Cherished: True Mates Book 5 (BBW Wolf Shifter Romance) (A Craggstone Paranormal Romance)

by Olivia Arran

  He shrugged in a way that made me want to hit him square in the middle of his broad, yummy-looking chest, his eyebrows arching. “You move like a human.”

  “I am a human, you lughead!” I muttered, giving my nose one last rub, the end still tingling from his kiss, then marched around the corner. There was only one way to deal with this.

  “Joshua Kevin Arlington! What do you think you’re doing, scaring me half to death?”

  Josh was crouched on the ground next to an old abandoned-looking building, his head hanging, and arms wrapped around his legs. His back stiffened at the sound of my voice.

  “I had to find Dad.” It was a plaintive plea for understanding.

  Immediately regretting my earlier outburst, I sprinted over to him, gathering him up in my arms. Rocking him back and forth, his small frame started to shake, sobs tearing their way out of his chest.

  “Shhhh,” I murmured, helplessness overwhelming me. What could I tell him? That his dad is a sociopath? A sick, twisted, bastard who preyed on vulnerable women? A six-year-old shouldn’t have to face the cruel, hard facts of life, not when his mother could protect him.

  “He’s here, Mom. I can feel him.” Josh snuffled against my chest, the shuddering subsiding.

  My gut twisted at his words sunk in. Bert was Josh’s father, a bond that I could never end.

  On silent feet Oliver strode over, crouching down to meet Josh’s eyes. “Your dad isn’t a very nice man,” he began, but Josh jumped to his feet, shoving Oliver square in the chest.

  “Don’t you say that about my dad!” he screamed, his eyes wild with fury. “You just want him out of the way so you can be with my mom!”

  “Josh!” I exclaimed, struggling to my feet, unable to believe what he had just said. It didn’t sound like him, more like something he had heard the men saying.

  Oliver did nothing to defend himself, instead allowing Josh to shove at him, his little fists pounding in a futile effort to inflict pain, damage—anything. “You know that’s not true, kid.”

  “Liar!” my son shrieked at the top of his voice, his whole body starting to shake again, this time with anger.

  “Let me ask you something, and I want you to really think about it, and answer truthfully. Was your mom happy?”

  Josh froze, his mouth twisting as indecision warred with fury.

  Sensing a breakthrough, Oliver continued, “Were you really happy, not being able spend time with your mom?”

  “You’re lying, making stuff up. You’re just trying to mess with—”

  “Final question. Did your dad really care about whether you and your mom were happy?”

  Josh’s arms dropped to his sides, his bottom lip trembling as he stared at the floor.

  “A good man wouldn’t separate a child from his mother. A good man wouldn’t keep that mother captive, refusing to let her go. A good man wouldn’t be training you to become a killer.” Oliver had moved closer, until he stood toe-to-toe with Josh. Gripping my son’s shoulders, he crouched down again. “I know he’s your dad, but there are a lot of things you don’t know, things that are too grown-up for you to understand.” He took a deep breath, cursing under his breath, immediately wincing and flashing me an apologetic grimace. “You’re going to have to trust your mom, and one day, when you’re older, you’ll know all the facts and you’ll understand. Can you do that?”

  I could see the struggle on Josh’s face, his heart warring with his head. He knew what Oliver was saying was true, but his heart didn’t want to admit it. If I hadn’t already hated Bert, I would have despised him for making my child go through this heartbreak.

  “Mom?” His voice sounded lost.

  Wrapping an arm around him, I hugged him tight. “It’s true, baby. I promise.”

  “But, why?”

  “Why?” I echoed, unsure of what he was asking.

  “Why is he locked up in there?” He jerked his head at the building behind us.

  The building that apparently wasn’t abandoned after all if Oliver’s grim expression was anything to go by.

  What the hell do I say to that?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Oliver

  Sweet motherfucking bastard...fucking hell…I ran through my list of favorite curses in a matter of seconds. The kid knew his dad was inside, something I had first suspected given that we had found him crouched by my workshop.

  “Baby, your dad is going to stand trial before the Shifter Council. He’ll get a fair hearing—”

  “How do you know that for sure?”

  Ana frowned, and I could see indecision flicker in her eyes. She didn’t want to lie to her son, and given that she had never even heard of the Shifter Council before tonight, I didn’t blame her for not having immediate faith.

  “Because I’ll make sure of it,” a deep voice called from behind us.

  I had never been happier to see someone in my whole life. “Sean, meet Josh. Josh, this is Sean.” I’d let Sean explain everything else.

  Sean strolled over, his measured gaze taking in the scene in a matter of moments. Behind him followed Lisa, something I wasn’t surprised to see. The couple had barely separated since mating.

  “Who are you?”

  Sean stopped a couple of feet away, giving Josh some room. “I’m your half-brother.”

  Ana’s mouth fell open in shock, then she clamped it shut.

  “No you’re not!”

  “Bert is my dad too, though believe me, it pains me to admit it.”

  “But...you’re so old!”

  “Easy, kid! I’m your dad’s first-born, but from the looks of it, I wasn’t his last. How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

  “A sister. I did have a baby brother,” Josh stared at the ground, his face screwing up, “but he died. Dad said he wasn’t strong enough. Not like me and Lizzie.”

  Sean grimaced, a frown playing on his lips.

  Lizzie? And a baby brother?

  Ana caught my eye. Gina, she mouthed silently, her eyes pooling with sadness.

  Well, shit.

  “So there’s three of us,” Sean continued, moving a step closer. When Josh didn’t back away, he took another step, his massive frame dwarfing the young boy. “We look a little alike, you know.”

  Josh stared up at him, his face reflecting awe at the older man. “We do?”

  “Yeah. We have the same coloring, and I think we have the same nose,” Sean quipped, pointing first to his own nose, then lightly prodding Josh on the tip of his.

  Josh’s hand floated up to touch his nose, his eyes wide as what Sean had said finally sunk in. “Am I going to be as big as you when I grow up?”

  Sean tousled the kid’s hair, then chucked him under the chin. “Only if you work hard and do everything your mom tells you to do.”

  Josh frowned. “Why do I have to—”

  “Because if you don’t, you won’t live to grow up.”

  Josh laughed, a carefree sound that hit me straight in the chest. He sounded so young!

  “I know you want to see Bert, but he needs the time to cool off, believe me. The Shifter Council are the best of our people, and he’ll get a fair trial.”

  “Can I watch?”

  I sucked in a breath, forcing myself to remain silent. The trial wasn’t a place for a kid, especially not when the kid’s dad was the one on trial.

  Sean glanced at Ana and me, question in his eyes.

  Ana quickly interjected. “Josh, it’s not something you need to see—”

  “Then how will I know that it’s not all a lie?”

  She hesitated, biting her lip in indecision, eventually falling back on a line as old as time, one mothers all over the world had been known to utter, at least in my experience. “We’ll see…”

  Josh grinned in triumph. Huh? He obviously wasn’t well-versed in mom-speak.

  Sean smothered a laugh, but Lisa laughed out loud, grinning at the kid. Stretching out a hand she motioned Josh over. “I’m Lisa, your brother’s mate. W
hich makes me your sister-in-law. Do you feel like coming and hanging out with us back at the house? I can teach you some mean card tricks if you like.” When Josh accepted her hand without hesitation, she turned to Ana. “We’ll make sure he stays safe,” she promised, and at Ana’s nod, they turned and made their way back up to the house.

  “This parenting thing is hard work!” I grumbled, having watched them disappear around the corner, and turned back to face Ana.

  She was glaring at me, her hands folded across her ample chest. Again!

  What had I done now?

  “I want to see him.”

  The thought of her seeing inside my workshop…it would be like her seeing into my soul, seeing the dark I kept hidden. “I don’t think—”

  “Now.” There was no arguing with her.

  “Ummm—”

  “Oliver, I need to see him,” she snapped, her foot tapping on the ground. Gone was the woman who had come apart in my arms, her eyes soft and unfocused as I lapped at the sweetness of her pussy, basking in her glow. The woman who stood before me was pissed.

  “You don’t want to go in there.” I tried again to dissuade her, but she was having none of it, instead turning and starting to tug at the bolts, straining to slide the metal free.

  “You. Just. Don’t. Get. It! I need to face him. For the first time I can look him in the eyes a free woman. I can face him knowing he can’t hurt me again!” She was getting frustrated by now, slapping at the bolt in between shoves.

  I didn’t have the heart to point out the other two bolts high above her, out of reach.

  “This place—” I started, then stopped. What could I say to her? I don’t want you to see it, because I don’t want you to see how fucked up I really am before you get to know me? I tried again. “This building, it’s…not a nice place.”

  “I didn’t think it would be,” she grunted, her eyes lighting up in victory as the bolt gave a fraction.

  Sweet Mother of All, she was beautiful. I forced myself to continue. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, things I would rather you didn’t find out quite so soon, not before we’ve had chance to get to know each other.”

  “I know you’ve been in the military. I know that you were probably special ops, or something similar. Which means you’ve seen things that most of us probably wouldn’t imagine in our worst nightmares. Done things too.” Each word was punctuated with a shove.

  The woman just didn’t give up! “How did you guess?”

  “My brother is in the military. Or was, I don’t know.” A shadow passed over her face, her mouth puckering as she thought of her family, the brother she hadn’t seen in years.

  “I was, for a while,” I admitted, already pushing the boundaries of what I was allowed to share with her, but fuck it, she was my mate, she had a right to know! “I grew up in a facility that didn’t look much different to the one Josh was in.”

  The shoving stopped, silence now thick between us.

  Why the hell I was feeling the need to share all of a sudden was beyond me, but it was suddenly important that I make her understand. “I’m the fixer for the pack and the Shifter Council.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She wasn’t running, screaming at me to stay the hell away, so that was a start. “Simply put, I fix problems.”

  I could see her chewing it over, processing the new information. “Problems like Bert?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fix them how?”

  Shit, she had to go and ask. “I extract information mainly. Though, at times, I have been called in to…uh…nip a problem in the bud, so to speak.”

  “Right.”

  She was giving me nothing. Not a hint of what was going on behind those luscious brown eyes. “Ana?” She was killing me with her silence.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. You tell me you hurt people for a living, and that you operate outside of the law?” She raised a single eyebrow, her voice rising in question.

  Wincing, I nodded.

  Slumping back against the door, she continued, “Just answer me one thing—”

  This was starting to sound a lot like my conversation with Josh.

  “—did every person you fixed deserve it?”

  My breath whooshed out in a rush. “They did.” A tiny victory, but one I had clung to in desperate hope that my soul wasn’t lost, that it could be saved.

  She pushed away from the door, sweeping her hand at me in a motion to open it. “Then, okay.”

  I blinked in amazement. “Okay?” I echoed, my voice sounding high-pitched and strange. Coughing, I continued in a more normal voice, “What do you—? Have you—?”

  “I lived with a sociopath for years. I think I’d be able to recognize one by now,” she answered simply.

  “You don’t mind?”

  Her nose wrinkled at the question and she glanced at the floor. “I can’t say I’m thrilled with your chosen career, but I don’t know what lead you to that path, so I can’t judge. Screw it, I’m choosing not to judge you.”

  I was thunderstruck. Everyone judged me, even if they thought they didn’t, they did. It was one of the reasons why I had buried all my emotions, cutting myself off from everyone. That, and the fact that my job didn’t mesh well with touchy-feely emotions. It kind of got in the way.

  “You’re not just saying that?” I had to ask. I wasn’t adept at reading women, and Ana in particular had my head spinning. With her ripe curves and smooth skin, it was hard to keep my mind on the task at hand.

  “I’ve decided I’m not going to just say anything. From now on I can say whatever I want, so I’m going to.” She tilted her head up at me, sticking her jaw out as if to underline her vow.

  Before I knew it, I was striding over to this wonderful, gorgeous, kind, straight-talking mate of mine and sweeping her off her feet, hoisting her up so I could devour her mouth.

  She squealed, her shriek of surprise morphing into a moan of delight as she gasped into my mouth, her tongue tentatively dueling with mine, slipping and sliding in exploration. Pushing me back, she took a ragged breath, her cheeks flushed and chest straining. “I need to see him. Just once, then I can walk away.” Cupping my cheek, she pressed her forehead to mine, her breath feathering across my lips, a sweet torture. “I don’t know what this is between us, or whether I want it to be anything. I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t think about us while he still hangs over my head.”

  I let her slide down my body, my sadistic side loving the way her curves caught and dragged against me. Yeah, this woman was my penance, my perfect form of torture for everything I had ever done.

  I slid the first bolt open, the metal protesting the effort. “Just remember, you promised you wouldn’t judge.” I slid the next bolt free, all the while holding her gaze.

  She slipped her hand into my free one, squeezing in reassurance.

  She was reassuring me?

  I reached up onto tiptoe and slid the final bolt free.

  I now needed her to do a fuck-load of not judging. Not letting go of her hand, I swung the door open, bracing myself.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ana

  The door swung open revealing a room encased in shadows, the blackness thick and uninviting. Oliver slipped past me, disappearing into the depths. A second later a flame flickered, catching, before spluttering to life.

  Oliver’s face was bathed by the candle, his harsh features softened in the flickering light. Taking a step forward, I hesitated, my nose wrinkling in disgust as a stench rolled over me. If my human nose couldn’t stand the smell, what must it be like for a shifter?

  I had asked to come in here, so I’d just better suck it up. Or better yet, breathe through my mouth! Resisting the urge to pinch my nose, I forced myself to enter the room, my mind screaming at me not to go there, to turn around and leave. But I had to see him, I had to have my say.

  My eyes slowly adjusted to the low light, the room sharpening into focus. It
was a small area, with stone walls and a bare floor. No windows, and I was guessing no air vents either. The perfect holding cell for prisoners.

  Oliver stood by a low wooden table, his face closed off, though his eyes gave him away, anxious and searching as they watched me look around the room.

  “Ana,” he started, cutting off when my gaze darted past him, riveted by the table and what it held.

  Walking over, I stopped, trying to make out what the hell I was looking at. Metal tools? The kind you would use for wood turning? Or carving?

  Or torture? A shiver ran down my spine, Oliver’s earlier words echoing in my head. I fix problems…

  This wasn’t what I had come for. Turning my back on the macabre offerings on the table, I squinted across the room, trying to spear through the shadows and see what I knew they had to be hiding.

  It was no good; I had to go closer. Grabbing the candle from Oliver, I strode across the room, the light dancing in front of me illuminating each step, revealing a little more.

  My heart thudded in my chest, my eyes widening in shock. Three men were slouched, stripped naked, and bound to chairs by cuffs and thick chains, their bodies littered with bruises and blood.

  I recognized all three of them.

  Balling my hands into fists to resist the urge to lash out at them, to scratch and scream, I sucked in a deep breath, immediately regretting it as my stomach rebelled against the unwashed smell invading my nose. Retching, I pressed a hand over my mouth, water stinging my eyes.

  Jacob’s eyes flickered open. “Ana!” His voice was hoarse, his lips cracking as he struggled to talk. “You have to free us, quickly, before—”

  “The bitch is working with them, you fool.”

  I stifled the need to take another deep breath and turned in the direction of the voice. One I would recognize anywhere.

  “They rescued me.” I didn’t want to explain, but the compulsion was so ingrained I couldn’t fight it.

  “Of course they did. Look at you, prime whore! I bet you’ve already spread your legs for one of them,” Bert snarled, spitting blood onto the ground. “Filling you full of their lies as well as their cock, no doubt.”

  “Bitch,” Gary growled, his eyes furious. “Control your mate, Bert. Make her let us go.”