Winds of Change

by Kat Keppeler

  “I haven’t gotten my ‘license’.” Finn used air quotes as he said it. “You can probably order the ultrasound machine with Seamus’ license. We haven’t admitted to the human government he is dead yet. And no, we don’t need a fancy three dimensional one either. Regular will do just fine.”

  He sat down in the office chair opposite Chance and waited.

  “So that new house, you planning on packing you four in it?” Finn hadn’t included himself, yet. “Can you please for the love of all things holy tell them to go easy with the log shit? We’re in Montana sure, but no one here’s a lumberjack.”

  Chance laughed, a real laugh that dimpled his cheeks and crinkled his eyes at the corners. When he wasn’t covered with tattoos and piercings, he was arguably the most conventionally handsome of Skye’s mates.

  “It’s not going to be a log cabin,” he promised with a chuckle as he stood back up. “And you do have your license. Also an updated ID and all the requisite paperwork trail necessary. All the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted properly. You have a bank history that goes back far enough that it wouldn’t raise eyebrows in a tax audit.”

  Chance flipped through an accordion folder that appeared be full of similar large size envelopes and pulled one with Finn’s name neatly printed. “Seamus has retired to travel in an RV around the country and sold his practice to you. Congratulations.”

  He lightly tossed the envelope in Finn’s lap to go over, “I have a technomancer I know that wants to be a pop star. He can perform but can’t write a hit single to save his life. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship… Anyways, yes, I have someone you can talk to about prosthetics. I did a bit of research in my contacts when Skye first started making concerned noises about your limp. I’ll get you the business card. I’m sure the two of you can benefit from each others skills but we’re not nickel and dime-ing your goddamn leg, Finn. We don’t need to for fuck’s sake, we can afford a nice leg that doesn’t hurt so often.”

  Really, they could afford a hell of a lot more than that. Chance had two hundred years with nothing to occupy his time with but planning for a future that was now, finally, here.

  Finn fidgeted suddenly as if nervous.

  “Uh.. Technomancer you say?” As if he were interested in that. With a sigh Finn finally gave up the goods. “When Dru died she left a pretty substantial amount of money. I’m sure you’re well off, I know we’re all pitching in to do as is needed, but…”

  But there was stuff he’d left out, of course.

  “There’s a pretty good trust account that’s been growing since she died. I kept up with it here and there, then Halliday got me. Okay, maybe I’m lying, I kept up with it through the seventies. I won’t lie. I imagine somewhere it’s there in unclaimed property at this point... But there’s a safety deposit box in Atlanta that I would like please.”

  There was so much about Dru he’d failed to mention. So much that he'd downplayed or dodged. Why hadn’t she run like he was crazy when she’d learned about his nature? No one asked the hard questions, because they wanted to let him have his privacy and his grief. “Fairfax, Georgia. Near Atlanta.”

  “Fantastic,” Chance said dryly, well aware of the nature of Fairfax, it was a city full of witches. Almost exclusively witches. He raised one dark brow at that little addition but sighed, “Fairfax will take me awhile but I actually do have contacts in that community... “

  He trailed off and Finn could almost see him mentally shuffling through his internal rolodex of who owed him and who he could charm. “Write down what you remember about the trust and I’ll get it straightened out. If you don’t want it, we can set it up for the kids and they can inherit it.”

  Chance sighed and leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands together across his stomach. After a moment he reached up and pulled the reading glasses from his nose and Finn found himself facing the beta’s intense grey eyed stare. Finn was an alpha and it wasn’t exactly challenging but he definitely got the feeling that the pack’s beta saw more than he ever really let on.

  “It’s not just one house we’re building,” Chance explained after a long moment and just when Finn thought he was going to say something else. “Skye is human enough that she likes having a little bit more space than she really has here in the pack house. Her escape to your office has been good for her, too. Our mate never complains but it taxes her.”

  Chance paid very, very close attention to that sort of thing. He stood then to pull out the drawings and drop a small bound book in front of Finn to flip through. It was architectural drawings of the end plans for this part of town.

  “There’s a few houses that are built in order to buffer our end from the actual town but there’ll be a coffee shop in easy walking distance and a bakery that I think will be Betty and Liam’s to run. We could use one, god knows, because if I have one more pie from Pete’s I’m going to be profoundly ill.” Chance said, his words dry and he flipped the book open to the house that Lee had designed for Skye, “Ours is the one being built right now and the pack will have this until the other homes are finished. We want them to decide what groups they want to live in. They’re fully capable of making those sort of choices. Lee’s current plan involves giving Skye a truly massive bedroom with rooms attached. You get one to use when you want and we have the other because if Lee can’t sleep with someone he gets restless and then we end up with a new mural on a perfectly well painted wall. I lived through his surrealist period and would rather not have a repeat of it, thank you very much. I’m told that Rory and I have a few very small cubbies in his walk in closet.”

  Chance had a music studio to escape to when he wanted to and his new office would also be a place of refuge when he needed it. “Though, really, I suspect everyone will be in and out as the whims take them.”

  “So big bedroom with Lee sized closet, giant closet… Giant bathroom?” He pointed at something he thought said bathroom. “Cubs go where?”

  While Chance was busy trying to point it out in the blueprint he scribbled down a name, a birthdate, an account number and the box number. When Chance caught the sight of the name and snapped his head up in question, Finn sighed. The note said Drusilla Hopestill Remembrance Easty, December 18th 1929 - June 6th 1969…

  “Don’t judge me.” Finn said with a frown, standing up. “Do you think they can get it or no?”

  “Don’t you growl at me, goddammit,” Chance snarled back, his shoulders squared and the rumble filled his room as he stood as well. Chance didn’t have Finn’s height or breadth but he was not a small man. “You are such a fucking pain in the ass, Finn. You share so goddamn little and then the moment we push back even a fraction, you’re up our asses. Yes, damn you, I can get it and I will but you will sit down in that fucking chair and you will give me five goddamn minutes. Am. I. Clear?”

  Finn stood eying Chance with a scowl. He knew he owed Chance a damned explanation, and he’d give it. But was he ready? Finn pressed his lips together and then sat slowly down.

  “I’m letting you know right now, I’m sitting but not because you told me to.” Alpha male machismo again. He crossed his arms, annoyance sounding in his throat. “Yeah, I know. Taboo, all that fucking shit. I didn’t care at the time, Chance, and I care even less now. I don’t tell you because it's really no one’s damned business…”

  Finn frowned. He’d just admitted to committing a cardinal sin among shifters, fornicating with not only any witch but royalty by their standards. “Fine, give me your lecture.”

  “The hell it’s not my business!” Chance roared as he slammed his hands down on the desk hard enough that the heavy wood creaked under the pressure. He’d not yet sat down and rather than return to his chair, he stalked over to the safe, every line of his body filled with outraged tension.

  “Let’s put aside, for the moment, the fact that Rory and I fought for you sixty years ago.” Chance said, each word scathing and aimed to lash like a whip. They were just all lucky that Rory had taken Skye out to fi
nd better fitting clothing because either of those two wouldn’t have hesitated to interrupt what sounded a hell of a lot like the precursor to a full blown fight. No one else in the pack was likely to stick their noses in though there would probably be a lot of omega wolves to comfort after this.

  “We’ll just ignore that part for the moment. Do you, in all of your pronounced ancient alpha wisdom happen to know why it’s so forbidden? Hmm?”

  Chance didn’t give Finn time to answer as he paced back with heavy tomes, “Stonefist clan, eradicated in 1427.” Thud, the old book dropped to the desk, “First clan the council destroyed. Children of the Moon, 1607. Firewalkers, 1721. Midnight Sun, 1816. The Dawnborn, 1906. Forest River Pack, 1941. Howl of the Mother, 1962.” Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. “Now, clearly I don’t give a rat’s ass about what is and isn’t allowed by the council laws because owning any of these books is worth a death sentence. Or worse.”

  Chance rested a heavy hand on the stack of dead pack tomes, the matte black wedding band glinting dully in the light. “What I care about is our mates, our cubs and our pack and, yes, in that order.”

  “I am well FUCKING aware of what you’re talking about.” Finn said, standing quickly to his feet. “And I am well fucking aware of why the council acts like they do. If you’ve not forgotten, I lost a leg for this and was well on the way to losing worse. Am I grateful? Yes. Am I sorry I’ve been lying to you? YES.”

  Finn’s expression was in a snarl, his lips curled back from sharp canines. “But it got the fucking job done, Chance. Look at you, look at Rory. Do you think that either of you would have been able to do what needed to be done then? No. If it were not for me, not for Drusilla, then the both of you would still be there whispering about Daddy’s harsh words and Daddy’s harsher ways. You got up and you fucking did something about it. So I told a white lie. I think you’re starting to see the bigger picture.”

  “And I can recite a lot of them by name. Birna Ulfsparre, Rina, Josette Towne, Lita Nurse, Cordelia Black, Tara Valor, Celia Thorne…” And before Chance could say anything else he added a final name. “Lara Cloyce.”

  The names of each of those women were scribbled in those many tomes he’d piled except the last. The last was a name in a tome that he’d probably never get his hands on.

  “I am not going to apologize now for what I did because it’s too late for that.” Finn looked down at his hands. “You know I tried to get lost, I tried to just get fucking lost but Skye…”

  But he couldn’t do that to her. Not after she’d rescued them. After she'd rescued him. She’d stood in that filthy basement, glowing like something out of legend. Finn had been hers ever since, even if he knew that he brought only danger by remaining. Finn’s very presence, a man who had broken cardinal Council law, had made them a bigger target than he cared to admit.

  Chance growled, a low rumbling sound and before Finn looked up, Chance was on him and tossing him up against the wall with more strength than the beta should have had. His eyes were glowing ghost grey with his wolf barely leashed and only because Chance was putting in grave effort.

  “Skye is Witchborn. The council never found her because her mother fucking hid her with a spell forged in the blood of her own death. Skye is the reason her pack is dead and if you breathe a word of it to her, so help me, I will beat you bloody myself,” Chance growled the words. “It has taken me over a month to find the information, to ferret out secrets hidden and stolen and suppressed when you have known the Whole. Fucking. Time. You are lucky - you are goddamn lucky - that nothing has happened because of that lapse. This is your one, and only, free pass. If you ever hide information from me that I need to know in order to keep Skye or the children safe, I’ll kill you. Not in a challenge. Not in any normal pack way, but you will cease to exist if you become a threat to this family.”

  Chance rumbled as ghost grey flames that no wolf should be able to call started licking down his skin. They went unnoticed by the beta in the grip of his wrath. Finn had seen phenomena before but nothing like what Chance was doing at this particular moment.

  “Chance...” Said Finn, in minute warning. “You have three seconds to calm the fuck down.”

  Lee burst into the room, drawn by the commotion although he paused at the sight of Chance burning with ghostly fire. His scream was sudden, sharp and shrill.

  “What’s happening?!” Lee demanded, fear twisting his guts. Every instinct Lee had told him that what Chance was doing was unnatural. That it was deadly. Chance’s head whipped towards his mate and the stark fear on his features. While Chance was distracted, Finn shoved him off.

  “If you threaten me ever again…” Finn growled, reaching for the safe that Chance had thrown him near for support. The prosthetic had come undone when Chance had thrown him against the wall, and Finn rumbled his disappointment in losing the limb as he hopped one legged over to where it had fallen from his pant leg.

  Finn hopped toward the door with the leg in hand.

  “You ever throw me against a wall again and I’m going to tear your fucking throat out.” Finn promised in a low growl, before he was hopping out the door and to his own place of seclusion.

  Lee was staring at Chance in confusion and fear, his eyes wide. “What… what’s wrong with you?”

  Chance heaved a breath, looking down at his arms where the witchfire licked along his flesh. He’d had suspicions but… apparently that was the part of him that Skye’s touch had begun to unlock. Fantastic. He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly as the fires hissed and then winked out.

  “I’m just angry, Lee. I’m just really… really angry. I’m not going to hurt you. I wouldn’t ever.” Chance said, struggling to find something like calm, as he turned to pick up the books one at a time gently and carry them back to their place in the safe.

  “Fucking Finn,” Chance muttered before he reached up to thread his fingers through the dark fringe of his hair, more rattled than Lee had seen him in a long time. Possibly ever. “Sorry, honey, did you feel it through the bond? Fuck, they probably did too, then.”

  ‘They’ being Rory and Skye. Chance growled low, his fists clenching at his sides.

  Lee looked back at Chance and then towards Finn’s retreating back with confusion in his eyes. He didn’t know what had happened and he was almost afraid to ask.

  “But…” Started Lee, blinking tears out of his eyes. “But…”

  Lee didn’t know how to put into words exactly what he had seen. When Chance turned to even glance at Lee there was utter terror on his face. Confusion was evident, just as the searing burn along their bond had meant there was very serious trouble, the confusion as to why was ever more clear.

  “What just happened?” Lee finally said, not knowing exactly what he should be doing now. “You two were shouting, and then… It felt like fire and then you… you were on fire! What the hell is going on here Chance?”

  “I’m still working out exactly the details of that,” Chance said, exhaling. His back and shoulders were knotted with tension that he couldn’t release and he glanced towards the crack in the drywall that the brief tussle had left, “Lee, I can’t tell you what I suspect because it’s safer for you - and for Skye - if you don’t know anything right now. Can you trust me on that?”

  Chance swung the safe closed and spun the lock. He leaned over his desk and wrote two blank checks, adding his signature to the bottom. “I have to go deal with something in Atlanta for the pack. I don’t know how long it’ll take but can you give these checks to Finn? One is for his prosthetic and one for the ultrasound machine that he needs. That envelope is his as well, it has his ID and license and I think it might be best if we weren’t in the same room just now.”

  Chance palmed the paper with Finn’s dead wife’s information and slipped it in his pocket before he closed and unplugged his laptop. He held out one arm slightly in invitation for a hug if Lee wanted one but he braced for the other man to flinch away.

  Lee was terrified, his eyes
showed the fear buried deep in them. He still reached a hand out to Chance to be pulled into a hug. Once Chance’s arms wrapped around him the beta felt Lee trembling.

  “Please don’t go.” Lee whispered, afraid that something had happened and now Chance wouldn’t come back.

  Lee couldn’t shake the terror and even Chance’s arms couldn’t provide the same sort of comfort that they always had. Lee’s mate marks were throbbing, Skye was very distressed.

  “You can’t run off, she’s so scared. Chance, what am I supposed to tell her? To tell Rory?” Lee didn’t mention Finn because of what he’d just seen. Lee didn’t bear Finn’s mark, but he could feel him through Skye faintly.

  “Lee,” Chance said, his voice gentle and he tilted the omega’s chin up to meet his eyes. He pressed an impossibly tender kiss to Lee’s lips, “We are always together. We’ll get through this but I have to take care of this right now. Tell Rory that there’s more to what we were talking about and I’m on the trail. He’ll know what I mean. As for Skye, remind her that we love her and that she’s strong enough to hold this fucked up family together even when the men are assholes.”

  Chance pressed another kiss to Lee’s lips, this one chaste and gentle, “You’re stronger than you know, Lee. You’ve got this. I have all the faith in the world in you. You’ll be whatever Skye needs you to be for her and that will always be enough.”

  Finn had made it to the office and was already throwing clothes in a duffel bag. Chance had said she couldn’t know, but how could he keep it from her? Especially with what Chance was about to retrieve the truth would be revealed. Better that she should hear the whole sordid tale from Finn himself but it was the one thing - the only thing - that Chance had asked of him as price for his aid.

  Should have kept my fucking mouth shut…. He thought, his few belongings packed up and a small bit of money, Finn left without nary a goodbye note or word. Micah caught sight of the big man as he shut the clinic door. Confusion flickered across his youthful features.