“I have a lot of shit in my past. It’s not good shit, and it’s not easy to talk about, at all. But I like you, and you stir things up in me that… Well. I thought would never surface. I’ve had boyfriends, but nothing like what I’m feeling for you. It’s kind of weird for me to say that, and I’m sorry if that’s scary or overwhelming, but…therapy for the past ten years has taught me I have to face this shit as soon as it comes up.”
She paused and picked at the deli meat that had escaped the bread. “And at the same time, I have to ask you to be patient with me. One day I might be handsy and the next day I may cower in terror of the touch of skin.”
I was astonished at her honestly. I felt a constriction in my chest that wasn’t unpleasant but nervous. She was admitting her feelings for me.
“Can I ask...?”
“I can’t answer,” she said. “I’ve told the story too many times, and I can’t do it again.” She put her hand on mine. “That’s on me. It has nothing to do with you. What it is, what happened destroyed me. There wasn’t much left to save, and what is left is stitched together with the life I managed to scrape up with my friends and my brother.” She took her hand back. “And I want you to know. I just can’t be the one to tell you. If and when you think you’re ready, talk to Jess. She’s my designated story keeper. She’ll tell you what happened.”
This had gotten much heavier than I thought it would. But her trust and her honesty with me made me believe this was going to head in the direction we both wanted it to.
After long minutes, she looked up from the sandwich and found my eyes. “Can you be patient with me? Take this all slow?”
“I will take this all at the pace you dictate.” I smiled.
For my mate, I was willing to wait a lifetime.
“I’m warning you, it’s going to be a weird ride.”
I snorted. That was an understatement, and she had no idea that it wasn’t her who was the problem. We were going to be in for a wild ride on both sides of this one.
Keeping myself from outright staring at her, I took a few bites of my sandwich and caught what I could from the side of my vision.
She was gorgeous and perfect. And every right reason I had to burn that mattress. I wanted to know more about her, but I wasn’t sure what I could ask without upsetting her.
“You have a brother?” It seemed a safe question.
“I do. Winter. He’s awesome. Former Navy SEAL. He works out of Pearl Harbor Hickam as an underwater welder.”
“So he’s still in?”
“No. He didn’t reup this last time. He went into welding instead. He’s a private contractor to the Navy, but he also contracts out to other companies.” She smirked. “He’s not cheap. Underwater welding is unique and highly specialized.”
“Underwater? Isn’t that counterproductive?”
“You’d think so, but that’s why he gets paid what he does.”
“Older?”
“Oh, yeah. Ten years. I was an unhappy accident until Win came out of the closet. Then they disowned him, and I became everything.” She twitched her nose. “Well, not everything. But they stopped treating me like a mistake all the time.”
“What did you want to do with your degree?”
“General Human resources. In other words, I have a degree and no idea what I want to do with it. So here I am, in Alaska with my friends trying to figure it out and relax for a few months. Once in a lifetime chance, why not.”
Nodding, I chewed on my sandwich. “Sounds like a plan to me. Real life sucks.”
“It really does.”
I chewed on my sandwich a minute and smiled. “Well, how about you come with me on Monday? I have a flight planned into BC to do a bear count, and I’m always happy to have company.”
“Are you helping your brother?”
“Most of the time, but this is the cub count and he knows it’s important.”
She smiled shyly. “I’d love it. Do we get to land again? And check out the area?”
“I usually do.” I smiled back. I loved the cub count, but it was so long and tedious without someone there to at least talk to. “It’s an overnight. We have to do some hiking. We’ll sleep in the plane. Are you okay with all that?”
“Oh, yeah.” Her grin was genuine. “Definitely. Winter taught me a lot of survival skills. I’m not terrible in the great outdoors.” Addi smirked. “I just prefer being able to shower.”
“Me too, babe. Me too. Ripe is the best way to attract a bear.”
She glanced over the dark mirror of the lake. “Are you busy this weekend?”
Well, fuck.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “Yeah, actually I am. I have to go down to Vancouver this weekend. I leave Friday morning and get back on Monday afternoon.”
“Fly down?”
I grinned. “In my own plane, thank you very much.”
Her eyebrow rose. “You love that thing, don’t you?”
“She’s my baby. She’s worth a lot more than parts or the market value. I fly her every chance I get.”
That just happened to be twice a month down to Van to take care of business. I didn’t resent that fact, but now it was taking weekends away when I could be wooing my mate.
Could be worse. I guessed.
Chapter Six
I was finally able to find Jess on Friday morning. She was wrestling some contact paper into a cabinet, and I cleared my throat.
“Damn it, Zanna, no, I’m not done yet.”
“Definitely not Zanna.” I coughed.
She whipped her head around and found me there. “Oh, Patrick. Hi.” I watched as she turned bright pink and stuck her head in the cabinet.
Stifling a laugh, I leaned against the counter next to her. Folding my arms, I kept my voice low, so my words didn’t go beyond the two of us. “Jess. The Alpha effect is nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve all grown up around it, and it just is what it is.”
She huffed. “It turned me into a pure hussy and I let your brother shag me on the living room rug of your parents’ house.”
“And they were upstairs doing the exact same thing.”
Jess whimpered. “I know.”
“I love how regular humans react to shifters and our open nudity and casual sex.” I picked at a fingernail. “Thankfully, at least, we don’t believe in traumatizing our children with random, wanton acts.”
She groaned in distress and peered around the cabinet door. “Small favors, considering I heard everything.”
I grinned. “So did we.”
Her pink turned to bright red and she stuffed her head in the cabinet again. “I’m never coming out again.”
Laughing, I patted her knee. “You’re fine, Jess. Garrett is smiling and happier than I have seen him in years. You’re good for him, and for the whole family.”
“Don’t push it, dude.” She peered at me through the crack.
“Push what?” I fluttered my eyelashes.
She glanced back at the room behind her, and it was empty. “I just found out you shifters are a real thing and that Garrett’s all about calling me his mate. It’s a bit much right now. He was a summer fling, and I’m not ready for more yet.”
“We do come on strong, don’t we?”
If she’d been wearing glasses, she’d’ve peered over them at me, sternly. A moment later, she was back in the cabinet.
“What do you want, Patrick?” She zipped the box knife down the contact paper to cut it.
“Tell me about Addi.”
There was silence, and no movement for a long minute. I heard her put the knife down, and she backed out of the tiny space. Her lips were pursed, and she stared at me. “Did she tell you to ask me?”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows rose a fraction. “Really? Well. I didn’t think that would happen. Does she know everything about you yet?” Jess stopped herself. “No. Let’s talk outside, away from prying ears and eyes.”
“There’s a pond about a quarter mile up the hil
l from here. That good? No one will be there this time of day.”
She hopped off the ladder. “This time of day?”
“Let’s walk,” I said.
I led her out of the house and across the field that abutted the structure.
“Yéil’s Pond. It’s been a favorite swimming hole for generations of St. Terese pups,” I explained. “Garrett and I were no exception. There’s a great rock there for sunning and the water is fed by a hot spring on one side and a cold spring on the other. It’s always about eighty degrees, though a little colder in the winter and spring when there’s heavy snow and melt.” I tossed a look at her. “It’s a great place to skinny dip. All year round.”
It was quiet a moment and then Jess glanced back to see how far we were from the house. Apparently, it was far enough for her. “Addi told you to ask me.”
“She did. She said you were her dedicated story keeper.”
Nodding, Jess stared down at her feet. “I am. And I’m shocked and delighted that this is where you two are. But, have you told her what else you are? Does she know about the wolves?”
“Not yet. I was going to try to tell her on Tuesday when we go out for the cub count.” Jess looked confused and I quickly explained what it was. “And Addi is going to come with me.”
“You might want to try a better approach than your brother. Break her in slowly.”
“What did my brother do?” I was almost afraid.
But Jess smirked. “Oh, he just flat out shifted. I hit him with a branch.”
“Please tell me you nailed him in the balls.”
A laugh escaped her. “No, no. Just the head on his shoulders.”
It was a relief to know that one of the Yéil Women—as everyone had started calling them—knew part of the deal. Having them all there, on shifter land, had been hard without them knowing what was going on.
Dad had a fit until Garrett turned up with Jess for dinner.
“I am going to try to do this delicately. But really? Hi, I’m Patrick, I’m a wolf shifter and your forever mate. Can I shag you stupid?” I shrugged. “It’s hard to be eloquent about that.”
Jess choked. “Please, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t do that.” Glancing at me quickly, she focused back on the path we were on. “You think she’s your mate?”
“Yes.”
There were no questions about that. I knew she was. I’d burned the mattress and started closing the connection to my dirty past.
“She must have it bad for you if she told you to talk to me.” Jess seemed to be saying it more to herself than to me. “It’s not a good past.”
“I need to know.”
“You do. Because you need to know why she’s going to run away from you more than just once.”
We broke through the cover of trees into the clearing on the edge of the pond. There was a low, flat rock that allowed someone to walk into the water, and the high plateau rock that allowed someone else to dive in. The water was deep. It had taken me getting the sonar from the school to find out how deep it actually was, and we were all shocked at the seventy foot reading that came back.
“The cold water is also from the same source as the well water for the cabin.” I pulled my shoes off and walked into the water at the low rock.
Jess perched herself on one of the boulders next to the pond and considered her feet. “So, did she tell you anything?”
“Just that this wasn’t good stuff.”
“Whatever you do, don’t bring up what I’m about to tell you, unless she engages you in conversation. Her brother, you know about him?”
“Winter, yes.”
She nodded sharply. “Her brother and I have gone to numerous therapy sessions with her about this, and how to handle it. I got to hear both her side and Winter’s side, and I became the designated storyteller because there was no way to ask her to tell the story ever again.”
I wiggled my toes in the water. “She hates home.”
Nodding, Jess picked at the rock she sat on. “She always has. Her parents were not good to her at all. She was an unhappy accident that left them with a second child. They’d only wanted Winter. For people who are so devout to God, they were pissed when God gave them another kid.
“I wouldn’t say they were abusive, but she was always second fiddle. All of Winter’s football games, band performances, birthdays, milestones were celebrated in ridiculous fashion. Addi would get a card and a cupcake after dinner. It hurt Winter to love her so much and have them act like that.
“He joined the Navy when she was eight. He got all the way to SEALs pretty damn fast. Big, brawny, smart, and clever. Winter is every woman’s fantasy, and Addi said her parents would talk constantly about the grandkids he’d give them and how they couldn’t wait to spoil them.
“So, when she was ten, they were destroyed, and I mean utterly and completely wrecked, when he came out as gay. Instantly disowned him. Kicked him out of their lives and joined a Baptist Mission to Uganda.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed. “Addi is blonde and blue-eyed and white. And they took her to Uganda?” It wasn’t a secret that white children were in demand for so many reasons. Human trafficking was ubiquitous, and by the time you took a blonde-haired, blue-eyed child into the heart of some of the worst areas of the world, it was a guarantee.
“They took her to Uganda. But you know, it was safe because they were up by Sudan and the Congo.”
I stared at Jess. “They stole her.”
She nodded ever so slightly. “After Winter begged them to let her stay with him on base. After numerous people warned them what they were taking her into, they still took her to Uganda. She was taken after just five days at the camp.”
I wanted to throw up. I had never ever felt like that before. “Five days.”
“She was traded and moved and raped and used for two years. From twelve until fourteen. She was a housekeeper, a good luck charm, a blessing, a curse, a cure for STDs. You name it, she was used for it. She was so disassociated from herself she has a different name for herself during those two years. Ghalyela. Not sure what language that is, but she says it means valuable.
“And she was. To the men and women who used her for whatever ends.”
“Tell me this has a happy ending.”
Jess gave a less than enthusiastic one-shoulder shrug. “Sort of? With her last owner, they were disgusted that she was still intact.”
I tripped backward out of the water and landed on my ass, not even caring that I looked like a fool. “Intact…”
Jess nodded. “She was beyond the age for the cut.”
Bile seared my throat.
“So, he had someone he knew who once saw a circumcision come to his house to give Addi one.”
Air was stuck in my lungs. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this.
Jess took a hard breath. “He fucked it up. Big time. And they left her to bleed to death in the bush.”
I gagged and puked a little into the grass. I got my stomach to settle a moment later and grabbed a handful of the pond water to scrub my mouth. “They cut her and left her to die.”
“They didn’t get the cut right. The guy who did it had no idea what he was doing. They didn’t understand female anatomy.” Jess paused and caught her breath. “They cut off one of her outer vulvar lips and scored deep across her clitoris. Just one, and that’s when her owner realized that this guy had no idea what he was doing. The two of them dragged her out of the house, bleeding and dying and shoved her under a bush.”
I felt sick again, but I held on to myself. Addi was at the house—something had to have happened to get her here, to Alaska.
“Winter had express permission from his CO to find her. And he did, just minutes after all this happened. They had located her and were just a few minutes too late to stop it. But he gathered her up and carried her back to the helicopter they had waiting. Those men…disappeared. They are probably dust and bones under that same bush in the Sudan.”
“Did Winter finish them off?”
“His squadmates. He was too worried about Addison to care. Pretty sure a lot of the people who touched his sister didn’t live much after those few days.”
“Good.”
Jess nodded in agreement. “Winter got her back to the hospital, and then back to the States. She had lost a lot of blood, but that was easily remedied. He tried to get custody of her because her parents were disgusted by her.”
“It was their fault—”
Holding up her hand, Jess motioned for me to tone it down. “I know it was. You know that. But they were disgusted that she was so…dirty and unclean. They wouldn’t surrender her to Winter, though. They spent four years praying over her, ritually bathing her after every period, baptizing her in the river at sunrise every fourth Sunday.”
I didn’t ever want to meet her parents.
Jess sighed. “She endured their bullshit while Winter paid for her real treatment—therapists, psychiatrists, social workers, doctors, surgeons. She had the best of everything. And she and Winter plotted her escape to college. Addi wound up in our dorm, and we took her under our wings.
“Once Winter realized he could trust us with her, he asked me to help with her recovery, and that’s how I wound up here with you today on this rock.”
I stared at the crystal clear blue water in front of me. There was so much to absorb about this. “I’m going to be rude about some of this, aren’t I?”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m the bumpers in the bowling lane of Addi’s life. Me and Winter. We want to see her happy and that means guiding the ball once in a while.”
“How…metaphorical.”
She chuckled. “I rather liked it. But you can ask me anything. I won’t break your fingers if you’re rude.”
I lined up some questions in my brain and tried to sort them a bit. “She’s had surgery?”
“Emergency on the base, reparative in Oklahoma. Eventually, restorative to some degree. There is still scaring and some lack of feeling on the lip itself and on the line that scored the clitoris.”
Deep breath and another question. “Psychological scars?”
Exploring Alaska (The Juneau Packs Book 3) Page 5