by Jamie Klaire
"After you were born, and your mom died, Henry got the job with the Sheriff's department. For a while there another pack, over the mountain, was starting to cause trouble in the nearby towns. The Sheriff at the time, when Henry was still a deputy, needed someone to head up some kind of wolf posse to trap and kill or relocate the suddenly troublesome wolf population. Your dad, of course, knowing the things he did, knew that it probably wasn't a wild wolf issue but a werewolf issue. He volunteered to look into the problem for the county, and he came back here to see Thomas.
He told Thomas about your birth, your life as a small child and of Reine's passing.
Together Henry and Thomas were able to keep the other pack's wolves mostly on their own side of the mountain. Their friendship continued. Henry eventually became Sheriff, and kept coming to visit.
Thomas often asked Henry to bring you back here, for you both to stay here, but Henry wanted to honor your mother's wish that you be kept away. He never knew exactly why Reine wished it to be so, but he honored it. Until he felt like he had no other choice, that this place probably was the best choice for you when you wouldn't stay out of trouble."
"Why didn't you say anything before? About Thomas being the mist-man, about any of it?" Elam asked, as Emma still chewed on all of the new knowledge.
"There wasn't any reason to. We were going into the challenge soon, and I figured it was knowledge that would stay with me forever. If he had made peace with it, and Ziva never said anything, well, I couldn't see any reason anyone else needed to know."
"And then I won the Alpha challenge." Elam sighed.
"And then you won the Alpha challenge," Galen echoed. "By turning into a fucking bear."
Chapter 10
"So that's why Ziva flipped out after the challenge," Emma said. "I thought she was terrorizing the pack even more because Elam won instead of Galen. I thought she was angry that Galen didn't win, that her favored son wouldn't become Alpha, not freaked the fuck out that Elam did. And how Elam won... Oh my, no wonder she was so bitchy in those next few weeks!"
Kate wasn't quite following.
"What do you mean?"
"Can you imagine? Put yourself in Ziva's shoes for a minute. On top of being traded to the wolves to begin with, she's raped, by a shape shifter. She abandoned the baby that resulted from that rape, who we now know to be Elam, from everything she said in the cave. Then she finally moves on to a new pack, a fresh start, and her old pack gets wiped out, wait...I thought no one survived the human's attack. How did Elam? And wasn't Elam found wandering alone in the woods at about two years old? And didn't Ziva say she killed his 'fake parents?' Wait, I'll come back to that. So Ziva abandons Elam, only to find herself raising him anyway, somehow, after she thinks he's dead. Then he goes and beats her favorite son, with the shape shifting skills he got from his rapist father, who we now know is Thomas. And Thomas had no idea?"
Emma aimed the last bit at Galen.
"Thomas had no idea that Elam was his?"
Galen shook his head saying, "Not until then."
"I remember, right after the challenge," Emma said. "Elam won and Thomas said, 'I knew that boy was special, but even I didn't expect this. Who in the hell were his blood parents?"
Galen said, "Yeah, that was his first reaction. My understanding was that Ziva's crazed, desperate mutterings around him when he was weak and she thought he was sleeping finally tipped him off. I talked to him again later, right before he died and I went looking for Elam in the cave. He figured out that when he took Ziva, having sex with her in the woods like he did, Elam was the result. He put all the pieces together- her having to raise her son, her not ever telling anyone that she ever even had one before me. Keeping all that knowledge from everyone, especially Thomas."
"And then there was Thomas, keeping his own secrets about being the mist-man, and never realizing until right before he died that he was raising both of his biological sons. Wow, that is crazy," Kate said, shaking her head in wonderment.
"Ok, so go back some," Emma jumped in. "After Ziva's whole pack was wiped out, and she thought Elam and his wet nurse were dead too, obviously they weren't. How did they escape? Where did they go?"
"I'm guessing the wet nurse ran to the village, with Elam. She knew Ziva was originally from the village, and she knew she was nursing Ziva's abandonded baby, so she went there. They took the pair in. I'm guessing that when Reine went there and made that 'we will leave you alone' pact with them, they were in that crowd of women and children. Ziva would have recognized them, but she wasn't with them, she was still in the woods, on her knees, where Reine and Thomas found her when they went back to take care of the dead."
"So the village raised Elam until he was two? Ziva said she killed Elam's 'fake parents' in the woods, and Thomas found Elam wandering around in the woods all alone. So either they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when Ziva stumbled upon them and recognized them..." Emma was thinking out loud.
Galen added his thoughts to hers, "Or they were on their way here to bring Elam to her. Maybe he started shifting, and to the village he was a constant reminder of the wolves? His wet nurse knew he was Ziva's, and had probably heard the story of her rape, but maybe him shifting upset the balance and the village decided to give Elam back to his mother? Or yeah, wrong place, wrong time, with them all just ending up at the same place in the woods and Ziva realizing who they were? I guess that part we will never know."
"Well, we know she killed a man and a woman in those woods. She said so herself. I guess Elam got away and was found later?"
"The whole pack knows the story of when Elam was found, that part of it was never a secret. Thomas was out in the woods, heading out to hunt, when he found a two year old boy wandering by himself. He was shifting already, so Thomas knew he was a wolf at least. There was no mention of Elam ever shifting into any other form as a child, but they knew he was a wolf shifter from the moment they found him. The story Thomas told was that he abandoned the hunt once he found Elam, and was heading back to the den with him when he came across Ziva and the two dead humans in the woods.
He said that Ziva said she found them like that, alive but quickly dying, and that she tried to help them. They died anyway, and Thomas assumed the pair was the boy's parents. Although, the male was quite a bit younger than the female. Maybe one of the teens from the village that had grown into a young man. He was probably escorting them on their way to the pack, or whatever they were doing. Ziva probably killed them, and was looking for Elam to kill him, too. Only Thomas found him first."
"And took him in, much to her dismay." Kate added.
"Never knowing until the end that it was his own son he was taking in." Elam said, of himself.
"Well hell, no wonder Ziva was bat shit crazy."
"And then, after everything else, Elam turns into a bear and beats Galen. Then Thomas dies. And Galen wants to move Ziva back to the territory where it all began for her. Reine's cub is back, taking over in her eyes, and she is forced to move. Not only out of her cabin, but back to where it all began."
"So when Ziva saw me all alone, headed to the hot spring, on the very day that the pack was to meet to decide about the split..."
"She decided to kill you, too. Only you shift, and kill her instead."
"Wow. Just, wow. That is a lot to take in right after being shot."
"Well, you've got to admit," Kate said to Emma with a grin. "Our time here has not been boring. I'm thinking my parents in Africa have nothing on our adventures here, so far."
Epilogue
A month later, after the two packs had settled in, on adjoining lands, co-ruled by two Alpha brothers, both packs all got together for Kate's birthday.
Henry had been invited, and came to see how the girls were doing, and was shocked when he heard the story of everything that had happened since he dropped the girls off not very long ago.
Emma told him that she learned the reason why her mother had left the pack, to protect her cub, and Henry said
he wasn't at all surprised, now that he knew the full story.
"Protective of others, above herself. That does sound just like your mother. And of you, my child."
Emma smiled at him, glad that she could fill in some empty pieces for her father, who she knew always loved her mother very much. And still did.
"So, Emma," her dad nudged her with an elbow in her side as they caught up. "I bring you here a troubled young lady, and I come back to find you the forever mate of an Alpha wolf, a shifter yourself and a hero to boot."
"Dad, stop. I'm not a hero. I just did what I could, that's all."
"Whatever you say, my wolf child. Do you love your wolf form? Your mother did. She was a beautiful wolf, and you look just like her."
"I do. Thank you. For bringing me here, I mean. This is where I belong, and I never would have even known of its existence if you hadn't brought me home."
"Home, huh?"
"Yeah."
"I see you and Elam are living in our old cabin. Mine and Reine's old cabin."
"Yeah. I like knowing that I am living where she lived. Where you two were happy."
"We were that- happy, I mean. I'm glad you are happy there, too. And Kate? Is she as happy as she looks?"
"Yes. She loves it here, too. She loves Galen. She loves being Alpha's mate of her own territory. And she loves that she is carrying Galen's cub."
"And you? Do you like being with cub? I must admit you glow with it, just like Reine did."
"I do like it. I'm glad I get to go through it with Kate, too."
"Your mom knew you were a girl, from the very beginning. Do you know what you're having?"
"I do. Actually I know what Kate is having, too. She doesn't want to know. They want to be surprised, so you can't say anything- but Kate and I both are having boys."
"Ah, two boys, from brothers with shape shifter blood. This ought to be interesting, huh?"
"I have a feeling, Dad, that interesting isn't even going to begin to cover it."
* * * * *
Thank you for reading my first full-length shifter romance.
Want a fun shifter quicky after all that drama?
Check out my short story-
Alpha Bitten, right here!
* * * * *
Prefer another series?
Start with Alpha Hunted Part 1 of 3 Here!
Five years after Keelyn's father dies just feet from her, from a wolf's bite she was too young and too female to protect him from, Keelyn has become what she never wanted to be- a were-hunter, like her father, and his father before.
Surprisingly good at the career she'd had thrust upon her that fateful day, she heads to the yearly gathering to pay her farm's rent with money earned from hunting werewolf hearts and pelts.
Bane and his wolf pack are also headed to the yearly gathering when Bane, the pack's Alpha, finally scents the female his wolf says is to be their forever mate. There's only one problem- she also scents of death and wet wolf hide.
When Bane follows Keelyn into the woods, neither are prepared for the passion, or the truths, they're each about to face.
This is part 1 of a completed 3 part serial. This serial will eventually be bundled for those who do not like cliffhangers.
* * * * *
Please check out my other titles
on J. M. Klaire's Amazon Author's Page
and
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