Greyriver Shifters

by Kristina Weaver

  He didn’t like it. Blain laughed at him for two hours over a dinner Mom insisted we stay for, and Dad got stuck trying to calm the rabble, who it turns out accepted his explanations easily and seems to have forgotten all about killing me or Blain or any of that stuff.

  It shocked me silly when all my family showed up at the house and we had dinner together as if they all just accepted Blain and…liked him. Banner it seems has decided to accept a seat on the council as Blain’s second, something Blain was throwing around in the event that he got his seat back because according to my mate “those bastards had nothing”.

  I respected his stiff upper lip and confidence and refrained from telling him that Jock and Brig actually found proof that would have put him away for a long time.

  Daddy was going to use it, even after declaring an unsteady truce with my mate, but mom threatened to leave him and move to another state altogether—and live among humans—and he got in line so fast I got whiplash seeing him move.

  Now, five weeks later, I am happy to say that everything is good. The council of our pack, headed by Blain, and his second Banner, went to a meeting of councils and Alphas with Dad and hammered out an agreement that sees all packs working together under one common law.

  Packs are permitted to have their own laws to govern, but it may not go against the one founding law that is unbreakable, “Pack always and always pack”, which basically means that no law can infringe on rights of shifters, and all laws must provide protection. For all.

  Dad is a lot less stressed now and laughs that Blain and Banner get to do most of the work because they have to slog through the dross of law, a huge tome that I see every day in Blain’s office.

  Blain is happy though. He truly enjoys the job, relishes the opportunities to thwart and annoy Dad at every turn, and is still skirting the fringes of the very laws he has a hand in making. By murdering the Banes family.

  I can’t say it’s great seeing my mate brag to Banner about ripping Michel Banes to shreds when he caught the male trying to take an elite female by force out in the woods, but hey…I’ll fight the important battles and let him be him.

  Even if some days that Blain is a violent, unrepentant male who finds some people’s suffering funny. All of the store owners got to keep their stores though Blain made the rent so astronomical that some are struggling. He says it’s their atonement, and I should shop till I drop with all the money they pay him.

  Not in their stores though.

  The Lewis and Hendricks clans both moved out of Greyriver and joined the Sloan pack because Dad gave them a choice, turn in the conspirators or all of them die.

  Turns out even those assholes have family loyalty.

  My relationship with Dad will never be the same, not because I don’t forgive him for me, but because I still don’t forgive him for Blain. But it’s…okay. Most days.

  As for the others, well Banner is a crazy male now that Cass is starting to show, and he still walks into rooms and threatens to kill anyone who isn’t deliriously happy enough not to make poor Cass bawl her eyes out.

  Logan and Hannah are doing great with their young now that they hired a nanny, and old shifter female who was widowed and has a cast iron stomach. We all love Farrah. Every single day. For every single diaper.

  Mika is due in a month or two, depending on how her pregnancy goes, and Bear is just happy that this pregnancy is going well and she hasn’t been sick. Their boy is happy, healthy, and shocked the hell out of his mother by reading his name just yesterday. Go shifter genes.

  Noble and Lync…well that’s a work in progress most days. Lync is in no way tamed. In fact, I hear him running through the woods past my house on a nightly basis, and Cass told me he has started having nightmares that keep him snarling and growling through most of the day now.

  Noble has a female, well, he’s seeing a female, who lives out in the woods after moving into her parents’ house after they passed away. They’re just friends though, and Noble tells me that Mercy has seen Lync roaming the woods out there.

  I think he’s checking up on them since she’s a widow with a young and has nothing. Hell, Blain told me he spotted him killing two rabbits and leaving them on her porch, so I guess….maybe he’ll be okay one day?

  Brig and Blain are slowly rebuilding their relationship. Most days I leave the house when Brig comes over because the one time he did and I heard things shattering in Blain’s office…well to say that it was a shock to walk in and see both males partially shifted and beating the hell out of each other was a not great. Neither was screaming my head off only to get two grins before they kept it up.

  I closed the door and went shopping to calm my nerves. And then I went to visit the girls, who seem to gravitate towards Hannah as much as I do lately.

  Blain may be right; I am nuts.

  “You ready, girl?”

  I nod and take Dad’s arm, smiling when he walks me down the aisle or at least I have to drag him down the aisle before I get to my mate and he grabs me, snarling at Dad.

  “Mine!”

  Dad curses, grinds his teeth, and storms off, and I turn to my male and smile, my eyes filled with tears. We exchange the old vows, promising to love, cherish, and always honor the Fating that God has given us while everyone around us cheers and howls when we kiss.

  The ceremony takes but a moment, and by the time the council member pronounces our union sealed under the law of pack, I am crying and laughing through tears of joy.

  Blain kisses me so hungrily that I hear Dad curse again and open my eyes to see blue eyes blazing down at me with love, lust, and complete adoration.

  “Thank you for choosing me, my Fated,” he whispers when I smile and cup his cheek.

  “Thank you for refusing to let me go.”

  Blain kisses me again, and I turn to face all of our friends, enemies, and the life that is ahead of us.

  We’re all of us headed for something, but with Blain Seers at my side, I know that my destiny is secure. I can’t wait to tell him that there’s a little something more to look forward to.