
voice relatively sensible now. Which was definitely an oxymoron—see, I knew big words too—because Ethan was always sensible, and only where our mate was concerned would he ever be anything other than reasonable.
“A talk about how She can’t mess with your lives like this!”
“She didn’t mess with our lives, Sabina. Mom found a rite, remember? She was the one who started this whole thing. She gave her life so that I could find you. She just never said what would happen in the aftermath.”
Sabina ground her teeth, but she came to a halt at Eli’s comment. “How upset are you?” she rasped, staring at us for a few seconds each before passing onto the next one. “I mean, she’s lived with us all this time. Why hasn’t she shifted back? Why hasn’t she—”
“Maybe she can’t,” Ethan qualified.
Because I’d seen how protective Berry was of Sabina, I had to agree. “I think she would if she could.” Berry took her position as Sabina’s guard seriously, which was a great relief to us because we always knew she was safe.
There was, I knew, more than one way to swing a cat.
“Well, how can Lara see her, then? If she can see our wolves, and she could see Merinda in Berry, then—”
“Nothing about this has to make sense, sweetheart,” Eli rasped, but his tone was more soothing than I’d expected. I knew he was as disturbed by this as I was, as Ethan was, but somehow, he wasn’t projecting it.
And when alphas were pissed, they projected. Loud and clear. Only the trouble was, in this instance, if he projected, it would further piss Sabina off, which was nobody’s intent here.
When Eli shifted, standing naked before her, I knew that was a testament to his agitation.
None of us, it seemed, were glad to have Merinda back with us, even if it was in a half-life or shell or whatever was currently going on with her.
When a shifter transformed while fully dressed, clothes could be unharmed, maimed during the process, or completely disappear depending on how powerful the shifter was as well as their state of mind.
Eli’s anger was clear to behold in that, even if he wasn’t showing Sabina his irritation.
Though I knew she was aware of that rule, it wasn’t as natural to her as it was to us. Ethan and I shared a wary look, fully apprised of the state of Eli’s temper, before we both shifted too.
Surprise, surprise, we were naked as well.
Fuck’s sake.
I heaved a sigh, because I’d liked those boots, then muttered, “Love, our world is made up of dudes who shift with clothes on and return to their skin naked because they’re pissed off. What about that makes sense?”
She scowled at me, but I noticed her checking me out as she gave me the side eye. I arched a brow at her when she finally met my gaze, and I bit back a laugh when she gave me a heated look, but one that told me if I approached her with anything other than caution, she’d bite me.
And on the soft and dangly parts.
Mother, I loved a bitch with a temper.
Trying hard not to drool, and well aware she knew I was close to said drooling, I watched her as she stiffened her shoulders and ground out, “The Mother can’t keep doing this. Just throwing this shit at us, expecting it to stick, and then for us to have to clean it up somehow.”
“That’s what She does. Ours is not to reason why,” Eli said softly, reaching for her and pressing his hands down her arms, rubbing them carefully, soothingly.
She didn’t want to be gentled though, I could see that plain as day, but she allowed him to touch her, to stroke her because, all things considered, Sabina wasn’t actually a very moody woman. Nor did she have much of a temper.
I wouldn’t say she was passive, just that she preferred to have things remain calm than to sweat over the small stuff. And in our world, there were plenty of small things that existed to put us in a bad mood.
After a shitty day, she would plunk herself beside me on my recliner and we’d watch TV together in silence. Or she’d read a book with Ethan, or lie on Eli’s sofa in front of his desk and play on her phone or draw while he worked.
Silence was her means of coping with agitation and annoyance. Not action. In her own way, she was a wallflower. Very content to stay with her back to the wall. That she was storming off to the totem, a place that gave her a lot of comfort, told me how upset she was on our behalf, and I had to admit, my heart soared at her care.
At her love.
I’d never known a love like it before, and while that might have seemed plausible considering she was my one and only mate, a mother’s love was just as powerful. Just as capable of moving mountains.
Only my mother, my two mothers, hadn’t loved me like that.
To be cherished was a different matter entirely than to being loved by a partner, but Sabina somehow managed to do both.
It was no skin off her nose if Merinda was in she-wolf form or not, yet here she was, riled up for us.
Because of us.
And her temper honored us.
With each clench of her fist, with each tick of her jaw, and each gentle throb of the nerve in her temple, she showed us her love.
There was no alternative for me other than to stride forward and to shove Eli out of the way so I could hold her. Eli, not surprisingly, growled at me, but I didn’t care. I just had to hold her, and in her ear, I whispered, “Thank you.”
I was an alpha born and bred. I didn’t need softness to exist. But to live? Which was completely, utterly different than existing?
Yes.
I needed that.
I kissed her cheek, sucking in a breath that was loaded in her scent, and I repeated, “Thank you.”
She bristled a little, clearly not expecting my thanks in the middle of her temper tantrum, then muttered, “What are you thanking me for?”
“For being hurt for us.”
Her anger died down at that. “Berry could have told me,” she muttered eventually. “She didn’t have to let us find out that way.”
“You said she doesn’t talk in full sentences when she communicates with you,” Ethan pointed out quietly. “Maybe she didn’t have the words.”
Tension throbbed inside her a little, and I knew she thought he was right, but she wasn’t willing to let go of her mad just yet.
So I stroked my hand up and down her back, then murmured, “Whether she could or not, whether she would or not, doesn’t matter. We know now, and that’s that.”
“Is she spying on us?” Sabina rumbled, her temper pricking in a way that had Knight shuffling between us.
The two of them were close, and I was a little taken aback that he hadn’t burst into tears in the face of her agitation. Still, I was glad. The last thing any of us needed was for him to be squalling in the middle of the forest.
“I don’t think she is,” I told her, and I meant it. I wasn’t bullshitting her just to make her feel better—there was no point in that. I’d learned that the hard way too. She knew when I was lying, so what was the point in being in the doghouse over a falsehood when she much preferred the truth?
“How do you know?”
“I think she’s here to help us,” Eli tacked on, agreeing with me for once.
I twisted my head slightly and nodded at him. Not in thanks, just to see if he meant what he said.
“Why?”
At her question, we fell silent, leaving that one for Ethan to answer. He’d probably know more than we would anyway.
“There’s a reason your line is powerful, Sabina. There’s a reason you’re capable of what you can do, and there’s a reason that Lara is the way she is too. You were transformed for a reason, perhaps that reason isn’t what we expected.”
I pulled back from her when I felt her twisting slightly in my hold so she could meet Ethan’s gaze.
“Explain,” she demanded, and it said a lot about her strength that none of us bristled.
A weaker wolf making demands on us, even if that weaker wolf was our mate, would still prickle our beasts’ te
mper.
But our animals were all in total accord—she was as strong as any of us. Just in a different way.
“I think we thought there was an exchange. Merinda gave her life so that the Mother would help Eli find his mate—”
“That’s what she told me,” my elder brother argued. “That’s what I read in the book she showed me.”
“I’m sure she did. Maybe that’s what she thought would happen. Or maybe she thought that was what you would accept as the truth. Let’s face it, she was talking about killing herself. Nothing about that is acceptable. It was only because of your father that you probably didn’t lock her in her room for her own safety.
“We all knew she was on borrowed time the second Paul died. To many, that she lived as long as she had said a lot about her willingness to provide you with emotional support for the pack.”
Eli dipped his chin. “I concur.”
“Thank you,” Ethan said wryly, stating loud and clear that he didn’t care whether Eli agreed or not. “Regardless, what if the ‘deal’ wasn’t as we believed? An exchange. What if it was something else?”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Do you still have the book, Eli?” Ethan requested. “Rather than guesswork, I could read the book and see what was expected for myself.”
“No.” His jaw hardened. “I only saw it once.”
“We could search her bedroom,” Sabina pointed out.
“It’s empty,” he reminded her. “Remember? She cleared out everything in the run up to the rite. She said her things were better off in the hands of pack brothers and sisters who might need them.”
“With no book, I have no real idea what the end game might have been. That would be between the Mother and Merinda, wouldn’t it? We’ll never be privy to those things. Maybe what we believed was cause—Merinda’s sacrifice—and effect—Sabina’s transformation—wasn’t how it actually went down.” His lips pursed, and I saw his eyes narrow in contemplation. “As Eli said, nothing has to make sense to us. Just to the Mother. And arguing with Her, storming off to demand answers from Her will do no good, my mate. You forget, She won’t talk to us anyway.”
Moon Child: A PNR Shifter Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 2) Page 9