Holding Honor (Ashland Pride Nine)

by R. E. Butler

  She smiled. “I know that, too. I’m just nervous.”

  “That’s understandable,” Jax said.

  The front door creaked as it swung open. “Are you going to stand out there all day or come give your dad a hug? You owe me about fifteen years’ worth of them.”

  “Dad!” Honor raced away from Jax and Holden and practically tackled her father in her haste.

  Jax laughed at the sheer joy that shone on Honor’s face as she hugged her father. “I think at least some of her nervousness is gone now.”

  “Yep.” Holden said. “Makes me wish Dad was alive. And Bradley, too.”

  Jax’s heart panged. “Definitely. But the good news is that we get to make our family even bigger with Honor, Eli, and Hope.”

  “Come say hi to my dad,” Honor called from the porch.

  Jax and Holden strode up the front walk.

  He gave them an appraising look. “I remember you two. Good thing you were good boys back then, or I’d have to give my daughter a good talking to about choosing respectable males.”

  Jax snorted and shook Eli’s hand.

  Holden shook his hand. “It’s been a long time. I’m glad you remember all the good things we did, and not the senior pranks.”

  “Which one was your class? The spray paint on Ted Murphy’s barn?”

  “My class was the spray paint,” Jax said.

  “Mine was the cow on the roof,” Holden said.

  “You put a cow on the roof?” Honor asked.

  “Yeah,” Holden said. “The easy part was getting it up there.”

  “What was the hard part?” she asked.

  “We had to get the fire department to use a sling and lift the poor thing off the roof,” Eli said, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Cows can’t go down stairs.”

  “Which, to be fair, we didn’t know when we put it up there.”

  “Well, pranks aside, I’m very thankful for you two. Without you, I wouldn’t be seeing my daughter for the first time in years. Come on in.”

  They walked into the house and Eli shut the door behind them. He led them into the family room, where the coffee table had been set with a pitcher of lemonade, glasses, and a plate of cookies.

  “Are those your famous snickerdoodles?” Honor asked.

  “Of course! Hope and I made them this morning.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She went for a walk with one of her friends. I think she was nervous to meet you.”

  “Nervous to meet me? I’m the one who’s nervous.”

  Eli gestured for them to sit. Honor sat on the couch in between Jax and Holden, and Eli took an easy chair, which creaked a little as he rocked back and forth.

  “You had a good drive?” he asked.

  Honor took a bite of a cookie and let out a happy groan, which was just sexy enough to make Jax want to carry her out of her father’s house and do wicked, wonderful things to her.

  Jax nodded. “Holden and I switched for the drive so we could rest some and not be too exhausted once we got here.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here,” Eli said. “I have a spare bedroom.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Honor said. “We’d love to.”

  Eli stared at them in silence for a long moment, and then said, “I can’t believe you’re really here, Honor. I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “Oh, Dad,” she said. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Eli said. “You were cursed. I just can’t believe that our people didn’t know about the curse. You’d think important information like that would have been passed down from generation to generation. The males before us really blew it.”

  “I think every male would agree with you,” Jax said.

  “What kind of response did you get when you told the males that Honor was coming here?” Holden asked.

  “There’s still some disbelief among the older males about the curse, but the younger generation is more accepting. It helps that Hope isn’t like the females used to be. There are a few other female lions here; they’re younger than Hope and not exhibiting any signs of being like the others, either.”

  “No one’s going to try to run me out of town?” she asked.

  “Not a chance,” Eli said, his voice tipping to a growl. “I made it clear that you’re different, and if anyone even thinks about giving you a hard time, they’re going to have to deal with me first.”

  Jax appreciated how protective her father was.

  The front door swung open and closed. Honor stood slowly and stared at the hallway that led to the foyer.

  “Pop? Is she here?” Hope called.

  “Yes, honey,” Eli said. “Come in and say hello.”

  “I’m not sure I want to.”

  “We already talked about this,” he said as he rose to his feet. “She’s your mother.”

  “Dad, it’s okay,” Honor said. “I’m a stranger to her.”

  “She should still be respectful,” Eli said.

  The sound of footsteps drew closer, and Hope appeared in the doorway. Her hair was the same golden blonde as Honor’s, and their eyes were the same shade of sapphire blue. Jax had seen her on the video app, but seeing her in person told him just how much she looked like her mother.

  “I don’t want to call you Mom,” Hope said. “Not yet. It’s too weird.”

  Jax stood the second he scented saltwater and knew Honor was on the verge of crying. Holden joined him, and they held her between them.

  “I understand,” Honor said. “It’s nice to meet you. You’re even prettier in person.”

  “You, too,” Hope said. She twisted her hands together and furrowed her brow. “This is weird.”

  Honor chuckled. “Yeah.”

  “How about we all sit down and chat?” Eli suggested.

  “Can we sit outside?” Hope asked.

  “Of course,” he said.

  They followed him and Hope out to a covered patio with wicker furniture arranged around a firepit. Hope sat next to Eli on a loveseat, and Jax and Holden sat with Honor on chairs.

  “The backyard looks great, Dad,” Honor said. She glanced at Jax and Holden and smiled. “The patio was here before, but it wasn’t covered, and we had these old chairs that were metal frames, woven with strips of canvas.”

  “One summer we re-wove them,” Eli said. “Last summer Hope had a birthday party here, and she said the old furniture was uncool, so we upgraded.”

  “It looks great,” Honor said.

  Hope looked down at her phone, then stood and headed into the house.

  “Hope,” Eli said in a warning tone.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, disappearing inside.

  “When she’s stressed, her go-to response is to walk away.”

  “Oh,” Honor said. “I’m sorry I stressed her out.”

  “You shouldn’t be sorry,” Eli said, shaking his head. “You’re my daughter and this is your home, too.”

  “Why does she walk away?” Holden asked.

  “King is mostly human now. The pride isn’t as big as it used to be, so the support network you guys had growing up isn’t there. Hope’s about a year away from shifting. When she gets stressed out, her lion acts up and it makes her antsy. Humans don’t understand how emotional shifters can get, so Hope’s automatic response is to walk away so she doesn’t get made fun of.”

  “Why would anyone make fun of her?” Honor asked.

  “Because shifters are different,” Eli said. “There aren’t a lot of young ones, and Hope is one of only a few teens in the high school aside from a few teachers and staff. She’s always been on the outside because of that.”

  “It’s a lot different than when we were growing up,” Jax said.

  “The pride was bigger before you left,” Eli said to Honor. “Even if the females weren’t kind to the males, the support of the larger pride made it easier for the youth to come into their shifts. A female never turned her back on another female in need,
and the males wouldn’t either.”

  “It’s kind of the same in Ashland,” Holden said. “It’s mostly human, but as more kids are born into the pride, the tide will shift.”

  “Ashland sounds like a great place.”

  Honor smiled. “It is. But it’s not King.”

  Jax nodded as understanding filled him. He glanced past Honor to Holden, who nodded in unspoken agreement. If Honor decided she wanted to stay in King, then they’d happily move there.

  Although Ashland had been home to them, now home was where Honor wanted to live. King, or Ashland, or the moon – it didn’t matter to him as long as she was with them.

  When they were ready for bed, Eli set them up in Honor’s old bedroom. She walked into the room and stopped in her tracks. She turned in a slow circle and then walked to the full-sized bed and ran her hand across the pink quilt. She sat on the bed with a groan and rubbed at the space over her heart.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?” Holden asked.

  “I don’t know. I feel like…my chest hurts.”

  Jax pulled her to her feet and hurried her outside and onto the back patio. “Your heart is racing, Honor. You’re having a panic attack. Take some deep breaths and calm down.”

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Holden said, lifting her hand and pressing it to his chest, right over his heart.

  She leaned against both her mates, taking slow, deep breaths of the fresh night air.

  “That was crazy,” she said. “He didn’t change the room. It’s exactly how I remember it; from the pink curtains to the nightstand with the clock that’s shaped like a lion. I felt overwhelmingly sad. I hurt him so much because of the curse. It’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not,” Eli said, standing in the doorway. “A lot of older males like me have held onto the hope that someday our daughters and granddaughters would return. That somehow things would change. I never gave up wanting you to come home. I couldn’t change your room. If I took away your things, it was like saying that I didn’t believe you’d be with me someday. I did wash the bedding before you showed up, though. Didn’t think you’d want to sleep on old, dusty sheets.”

  Honor laughed lightly and left her mates’ embrace to hug her dad. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

  “I should have warned you about the room, though. I wasn’t thinking about how you’d feel to see it.”

  “Sad that you’ve waited so long for me.”

  “You were worth the wait,” he said.

  Chapter 9

  Saturday morning, Honor was up before dawn and out in the kitchen making coffee. Although some things had been updated from when she was a teenager, the house still felt exactly as she remembered it, from the old-school Mr. Coffee machine to the worn coffee mugs. He still had the World’s Greatest Dad mug that she’d picked out from a gift shop for a Christmas present for him when she was in elementary school.

  “You couldn’t sleep?” Hope asked as she walked into the kitchen.

  “I’m an early bird by nature,” Honor said. “You?”

  “Uh, not really. I like to sleep in, especially on Saturdays. But Pop says if you don’t get up until noon then half the day is gone already.”

  Honor smiled. “I think I inherited my early-bird tendencies from him. Do you drink coffee?”

  “Only if it’s really sweet, flavored with chocolate, and poured over ice.”

  “Can we do that in this kitchen?”

  “Nope. There’s a coffee shop in town, though. Pop gets bagels every Sunday morning and they have a really great mocha iced coffee.”

  “Bagels every Sunday? How long has he been doing that?”

  “A few years. He dated the coffee shop owner for a while.”

  Honor pressed the button on the coffee maker and it sputtered to life. “I didn’t know he’d dated. What happened?”

  “Her kids were grown, and she didn’t want to get serious with him because she didn’t want to be raising another kid.”

  “That’s shitty.”

  Hope shrugged. “Pop said it was better to know that up front than for her to pretend to like our situation.”

  “That’s true.”

  Hope poured a bowl of cereal for herself and sat down. Honor fixed her coffee and sat across from her daughter.

  “Do you want to ask me any questions? I’m sure you have some.”

  “Are you going to move to King?”

  “Would you like me to?”

  “At first I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to get to know you. My friend Tawny’s mom said that any mother, shifter or not, who walked away from a newborn should be run out of town. She said I shouldn’t bother to get to know you because you weren’t worth knowing.”

  “Damn.”

  “Well, she’s human. Humans don’t get shifters. She can’t even begin to understand shifters in general, but add in this curse business – which I’m not sure I get, either – and she’s lost. It’s easy to say that sort of thing about a shifter from the outside looking in, but she can’t possibly know what it’s like for us. But after talking to you on the phone this last week, meeting you yesterday, and waking up this morning knowing you were still here… Yeah, I think I want you to move here.”

  Honor’s heart swelled. “I haven’t talked to Jax and Holden officially yet, but I’d like to move to King.”

  “Good. I’m a sophomore. Maybe after I graduate, we can talk about going to Ashland. Pop’s waiting until then to retire.”

  “That sounds like a plan. I’m sure we can find a place to rent in town. I appreciate you being willing to give me another chance.”

  “I don’t look at it that way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hope poured a second bowl of cereal, the brightly colored, sugar-coated flakes bouncing in the empty bowl. “The curse meant you didn’t have the ability to do anything maternal. You didn’t have a first chance. It’s not as if you looked at me and decided you didn’t want to be a mom. You went into things with my biological father knowing that you weren’t in it for the long haul. So it seems like this is technically your first chance.”

  “Then I’ll do my best not to mess up.”

  Hope smiled. “Good. Can I ask you something else?”

  “You can ask me anything.”

  “You have two mates? No shifters in King have two. Why do the Ashland males share mates? And how does that even work?”

  Honor blushed sharply. “Can I not talk to you about my sex life if I answer your other question?”

  “What? Ew! I didn’t mean I wanted to know how you’re with them.” She shivered and made another disgusted sound. “I meant how can males share a mate? Aren’t they possessive of you?”

  Blowing out a relieved sigh that she didn’t have to have a sex chat with her daughter the day after meeting her, Honor said, “I don’t know why the males in Ashland share a mate and the ones here don’t. Jax and Holden said that they thought they might, but they weren’t sure until they saw me. I felt very drawn to both of them, especially once the curse was broken.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Well, it wasn’t romantic,” she said with a chuckle. “I bit Jax’s hand, and then when I was trying to get away and I stumbled, Holden grabbed me and I kissed him and bit him.”

  “Why?” Hope’s eyes went wide.

  “I felt compelled to. I can’t explain it any other way than that my lion wanted me to, so I did. I had a terrible headache afterward, and all of my memories came back. Then, slowly, my emotions returned, too, but I was trapped in Canada and couldn’t get back to my mates.”

  “They found you, though. That’s kind of romantic.”

  “Yeah. Do you have any males you like?”

  “No. I don’t think my mate –or mates – is in King, or I would feel differently. I’m not entirely poisoned, so I want to find my mate, I’m just pretty sure he’s not here. Or they’re not here.”

  “You want two mates?”

  “I want to be with who
ever I’m supposed to be with, so I can have a family. I want to give my cubs what I missed out on by not having two parents.”

  Honor’s heart panged. The curse had taken so much from her and the other female lions. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You shouldn’t apologize for what that goddess did to our people. I wish I could find her and make her take the curse away.”

  “Me, too. I also wish our people had known about the curse before now.”

  “At least I wasn’t fully poisoned.” Honor lifted her arm and pointed to three tiny scars on the underside. “I vaguely remember two females doing this to me. I don’t remember who they were. I only know that sometimes when I’m around a lot of males, I want to just leave. Did you feel like that?”

  Honor thought back to her past. “Yeah. But females never lived with males once they turned sixteen and the poisoning was complete. I was picked up on my birthday by a group of females and went to live with them. I got my driver’s license, dropped out of school, and went to work. Dad came to visit me whenever he could, but the older I got the less inclined I was to see him, until I stopped entirely, even when he’d sit out on the porch for hours waiting for me.”

  “He’s a good male.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Did you know my biological father well?”

  “No. He approached me to have a child and I agreed. It was every female’s responsibility to ensure the next generation of our people were purebred. If a male tried to mate with a human or another kind of shifter, the females would drive her away by any means necessary.”

  “I wish I’d known him. But Pop’s been so good to me.”

  “And the males in town don’t give you any problems, right?”

  “For the most part. I’m the only female lion in the high school. The males keep their distance because their fathers have told them that I won’t want to be with them in any romantic way. I guess the males accept me because they know I wasn’t fully cursed, but they really don’t trust me. Is it better in Ashland?”

  “I only spent a week there, but yeah, it seems to be. The town is mostly human, but it’s just the pride and no other shifter groups.”