by R. E. Butler
Her dads broke the door down and rushed inside to find the window wide open. A blanket had been tossed over the baby monitor so that they wouldn’t hear any noises. The room had been sprayed with heavy perfume that overpowered any other scents that might have identified who had taken her. The police were called immediately and the baro alerted. All the males began to search for her, and the females stayed with her mom and brothers, waiting and hoping that she’d be found quickly and returned. Hours turned to days, to weeks, and then years. But her family never lost hope that she was alive and well and would be found some day.
“I never, in my wildest dreams, expected that your brothers would find you at a gathering or that you would have been so close all these years.”
“Oh, Mom,” Whisper said, turning to her as tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Her mom faced her and cupped her cheeks with her warm hands. “What are you sorry for?”
“I waited. You worried about me all these years, and I was selfish and afraid.”
“Baby, baby,” she said in a soft, broken voice, “I wish you’d never been taken, but I am not sorry that you were raised by a caring male who protected you and loved you. I wished and prayed for so many things each night — that you’d be brought back to me, of course, but that if you weren’t brought back that you’d be safe from harm and loved. Put away the guilt. I’m sorry you were taken. I’m sorry that you were raised away from us and I missed out on so, so much. But I’m not sorry that you love your adopted dad and brothers and that they took such good care of you. We’re here now, Whisper, together, and that’s all that really matters to me.”
They hugged, and Whisper’s mom gripped her tightly and sobbed. When the tears were gone, they walked down the hallway, and her mom opened a door that had a plaque in the shape of a butterfly with the name ‘Savannah’ printed on it. The carpeting was a dark rose color, and the walls were painted pale pink with white stripes. Pink curtains, detailed with satin bows, covered two large windows that overlooked the front yard. A full-sized bed sat against one wall, a pink quilt on top, and a matching dresser, desk, and nightstand decorated the room.
Whisper walked into the room and turned around in a slow circle. Her mom chuckled slightly as she ran her fingertip over the footboard. “Do you like pink? I love it, but being in a house full of males, I don’t get much chance to use pink. When I found out I was having a girl, I was so thrilled. Jonathan said that your bedroom looked like someone had thrown up Pepto Bismol all over it.”
“I do. The room is so pretty and feminine. I would have been proud to have this room.”
She twisted her hands together and said, “I wanted to make sure that no matter when you came back to us, you knew I’d never forgotten about you or given up hope.”
Whisper looked out of the window. The street was lined with one and two story houses on small parcels of land. Nearly every house had a miniature lighthouse in the front yard. She would have grown up here. Ridden her bike on the wide sidewalks. Played with other hyenas. But then she would have never known Mack, Kross, or Kayne. Mack always told her that she’d saved him when she came to live with him. That if it weren’t for her becoming the light in his life, he wouldn’t have survived the loss of his mate. And who knows what would have happened to Kross and Kayne if they hadn’t been able to find refuge with Mack.
Whisper turned and leaned on the windowsill. “Did anyone ever speculate why you couldn’t find a trace of who took me?”
Her dad, Calvin, came into the room and put his arms around her mom. “I could feel how sad you are, love,” he said in a low voice, kissing her ear. He looked up at Whisper. “Your old bedroom faced the lagoon. The police believed that whoever took you used the lagoon as a mode of travel, possibly came on a small boat and paddled in and out of the lagoon before turning on an engine. What did your adopted dad say about it when you were brought to him?”
“Only that they knew I was a shifter but not what sort. Did I have a special blanket when I was a baby?”
“No,” her mom said. “You had a teddy bear that you really loved.” She gestured to a pink bear in the center of the bed.
“The only thing I had on me was a yellow baby blanket with an embroidered elephant on it.”
Her parents exchanged glances. “You were two when you were taken. How old were you when Mack took you in?”
“Four. Social Services thought I was two because I was so little, but the pack didn’t believe it. Then I shifted, and they knew they were right that I was older than the police thought. I hadn’t been physically abused that they could tell; I was just filthy and malnourished. I didn’t talk for a long time, and I didn’t know what my name was. That’s why they named me Whisper.”
Calvin said, “No one knows what happened to you during those two years?”
She shook her head.
Silence stretched between them. Her mom cleared her throat. “We’re glad you’re here now, honey. And that you’ve brought your mates with you. You must feel like your life is getting pulled in different directions.”
She laughed lightly. “Yeah.”
“Well, we’re not pulling. Wherever you decide to live, we’ll make sure that we stay in touch with phone calls and Skype and visits.”
She smiled. Mack had said something similar. Everyone seemed to assume that they were going to live in Kentucky, and maybe that was the case. She just hoped that Kentucky would feel as much like home to her as Beyton and Ocean City.
* * * * *
Whisper woke up the following morning sprawled over Fade’s body on the full-sized bed in the overly pink bedroom. Azrael was on the bed on his side, and Nyte was on a sleeping bag on the floor, having lost a game of rock, paper, scissors with Az for the rights to the comfy bed.
“Sleep well, sweetheart?” Fade’s voice rumbled pleasantly in her ear.
She lifted her head and smiled at him. “You’re very comfortable.”
He growled softly, almost purring. “You made parts of me uncomfortable, wiggling on top of me all night.”
She wiggled experimentally, and he groaned. Az sat up on his elbows and said, “This is weird.”
“How so?” Nyte asked as he got up off the floor and stretched, cracking his neck. “Because you two selfish bastards chose to bogart our sweetheart all night or because we’re in a pink bedroom and her parents are in the next room?”
She giggled and snuggled a bit closer to Fade. “It does seem naughty.”
Az whispered in her ear, “If you knew what I’d been thinking all night, ‘naughty’ is definitely the word you’d use.” Then he spoke a little louder so his brothers could hear, “And it is kind of strange because we’re sleeping in the bedroom next to our mate’s parents. There’s a part of me that wants to climb out the window so we don’t get caught.”
She grinned at Az, and he winked.
After a few minutes, they decided to get up, especially once their noses caught the scent of frying bacon.
They offered to let her use the shower first, but Fade said he wasn’t done cuddling with her, so Nyte went first.
“We should get up sometime,” she said, rolling to her back and looking up at her mates.
Az’s hand spanned her stomach, and she could feel the heat of his skin through the thin top she wore. “Nah. This is nice.”
“Bacon.”
“Bacon what?” Az asked, frowning.
“Just bacon. It’s a delicious statement all by itself.”
He laughed and lifted his hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re beautiful, sweetheart.”
She felt her cheeks heat in a blush. “Thank you.”
Fade reached over and gave him a punch in the arm. “Stop being sensitive.”
With a laugh, she hooked her arms around both of their necks and leaned up to kiss them on their cheeks. “I like the sensitive stuff.”
Fade snorted. “I’ll bet.”
By the time Nyte came out of the shower, she was enj
oying snuggling with her mates and really didn’t want to get out of bed. Even if there was bacon.
Nyte reached between his brothers and lifted her out, setting her on her feet. “Come on, sweet love, it’s time to spend time with your family. Once we’re home, we’ll have plenty of time to cuddle.” He curled a lock of hair around his finger and gave it a light tug. “You’re gorgeous in the morning.”
“I’m going to get a big head with you guys complimenting me all the time.”
“Get used to it,” Az said, reaching over and giving her a swat on the butt. “We’re not stopping anytime soon.”
“Oh, okay, that’ll be a real hardship,” she said with a laugh and went to the suitcase to gather her things for her shower. Blowing her mates a kiss, she went into the bathroom to get ready for the day. She met her parents down in the kitchen where she helped her mom and dad, Calvin, get the massive breakfast on the table, aided by Bliss, who left her mates at the table with Whisper’s mates and joined in to pour juice.
Bliss asked, “When are you leaving tomorrow?”
“The flight is at 2:40 and it’s almost a three hour drive to the airport in Philadelphia, so we have to leave about 9:30 so we can get there in plenty of time,” Whisper answered.
“You can’t fly out of any other airports?” Bliss asked in surprise.
“The closest airport is still over two hours away, and we’d end up with a connecting flight so it would take longer to get to Kentucky. I haven’t been on a plane since spring break two years ago,” Whisper said, wiggling her eye brows at Bliss.
“Oh, don’t remind me!”
“Why? What happened?” Rome asked from where he sat at the kitchen table.
“Bliss learned that the old adage, ‘wine before beer, you’re in the clear; wine before liquor, you’ll get sicker’ is very, very true.”
Bliss lobbed a smack at Whisper’s shoulder, and she ducked with a laugh. “I won’t tell the rest of the story for anything less than a twenty.”
Bliss shrieked as all three of her mates reached into their back pockets for their wallets and chased Whisper around the kitchen, growling threateningly.
“Ladies, please,” Lena said, smacking a spatula on the counter a few times. Both Whisper and Bliss froze and looked at her. “That’s better. I have twenty dollars upstairs on my dresser, run up and get it, Memphis.”
Whisper rounded the large kitchen table and fell into Fade’s open arms, giggling.
“Oh sure, hide behind the one with the biggest muscles,” Bliss groused. “Just remember that I’ve got as many stories about you as you’ve got about me.”
“Uh-oh,” Whisper laughed.
“All right you giggling girls,” Jonathan scolded with a broad smile. “Sit down for breakfast. There’s a lot to do to get ready for the block party tonight.”
Whisper and Bliss hugged and laughed a little more before her best friend found her seat between two of her mates. Whisper attempted to slide into the empty chair, but Fade held her tight on his lap, and Nyte scooted over into the empty seat instead.
“I’ve got you, baby,” Fade said, kissing her neck.
Peeking over her shoulder, she smiled at him. “I’ve got you, too.”
* * * * *
Whisper put the finishing touches on the enormous pasta salad that she’d helped Calvin make. She liked being in the kitchen with her parents. She imagined that if she hadn’t been taken, she would have been very close with all of them, the way that she saw her brothers were. Although she felt cheated at what she had missed out on, she loved Mack and her wolf brothers, too.
Calvin stirred the big bowl as Whisper dumped in the last of the cherry tomatoes she’d halved. “It smells amazing,” she said as she watched him turn the big spoon into the mass of spiral noodles and vegetables coated with Italian dressing.
“It’s your mom’s favorite,” he said, smiling.
“Yeah?”
“Sure. She loves summer. Living on the water like this…it makes us all anxious for the nice weather so we can enjoy the outdoors. Lena hates the winter, hates being cold. She’s never really cared for the denning-in, either.”
“The what-now?” Whisper asked, crunching on a leftover cucumber slice.
“The denning-in. Towards the end of this month, all the hyena clans will go to their dens for the winter. Most of us work from home during that time. We don’t have basements here, so we have special shutters that we put up around the downstairs that make it dark like a basement would be. We transform the family room into a big bedroom. When the boys were young, we put them in the living room with a big tent and blow-up mattresses. They thought they were camping out.”
“What’s the point of doing that? The whole denning-in thing?” She’d never heard of such a practice, but a part of her thought it made sense.
He shrugged lightly as he stuck a large serving spoon into the bowl. “I think back in the old days it was safer for the clans to disappear in the winter. I remember my grandparents talking about how they had to stockpile food for the winter months to make sure that their clan had enough food to last through the cold months when prey was scarce. Now,” he shrugged once more, “we venture out once a week to go for food, check in with our jobs, and of course, let your mom stretch her legs.”
Carrying out the bowl while Calvin gathered two big bowls of chips, she reflected on the denning-in. The idea of hiding out in a dark room for a few months with nothing but her mates and lots of time sounded like heaven.
“Is there a reason that Mom doesn’t like the denning-in?” she asked as she set the pasta salad on a long folding table set up at the end of the driveway.
Calvin set the chips down and gave the salad another stir. “I guess when you were taken, the denning-in just reminded her that we weren’t a whole family. We never stopped looking for you, even during the denning-in.”
Whisper looked around the street at the people who were setting up tables at the ends of their driveways. “I wish I knew why I was taken and what happened to me between the time that I was taken and when I was found by the police. There’s two years of my life that are unaccounted for.”
Calvin settled his hand on her shoulder, and she turned to look at him. “Baby girl, I don’t know why you were taken. It’s a mystery that’s most likely never going to have an answer. I believe that everything happens for a reason. I hate that you were stolen from us when you were so young, but because of that, your brothers have found their mate in your best friend, and you’re here with us now, with your own mates in tow. I desperately want the twenty-three years back with you, but conversely I’m proud of the woman you’ve become and what you’ve accomplished in your life.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she smiled up at him.
“You’re welcome, Whisper.”
“You can call me by my birth name,” she offered.
“It’s okay, you’ve gone by Whisper longer than Savannah. And I like it. It’s unique and pretty.”
Her mates appeared, carrying a picnic table between them as her mom directed them to set it down in the grass next to the folding table. She smiled as she spied the bunching and flexing of her mates’ muscles as they set the table down and straightened. Fade caught her eye and wiggled his brows.
She joined him, and he wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “See something you like, Whisper?”
“Everything, Fade. I like everything I see.”
Before long, the street was filled with men, women, and children, and she found herself surrounded by family — aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents — and her head swam with names and relationships. Her mates stood behind her, a silent wall of support as she met each person who came to her. Her parents and brothers watched protectively from nearby, Bliss standing with them. In a way, her family reminded her of the wolf pack. She knew that if anyone tried to hurt her, her family would come to her defense immediately.
After what felt like an endless stream of relatives finally stopped,
she and her mates walked down the street with her family and visited each house. Everyone on the street offered something different to contribute to the street party. Along with an inflatable bounce house at the end of the street for the kids and a DJ playing light rock on big speakers, some of the houses had tables of side dishes, some desserts, and grills were scattered along the curb with a variety of meats. The air was filled with the smoky scent of charcoal and seared meat, and the laughter and chatter of the baro filled the air. The night sky darkened as the sun set, and they spent several hours walking up and down the street, getting to know her family.
Fade carried her upstairs to the bedroom after they all said goodnight to her parents. He settled her gently on the bed and began to remove her tennis shoes while Az and Nyte stripped down to their boxer briefs nearby.
Whisper yawned, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Sleepy, baby?” Nyte asked with a smile. “It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “On both counts.”
“Your family is really great,” Az said. Fade placed her shoes on the floor and undid her jeans, wiggling them down her body. Within minutes, she was in a sleep shirt, tucked between Nyte and Fade as Az grumbled about the sleeping bag.
Whisper peered over the side of the bed as she leaned over Nyte’s body. “We’ll be home tomorrow and then no one has to sleep in a sleeping bag.”
Az went up on his knees and cupped her face, kissing her gently. “I’d sleep on rocks for you.”
Nyte cuffed the back of his head. “Quit being romantic when we can’t do anything with her parents in the next room.”
She giggled, kissed Az once more, and settled between Nyte and Fade. It hadn’t escaped her notice that she had called Kentucky ‘home.’ It hadn’t been a conscious thought; the word had just popped out of her mouth. Maybe it didn’t mean anything, but she kind of felt like it did. Because home was where your heart was, and she was falling in love with her mates. It might be fast, since they’d only known each other about a week, but she couldn’t deny that the attraction between them was so much more than superficial.
