by Kat Keppeler
There was a question in her tone as she wasn’t sure exactly what had transpired and she hadn’t asked questions, figuring if either man wanted to share, they would.
Finn snorted, looking over his shoulder at his mate.
“Lee just wanted some company, and he was pretty hopping mad. I think I’ve learned that when that one is in distress he has to be with someone else. He seeks comfort through intimacy.” He gave a half hearted shrug. There was no hiding her gentle prying and he only answered it with a vague sentence. When Finn turned and gathered his pregnant mate in his arms there was a telling smile on his face. “And he’s very enthusiastic in seeking out intimacy, isn’t he?”
He pushed the topic of Lee aside and held Skye close. It was the first time in days that they had been close at all, so much going on and her distress at the secrets that had been held, Finn had craved her closeness. He pressed his forehead to hers, a sigh on his lips. “Forgive me yet?”
Skye sighed, letting her arms slip around Finn’s waist in return and she tipped her head back so that she could meet his kind blue eyes.
“Yes, of course I forgive you,” she said simply and stretched up on her toes to steal a gentle kiss. “I needed some time to untangle my feelings. It was a lot to process, and I spent a lot of time sleeping to be entirely honest.”
She untangled herself a little so she could finish rinsing them both clean of any lingering paint. Finn was used to the missing limb and he was more than capable of taking a shower on his own but Skye kept a hand on him regardless, her feet braced a little apart just in case he did slip.
“Tip back into the water, Finn,” she told him, stretching up to run her fingers through his hair to make sure all of the paint was out before she continued talking, “The part that upset me the most is that you left, I think. I can understand keeping secrets - even if I don’t agree or like the fact it happened but don’t run from me again, Finn. I need to know that you’re not going to bolt.”
“I won’t leave again.” Finn said almost too quickly. He shook his head, a sigh leaving him. “I didn’t want to leave, really, Skye. But when I came clean I got scared that I had done too much already just by staying. The council has been looking for me for such a long time. I didn’t want to bring them knocking on the door too fast…”
It was why he had been hidden for so long, doing things that he normally wouldn’t have like becoming a veterinarian and hiding away from everyday eyes. “I am eternally sorry, Skye, and I promise I won’t ever run away ever.”
Skye searched his eyes for a long moment, trying to weigh his sincerity against her very real fears.
“Okay,” Skye said simply, placing her trust with that single word. She reached behind him to turn off the water and then reached for a towel. Once she was on the bathmat, she offered her slender hands to him again, bracing her legs incase he slipped. Skye might have had shifter strength but Finn was the largest of all of her mates and if he slipped, he could absolutely knock her over if she wasn’t ready for it.
“Do you want to tell me about it now?” Skye asked once he was perched back on the toilet to put his leg back on, a towel wrapped around his waist. With gentle hands she took over drying his hair. “Your son, I mean. Bennett? You called Micah ‘Bennett’ when you were drunk, you know. He was very confused by the tight hug you gave him.”
Finn’s features held a very pained expression as she helped him dry off, he rarely bought Bennett up even in thought.
“He was born in April, sixty nine.” Finn started, his tone sounded very forced as if he were holding back some emotion. “April first to be exact, Dru always said it was his own little joke. We didn’t think he was going to come but there he was…”
Finn reached up to towel off his hair before he thought out strapping on the prosthetic. “Once the council caught me the first time, Dru and I moved back to Fairfax. To her family's old estate, it’s behind some very powerful wards. Council couldn’t get us, I thought anyway. We had two months with him, he looked just like his mother.”
He reached for the leg and turned his gaze from Skye, pain clear in his shuttered expression.
“The council has a reach that is farther than anyone of us can even know. I didn’t leave that house, Skye, but we didn’t know that the Towne’s have a high seat held in the council. He called them.” The leg strapped back on meant he was ambulatory again, and he stood to his full height.
“Dru’s brother called them and they took Bennett from us. As punishment for not calling them sooner, Josiah - her father -had to pay a price. Their command was that he had to…” He frowned, turning away to walk out and get dressed again. “And if thy hand offends thee, cut it off…”
Skye padded out after him, still wrapped in a towel. She’d not bothered to deal with drying her own hair as she’d grown so absorbed in his story. As Finn pulled on pants, she took a step forward and wrapped her arms around him from behind; her cheek tucked against his shoulder blade as she offered him what comfort her embrace could provide.
“So you lost Dru and Bennett at the same time,” Skye said softly, her voice thick with grief for his pain. It made an awful lot of things make sense; the distance that Finn injected into so many parts of his life, always holding himself a little apart and the mingled joy and dread and guilt that he seemed to have over Skye’s pregnancy. “I’m so sorry, Finn. I can’t even imagine...”
Part of Skye was deeply angry, on Finn’s behalf and on her parents. So much loss and sorrow for these archaic rules but that wasn’t a useful emotion right now so Skye buried it, giving it to her wolf to hold and nurture until it could be used so she could focus on offering what little solace Finn might find in her arms.
Finn let his fingers caress her arms before he set his hand over hers.
“It was a long time ago.” Of course there was pain still there, pain that lingered and would always. “A very long time ago. I have my own part to play in it. We were told what the laws were and even after they cut off my leg we still had Bennett. I am not blameless in their loss, Skye.”
It was the guilt that bothered him most. He patted her again and then pulled away quietly. “I think it’s time for the four of us to talk. Get on the same page, and rid ourselves of this tension. Rory’s going to be the hardest person to sell on this.”
“You and Rory need to let go of your assumptions of each other,” Skye said as she let both Finn and the tense topic of his lost family drop. She padded past him, shedding the towel to trade it for clothes. Skye was really going to have to find time in all of the insanity that was their lives for more mundane matters, like replacing enough of her wardrobe so she had more than a handful of outfits to cycle through. Maybe she’d just have to order things from Amazon. Eventually, she found a loose sundress that didn’t get pulled up too high with the ever growing baby belly and tossed a loose cardigan on over that before she turned to face Finn.
“You two were once close enough that Rory challenged his father for you, Finn,” Skye pointed out, her gaze meeting his head on, “You slept in the same bed together for a week when Lee kicked you both out. Rory is trying so hard, Finn. He feels like he’s never, ever good enough - did you know that? This idea that strength is leadership is so ingrained in wolf shifter society that he’s really, really afraid that because you’re physically stronger that you’d be the better leader and then, what’s left for him to do? He’s wrong, of course, but I can tell him that he’s the best alpha we could have until I’m blue in the face but that’s not going to make him believe it.”
Skye brought her brush over to Finn and handed it to him before turning around. He braided her hair back enough times for bed that she didn’t even have to voice the request. She was too focused on trying to make him understand, “You’re each tense about being replaced, or supplanted, by each other and it’s ridiculous. You are vastly different people with vastly different roles in both our pack and our family. I think if you stop treating Chance and Rory like you think they’re only
just a bit more mature than Micah and Caleb, you’ll find them a lot easier to deal with. You don’t do that with Lee.”
“Lee doesn’t fight me on everything I say, or think that I’m just some stubborn old man.” Finn replied, brushing and plaiting her hair for her. “Initially he was upset that I had kept him in the dark but he cast a level of understanding neither of them have been willing to give.”
Finn finished the braid and then kissed her head. “It’s alright, I get it. Aiden is Rory’s father and no matter what he will see that I only exacerbated an already hard decision but I’ll try. I’ll try for you, Skye.”
And he’d try for Rory, too. Taking her advice to heart, Finn would do his best to make amends and make sure her mates were unified. Finn left Skye to do her business, the also expecting Betty coming to peek her head in on her eventually. They both were swelling, the clothing in the house was growing too tight for the both of them. Betty was the one who sighed and piled Skye into the SUV, grabbing the debit card from Chance because they both seriously needed girl time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After the two women had left, the remaining pack members were left to their normal routines. Chores were done, people left for work.
Finn, Lee and Chance walked together to the new house being built. The old building that the foreman had been so adamant would take weeks to bulldoze was nothing but rubble and they were subsequently working to clear it up and dig the new foundation.
“Well, looks like he was just busting your balls, Chance. Said tearing the house down would take six weeks. How long til it’s up?” Asked Finn, arms crossed as they watched the construction.
“It’s amazing what happens when you are willing to recklessly throw money at a problem until it goes away,” Chance commented with his usual dry humor. He wasn’t limping anymore but Lee had harassed him into a sling that held his left arm while the shoulder recovered. He waved his good hand towards where their house would sit at the end of what would be a street of large, nice homes, “June. Two months. I want it done by June first but it will probably stretch until mid month even if I was willing to throw our entire fortune at it. Before Skye’s parents arrive at midsummer, though, for certain.”
Chance knew she was stressed about that, and the fact that she hadn’t yet found a way to tell them about their impending title of grandparent. She’d feel more comfortable if they were settled and it was a less strange and ramshackle life that she introduced her family to although she hadn’t once complained. It was Chance’s job to know the things that their pack didn’t volunteer, especially when it came to their mate in particular.
“We won’t have the whole gated community done by then but in the next year or so. You’ll have to ask Lee how long it’s going to take him to decorate for when we can move in. I can go over all of the phases of construction but I manage to bore even Lee when I start in and he’s designed all of the homes and half of the storefronts. We’ll have your new clinic built closer to the downtown side of the property and then the current clinic gets replaced with more homes by the end of the summer if we stay on schedule.”
Finn grunted, his pleasure at the idea of a bigger clinic space was hidden.
“We’re really doing this then, taking over Belcrest and making it big enough to accommodate the big pack if we’re able to quell Aiden?” Asked Finn, but instead of waiting for an answer he kept talking. “When do you surmise that Rory will be ready for that? I mean, we’re no way ready in size but Aiden’ll-”
Rory interrupted Finn from behind. “I don’t think we should really be talking about that right now. Especially out in the open.”
They all turned to see Rory, who had been scarce the last few days, standing in a green shirt with his arms crossed.
“You never know if there’s prying ears around.” The way he said that hinted that Rory had suspicions. “Come on, you three, let’s take a walk.”
Even though Chance was still injured, Rory led them a good distance from the house and new building. They entered the tree line, the call of the woods around them made all of their beasts rise up in happiness.
“I have an idea…” Rory said quietly as he led them to a large boulder in the middle of a clearing. “We aren’t going to be big enough at this rate to take on Aiden, but he’s going to catch wind of us a lot faster than originally expected if Chance is right. If he’s a part of the council he’s going to end up making a beeline right for us.”
Rory placed his hand on the boulder, his fingers smoothing over its flat surface. “If we’re going to be able to withstand that we’re going to need to grow. How hard would it be to set up a network and attract more lone wolves?”
“Not impossible,” Chance replied as he was the one with the contacts. He glanced at Lee, tipping his head in mute question as he considered their options. “The difficulty is in weeding through the hopefuls. Some lone wolves are outcast for valid reasons; the sort of reasons that we wouldn’t want near our more fragile pack members or the pups. Or Skye, not as she gets heavier and the babes slow her down - no one tell her that I said that.”
Chance glanced around before he leaned his hip against the boulder, taking the weight from his sore knee. Healing at human speeds was obnoxious and he chafed under his injuries, “I can put out the call - I have the contacts and resources available for that - but I am stretched thin right now, Rory. I don’t feel like I could vet all the candidates and keep on top of everything else.”
He ruffled one hand through his hair, looking more harried than he would have let Finn see before. He, too, was trying, “I have a backlog of music to work on that I can’t get done until this shoulder heals fully. There’s the construction, the bookkeeping and making sure that everything keeps moving on the territory expansion. And then… there’s this.”
The dark haired beta flipped his good hand up, his fingers flexing as he summoned the ghost grey witchfire to his palm. It was only getting easier and easier and while Chance was very good at many things, teaching himself to control magic from what tomes he could get his hands on was really straining even his abilities. Chance watched it for a moment as it flickered in the palm of his hand before he closed his fist to snuff it out. “It’s getting stronger. I’d like to let Skye put her mark on my shoulder but I don’t actually know what it would do - to either of us.”
All three men watched Chance with wide eyes. Finn pointed out the obvious question, though.
“Well if you can do that can we expect Skye will have something similar happening?” Other than the obvious bonding together, of course. Rory glanced up for confirmation. “And that’s why we’re all here, Chance. You don’t have to do it all on your own.” Rory added to that. “Help us figure out how to help, Chance, get started with the network and Finn and I will vet candidates.”
Lee raised a hand, blinking. “I can handle the construction stuff. They are my designs and I know you want to have a heavy hand in it because of money, but it’s my money too, Chance. I can keep those guys in line.”
Finn’s eyes were on Rory’s then, something seemed left out especially with the way Rory was acting. “I think there’s more to why he brought us out here of all places?”
Rory nodded slowly, indicating the big rock.
“Can’t you smell it?” Rory turned toward the wood then, inhaling deeply.
“Micah said he thought he saw someone in the treeline this morning. I’ve been walking it for a few hours, I can smell… something. I can’t tell what it is, but somebody is trying hard to cover their tracks.” The smell of deer urine was a little too strong, almost like someone had deliberately dumped hunter’s scent mask to hide the scent of something else.
Chance turned his nose to the wind and then scrunched it up.
“Yeah, I do. Do you want me to shift and take a look around, Rory?” He offered, reaching up to where the sling held his arm tight to his body. “We should set out a light watch. Scott would be good at that. He’s solid and not going to make himsel
f or the pack more stressed with taking on that duty. He’s ready for more of a role in the pack, too, I think?”
Chance tipped his head to Finn then for confirmation. Finn had spent a lot of time helping the new pack members settle in and he knew them well at this point.
“Scott is an excellent tracker, and Caleb and Tim would be good to send with him. You can shift and take a look if you want, Chance, but with that shoulder I recommend that you just chill.” Finn said with clear instruction on the injury. “Unless you want the wolf to limp around.”
Rory nodded his agreement at the matter and looked at Chance. “Let’s round them up and get them on the trail, Chance let’s you and I go talk about the network. Lee, I want you to go with Scott and Caleb.”
It was a big responsibility but Lee wasn’t some lowly omega anymore.
Finn just made a face, a tight lipped smile. “I’m just going to go wait on the machine. It’s out for delivery today.”
Skye relaxed as they pulled into the parking lot in front of a mall. It had been a stressful time for the pack and, although things were finally starting to settle, there was still some lingering tension among her mates. Some days, Skye wasn’t sure things would ever be actually peaceful.
“Do you think they’re going to fight while I’m gone?” Skye asked Betty as she got out of her little car, smiling when the older woman snorted. Betty looked more like she was in her mid thirties than Skye did but she was closer to Rory’s two and a half centuries. Skye, who was actually thirty four, was still regularly carded. Betty had neat brown hair that she’d begun to grow out and kind hazel eyes. About Skye’s height, she was more curvy than her alpha, with generous hips, and she made the best pies that Skye had ever tasted.
Betty snorted, “Maybe. It’s pretty much a hobby among the dominant males but don’t you pay that any mind. They’ll sort it out once they’re done pissing on each other’s heads. By the time the pups come it’ll be all water under the bridge and they’ll be drinking beers and patting each other on the back like they did all the hard work of popping out a litter.”
