by Kat Keppeler
Rory growled, looking at Lee with one fist at his side.
“You can hit me if it makes you feel better, Rory, but I’m still not going to let you in there. And if you try to get in here then we’re going to have real problems.” Rory looked at Lee for a few moments before he realized just how serious his mate was. Chance was right, Lee wasn’t really an omega now was he?
With a sigh Rory turned on heel and left, walking out to the office where Finn was passed out on the bathroom floor. He climbed into Finn’s bed, his arms under his head, and slept.
Chapter Nineteen
When morning came and Finn crawled out to find Rory in his bed there was a bit of an altercation. Not physical enough to make pack news, but enough that the both of them had clear marks of a shifter’s scuffle on their skin. When Rory had told him that Lee had thrown all of them out Finn had offered to march in and come clean to Skye instantly.
Rory had different ideas, that's how they ended up on opposite sides of the room glowering at one another.
“Why would you hide shit like that, Finn?” Rory asked, as if this were solely Finn’s fault.
“Look, I wanted to go away after she pulled us from that basement because I knew somehow I’d eventually have to come clean. She didn’t want me to go. I’ve tried to leave but she’s not gonna just let me vanish into thin air…” Finn said with a sigh. “And I don’t want to. They could be my cubs, they could be your cubs. Doesn’t matter whose… I want to be here for her. For them.”
Rory frowned and texted Chance to let him know Lee had exiled them all to Finn’s until they could be truthful.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable here anyway, Finn,” Rory admitted. He was ready to send Finn away for the problems he believed to be caused just by Finn’s presence. The elder wolf gave Rory a shrug, he expected as much. It didn’t change the fact that at the moment they were stuck in a holding pattern until Chance returned. That night when they slept his anger didn’t stop Rory from climbing into bed next to the big man. Finn’s bed wasn’t the best for their large frames but it was a hell of a lot better than the floor.
For days, Lee kept sending Rory away, meals delivered to the office by Betty. At one point, Finn stepped outside to take an icy hose water shower because anytime any of them even got near the house, Lee would stand by the windows with a rolling pin.
Chance’s updates were terse at best. They almost never said anything critical or too explicit about their nature in phones or text unless someone got sloppy and Chance was even more circumspect than usual. After about four days, there was no response to any texts at all from the pack’s beta for almost forty eight hours, enough that everyone was worried sick, until Rory finally got a short phrase from an unknown number.
‘Have the box. On the plane now. Home soon.’
A few hours later, the SUV drove up to the house and Chance got out of it slowly, as if moving was painful for him. It didn’t take a shifter’s keen hearing to catch the car’s motor driving up or the slam of the car door. He opened the back door to pick the safety deposit box off the backseat and then limped to the front door where he banged on it rather than just opening it up.
“Can we come in, now, Lee or do I need to go talk to Rory and Finn first?” Chance wanted to know. There was a burn on his high cheekbone and a few scratches on his jaw that had yet to heal. A bruise darkened his tanned skin along the temple. He looked like he’d gone a few rounds with Lee’s rolling pin already and his shoulders sagged wearily.
The door flew open and there was Lee with a rolling pin in hand.
“The fuck out of here, Chance!” Lee snapped, even if seeing the person he loved most in this world in such a state hurt his heart. The way his gaze softened on Chance, jumping from bruise to abrasion, showed just how much this was hurting him in the long run.
Despite that, Lee’s chin firmed into stubborn determination.
“You take yourself on out there with the rest of them and don’t come back until you’re ready to quit lying to me. And to her.” He shut the door in Chance’s face, the sound of it locking behind him. Sure, Lee knew that if any one of them really wanted to come in the door wasn’t exactly going to stop them.
It was Rory who approached the exhausted Chance from behind.
“Whoa! Whoa, Chance!” Rory said, stepping closer to take Chance by the elbow. “Dude, what happened!”
He reached out to touch Chance gently along his jaw, frowning when the other man winced.
“Come on, let Finn look you over.”
“It’s fine,” Chance told Rory, and winced at the light touches of the alpha. There were more bruises under his clothes.
Right behind them, though, the door opened and Betty held Lee’s rolling pin despite Lee’s clear disapproval and palpable distress.
“This has gone on long enough!” Betty said, chucking the rolling pin over the cars and into the yard. “We’re a pack and we’re going to start acting like one, Clarence Lee, or so help me, god....”
Finn had also started toward Chance, the three of them frozen on the spot as if not sure to take the invitation.
“You’ll let them in and if Skye decides she doesn’t want them in she can politely ask them to leave but you’re not going to keep her other mates from her anymore. No you just shoo…Shoo!”
“Betty, your intervention is much appreciated but Rory’s right, I could use a once over before we all sit down. Would you be so kind as to put together some refreshments and ask our mate if she’s up for a sit down around the table in about an hour?” Chance said, the calm presence of the beta once more asserting itself in the pack’s dynamics. Chance’s role was more subtle than the alphas but no less vital and while he’d hoped things would remain calm in his absence; clearly that had not been the case.
His grey eyes cut to Lee’s distressed posture behind Betty’s shoulder and he inclined his head in graceful acknowledgement, “We’ll talk, Lee. It’s going to be alright. Is she okay? The babies?”
Chance wanted to know but he’d not made a move to step across the threshold. This was the first boundary that Lee had ever asserted and Chance was glad for it. He wanted the omega, if Lee was even still an omega, to know that it would be respected. He reached up to rub his hand over his jaw, feeling the stubble. It had been over a day since he’d gotten a chance to shave and he felt it. “Please?”
“They are fine.” Lee said with a huff and when Betty went to do as she was asked, Lee shut the door behind them and locked it again. Rory frowned, he had a key on him but he’d been accepting the boundaries that Lee had set firm. The fact that Skye hadn’t overruled him already was a clear sign of the heartache that they’d caused their mate.
“If you’re wanting a shower you’re going to have to wait until we get in there. We’ve been hosing each other off in the yard because Lee just wasn't having either of us in the house.” Rory helped Chance toward Finn’s practice where the doctor already gathering things to bandage their dark haired beta up. It was surprising how quietly Finn could move even with a prosthetic.
By the limp in his gait it was clear that Finn had not been anywhere to get a new prosthetic. Once Rory helped Chance into the exam room, Finn came closer with gloves. He didn’t really ask, he just turned Chance’s face to get a better look at him.
“Could have told you that it was going to be like this,” Finn said quietly, gently prodding the bruises and scratches on his face. When he couldn’t really remove his shirt without help Finn sighed.
“Where does it hurt, Chance? What happened?” He could almost tell that there were broken ribs, but he couldn’t confirm it without pressing on them.
“You are such a wanker,” Chance said without heat. “You’re welcome for getting your bloody box, by the way. Dislocated my shoulder but popped it back in. Left shoulder. Broke a few ribs.” He lifted his hand up vaguely towards where he’d felt them snap. “Wrenched a knee. Really, just tape up the ribs and I’ll mend well enough.”
He said
that with the sort of casual pragmatism about violence that most shifters tended to have, especially those that were counted among the pack’s warriors. Chance grunted when Finn’s fingers brushed his skin. He had livid bruising and getting on a plane would have been truly stupid if he hadn’t had a shifter’s ability to survive and heal things that would kill a mortal. If he looked like this now, no wonder he’d gone radio silent for two days.
“Lee’s shifting up the dominance spectrum,” Chance commented to Rory. “We all are. It’s why you two are fighting like rams in rutting season and Lee’s trying to figure out how to protect and nurture at the same time. I may have gotten bruised and bloody in Fairfax but it was absolutely worth it and not just for Finn’s safety deposit box.”
Chance gave Finn and Rory a flat look, “Now what did you two do to get kicked out of the house? I left a check for your prosthetic and for the ultrasound machine, Finn. I’m assuming that neither of those things were taken care of either.”
“Didn’t know you left me anything except clear intentions that I’d be better off making myself scarce,” Finn replied as he began taping ribs. “Rory, help him hold up his arms. It’s gonna be hard for him to keep them up himself.”
While Rory held up Chance’s arms he frowned.
“This genius decided that as soon as you left he needed to as well. Except he didn’t get any further than Shooter’s where Skye found him piss fucking drunk. Should have kept fucking going in my opinion.”
Finn sighed, continuing to tape up Chance’s ribs. Rory kept right on going, “And he told her something about her parents or something because she was very upset about that. She’s been an emotional wreck all week and I’ve already told him that as soon as we find out what he knows he’s good as gone.”
Finn stopped, clipping the bandage and securing it.
“You know, I don’t have to sit here and take this. I can just leave on my own accord, I’m not going to stay here and be called names and insulted by a bunch of fucking boys. Neither of you would have had the strength to keep any of this to yourself, and I wasn’t doing it for fun. Where is my box, Chance?”
“Just shut up for five minutes, the both of you,” Chance said firmly but without any of the fury that had gripped him when he’d last argued with Finn. He gave both of them a quelling look and stood up from the bench he’d been sitting on. He fixed Rory with his uncanny grey eyes and said simply, “We need his strength and Skye needs his support. You have to accept him fully into this pack, Rory, because he’s not going anywhere and that, in the end, is going to be good for all of us.”
Chance delivered his words flatly, before he turned that same intense focus to Finn, “And you need to accept that you are not a lone mountain. Your secrets are our secrets and we are going to have to work together if Skye and those babies are going to have any chance at all to survive the council’s attention.”
He stood up then and limped to the box he’d set down along with a small folder. Chance picked it up with his good arm and started limping towards the kitchen. “Now come on. You can argue about who gets to apologize to our mates first if that makes you happy. There’s things we need to discuss, as a pack.”
Finn followed Rory and Chance to the kitchen, taking up his place against the wall and not sitting down. He did want that box but he figured that Chance wasn’t going to give it up right away with what he’d been through. And, he had to explain some things. He owed them that much, at the very least. Rory sat next to Chance, a deep frown on his face. Lee was sitting by Skye, holding her hand with clear fury on his beautiful features. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife.
“If any of you make her cry again I am going to show you just how much you’re never going to want to do it again,” Lee warned, his expression utterly serious. Lee meant every word of that threat. “Got it?”
“Love you too, Clarence Lee,” Rory said, feeling oddly like Lee was pulling away from them in ways he couldn’t follow. It was all changing and so rapidly. It was a little difficult for Rory to keep up, especially with his own feelings of inadequacy as their leader.
“You gonna stop stalling and open the box, Chance, or what?” Rory grumped from his place at the table.
“I am not. It’s Finn’s box. What I’m going to do, is tell you all a story,” Chance said. He, too, hadn’t sat down and like Lee, there was a difference to his mannerisms; a certainty and an assurance that was new despite the clear lines of pain on his features. “But first, I’m going to apologize.”
He sat down finally, pulling the chair over to where Skye was sitting. Her blue eyes were wide and troubled. The uncertainty and tension had hit her so hard and while she’d supported Lee in his ban, it hadn’t been an easy one. She’d wanted to cave and let the men back into the house but Lee had insisted that she needed time to rest and recover and he’d probably been right. She’d been sleeping most of the time. It had only been a week but there had been a lot of growth from the babies inside and between that and the emotional turmoil, fatigue had hit her hard.
“I’m sorry, Skye,” Chance said quietly, as he took her hand. Of all of the men, Chance showed his emotions the least in large groups. They were lucky if they got a slight smile from him and a teasing turn of phrase to show his affection. This wasn’t easy for him, Skye knew, and yet he didn’t flinch away, “I wanted to be certain before I brought any of this up, not because I don’t think you can handle it, and I know you have a right to know, but I hate to cause you any pain. This isn’t going to be easy to hear.”
Skye’s eyes started to tear up and she touched his jaw only for his lips to quirk up in a rueful smile as he said, sounding a bit more like himself, “Don’t cry, princess, I’m already sore and making good on his threats is just going to make Lee feel bad.”
That pulled a watery laugh from Skye despite herself as she touched light fingers to his bruised jaw.
“Your poor face,” Skye murmured, her hand cupping his familiar jawline with aching tenderness. “Oh, Chance.”
“You should see the other guys,” His gaze cut to Lee, then. His eyes dark and unreadable. “I’m sorry, Lee. I know this has been… a lot.”
Rory sighed, his hands clenched in his lap as he watched. He looked back at Finn, anger in his eyes.
“Why didn’t you go yourself and get the damned box?” Rory demanded, and Finn didn’t even look in his direction. His eyes were on Chance and Skye.
“Because if I had gone I wouldn’t have come back. They would have caught me, caged me maybe, but eventually killed me and none of it would have been pleasant. I’m the one who got their daughter killed. If I ever show my face in Fairfax again it will be the last time anyone sees me. And I am lucky, I’m alive with a maiming. Skye’s mother and father are the example of what happens when the council follows their laws completely.” He dropped his eyes then, a sigh leaving him. “I am sorry too, to all of you, because I’ve had to lie for sixty years. I understand what’s happening now, and I’m sorry for the pain it’s caused. And I’m sorry, Skye, that I’ve known what you’re going to hear this whole time without telling you. Maybe you’ll be able to see one day that I was doing it for your safety…”
Chance sighed and shook his head, “You always think you know better than everyone else, Finn. It’s noble but it’s frustrating as hell to be on the receiving end of.”
“I don’t understand,” Skye said softly. Her gaze darted from one mate to another, each in turn. Her hands remained claimed by Chance and Lee, each and finally she turned with questions in her eyes to Chance as he heaved another sigh.
“Fairfax is a town that is almost entirely made up of witches. Powerful witches from powerful bloodlines. Outsiders can only get in so far into town without being misdirected. The important buildings and homes are behind wards that are impossibly old, and incredibly powerful, including the bank where Finn’s safety deposit box was held,” Chance explained slowly and carefully. “You have to be witchborn to cross it - an old term
but when woven into spells like those wards, it means that one of your parents has to have been a full blooded witch to cross over the demarcation. You’ve met the Westmores but they have nothing on the families that run Fairfax. Witches, like us, are born and not made.”
Chance sighed heavily, making a gesture for Skye to give him a moment to explain. He could see all the thoughts rapidly flickering through her eyes.
“Yes. I’m witchborn,” Chance said simply into the dead silence of the room, “As are you. Your mother wasn’t a wolf shifter. She was a witch named Lara. Lara Cloyce. I’ve been trying to untangle it some time. I mentioned some of my suspicions to Rory, but not all of them. You were born of a witch and a strong wolf shifter.”
Skye’s lips parted softly. God, that was an awful lot to take in.
“Is that why my pack died?” Skye asked quietly into the too silent room. “Is that why my parents died?”
A muscle flexed in Chance’s cheek and he shook his head, “Your parents died because the Council is filled with a bunch of power-mad shitbags and their fear of what you could be drove them to commit an atrocity. It is not your fault, Skye.”
She didn’t entirely believe Chance and that was clear in her features as she looked up from Chance to take in the rest of the room, horror turning her skin bone white. “Oh, my god. Are you all in danger because of me, too?”
“No.” Said Finn from behind Chance. “No one here is in danger because of you, Skye. You haven’t done anything wrong. You didn’t pick your birthright.”
Finn walked over to where she sat, he made to reach out but Rory’s look stopped him. Now wasn’t the time for fighting.
“A relationship between a shifter and a witch has always been considered taboo. It’s a line we shouldn’t have crossed but some of us did it anyway. Call it the winds of fate, or whatever you want. The reality is that none of us are in danger because of your actions.”
