by Jade Alters
Cole
I know why Zain sent me to get Ellie. He, Drew and Marcus thought I couldn’t fight, at least not as well as them. But I won’t argue with my Alpha because I want Ellie back at home and safe.
The backpack with my cousin’s clothes and the zip ties Zain had put in it clash against the bushes, and I pull it tighter to me to keep as quiet as I can. I’ll drop it at the back of the tent, so they can grab their clothes after they take care of business.
Laurel bushes rose in clumps between the camping spaces acting as defacto fencing. The base and limbs of these bushes are strong and I have to work around them to get to the campsite. When I do arrive, I position myself at the back of the campground’s tent, and I’m dismayed they didn’t have any others. I dropped the backpack as arranged and scent for Ellie. My nose leads me forward, and I spot her, sitting with her head bent on her knees on a log next to the fire. The gang is there too, drinking beer, apparently well-conditioned to a life of crime. But they aren’t my concern. I scent my cousins nearby, and I hear the tell-tale rustling of their bear bodies brushing against the laurels and other bushes.
They are waiting for me to get Ellie out of danger. I pick up a pebble and sling it at Ellie’s back. Instantly she snaps her head up, and she looks in the darkness, but her human eyes can’t see me, and her human nose can’t smell me. She turns back, and I hit her with a pebble again. This time she stands.
“Where do you think you’re going?” said Lane.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
“Go in the bushes. We aren’t hiking to the latrines.”
“Pig,” she snorted.
He laughed. “Your mother liked that about me.”
Ellie scoffed. “Yah, you being so charming and all.” Indignantly she stomped into the darkness.
“Don’t go so far away,” growled Lane. “Rencher, go with her.”
I growled in my throat because I remembered Rencher from earlier today. If he lays his hands on my Ellie, I’ll gut him.
I followed around behind the tent and make a wide arc swinging south to intercept them.
“Wait up, bitch,” said Rencher.
My gut clenches because I’ve lost sight of her, and I don’t know what Rencher would do to her. But when I finally see her again she’s standing with a thick branch in her hand while Rencher crashes through a laurel bush, ready to do him damage.
“What the—” starts Rencher before Ellie swings at his head with all her might.
Rencher is strong though and catches the branch and pushes back hard, throwing Ellie to the ground. I growled deep within my chest which brought Rencher’s gaze to me and I leapt.
“Cole!” screamed Ellie.
We may look like normal humans, but our bear strength enlivens our muscles. I crashed on the biker dragging him to the ground. He thrashed under me and got off a few good shots to my jaw. His face turned to pure terror as I just grinned at him when his punches found his target and I didn’t react.
“What the hell are you?” Fear dripped from his voice as I sat on his chest and held down his shoulders.
“Your worst nightmare.”
“I’ve seen worse than you.”
Ahead of me, I hear the growls of my cousins and the bikers’ curses and screams.
“What?” said Rencher as he twisted his head to the screams.
“Nothing you need to worry about now. You’ll soon be seeing the inside of jail cell.”
Rencher, having fewer brain cells than sense, scoffed at me.
“Night, night, Rencher,” I said. With a hard-right cross, I knocked him unconscious and stood.
Ellie flew into my arms. “Cole!” She crushed her lips to mine, kissing me passionately. Okay. I don’t envy my cousins now, because I’m holding Ellie and it is like I came home.
She pulled away. “But, oh my god, how is this possible. I saw—I heard—”
“You saw and heard four shifters getting shot. But little things like bullets don’t stop us.”
She stared at me in amazement. “You’re okay,” Ellie said dumbfound. “And Zain, I saw Zain—”
“Alive, well and as bossy as ever.”
“And Drew and Marcus?”
“Drew has a little nick on his ear that may repair after a shift or two. Darling, we are just hard to kill.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
“Zain wants me to get you back to the truck.”
She shook her head.
“I want to see my father.”
“It’s not likely to be pretty up there. Zain, Marcus, and Drew were going for bear.”
“Hah!” she said. “Still. I have some things I want to say to him.”
I shrugged. “Okay.” After slinging the unfortunate Rencher on to my shoulder, we walked back to the campsite where we find the bikers sitting with their hands zip tied behind them, looking bruised and angry.
Marcus and Drew, dressed, stood over the men, all but Xavier Lane.
“Where’s my father?” said Ellie.
“He ran away.”
“Figured.”
“Zain went to get him. He’ll bring him back in a minute.”
Crashing through the brushes announced the arrival of Zain hauling Lane roughly through the underbrush. Lane cursed and twisted like a snake in Zain’s grip, but Zain kept pulling despite the branches whipping in Lane’s face.
“I’ll sue you,” screamed Lane, “for excessive force.”
“What excessive force?” said Zain. “From what I can see we saved you from a bear attack. You really need to be careful in the woods. Bears will come after any food you have. I can’t help it if you ran through the brush to try to escape them. But now that I have you, I recognize you and your crew as the criminals who invaded my home and kidnapped my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend?” shrieked Lane. “She’s my daughter.”
“You haven’t been my father,” said Ellie coldly, “for fifteen years, not when Mom had to run because you are a vicious and violent criminal. And if you come near me again, Zain, Marcus, Drew and Cole won’t put up with it. So, do yourself a favor. Don’t. Zain, the key is in his pocket.”
Zain patted down Lane who scowled and retrieved the key but also took his personal possessions and put them in an evidence bag from his uniform pocket.
“Don’t think this is the end of this,” snapped Lane.
“Did I not tell you,” said Drew, “that you have the right to remain silent? I suggest you exercise that right because what you say can and will be used against you. Do you want to add threatening on top of conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, and resisting arrest?”
Lane scowled. “Ainsley, it’s not like what you said. Your mom turned you against me.”
“My name isn’t Ainsley, not anymore. And that’s your fault. For all the years I had to run, to hide from you, that’s what turned me against you. You should have just let it go. Instead, whatever safe deposit box that key opens was more important than your daughter’s piece of mind. You should have let me have a decent life, then I would have known you cared.”
She slipped her arm around my waist.
“Someone coming to pick these guys up?”
Zain nodded. “And to take our statements. I’m afraid it’s going to be a long night.”
“That’s okay,” she said glancing at each of us. “When this night is over, we’ll start a new life.”
Ellie
“Go ahead, Ms. Walters,” said Agent Cortez. “You can open it.”
We stood at the bank that held the Massachusetts Bank’s safe-deposit box that my father was after. Depending on what was in it, the contents may or may not be confiscated. My lips made a tight line as I fingered the edges of the lid. A part of my past was in that box, but what part, I didn’t know. My father seemed to think it carried a ton of money, but the gray box on the table was too small to hold that kind of cash.
Zain, Marcus, Drew, and Cole stood behind me.
“Go ahead
, sweetheart,” said Zain gently.
I swallowed hard and lifted the lid to find two yellowed-with-age letter-size envelopes. One was addressed to me. And the other to my father.
Cortez snapped pictures with his camera.
“Open the envelopes,” he instructed.
I pried apart the one addressed to my father. The glue was so old it came apart easily. I opened the letter:
Xavier,
If you got here and picked this up, that means I’m dead, and you got the key. But you won’t find what you are looking for. Your ill-gotten money I gave to the FBI a long time ago. I know you wouldn’t kill our daughter as you promised to do to me, but so help me, if you’ve harmed one hair on her head, I’ll haunt you forever.
Leave her alone. You forfeited being a father a long time ago.
Marian
“Is that true? Did my mother give the money to the FBI?”
“Yes, she gave it over as evidence. But we thought there might have been more.”
My throat thickened, and tears edged my eyes. What my mom went through. Apparently, she suffered eternal suspicion that she withheld evidence. I got a little angry now, because it seemed like she tried to do the right thing and did nothing but suffer for it.
I opened the second. This one was a little thicker and carried a handwritten note and my birth certificate.
Darling daughter,
If you are here, then I’m gone, and your father has finally been put away for his crimes. I am so, so sorry for how difficult things were for you. I wish I could tell you how many times I cried for you because of the bad choices I made. My sins were visited on you, and it wasn’t fair. Please forgive me.
Here is your birth certificate. With it, you can change your name to anything you want and not what some government bureau cooks up for you. I hope the rest of your life is happy and that you find a good man.
Love always,
Mom
I held it and my hands shook.
“I did, Mom,” I whispered. “Four of them.”
Zain took the letters and laid them out on the table for Cortez to photograph. The flash on his iPhone was brief.
“Are you satisfied, Agent?” said Zain. “There’s nothing here for you.”
“You’re right, Sheriff Clark. Thank you, Ms. Walters, for your cooperation. The prosecutor will be in touch with you to discuss court dates.”
“Thanks,” I said as Zain held me tight to his chest. This event drained me emotionally, and all I wanted to do was to go home with my men.
Cole went to close the lid when he stopped and fingered something in the corner.
“What’s this?”
“Hmm,” said Marcus. He pulled out a nail file from his wallet and pried at something there. With a pop, metal struck the bottom of the safe-deposit box.
“I’ll get the bank clerk,” said Drew.
In a few minutes, a second box was opened, and I found a brief note:
Daughter,
This is from your grandma. She had some money and wanted you to have it.
All my love,
Mom
It was a bank statement in my original name with $500,000 in it back.
“Oh geez, do you think the account is still good?” I said.
“We’ll find out,” said Marcus. “Even if it went to the state though, it’s always there for you to claim.”
Cole lost his sunshiny smile.
“I guess that means you have enough money to go anywhere you want.”
“Sure,” I said. “I guess I’ll just think about it. I have to wait until after the trial anyway, don’t I? That is if you guys don’t mind me hanging around for a while?”
I guess I shouldn’t have said that, because if there is there anything worse than one grumpy bear, it’s four. But as much as I loved all of them, a part of me, the little-girl-on-the run part said not to trust any of this. My world had been unstable for too long for me to promise forever even if they were the greatest guys in the world.
The other sheriffs and conservation officers were great filling in when necessary, so we could attend our various court dates while my father’s trial went on. A year had passed since he was arrested, and it took time to get him to trial.
Zain, Marcus, Drew, and Cole improved the security system on the land around the lodge, so we had a better heads-up on who wandered onto the property. We all felt the danger from being witnesses in this case, but I like to think it made our bond, as the guys called it, stronger.
My father was, of course, convicted. Why he thought he’d get away with his stuff was ridiculous, but that’s the arrogance of criminals. Just because you have an expensive lawyer doesn’t mean that you’ll get off. This one time, the state had an air-tight case.
With the testimony of Zain, Marcus, Drew, Cole, and myself, my father got the book thrown at him. Conspiracy to commit murder against a Federal agent made it quite literally a federal case and sentencing on that can go any number of years to life. My father got thirty years on that charge and another ten for kidnapping me. If he ever got out, he’d be a very old man.
But that wasn’t the end of it. A couple of his crew didn’t relish spending the rest of their lives behind bars and opted for lives as Witsec witnesses and spilled their guts to the authorities. They helped to build cases against other Satan Sons’ divisions, and the club became a shadow of itself.
Zain and I returned from the last of the trials where we had to testify. He was driving because you can’t get the steering wheel away from that man. He seemed glum, however, and didn’t seem to want to talk.
I learned it never did any good to ask him what was wrong. You just need to start talking to draw him out.
“I’m glad it’s over,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“We can start a new part of our lives.”
Normally quiet Zain communicated even less. I didn’t know what was bothering him. I couldn’t dig a single response out of him, and we were running out of time because we turned up the private road that led to the lodge.
“Zain?”
He harrumphed.
“You can do anything you want now and don’t need us to protect you.”
I froze. What was he trying to tell me? Did the guys not want me around anymore?”
“Well, that’s true. What going on, Zain?”
“You’ll see,” he said.
Zain had that “I’m not talking about this,” tone in his voice which I had found was reserved for discussions with the group.
No one said a poly-relationship was easy.
He parked the truck and when I got out, he nodded his head toward the beach.
“Let’s go there.”
“Why?” I said slowly.
“Please. We have things to discuss.”
I was freaking out because I’ve never seen Zain so serious. My heart pounded in my chest. They really don’t want me to stay anymore. I know it. Despite the good times, the past year hasn’t been easy. Though the guys love each other like brothers, there is some sibling rivalry too and a lot of it centered on who got to spend what time when with me. But I thought we’d worked that out.
Marcus, Drew, and Cole stood on the beach with their hands clasped in front of them, and I gulped. I almost felt like I’m on one of those “reality” bachelorette shows, but instead of me not handing roses to certain guys, it looked like they formed a rebellion and were kicking me out of the house.
Zain went and stood in line with them. The sun was beginning to set and spread a rosy glow on the water. It would be peaceful except for the four very grim men in front of me.
“Hey, guys. What’s up? Zain says we need to talk?”
“Well,” said Marcus. “We are wondering what your plans are.”
“Yeah,” said Drew. “For the rest of your life.”
“Zain said that I don’t need you anymore.”
“All the trials are done. Your father and much of his club are in jail. You’d probabl
y be safe enough if you wanted to leave.”
“It’s not like we gave you much of chance with this mate thing,” said Cole.
“Have any of you changed how you feel?”
Marcus shook his head. “No, Ellie. But we know we’ve been a little much sometimes, and we just want you to be happy.”
“But I am happy.”
“See, I told you,” said Cole.
“We’ve,” said Marcus, “We’ve been talking about this, and human customs don’t fit this situation, but we think—”
“Oh, get to it,” said Cole. I smiled. He was the most spontaneous but also the most impatient.
“You are our mate always,” said Drew.
“But we are wondering if you want a more formal arrangement,” said Zain.
“I don’t understand.”
“Marry us,” spurted out Cole.
“Or rather,” said Marcus, “we’d all say the words, but legally you’d marry Zain.”
“This is what you want to talk to me about?” I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” demanded Zain.
“I’m not going to do that.”
“See,” said Drew hitting Cole’s arm. “I told you. She doesn’t want to stay with us.”
“No. I didn’t mean that either. I love you, all of you, and I don’t need a wedding ceremony to memorialize that. As far as I’m concerned, you are my mates and my husbands, and that’s that.
“See,” said Zain smiling with satisfaction. “I told you all.”
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I didn’t know how they’d feel but it was time to spring this on them.
“I haven’t changed my name legally yet. How about instead of Ellie Walters, I take the name Ellie Clark? That way we all have the same name. How does that sound?”
“What do you say, guys? Should Ellie become a Clark?”
“Hell yeah!” exclaimed Cole, and before I knew it, all four men surrounded me in one great hug that became much more.
The End
Afterword
A note from Jade:
