Nicole

by Sherry Foster

  Nicole’s eyes widened and her mouth drew up. She looked around the room and back at Jeffery. “I would trust all of these men to keep my family safe.”

  “I didn’t ask you that. I asked, what one man in all the world do you trust more than any other. Or rather, who do you feel the most safe with right now?”

  Nicole looked down at her brother then back up. She glanced over at Gammon, the man who had just shook her world to the core with his revelation of what a true-mate was and she wondered if she believed him. He dad had trusted the man would prove an honorable Alpha who would take her family in. If her dad trusted him then by extension he should be the one she felt the most safe with out of all the men in the room, which constituted all the shifters she knew. Not that she knew all their names, only a handful at this point. Her eyes sought out Samson and she jerked her attention back to the man in front of her. Samson looked both confident and concerned if that was possible. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I feel Gammon is the one who could keep me safe better than anyone here.”

  She felt rather than saw Chris turn his head toward her, “Why did you lie to the man? You don’t trust Gammon? Do you think he means us harm? Is he going to hurt us?”

  The silence in the room was complete. You could have heard a pin drop as every head in the room turned toward her. She felt her face flush red. Her shoulders slumped as she realized what the men had done. She snarled, men and their games, “No, Chris that isn’t it at all. The man tricked me. That is why he brought you with him.”

  “How did he trick you? He asked who could keep us safe and you said Gammon but it was a lie. I don’t want to go to Mr. Gammon’s if he can’t keep us safe. I want to go with the white wolf. He protected us against everybody and he killed the bad man. And he wouldn’t let anybody come near us. Can we go with him?”

  Nicole narrowed her eyes and glared at Samson, “I guess you think you are so smart, don’t you?”

  Samson smirked, “Haven’t you heard, all is fair in love and war. I haven’t decided which one this is yet so you can’t blame me for pulling in my back-up.”

  “So can we? If you don’t trust Mr. Gammon me and Sammy want to go with Mr. Samson instead. Even though we like Mr. Gammon.”

  Nicole turned her glare Gammon’s way and watched his mouth quirk up. She turned back to her brother. “My little soldier, all of the men here would keep us safe. All of them. Do you understand? But the man asked me a tricky question. He said one thing but meant another and I answered one question when I should have answered the other.”

  “I don’t get it. Why didn’t you just tell the truth?”

  “Because Mr. Samson is a horse’s ass that’s why. Now you listen here, I trust all of the men here because Sammy trusts everyone. But if I had to pick one man in the whole room who I felt safest with it would be Tiny over there. I don’t know why, but Mr. Gammon says it is because the wolf I will one day become trusts him most of all.”

  “So does that mean we should trust him most?”

  Nicole shrugged and looked at Gammon for help. She heard someone mutter in the background the word Tiny and she snickered. She saw Samson glaring at the one they called Marcus and guessed that would be the guilty party. Her guess was confirmed when he laughed.

  “Hey don’t look at me, your mate is the one calling you Tiny. It could be worse. Jaden’s mate calls him Fido and Craig’s mate calls him box man.” He eyed Samson who stood a couple of inches above most of the men in the room, “but people aren’t going to believe you got the nickname for the size of your body.” He let his eyes roam down to the belt-line and the men in the room burst into laughter. This time it was Samson who flushed red. “I take it back, Tiny is worse. I am going to tell Jaden he should thank his mate for giving him that nickname instead of the one you have.” He turned back to Nicole, “Now why is it you trust everyone here based on the trust of a toddler? You think children have never been tricked before?”

  Nicole smirked, “Not Sammy. She can’t be tricked, not by a shifter. She can see bad people coming a mile away.”

  The men around him started cursing and she watched him as he lost color in his face. She looked around the room at the men. Looks of horror and dismay on their faces. Marcus actually took a couple of steps away from Sammy who was currently stretched out asleep on the couch with a couple of the other children.

  “What’s wrong? What happened? Dad said it was a good thing she could see the bad men coming. Dad could see the same thing and it saved us, except for the last time, and that wasn’t his fault, we were betrayed.”

  Marcus swallowed hard before he looked at Gammon. With a weak smile he said, “Not it.” And with a couple more steps he reached the door and stepped outside. Nicole could hear his curses ringing in the night air. She shivered as she looked to Samson. He shrugged so she turned her attention to Gammon.

  Gammon was staring at Sammy with a thoughtful look on his face. He turned toward Kent, “That makes two in this generation that we know of doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Trina and now Sammy, who knows how many more. We should have none. It isn’t done, it isn’t right. How can we protect those who must seek? How can we keep them safe when they burn to protect others? When the wolf shreds at you to go out how can we keep them in?” He turned to look at Samson, “You’re fucked.” Then he walked outside with Marcus.

  “What the hell did I do?” Samson looked at Sammy then at the closed door then his eyes turned toward Nicole. Within seconds he was at her side trying to erase the fear on her face. “Hey come on, I don’t know what is going on either but it can’t be that bad.” He wrapped his arms around her and she buried her face in his chest.

  The men in the room watched the tension disappear from his body so fast they thought he would fall as he sagged in relief at finally having his mate cling to him. He swallowed hard and looked to Gammon for the answer to what had caused the men in the room to get so upset at little Sammy. He moved and twisted until he had his body and his mate’s body in place to shield the little one from the rest of the room. He didn’t even notice he did it, but Nicole did and she clung even harder to him.

  “Gammon?” Samson asked.

  “Your little sister there is a true-seeker.”

  “Yeah, so, sounds damn handy ability to have when so many bad people want you.”

  “It would be, except for one little problem. Who will train her to go on missions? When will her training start? Where will you send her for the training you can’t give her?”

  “The fuck? Our females don’t go on missions. What if a mission were to go bad? The men we seek to destroy would add another female to their collection and we would lose a treasure with no price.”

  “Except, you have no choice. A seeker has to seek. The wolf that ripped at your insides to save your mate, the one who would stand between your mate and the fires of hell, the seeker’s wolf will do the same. They will seek out those who would destroy them. They will seek to find the innocent and protect them. They have no choice. They seek or go insane. So again, who will you trust to train the sister you only just gained? How will you watch her leave to find the ones who would take her and use her for their own gain with no thought to her feelings and desires? We have few seeker packs, and only one tied to your family. Your only hope just refused as he walked out the door.”

  “No. We will find a way around it.” Samson stoked Nicole’s hair as he stared around the room. No one would meet his eyes. He could feel the tremors in his mate’s small frame.

  “You are free to try. While you’re at it find how to break the magic of a true-bond so your little mate there doesn’t have to spend the rest of her life with you.”

  “Are you insane? A true-mating can’t be broken.”

  “Neither can the magic within a seeker. They seek because they must. I’m sorry Samson, I truly am. But one day you will have to decide how you will train her, who will you trust with one of your family, and how will you convince the man to take o
n another female seeker when the one they have is tearing their pack apart. Marcus knows his pack is your only hope for that child to have a future. It is the reason he is outside tearing things apart and raging at the world. He knows the day will come when he will have to accept Sammy into his pack to train. And he hasn’t yet given in to his brother’s mate. To have that on your soul is a heavy weight to carry. He knows one day you will ask him to carry that weight. And he fears he will fail. His entire pack fears they will fail and lose not only a female they love, but the Beta of their pack.”

  “She isn’t exactly loved, more like feared.” Someone muttered.

  “You will love my niece or I will rip your head off.” Gammon snarled.

  “Yeah, well if she would quit pulling knives and guns on people she might be easier to love. She is kinda scary you know. You should visit her more often. Or invite her to visit you. Kind of reminds us of someone else. Always threating people, and she isn’t even blood kin to you. Freaky how family works.”

  Gammon snorted in laughter and the tension in the room eased.

  Samson looked down at the top of Nicole’s head. She was smaller than he had thought. He leaned down and brushed his lips across the top of her head. “We will figure something out. We can’t change her being a seeker, but we will make sure she is the best seeker who ever lived. She will do amazing things and save the lives of many of our people. She will be your brave little warrior as Chris is your brave little soldier. But until the time comes that she takes up the weapons of her gift, we will give her the most incredible childhood any girl could ever desire. We will protect her and treasure her and give her the gift of love. She will know why she fights for our people because we will show her what a true-mating means. If you will give me the chance?”

  “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course you can. You can think about it all you want. In fact I want you to think about it every day of your life for the rest of your life. That was kind of the point of the whole thing.”

  “You are a horse’s ass. I meant, will you give me time?”

  “Well, if I am being honest with you, I really don’t have much of a choice. I kinda have to give you until your twenty-first birthday.”

  “And if I ask for longer?”

  “Can we cross that bridge when we come to it?” Samson almost whined.

  “Do I have much choice?”

  “Honestly? No, we are big about giving the female the choice and for many we mean that. We don’t force them to mate where they feel nothing. If they find someone they love, but the person isn’t their true-mate they are free to mate them or not. They are free to stay single or not. But when a true-mating happens the female doesn’t have much of a choice. But then again, neither does the male. Imagine for a moment two shifters meeting and falling in love without the bond. They become mates and swear they will love each other through eternity, and they mean it. But a year, a decade, maybe even a century later one of them crosses paths with their true mate. And their wolf is no longer content to stay with the one they love. The wolf begins to rip at them to mate with the other half of their soul. Their heart slowly breaks as they try to keep their life intact. They watch as the one they love watches them go insane. And finally they give in to the inevitable and find that the love they shared before was the palest spark compared to the true-mate bond. And they live with the guilt of turning away from someone they promised to love. And three people hurt for each other, each living with guilt and pain in a different way. The one who left his love for the greater love feeling guilty for loving the second one more but knowing if he could go back and change it to where he never met his true-mate he wouldn’t. Not for all the gold in the world, not for a lifetime of her love. This bond we have is both a blessing and a curse. We will never meet one we could love half so much as we will love each other. We will never meet anyone who completes us like our true-mate. And we will never suffer as much as we would to find them and then lose them. Females are precious to us, and we give you the choice of where to live and who to mate when we can. But the true-mate bond forges a connection greater than any you could ever forge yourself, and those females who haven’t come of age yet have only two choices, follow the magic and know a love greater than any could ever describe, or force the wolf away before you come of age and know only the palest form of love that two mere humans might form together. We say you have a choice, but would you give up the greatest love you could ever have for a pale imitation if you knew what you were offered?”

  “You kind of make it sound horrible.”

  “Yeah, no I gotta agree with her. That was a great speech, terrible company to have that speech in considering how many of Marcus’ men are mated to humans. Marcus and Krys are not true mates so keep that kind of talk to yourself. But he isn’t wrong, Nicole. There is no greater pain than to lose your true-mate. The soul shattering loss rips you in two and scatters you to the winds. Most never recover and follow their love into death. If you should be so lucky to survive you long for a death you can’t force yourself to take. The guilt of surviving tears at you and makes it impossible for you to feel worthy of death. So you rebuild you life knowing you deserve to be alive and suffering because you didn’t die in their place. If you are gifted to have a true-mate, you walk through hell to keep them. You will watch the world burn before you would give them up. You would be the one burning the world down before you would every give up a true-mate. But yeah, genius there pointed out some bad points. You focus on the good points and don’t worry about what might one day happen.”

  “Well okay then Gammon, gotta say you didn’t help the man there with that bit of wisdom. You even make it sound like you have been there. The two of you both speak with the pain of having lived the life you describe.” Nicole told them.

  “I did.” Gammon told her before he walked outside.

  The men left inside stared around the room at each other, the news Gammon had lost a true-mate was news to all of them, even his own men.

  “Holy shit.” Someone whispered.

  Nicole stared at the closed door and wished she could take back her words. Her eyes shifted back to Samson but he smiled at her and shrugged. “I watched it happen when I was younger. It was both terrible and exciting to see. To watch a love grow with the bond, to see that kind of love makes you long to have it one day. To see the pain of watching a man give up one love for a greater love, terrible to see the pain.”

  “Wow.” Nicole whispered. “So we go first to your friend’s house them to Marcus’ territory and then we separate to the different packs? My family stays with your pack?”

  Samson let out a relieved sigh, “I certainly hope that is your choice.”

  “Where will I stay? With you?”

  “Ah yeah, no, my wolf is not that strong. I will have to build a house for us. I never stayed there long enough to build one for myself. I stay with my family when I get home. You can stay with my family while we build a house. You will be welcome in my parents home and in my brother’s home. You do not have the temperament to get along well with my sister I don’t think.”

  “I get along with everyone.” Nicole exclaimed.

  “Sometimes she lies. Is that okay? Can we still come stay with you?” Chris wedged his head between them to look up at Samson.

  “That is okay, I can smell a lie so we won’t let her get away with it will we?” Samson laughed at the faces Nicole made at them before reaching down with one hand and boosting the boy up into the shelter of their arms. “Come on, help me get the rest of my things together. We are going to need to talk to the guys about getting a bit more time here. We need to take care of your parents and your home. Maybe get a few special things for the children?”

  “Oh no, I didn’t think about that. My things were not packed up but everyone else’s stuff is in a transportation truck. We have to get it. And, I don’t know what to do about my parents.” Nicole cried.

  Samson could have kicked himself when tears trickled dow
n his mate’s face. He looked around the room until he spotted Jeffery and motioned him over.

  “Yeah, I heard. Get me the address and I will take care of everything. Want the bodies flown back to your territory? I mean, if, well, if they left them there. If someone moved them I will find them. I will get the house packed up and get the truck sent to Packwoods Robotics. Might as well tell Landel I won’t be back in time for the meeting. He ought to understand.”

  “Thanks man, means a lot to me that you would do that for us.”

  “No problem, what is family for if they can’t help you when you need it? Now come on, we still have some stuff to haul to the birds. I think we are almost done if you want to start hauling kids. I am going to get on the road headed to your mate’s house once you lift off.”

  Samson nodded and shifted around till he could reach down and life Sammy up. With Sammy in one arm and Chris in the other he didn’t have a free hand to hold Nicole but she reached out and tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and half pulled him from the house toward the small field. She was eager to get her brother and sister somewhere safe and get a shower and clean clothes. It might be another day or so but she was willing to wait if she could do it in the safety and protection of the males she had around her. She was humming when she fastened her seat belts.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Why doesn’t Gammon take all the children? Why only some of them?” Nicole watched a few of the children being sheltered in the arms of Gammon’s men as they climbed into vehicles to take them to the helicopters at the airfield. They had flown back to the States and rested at the alien’s house. A few of the men had gone out for some warm clothing and shoes for the children and food and supplies for the baby they had recovered. They hadn’t stayed long in Louisiana before loading most of the men back into the helicopters to fly back to Utah.