Gammon was still on the phone sputtering with rage when she entered the office a few minutes later. From his side of the conversation she knew William had located someone who knew Julie and they were headed this way. The problem was they were not coming alone. William was bringing not one Alpha but two feuding Alpha’s, another male, and possibly one other. Possibly a child or young male she wasn’t sure and at the moment she did not care. When Gammon glanced and saw her in the doorway his rant slowly came to a halt as he stared at her. When she smiled at him he hung up on William. William wasn’t stupid, he would wait a couple hours before calling back.
The outfit was new, Gammon’s favorite color, and sheer. She had no doubts at all she could calm him down and put a smile on his face. He would be more receptive to whatever new hell William was bringing their way in an hour or two. When she twirled around and darted down the hall to the bedroom Gammon was right on her heels. By the time they reached the bedroom her arms were wrapped around his neck. By the time they reached the bed, her legs were wrapped around his waist.
…
Two hours later, when the phone rang again, it was William, and Gammon was in a much better mood to deal with the situation.
“So they called the number and a child answered. That child gave the number to his Alpha who is as anti-social as me. Now really William, I am not at all anti-social. I just have a low tolerance for idiots and bull-shit and most people fall into one of the two categories. If they are not an idiot they have honed the craft of shoveling bullshit and I have no time for dealing with either.”
Mia could still only hear one side of the conversation but she knew her mate was giving as good as he was getting from his words and the expressions crossing his face. She wished, not for the first time, that she could hear both sides of the conversation. The only option available was for Gammon to open their link and let her hear what he was hearing. Neither of them agreed with such tactics in situations like this one. Private conversations, regardless of whether or not he would later repeat them to her, were private.
“You are the shifter version of a politician, of course you can shovel the bullshit better than the rest. Are you telling me no one on the High Council even knows this other Alpha? You want to bring an Alpha into my territory no one here knows anything about? William, I don’t know Trevor so telling me Trevor can vouch for him even though they are feuding isn’t a high recommendation. This Edward character has never met Julie, neither has Trevor. Tell you what, why don’t you meet them, you get Trevor to vouch for the one who actually knows Julie, and you bring that guy with you. Come alone. I will have Dimitri meet you at the hotel and bring you and this other feller back to my office.”
Mia bit her bottom lip as she watched the color rise in Gammon’s face. He didn’t play games when it came to the safety of his territory. If William was not careful none of them would make it back alive. Whatever William was saying now had set Gammon’s back up again.
“Fine, you get that guy and the little boy and bring them. Leave the two feuding Alpha’s at the hotel. Maysia and her bunch will take good care of them while they are there.”
“No William. If you want this guy to come, and you bring him yourself, and if he wants his son with him, I will allow them to come, escorted by Dimitri. But you are not, I repeat, not bringing two feuding Alpha’s to my territory. Why do they even feel the need to come into my territory? If Trevor vouches to you concerning Edward and Edward then vouches for this other feller and the little boy, why in the hell do either Alpha need to come. Leave them at the airport.”
Gammon listened another minute before hanging up the phone. Scrubbing his hand across his face he turned to Mia. “Seems my reputation has reached Australia.”
“Darling, did you hang up on William again?”
“No, sweetheart, he had his say then he took the coward’s way out and hung up me.”
Mia giggled, “Why is it when they hang up on you they are taking the coward’s way out but when you hang up on someone you are not?”
When Gammon rounded the corner of the desk Mia jumped up with a squeal. Laughing she took off down the hall. “I was teasing baby I swear.”
When he caught her and swung her up in his arms he growled, “You know exactly why it isn’t the same.”
“I know, I know, I was teasing. Don’t tickle me baby. No, please, I was teasing. I love you.” Mia could not contain her giggles as Gammon ran his fingers across her ribs.
Gammon boosted her a little higher in his arms bringing her lips even with his. As he lowered his lips to hers he whispered, “I love you more than you can ever imagine. You brought sunshine into my life when I believed I would never have sunshine again. Thank you for being the other half of my soul.” With that he kissed her. The persistent knocking on the front door recalled him to the issue at hand and he lowered Mia down, sliding her the length of his body before releasing her.
“We have to let Dimitri and Nikita inside. Come on, you unlock the door and let them in and I will grab us some beer. Bring them into the living room. We can talk as well there as the office. I need to bring them up to speed on this latest cluster fuck William is dumping in my lap. Willow should be with them, best I bring them all up to speed at the same time.
Chapter Ten
“Willow, you said if something happened or we needed you to call. I think you should come over. Something has happened.”
Allison had no clue what she should do about her suspicion but she knew Kate was too far away and frankly not mature enough to help her. From what Willow had told her yesterday she had a couple of hundred years under her belt and had been helping females for several decades. She had some formal training in abuse and counseling also. Allison needed to see Gammon and tell him what she suspected. As the thought crossed through her mind she realized Gammon and the others must already suspect something otherwise why keep the one female away.
While she waited for Willow to show up Allison tried to think of any reason the others would try to keep two females apart who were so obviously related. She watched Julie hugging her stuffed bear and rocking and wondered what it would mean for her if the other female was related. Would she be able to turn to the other female? Would they get along? Would the other female have the patience needed with Julie or would she make it worse? Scenario after scenario played through Allison’s head as she waited on Willow. By the time she heard someone knock on the door she had come up with some pretty outlandish reasons the pack would keep the two females apart. She hoped Willow could shed some light on the situation.
When she opened the door she looked over toward where the confrontation had happened earlier. She didn’t see anyone over there now. The other female was gone and both wolves were also. Leaning out further she saw one wolf was again on the porch of the other house watching her. Putting up her fist she put her thumb up letting him know she appreciated him watching out for them. Even though she still had no idea why they would do that. Grabbing Willow she dragged her into the house and locked the door behind them.
“Okay Allison, what happened.” Willow had seen Julie sitting on the couch with what appeared to be no change in her actions from what she had been doing. Julie did not acknowledge her when she sat down.
“Well, a bit ago I was on the phone with Kate and I saw a couple out there, with a female. They seemed to be protecting this house from that female and I want to know why. She is the unmated female Julie may choose to live with but the situation is tricky if I had to make a guess.”
Willow’s eyes widened, “How did you know? Did she say something to you? Did she approach the house? Did she,?” Willow stopped talking and looked at Julie. As she tilted her head toward the door she asked Allison, “Would you like to see if it is snowing again?”
Allison glanced at Julie before she got up and walked to the door. She took the time to bundle up better against the weather than she had done previously. The wind and snow was not like she was accustomed to at all. She was familiar en
ough with snow having come from Colorado, but not the kind of biting cold of this state.
As the two women walked around the house trying to find a break from the wind Willow asked, “What happened? I mean, you knew we were protecting this house from another female, but something more must have happened. Seeing something you already knew was occurring would not have been reason enough to call me and tell me something had happened.”
“Let me ask you a question first. Have you ever seen that other female half starved with short hair?”
“No. She was sixteen when she came here and for all that she had been a prisoner, chained in a basement for years she was well fed and her hair was long. The couple who imprisoned her spent a lot of time with her, at least the female did. They planned for her to be their daughter-by-mating and she was being groomed to be a beloved member of the family by the mother. Why do you ask?”
“You have seen Julie. We were well fed at the prison but Julie didn’t eat much. After Kate realized Julie was not going to be able to care for her hair she took over the grooming of it, or tried to. Having someone behind her doing anything to her head would start the screaming. But the thing is, the screams were silent screams. We thought she was a mute for the longest time. Kate couldn’t handle watching the silent torturous screams, no one could. So Kate finally managed to get Julie’s hair cut short. You see, when Julie came to the prison eight months ago she looked like the lady I saw today. No one could mistake them for anyone but sisters. They may look nothing alike now, but let Julie gain the weight back and grow her hair out and not one person seeing the two of them, even apart, would doubt who they are to each other. Now I think it is time you started talking and telling me what is going on. Who is that lady and why don’t you want her around Julie? Seems to me she might be the best person to have around Julie.”
Willow drew a deep breath before she turned to face Allison. “I thought so at first myself. But you see, we don’t know what Julie has been through but we do know some of what Trisah has been through. She watched her family die. Mother, father and baby sister all died in front of her. Now it seems the sister may not have died, what does that mean about the parents. Did the three of them survive and make a new life without her? Did they think she was dead? Will she feel she abandoned them or they abandoned her? We don’t know what happened to separate the two and we are trying not to cause either of them to regress. What if we are wrong and they are just close cousins in the family tree but unknown to each other? They haven’t seen each other since Trisah was eleven if they are sisters. That is over a decade ago. If we introduce them and lead them to believe, based on our guesses they are sisters, and then we find out they are not, will they feel they lost their families all over again? You see Allison, we have to explore all options before we can proceed. Both of their mental and emotional states are at state. Both of them have lived through traumatic events and we have to protect both of them, even if it means we are for the moment protecting them from themselves.”
“I see. And the phone number? The guys coming from Australia? Where do they fit into this puzzle?”
“Well that is a bit more complicated. Marcus’ guys found out who the number belonged to and the guy is headed this way. It will be a few days before they get here though. Also, we aren’t real sure how that situation is going to play out. Seems the number belonged to a guy named Dennis. Ever heard Julie say that name before?”
“No. No one has ever heard Julie speak until we were rescued. I mean, other than some words uttered in her sleep. Those were mostly just incoherent mutterings though, so, not helpful.”
“Okay, well this guy Dennis claims to know Julie and that is her name by the way. But Dennis belongs to a pack not known for getting along well with others. His Alpha is the one who they called next. His Alpha, Edward, then called Trevor and asked Trevor to help him get his guy here. That is the short version. The longer version involves a High Council member and Gammon’s refusal to have two feuding Alphas in his territory. At this point no one knows what will happen next. A lot will depend on what William finds out about these two strangers when they land in the States. Dennis has a son, a little boy, he is bringing him along. Confusing yes?”
“Yes. So basically no one knows anything yet except the number did lead to someone who knows Julie.”
Willow nodded her head, “You got it in one. Until they land in the States and High Councilman William meets with them we can’t move on any of the information we have. We must know what Dennis knows about Julie before we can decide what to do about her and Trisah. We can’t afford a setback at this stage. I told Gammon about the I have a mountain too comment. Still in the dark about that also. It is a waiting game.”
“Wow. Who knew getting rescued would bring such uncertainty and so many questions.” Allison shivered before continuing, “I am starting to freeze. We might as well go back inside. Wait, does this Trisah person have any idea of why she isn’t allowed around Julie? Does she know anything at all?”
“Nope. We are so far fobbing her off and carefully not mentioning Julie’s name. She was not around to see the two of you come in and everyone in the pack who could say anything, who knows anything, has been sworn to secrecy. Trisah is part of the pack which means everyone wants what is best for her. Julie is an unknown and although they want what is best for her, they do not want it at the expense of one of their own. They are content enough for the moment to let Trisah think you are the only female rescued and brought here.”
“I see. So what you are carefully not saying is you would like me to keep Julie inside and out of sight?”
“I would like it if you could. But you have to understand if Julie at any point seems to want to go out, we will let her. We also won’t sacrifice Julie for the sake of another. We will not let her think for one moment she is a prisoner in any way. We are walking a fine line here and I for one will be glad when those guys get here from Australia.
Chapter Eleven
As the two women headed outside neither heard as Julie whispered for the third time, “I have a mountain too.” She resumed rocking. Her screams were silent in her head. She tried to communicate with the others, but each time her body would freeze up on her, her tongue stilled against words. Lately she had been able to remember a number. She could not think who it belonged to but she knew the person would help her. If she could just get to him he would protect her. Almost she could see him in her mind. She could see the picture of him and another, a mountain of a man. But the fragments of memories never stayed long enough for her to help anyone to figure things out. She remembered the bat coming down and she had bits and pieces of memory before that of her life. Mostly though she couldn’t remember anything from before. But she remembered a mountain of a man, the Alpha of this pack made her think of him. Before she saw him she couldn’t remember much of anything except the need for silence, screaming, blood, and the bat coming down.
Since that fateful day eight months ago she had slowly recalled bits of her life from before she was captured. Most of the images came so fleetingly she couldn’t recall them even as they flitted through her mind. She had tried so many times to say something to Kate, Allison, even to Dawn. But each time a frantic whisper in her mind told her to be quiet. Sometimes she could almost remember who the voice belonged to, but the memory escaped her.
The day they were rescued, and she saw Gammon, she thought her mountain had come to save her. But he was not the man from the picture. She didn’t even remember who the man from the picture was, not either man. But she knew the number would save her. If she could just call the number. But she couldn’t. Her hands would not reach for the phone. She had to be quiet or they would come for her. They would find her and this time they would kill her. When she first got the words out, I have a mountain, too, she just knew she had overcome her body freezing up each time she tried to talk. She thought she had finally beaten her mind and willed herself to come out of the silent shell. She was wrong.
Just lik
e when she started repeating the number. Nothing had changed. She could whisper the number, she had but now she couldn’t. Almost as if her mind knew someone else was taking care of it so she didn’t need to be able to tell anyone the number anymore. And now this mountain sentence. She wasn’t even sure what it meant or why she was able to say it. Three times now she had gotten the words out. But nothing would follow those words.
If she could tell someone the number would call her protector maybe they would act faster. But it had been three days now since she was able to say the number for the first time. Maybe her ability to talk would come back a sentence or a fragment of a sentence at a time.
The others were careful about what they said around her, mostly. But sometimes they weren’t. She knew they had figured out the number was a phone number and they were working to find out who it belonged to, or she thought they were. She wished she could ask someone if they had found out anything. She thought maybe whoever the number belonged to would know more about her. Maybe they would know about her past. She knew the phone number would lead her mountain to rescue her. She just didn’t know if the number belonged to her mountain. She wished she could remember his name. Considering she couldn’t remember her own name remembering someone else would have been an achievement. Julie sounded right, felt right when everyone called her name. She was wearing a necklace with the name Julie on it when she woke up at the prison. Kate told her that must be her name, she didn’t know for sure though.
Julie Page 6
