The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  “Nick?” Helena’s voice.

  He held up his hand. “I’m fine. Just a bit off balance.”

  She gripped his forearm. “You need to sit.”

  “If I sit, I’m gonna fall asleep or something.”

  “All the more reason for it.”

  "No," he said, shaking his head. "There are other things I need to do." He peered down at her. "More important things." He got himself to the counter and rested his palms flat against the cold hard surface. It was enough to ground him and put him a little steadier on his feet. There would be time for rest later when Joey was back when fucking Lee Norton was toast, and everyone was safe.

  “She’s right,” Eden said. “You need to rest.”

  “I can rest later. Xander?”

  He had his hands dug into his hair, and his arms pressed against the sides of his face as if he could crush it all out of his own head. Letting out a long breath, he raised his eyes to Stephen. “What kind of father am I? I can’t even protect him.”

  “It’s not your fault. You were a kid yourself.”

  “I’m his father.”

  “We’ll get him out of there. I promise.”

  Running his hands down his face, he dug his nails in and then opened his fingers over his face to hold them like a cage. "You can't even stand up, and I can't go there and get him by myself. I should have …"

  “You did everything you could.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” Stephen said. “But standing here, with should haves and could haves … they aren’t going to save your boy.”

  "Neither is you storming in like you are," Helena said. Stephen reached for her, and rested his hand on top of hers, anything to touch her, to be in constant contact with her. It wasn't usually like him. He couldn't stand to touch people, but that was also different, the silence in his head, the quiet like it was all behind a screen and he could control it now. Later, though, he'd explore all that when he had a better chance to.

  “He isn’t suffering,” Stephen offered.

  Xander scoffed. “How do you know?”

  Stephen looked at the boy standing beside his father … standing where he always did, quiet, content. “Because he’s standing right beside you.” That was the other difference now. Whatever Lee had done to him with that shit he’d had Xander give to him, had unlocked something, or maybe it was the falling out of his own body that had done it, but whatever … he could see … he could see across the veils. He could see Joey.

  Xander peered down at his side, his eye reddened. "He's here? You see him?"

  "I do. He's okay." Joey was a mesh of colour and light. He moved like a spot of light stained on an eyeball after staring too long into a bulb. He was there, and he wasn't. He was whole but transparent. But he was free of his body, and that was enough.

  “Tell him, I’m coming for him. Tell him, I …”

  “He can hear you,” Stephen said. He tried to move toward Joey and keep Helena with him, but the movement made his head wobble, and he winced. Blinking, he part crouched. “You hold on, okay?” he said to Joey.

  "Someone is there?" Eden asked. She had come into the room, and as she spoke, she moved to go beside Xander. Joey had to step out of the way; otherwise, she'd have stood right on him, in him, and Stephen knew what a damn weird show that felt like.

  “I see Joey, Xander’s son. I can see … everything. It’s like I can see through the worlds. I …” He took a step, but his head spun, the room swayed, and his legs buckled. “Fuck’s sake …”

  “Nick?” Despite his size and her condition, Helena slammed an arm across his chest to catch him.

  “I’m okay. I just … “

  “You need to lie down. You’re good to no one like this.”

  “I need to get back to Norton’s.” He grabbed her shoulder for support, but at the same time, he made sure not to put too much weight on her. “You have no idea what goes on in there. We thought we did, but …” He shook his head as he struggled for the right words. “The shit they’re doing in there would give you nightmares. They’ve got kids, Helena, Other kids and they’re experimenting on them.”

  It was Helena’s turn to falter, and for a whole second her face turned green and then it went as pale as the white top she wore. She put a hand on her belly. “They want our babies.”

  “Like vultures.”

  Eden brought around one of the stools from the breakfast bar, and she silently put it behind Stephen so he could sit, which he did without realising.

  "They've got kids in cages, in cells. I was in a room somewhere, and they had all these little ones caged up like fucking lab animals. They killed one of them too, all because her door was open, and they thought she’d done it. I swear, she was so weak, she’d have been lucky to lift her own head let alone get a damn door open.”

  “They killed her?” Eden asked.

  “Lee did. Came in and just ended her like it was nothing.”

  “He’s a monster,” Helena said.

  "Worse than a monster. I have to go back. I have to …" His voice cracked, and something in his head pressed down. He put his hand to his temple.

  “You have to rest first. You can’t even stand without almost passing out,” Helena said. “The children will still be there. You’re no good to them like this. You rest, we make plans, and we get those kids out.”

  A second passed before he could answer her because his body grew more burdensome by the second. "I do …"

  “You do?” she asked, confused.

  A nod. “I rescue the children. I’m not letting you near that place. I don’t care who is in there.”

  “I’m not letting you go alone.”

  Xander came forward. “He won’t be alone.”

  “Lee wants these children,” Stephen said to Helena. “And he’ll do whatever it takes to get them. You’re not going anywhere near him.”

  She put her hand on his side; her need to touch him evident too. "I can't lose you."

  Slipping a hand around her back, he pulled her in to satisfy both their needs. “You, Aiden, our children … you’re the most important things to me, and I’ll do whatever it is I need to protect that.” He stopped mid-sentence. “Mel and Nigel. They have a place, right? We were meant to go there.”

  “Yes,” Xander said. “I don’t know where it is, but I can contact them.”

  Helena stiffened. “You’re sending me away?”

  “I’m making you safe.”

  “By hiding me? I’m pregnant, not disabled. I can help. I—”

  “You’re also Human. If I have to hide you; if I have to stuff you in a hole in the centre of the earth, then that’s what I am going to do. I can’t fight with you out there. I can’t focus knowing you’re not safe. You heard what I told you and that isn’t even all of it. They’re sick, Helena, real sick bastards who throw kids into furnaces while talking about football.”

  “I just got you back. I never … we never …”

  He slid one foot onto the stool’s foot-bar and twisted so she could stand in the V of his legs. “I’m yours, forever. I’m here, forever. But I have to help these kids. If you can picture anything of what I’ve told you …” He paused and gave himself a moment, then he kissed her and rested his forehead against hers. “You all think I am this great person who is meant to do this and that and save the day. I can’t do that if I stay here and hide, but I need you away.” He lifted his gaze to Xander and Eden. “We end this. All of this, everything. The Humans have had their time. It’s ours now.”

  Chapter 45

  Stephen stirred in his sleep, but he didn’t open his eyes. He let out a breath and pushed himself back into the sofa. “Do you know how hard it is to sleep when someone is staring at you?” he said to Helena.

  She shuffled on the coffee table beside him and pushed her long hair back behind her ears. Her face was alive, glowing. It made the dimple in her chin even more pronounced. “You could just pretend I’m not here.”

  "I could." H
e snatched her hand up, and before she could protest, he pulled her down to him for a kiss. "But why would I want to do that?"

  “Because you’re actually doing as you’re told and resting.”

  “Maybe.” There wasn’t much rest he could do. Not with Joey still in Norton’s place. He could try, but it was an impossible task to get over that hill in his mind and saunter off into sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, and even got close to nodding off, Joey came into his head, those screams, the cries. He’d only agreed to rest because walking to the lounge itself had been such an effort. He’d even had to use the walls to support himself, or he would have gone down, and just dropped where he was. Perhaps that wouldn’t have been such a bad idea.

  He tugged Helena down and at the same time, he folded Eden’s book and tossed it onto the table. He’d been trying to read it and understand some of what Xander had explained. It had actually sent him to sleep, but he’d had maybe an hour or two of good rest.

  “Nick.”

  “Helena,” he said, mocking her shocked tone, then he kissed her properly—a deep possessive kiss that ignited his tiger and sent him roaring through his head. A growl escaped his lips, and that made Helena gasp against him. But he didn't stop. Not until he was ready for it. Not until he'd taken all he wanted from his wife and given her even more back. When he was satisfied, he caught her chin and angled her face over his so he could see her properly. "I missed you."

  She licked at her swollen lips, and he ran a thumb gently across the bone of her cheek. "I missed you too." Her eyes glistened, and he caught a glimpse of something raw and painful—something close to the longing for touch he'd seen in other shifters—a connection perhaps. He didn't give into those thoughts as he pushed himself up the sofa a little and kissed her again … a better kiss than the first. A kiss that had her stretching herself out along his body as best as she could manage. He thrust fingers into her hair, entwining them into the long strands and keeping her in place so he could savour her, enjoy her with everything he had. There were no shed clothes, no quick grasps or time-escaping moments. No moving of hands anywhere other than hair and belly. Just a kiss … a deep, rich, wonderful kiss that pushed life into Stephen in ways he could never explain.

  When they parted again, he took her face in his hands, fingers stroking along the sides, eyes peering into hers … there was no one else in the room, no one else in the world. They'd evaporated. "You're my enough," he said. "Everything about you is everything I need in this world. I'm never leaving you again." He paused. "These last two years …"

  "Are not your fault." She ran her hand over his collarbone, across the swell of his chest and down his side. God, it was magic when she did that. Just her touching him. It didn't have to be about sex, or rage or anything else, just touch … connection. Something in him had grabbed onto something in her, and that was it. He was a goner.

  “I’m supposed to protect you.”

  “You going big bad tiger on me? I love you, okay? Whatever happened, happened." She rubbed her belly. "Besides, without those two years, we'd not have these." She lifted her hand to the edge of his jaw and traced the lines with her fingers, all the way up to his hair. "You did protect me. I know you could have got out if you wanted to, but I never feared you would. I never worried you'd leave me in that place." Another kiss, this time from her to him. It tasted sweet, of fruit and something fundamentally deeper, something whole—something his. "You never left."

  He could have looked at her all night. He could have held her and done nothing else, and he'd have been content with that—content if only the two of them existed and no one else. But it wasn't like that, and so much as Stephen wished it … "I meant what I said, you know? I want you to go to Nigel's and Mel's. You take Aiden. Then we—"

  “What happens if you get caught? Or something happens to you. I can’t lose you. Not again. I can’t stand …”

  Shuffling again, to get more room for her, he slid a hand down her body and rested it on the rounded part of her swollen belly. "I will be back. Nothing will happen to me because no force on this earth will stop me meeting these two, okay? If you're away from here, and I know you're safe, I can fight, and I can do what is needed of me." He paused and took a breath. "I have to get those children out of there, Helena. So much as I want to go with you and hide you away from the world and wrap you all up so nothing can get in, I can't. It isn't me. I did the wrong thing once, and I hurt my sister in a way I can never fix. I can't make that kind of mistake again. If I leave those kids to Norton, it goes against everything I am."

  Nodding, she then pressed her cheek his chest and slipped her arm around his torso. “I wouldn’t want you to. I just don’t want to lose you.”

  He stroked her hair. “You won’t. I promise.”

  While the sofa had sufficient space to hold two people, it wasn’t designed with the idea of one of them needing more room for the extension of new life growing inside. He curled himself around her and balanced. It didn’t matter if he toppled off the edge. As long as Helena was safe, he’d give up any comfort she needed from him.

  The way he moved them meant they were face to face on the cushion, their noses just a few inches apart. He embraced her, all of her. The world could fall away, and he would shield her with his body. He was about to let his eyes close, when she said, “You have a sister?” and yanked him right back out.

  "I have two. Gemma and Evie. My …" He trailed off. They'd never talked about families and things when they were held at Norton's. It never seemed the right time, and they didn't get long enough. Every time he saw her, his concern was her safety, her wellbeing, and not making sure that she knew every nook and cranny of his life before because that life was gone. Dead.

  “What is it?” she said, pushing back a little. “Something else?”

  It crossed his mind to say nothing. It would be nothing to just shake it off as being tired. She’d accept that, but then … she couldn’t be his world if he wasn’t honest with her. “Nick isn’t my real name,” he said in the end and before he could change his mind. He watched her face and waited for her expression to change to anger or to something that would push him away. When it didn’t come, he added, “My name is Stephen.”

  “Stephen?”

  A nod.

  There was no madness in her face, no anger. She studied him the same way she did when she studied medical journals—all thought and consideration. It didn’t stop Stephen’s stomach from forming a big fucking knot, though.

  “You changed your name?”

  “My father did it. He was trying to save my life.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I killed some Humans to protect him. Where I come from, they don’t ask questions, they just execute. If they didn’t think I was already dead, they’d have hunted me down and killed me. My father shipped me off to Exile with a new identity. He stuffed me into the prison system where no one really gives a shit. Prison was better than dead.”

  “This was to do with your sister? What you said before?”

  “Kind of. My sister, Gemma.” He paused at saying her name and let the feeling of it settle. “She fell in love with my best friend, Cade. She got pregnant.”

  “And that was bad?”

  “Cade is wolf, Gemma is tiger. We are not allowed to mix the species, no matter what. They tried to hide it, but the baby died. Except he didn't. My dad told her it had and then he snuck the baby away and hid him because if anyone ever found him, or found what they'd done, everyone would be killed, and they'd not do it nicely. Some people found out about the baby and tried to get him. I killed them."

  She was quiet for a moment, absorbing it all. It was a lot to take in, Stephen knew that, and he’d not told her every detail. It was so unreal, though, when he said it out loud. A dream perhaps. He could only wish.

  “He saved you by giving you a new name?”

  “Yeah. He did.” It hadn’t felt like it at the time, in a way it still didn’t feel like it. “It feels like a
lifetime ago now.”

  If she was upset, she didn’t show it. If she was angry, she did a good job of holding it in. “Can a wolf and a tiger really breed? Isn’t that like a cat and a dog having a kitten or a puppy?” Her brows pinched together. Ever the doctor. “How would that even work?”

  “We were always told it wouldn’t. The closest to cross breeding is shifter to Human, but it did, and he lived.”

  “A wolf tiger … there was nothing wrong with him? I always thought there'd be deformities."

  “No. He was fine.”

  “A perfect joining,” she said, and then she pushed herself up. Eyes wide, she said, “She loved your friend, right? I mean really loved him, if she was going to risk her life like that? Was it like they were meant to be together?”

  He thought about it. Maybe it was. They were like magnets together, he knew that much. “I don’t know if there is a way to describe what they had. It’s like you. I can say I love you a thousand times a day, but it’s more than that, stronger.” He put his hand to his chest. “It’s not just love I feel for you; it’s everything. I feel like I breathe, just for you. But I—”

  “And your sister? She had that with Cade, right?”

  “Yes.” He leant into her, needing to touch her, to hold her. He was a solid wall of muscle and strength that would protect her from the world, from danger, but she pushed him back.

  “I need to get up,” she said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I need to show you something. Budge back. Help me up.”

  He did as she asked, slower than her urgency needed, though. He didn’t want to move, but she’d asked him. “What is it?”

  "This." She pulled Eden's book from the table and grabbed the notes out the back of it. Xander had hand drawn some of them. They were easier in pictures, and he could explain them better and fathom them out himself that way. "I know it's here," she said, turning the pages. "Ah … here. Look." She put a piece of paper in front of Stephen. "Some of the words in the book are in old fae and harder to understand, Xander said. But he drew this from it."