by R. E. Butler
* * * * *
Bliss watched her best friend leave with her mates as she sat at the table with her own. When Whisper had asked if she’d called her parents, she’d felt guilty. Here Whisper had her whole life turned upside down but hadn’t hesitated to share the news with Mack. Bliss was lucky enough to find her mates but was scared shitless to call her parents. They’d been strict when she’d been growing up, not allowing her as much freedom as other kids her age enjoyed. Whisper’s life had seemed idyllic in many ways, because she had Kross and Kayne looking out for her, so Mack had let her do more things, knowing that she was taken care of. Bliss had been envious of Whisper’s freedom, the late-night hunting, the midnight movies, playing music at the bar. Even if she’d been able to shift, Bliss was sure her parents wouldn’t have let her go hunting without an adult around, which was the most normal thing that teenage wolves could do.
Rome turned her face gently with his fingers on her chin. A frown marred his handsome face. “What’s troubling you?”
“I should call my parents.” A hard knot settled in her stomach.
Link made a short, growling sound. “If it makes you uncomfortable, then we’ll wait.”
Twisting her hands together under the table, she felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. “I don’t want you to think that I’m ashamed of us.”
Memphis, who had moved to sit across from her, reached his hand out. She immediately gripped it, feeling like he was a lifeline. “We know you’re not, baby, but we also know that it’s not normal for wolves to enter into a polyandrous mating. It will take your family time to come to terms with what’s happened between us, and that’s okay. We’ve got nothing but time when it comes to you.”
His caramel eyes shone with truth and she shivered under the weight of them.
Rome said, “Let’s go back to the cabin; we’ve got a morning hike with our names on it.”
Link pulled her chair out and held her hand as she stood. They walked out together, the three of them surrounding her as they moved down the path and towards the cabin they shared. Their first night had been incredible, as they held her between them and only kissed her, until she thought her body would combust from unfulfilled lust. But it seemed that they weren’t going to actually make love with her until they were home, and that meant going to Ocean City, Maryland, where their baro was.
Once they reached the cabin, Link lifted her into his arms as easily as if she weighed nothing and carried her inside. She wanted to say a lot of things to them. To ask them if they worried about what the future would bring, if they were concerned about their family liking her or her family rejecting them, which she was almost certain they would. But in Link’s strong arms, with the bed in sight and Rome and Memphis nearby, she decided to push all those thoughts away until later. For now, all she needed was here in this small cabin. The world could fall away and she wouldn’t care, as long as they were together.
Chapter 10
Azrael held Whisper’s hand as she sat between him and Fade on the couch in the cabin, waiting for her biological brothers to join them. The lab had contacted Memphis, and he had asked to call back for the results when they were all together. The last two days had sped by quickly and had been amazing, as they learned about their mate and she spent time with her newfound family. But now, sitting here in the late afternoon with her cold hand squeezing his tightly, he felt his own nerves kicking up.
The night before, as they’d lay in bed kissing and holding each other, she’d shared that she was worried about the test results.
“It’s like that cat in the box,” she said, twining her fingers with Az’s as they stretched out together on the mattress.
“The what in the what?” Nyte asked with an amused smile.
“You know, Schrödinger or whatever his name was? Until you open the box, the cat is both dead and alive. I feel like that.”
Fade straightened from where he’d been leaning across her legs and kissing her stomach. “You feel dead and alive?”
She laughed. “No, not exactly. But until the lab calls, then I’m both related to Memphis and his clan and not related to them. Does that make sense?”
“Not in the slightest,” Nyte said, and she slapped his shoulder with a chuckle.
“Be nice to me. I’m being traumatized as we speak.”
Az tipped her chin towards him, and she gazed at him with eyes filled with both happiness and wariness. Through their connection as mates, he could feel her worry, and he wished he could bear all of it for her. “Until you know the truth, the truth could be anything, right?”
“Exactly.” She picked up his hand and kissed his palm. “Tomorrow I’ll find out if I’ve actually stumbled onto my real family. Well, not real, but biological. And then that’s a whole bunch of cans of worms that will explode all over us.”
“How so?” Fade asked.
“We said we’d only spend two days in Ocean City if they’re my family, but they’re not going to be satisfied with that. They haven’t seen me for over twenty years; a couple of days isn’t enough. Even if we promise to come back after our mating, your lives are in Dalton.”
“Are you angry that we live in Kentucky?” Nyte asked cautiously.
“What? No, of course not. I just already feel pulled in different directions, and I don’t think it’s supposed to be this way. We should be going to your home and getting to know each other and mating, not driving to two different states first.”
Fade gave a low, slow growl. “So anxious to be our mate?”
The light, sweet scent of her arousal spiked in the air. “Tell me about it, about the ceremony.”
Nyte started to talk about the mating ceremony, but just as quickly as he’d begun, he slipped into the talk of their mating time, where they’d spend twenty-four hours shut up with their mate, making love in every possible way. The scent of her arousal intensified, and Az found it difficult to think of anything but stripping her clothes from her and starting their mating night. But Nyte’s cooler head prevailed, and although Whisper didn’t seem to really understand why they couldn’t just make love and be mated the way that wolves did, she accepted it. Eventually they stopped talking about what it would be like to make love together for the first time and drifted off to sleep. It wasn’t the first time since he’d met his beautiful mate that his dreams had been filled with thoughts of her and their future together.
There was a knock at the door, and it drew him back to the present, as Whisper’s hand squeezed his just a little tighter. He could hear her heart beating rapidly. Memphis and his clan, including Bliss, came into the cabin, followed by Kross and Kayne. Memphis cleared his throat and lifted his cell from his pocket, dialing and then turning on the speakerphone.
A woman answered from the lab, and Memphis identified himself.
“Thank you for calling back, Mr. Gable. I have your results.”
Whisper took in a breath and held it, her whole body trembling.
“We’re ready,” Memphis said.
“We tested the samples provided by yourself, your brothers, and Miss Callahan. All of you, including Miss Callahan, share the same mother, and Lincoln shares the same father as Miss Callahan. The results are 99.9% accurate, which means you are siblings. I’m emailing the results to the address provided. Is there anything else that we can assist you with today?”
“No, thank you,” Memphis said, his voice growing thick.
Whisper stood slowly, releasing Az’s hand. She crossed to her brothers as Bliss, Kross, and Kayne stepped aside.
“All these years,” Whisper said softly, “I wondered about where I came from, who my family really was. You were all so close, just hours from me.”
Memphis swallowed audibly and said, “We’re here now, little sister.”
There was only a moment, just a bare fraction of time, before Whisper fell into their arms, and they surrounded her. Az and his brothers watched their mate as she wept and was comforted by her birth family.
H
e glanced at his own brothers. He didn’t know what his life would have been like if they’d been raised apart, but he knew that his best friends were beside him right now. Whisper hadn’t had that at all, and although she’d been raised with Kross and Kayne, who clearly cared for her as if she were their natural sister, blood-family was different, and Whisper was stolen from that.
As Az watched his mate be comforted by her biological brothers, he realized that their future, that had seemed so clear to him hours earlier, just got murky.
* * * * *
Whisper couldn’t stop crying. After two days of waiting for the test results, she thought she was prepared for the news either way, but the reality was much more intense. She was standing in the presence of her biological family. Brothers who had worried about her since she’d been taken. And somewhere in Ocean City, her four parents were still wondering what had become of their only daughter.
She chose not to accept the guilty feelings that still wanted to make themselves known. Her mates were right: it wasn’t her fault that she’d been kidnapped and she was fortunate to have found such a loving home with Mack, so guilt had no room in her life.
Turning from her brothers’ embrace, she held out her hands, and her mates, her best friend, and her wolf brothers joined them. She stood in the center of a circle of people who had been mostly strangers before the gathering.
Touching Kross and Kayne, she placed her hands over their hearts. “Brothers of my heart,” she said, smiling up at them, before moving to do the same to Memphis and her brothers, “Brothers of my blood.” She called Bliss her best friend and new sister, and kissed each of her mates in turn.
“I’m one lucky she-hyena to be surrounded by so many people who care about me, but I already was lucky. I’m so glad that we came here.”
“Me, too,” Rome said, bending to hug her once more before releasing her into the arms of her mates.
She knew what needed to come next and looked at Memphis. “It’s time to call our parents.”
* * * * *
Nyte stood behind Whisper as she watched her brothers set up a laptop and open their Skype account. Outside the cabin, the oldest brother, Memphis, talked to their parents on his cell, pacing back and forth across the dirt and grass in front of the porch. Although he couldn’t hear the words that were being spoken, he could hear the elation in their voices when he told them that their long-lost daughter had been found, alive and well, at the gathering.
Every now and then, Whisper’s whole body shook, and she sniffled. He hugged her more tightly, pressing her smaller form against his in an attempt to lend her his strength. Fade and Az stood next to them, and Bliss was outside with Memphis. The only ones missing were Kayne and Kross, who had opted to head back to their own cabin to begin packing.
Az moved in front of them and placed his hands on Whisper’s shoulders. In a low voice he said, “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
She shivered. “Yeah. It’s just weird to find out I’m related to a bunch of people I didn’t know existed. I spent all this time building up walls around my past so I didn’t have to wonder about what happened to me or where I came from. Meeting my brothers, hearing about the night I was taken, knowing that people were looking for me all these years and never gave up hope that I was still alive…it’s humbling and freaking scary at the same time.”
Az smiled. “I can imagine. Memphis has already introduced you, in a way, through the phone call. All you’re going to do now is just talk.”
Her head tilted back and rested against Nyte’s chest, but she said nothing else. Nyte could feel some of the tension leaving her body as Az massaged her shoulders and she rested against him. But she was still nervous.
Rome looked up at them and said, “We’re ready, sis.”
Nyte looked down at Whisper as she lifted her face to look at him. Her eyes were glossy with tears she’d yet to shed, her face flushed with emotion, and her bottom lip swollen from where she’d chewed on it. He kissed the tip of her nose and then released her, giving her a gentle push towards the couch. There was a space between Rome and Link on the couch, and Memphis walked into the cabin with Bliss, tucking his phone into his pocket. Memphis sat next to Link, and Bliss stood at the edge of the couch, holding Memphis’s hand. Rome patted the empty space, and Whisper walked slowly to the couch and sat down.
She was still trembling, and he admired the way she faced this head-on. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to meet family in the way that Whisper was, to have been raised entirely away from the hyena lifestyle and never know anything at all about the history of their people. She still had a lot to learn, but they had the rest of their lives after all, and no one expected her to know everything right away.
As Whisper sat down on the couch between her brothers, there was a collective gasp through the laptop’s speakers.
“It’s really you,” a woman’s voice said, one that sounded remarkably like Whisper’s.
“I, um, yes?” Whisper said, her voice growing thick. She sniffled and blinked hard, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Nyte put his hands on his brothers’ arms and stopped them from going to comfort her. It was her time with her family, and they weren’t going to interfere right now. When she needed them, she’d let them know, that much he was certain of.
One of her fathers said, “My name is Calvin, and I’m the eldest of our clan. These are my brothers, Oliver and Jonathan, and our shared mate, Lena. We’ve been looking for you for over twenty years, Savannah.”
There was a cleared throat, and Calvin said, “Oh, sorry… Whisper. Using your new name will take some getting used to; just give us some time.”
“It’s okay,” Whisper said. “I’m glad to meet you.”
Jonathan said, “Have you really been in Atlantic City all these years? I can’t believe we were so close, but it seems like a lifetime away.”
“I was. Did Memphis tell you where I was raised?”
Oliver said, “Yes. Someday we’d like to meet your adopted father and thank him, but in the meantime, tell us everything about yourself.” The eagerness of his voice made Nyte smile, and Whisper seemed to relax further, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees.
“Well, I love to sing and can play the piano. I actually teach piano at a music store in Beyton, and I sing with my brothers at my dad’s bar on the weekends.” Her face lit up as she began to talk about her current life in the pack. The pack was run much differently than a baro, with her adopted father running things in a dictatorship role, as opposed to the baro, which was more of a committee. In their home baro, the eldest brothers of each clan gathered to talk about issues related to the group as a whole, and made decisions collectively. Although Dante and his brothers had started the baro, Orion’s clan and Nyte’s clan shared in the responsibilities to ensure that the group was safe and well taken care of.
Nyte’s attention shifted back to his mate as she waved at them, motioning them over. Memphis’s clan moved away and they took their place, settling around Whisper. The hyenas on the screen smiled expectantly, and Whisper introduced both groups.
Her mother’s face was blotchy, her eyes red from crying. She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex. “I just can’t believe that we sent the boys to try to find a mate, and they found our little girl.” She gave them a watery smile. “Now we’ve got our daughter back, a new daughter-in-law, and three sons-in-law. It’s so nice to meet you — well, as much as we can actually meet over the internet.”
Calvin cleared his throat. “We understand that you’re going to bring, uh, Whisper, to Ocean City. On behalf of our baro, and especially our family, I’d like to extend an offer to you to stay in our home.”
Whisper looked at Nyte. “I told them we could only stay for two days because you have jobs to go back to and everything.”
Guilt tugged at him. Even though they wanted to mate with Whisper, rushing her away from her family seemed selfish.
Her parents drew her attention away from h
im, and he listened absently as they talked about the visit, as he wondered – not for the first time – if staying in Dalton was the best thing for their clan.
* * * * *
Fade lifted Whisper’s suitcase from the bed. “You pack light for a girl,” he teased.
She snorted. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or a complaint.”
He raised a brow at her. “I’m just wondering if you’re secretly a clothes-hoarder and were trying to come across to your mates as low-maintenance.”
She attempted to look innocent, but Fade wasn’t fooled. Even though they’d only known each other a few days, his little sweetheart was very easy to read. She wore her emotions on her face, and when she was attempting to look innocent, that’s when Fade knew she was being her most devious.
Snagging her around the waist with one arm, he pulled her close. “Are you harboring an overstuffed closet and dozens of shoes?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Her smile was both sweet and evil. He chuckled and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I can take it.”
Nyte came into the cabin and said, “If you two are done molesting each other, we’re ready to go check out.”
Fade glanced down, taking in Whisper’s beautiful face and pretty eyes. “Never be done,” he said in a low voice. “Not ever.”
Her eyes darkened, and she leaned against him, her breasts pressing against his chest and plumping with the motion. They hadn’t done anything but kiss. Although he loved the hell out of kissing her, he wanted more. Wanted to know what she tasted like, what she sounded like when she fell apart.
A growl seeped from her throat, and she pulled him down to her mouth, her fingers tangling in his hair and her tongue swiping against his lips. The suitcase hit the floor with a dull thud as Fade freed his hand so he could hold her properly. Opening his mouth with a groan, he tightened his hold on her lush curves as she sucked on his tongue and ground her lower body against him. His beast rolled under his skin, dying to know what she looked like completely naked, wanting to hold her skin-to-skin and bury himself inside her.
