My tears fell heavy on Titus’s blanket, mixing with his own. I tried to soothe him, but he raged, his face screwed up, his tiny fists flailing. I didn’t blame him. His mother was bleeding out, and his father had most likely fallen to his death.
I couldn’t believe that.
Remembering Hannah, I slid on the blood-streaked floor to where she lay. Her eyes were half closed, and I didn’t think she was breathing anymore, but then her finger twitched. Her lips moved, and I leaned down to hear what she was saying. “Kiss.” Her word was a puff of air, but I held Titus to her lips, and she was able to brush a brief kiss on his cheek.
He continued to scream, and maybe that was okay, because her lips twitched into something of a smile. Her throat was still bleeding, and I began to rip apart Titus’s blankets, thinking to stem the wound.
Her hand stilled me. “Dying anyway,” she mouthed. “Have been for months.”
That smile again, then her eyes closed.
I sat there staring at her body, mourning her as I knew Nash would, as shouts echoed up the staircase. The Alpha had said the guards would be here soon. Maybe the pack. Who knew what had happened down there while we’d been up here. Was Dare okay? Vaughn? My pack? Despite the hole in my heart and a constant loop of images playing in my head of Nash going through that window, I had to rally. Protect Titus. That was my purpose now. My restlessness had driven me to finding the love of my life and his son.
Titus was quieter now, only sniffling, his little nose running. I wiped it best as I could then leaned down to listen to Hannah’s heartbeat. Nothing.
I dropped a kiss on her forehead, mourning what she’d gone through, but glad that she and Nash had each other, that he’d given her something for a brief time in her life to love.
Footsteps pounded up the stone stairs, and I rose to my feet, shifting into my Were form while holding the bundle in one arm. I’d fight holding him if I had to. No way were they getting to this child.
I braced for the onslaught.
A dozen Weres in their human form—none of whom I recognized and mostly female—poured into the room, then another dozen behind them. I backed up as far as I could against the windowless wall, glancing from side to side, not wanting any Weres behind me.
Except, they weren’t advancing even though they were armed. They filled the room, and Titus squirmed in the bundle, probably trying to see what was happening.
I waited for their attack, unsure how the hell I was going to take them all on at once. Maybe I could climb out the window, scale the wall to someplace safe. There had to be tunnels in this damn mountain. But there’d be more guards there, surely, and more outside…
“Bay!” boomed Vaughn’s voice.
He emerged, shirtless and barefoot, from behind the dozens of Weres in the room. His chest was covered in scratches and blood, his fists clenching and unclenching. He didn’t smile, just nodded grimly at me. “You can shift back.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I listened to him. He took in the room, namely the body of Hannah on the floor next to me. “Shit,” he muttered, then Titus let out a sound, and Vaughn’s entire body went tight as he stared at the bundle. “What the fuck?”
I pulled down a fold to show him Titus’s face. “Nash has a son.”
Vaughn’s jaw dropped, then his eyes quickly scanned the room. “Where is he?”
I pointed behind me, still unable to form words correctly. “He charged the Alpha, and they went… that way.”
Vaughn ran forward to peer over the edge, kicking a piece of broken glass. We watched as it fell slowly into the pit below. He finally lifted his head to face me. “Bay, I’m… I’m sorry—”
I shook my head. “I can’t do this now. I have Titus and—” I looked around us. “What’s going on here?”
Vaughn gestured behind him. “These are the remaining members of the Shorttail Were pack. This is the pack that lives here. Once they realized that we were here to fight the guards, they joined in. Apparently they’ve been trying to rebel for years.”
One of them stepped forward, a female with bronze skin and curly black hair. “This is our home. It was before the Alpha came, and it will be once again.”
I couldn’t really comprehend what was going on. Half my mind was on her, the other half was wondering if I could hand Titus off to Vaughn and fucking scale the wall my damn self to get to Nash. He had to be down there…somewhere.
I nodded at the woman, the only real response I was able to make, then looked helplessly at Vaughn. “I know Nash isn’t dead. I just know it. What if he’s down there and needs us?”
Vaughn blew out a breath. “Bay. My man. What’re you going to do? Climb down there?”
“We have equipment!”
“Fuck, Bay, there’s a pit of Noweres down there!”
I didn’t know how to answer, and I thought I was going to break apart, right there in front of these strange Weres who probably thought I was cracked. I was cracked.
“I can’t, Vaughn,” I whispered. “I just… can’t leave.”
Vaughn’s face fell, and he tugged me to his chest, the baby between us as he held me. “Then we’ll stay. As long as we need to, we’ll stay.”
There were sounds around us, the footsteps of Weres leaving, murmurs over Hannah’s body, and someone grunting under the weight as they carried her out.
I stayed in Vaughn’s arms with my eyes closed, wondering how the hell I was going to go on.
Why Nash? What had he done in his life to deserve this? He was meant to live, spend time with his son, and be my mate. Until we were old and gray.
He held me for a long time, longer enough that my legs cramped, that I nearly fell asleep on my feet. But still, we stayed.
A scraping sound drew my attention, and at first, I thought I was hearing things, delirious from exhaustion and hunger. Then I heard what I swore was a low moan. I whirled around, rushing to the edge of the window just as a claw-tipped hand rose up over the side.
“Holy shit!” Vaughn was right beside me, and with my free hand and both of his, we hauled up a bloody, exhausted Nash, who fell amid the pile of broken glass and shifted back into his human form.
His blue eyes look directly into mine, and I was speechless, unsure how to make sense of it all, how Nash was able to come back from the dead time and time again, but he was here, breathing and alive.
His lips tipped up. “Glad I got some experience climbing earlier. Decided I got shit to do, and dying wasn’t one of them. Not yet.”
I crashed my lips into his. Titus was lifted from my arms by a helpful Vaughn, and then I curled up on the floor, right there next to Nash, ignoring the broken glass and the blood and everything else. Because Nash had made it. He’d crawled to me, hand over foot, and I wasn’t sure I deserved it.
“I was going to go on,” I said, my voice muffled against his neck. “For Titus, I was going to. But I want you to know I didn’t want to.”
“I knew you would.” He rubbed my back, his hand warm as it slipped down my spine.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I’ll catch you up quick on what happened while you were spending a little free time rock climbing.” Vaughn cleared his throat. “Alpha is Nowere food. Guards are all dead. Dare went to get G and his crew. The Shorttail pack has been trying to overthrow the Blanks for years, and are happy to turn this compound back into something that isn’t a hellhole. Got it?”
Nash blinked at him. “Wow, really?”
“We did it.” I grinned at him. “We really did it.”
“I fell into the pit. Thought I was going to die there, then decided I kinda missed you and I wanted to hold my son, so I healed as best as I could and crawled by way out.”
I didn’t have words for how proud I was of him, and how far he’d come, to the listless Were I’d found in the hut on the Whitethroat compound to the strong alpha who climbed out of a fucking pit to get back to us.
“I took one look at that baby, and—” He glanced around for Titus, and Vaughn handed
him the bundle. Nash sat up with a wince, and despite the jostling, Titus was asleep, his little thumb in his mouth. Nash ran his hand over the boy’s fuzzy blond hair, down his cheek. Then he glanced back up at me. “You told me I could be yours until I could be mine again?”
I rose onto my knees. “Yeah.”
“There’s a lot of me.” He swallowed, and tears tracked through the dirt and blood on his face, the dust from the rock he’d climbed. “There’s enough for you and Titus and for me too. It took me a long time to be able to say that, but now I can.”
I kissed him again, Titus pressed between us. And it wasn’t until Vaughn yelled at us to break it up, that I pulled back and got a good look at Nash’s injuries. “Shit, you need more time to heal.” I stood up and walked around him. “Goddamn it, Nash! You should see your back.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to break up your reunion.” Vaughn scratched the back of his neck. “But my man’s got whole chunks of flesh missing.”
I took the baby and helped Nash up. As I did, the wounds in his back reopened, seeping blood. “Fuck,” I said. “We gotta get you some help.”
His face was white with pain, even though his expression didn’t change. “Think the Shorttail will let us stay a bit?”
“Their alpha seems reasonable,” Vaughn said.
He nodded, and then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he crashed to the ground.
Nash didn’t regain consciousness when we took him to the Shorttail’s infirmary, but he was breathing, and his pulse was fine. The Shorttail pack healer said his body was using all his energy to get better. So we waited.
During the days and nights he was recovering, I got to know the Shorttail a bit better, especially their alpha, Cora. The Alpha and his guards had showed up at their gates when she was a novus. The Shorttail were without a leader at the time, and listened to the Alpha’s promises of a strong pack. Only he didn’t fulfill any promises, instead using their resources to take in prisoners. Once the Shorttail knew what was happening, the Alpha had fortified his place in the mountain. After several failed Shorttail uprisings—lead by Cora once she was older—the Alpha delivered brutal consequences. He killed half their males, including Cora’s younger brother, and took a quarter of their females as mates for his guards. And he threatened to do it again, and worse, if they thought to rise up in the future.
Their numbers depleted and morale low, Cora wasn’t able to try again. Until we showed up.
Cora’s mate was a petite female with skin darker than Cora’s, who immediately helped with Titus, finding him food and clothes. Ree offered to care for him while the Silver Tip helped the Shorttail clean and reorganize their compound, but I couldn’t bear to be separated from the little guy. He could sit up on his own and scooted on his butt to reach things he wanted. He smiled a lot and laughed.
Ree helped fashion a sling for him, and so he remained strapped to my chest while I worked. He narrated my movements with babbles, and I found myself kissing the top of his downy head often.
Dare loved to hold him against his chest with one large hand while he talked to Cora about things like the best placement for crops. I was already calling my brother Uncle Dare, which I thought would annoy him, but instead made him smile softly.
It’d been two days since Nash collapsed in the Alpha’s room. In that time, we’d taken care of the bodies of the dead and had begun rehabilitating the prisoners. Many of them hadn’t seen daylight for years. They were disoriented, malnourished, and most were injured or permanently disfigured. The Shorttail had mostly never encountered the prisoners, that was the work of the Alpha and the guards, but they had run the rest of the compound, cooking and repairing infrastructure and serving the Alpha’s men.
They were horrified to see the condition of some of the prisoners, and many broke down in sobs at the sight of them.
It was hard on everyone, but we were determined to help the Shorttail get back on their feet. Cora was a strong leader, and her pack listened to her.
I sat on the grass during a break in the work, munching on some crackers with Titus. He was trying to crawl, rocking on all fours the way babies do when they are testing their strength.
Vaughn sank down beside me, making faces at Titus, who laughed and held out his arms to be picked up. Vaughn was the entertainment, the one who made Titus giggle, the one who tickled him, the one who got him riled up before naptime.
“How’s Nash?” he asked while rolling a squealing Titus around in his lap.
“He hasn’t woken up yet. I planned to take Titus over there to visit before his nap.”
“What do you do when you’re with him?”
“Talk to him. Touch him. I don’t know if he hears me or feels me, but if he does, I can’t risk him thinking he’s alone or that I left him.”
Vaughn’s movements slowed, and he cuddled Titus to his chest. “That’s good of you.” He seemed to choose his words carefully, and when he lifted his head, he didn’t make eye contact, instead squinting into the distance.
“You want to mate?” I motioned to Titus. “Have your own?”
I thought he’d laugh, blow me off, tell me that he liked being free, but instead he just shrugged. “Maybe.”
Well, that was new. “Have someone in mind?”
This time he did laugh, but it was bitter. “I always have, but it’s not a thing that’ll happen, so…” He grinned at me then, but it was forced and a little pained. “Maybe I’ll meet a Shorttail, huh? Make the most of my time here.”
“Can you not leave broken hearts in your wake when we leave?”
He gasped. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. Keep that smile and charm under wraps.”
“Are you complimenting me?”
“Shut up,” I muttered.
He laughed, a real one, then handed Titus to me before standing up and dusting off his hands. “Don’t worry about me. We’ll be back home soon and life will go on.”
“Yeah.” I swiped a bit of dirt off Titus’s cheek. Life had better go on. “I’m going to go visit Nash. Let Dare know, all right?”
“Sure thing.”
I tucked Titus into my sling and headed toward the small house along the south wall where Nash was recovering. We kept him in a separate place from the prisoners, so as not to confuse them with my constant visits.
I opened the door, singing softly to Titus, and then closed it behind me. Still singing, I sat down on the chair beside Nash’s bed and pressed a kiss to Titus’s head. “Want to snuggle with your dad?”
I turned to Nash, and bright blue eyes met my gaze.
For a moment I didn’t speak, stunned to see him staring at me, then his lips tilted into a smile, and he raised a hand and brushed his finger along my lips. “Bay.”
My heart nearly burst. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, squeezing tight, Titus happily babbling in the sling between us. “I’m tired of you scaring the shit out of me,” I said. “How many damn lives do you have?”
His laugh was hoarse. “I don’t know, but I’ve sure used a lot so I better be careful from here on out.”
I gripped his face. “When we get home, I’m locking you in our room with Titus. You will stay there, and get fat on good food and…” I glanced down at the baby. “F-U-C-K me twice a day. That’ll be your job, and you’ll never put yourself in danger again. That is a command.”
“Oh, you command it, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Then I command you also get fat, and F-U-C-K me. And also get on your knees a lot.”
“Deal.”
“Done.”
“I fucking love you, Nash.”
“Love you too, Bay.”
Chapter Twenty
We sent two members of our pack home to report back on what happened, and the rest of us stayed another three days with the Shorttail. Nash had mostly healed, but he insisted on visiting the prisoners, talking to them, and helping the Shorttail clear out every trace of the Alpha and his guards.
Aft
er ensuring the mountain was empty except for the Nowere pit, we sealed it up. Cora said they wanted no part of what was in there. The rooms where they tortured Nash, where they developed the chemicals they injected into him with crude needles. The cells. A stone door that the Alpha had rarely used was pulled across the opening, and every prisoner who had the vocal ability cheered.
Nash hugged me with Titus strapped to his chest in his sling. My mate was changed, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Dare glanced at him often, a serene smile on his face, and even Vaughn, who’d treaded around Nash carefully up to this point, teased him just like he did everyone else.
When Nash looked at me now, it wasn’t with fear that I’d disappear, it was with a quiet contentment that we were together.
He’d requested to see Hannah’s body, and he’d taken a quiet moment with her and Titus. He’d told me he was surprised he and Hannah had conceived—he believed it must have happened right before he’d been unable to perform anymore.
It seemed likely that he’d been kicked out by the Blanks so that he wouldn’t try to protect his child. Nash’s instinct for his son would have been too great to control, so they’d sent him away. We didn’t speak about what the Alpha would have done to Titus, because the idea of this baby being put through what Nash and the other Weres had suffered was inconceivable. It didn’t matter now. Titus was safe and the Alpha was dead.
The night before we planned to leave, we sat around flickering candles on a long table set in the grass. Nash and the other prisoners liked eating under the open stars, even though a few could only take the outdoors in small doses. We ate a meal of game that Nash and some of the pack had hunted for us. Cora sat with one of Ree’s legs thrown over her thighs, a possessive hand around the back of her neck.
“So where did the Alpha and his pack come from?” I asked. “Nash always called them Blanks.”
“That’s what we grew up calling them,” Cora said after a long draw from her water cup. “My guess is the Alpha was cast out, picked up other outcasts along the way to form his guard, and then started on this mission, a one-track focus on learning who was immune and why.”
Chasing Destiny (Silver Tip Pack Book 2) Page 18
