Sometimes you have to let the fear go to welcome happiness.
Calvin was assaulted when he arrived in Gillham two months ago, after living on the streets for two years, but it wasn’t enough to persuade him to leave the town and his new life. He never expected to be assaulted again, though, especially not by the same man.
Alex has been envious ever since both his brothers found their mates, but at only twenty-one, he never expected to find his own. He especially didn’t expect the man he rescues from a beating to be it.
Calvin and Alex have to learn to navigate their new relationship. Calvin is shy and hesitant, and Alex does his best to give him enough time to get used to his presence. They move in together—as housemates—but their fragile relationship is threatened by the appearance of a teenage brother Calvin didn’t know he had. What will this mean for Calvin and Alex’s relationship? Will Calvin finally believe Alex is in it for life, or will he let his insecurity win?
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Calvin
Copyright © 2017 Catherine Lievens
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0976-0
Cover art by Latrisha Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Calvin
Gillham Pack Book Nineteen
By
Catherine Lievens
Chapter One
Calvin stumbled into the infirmary, his legs feeling like they might collapse any second. Sei looked up from whatever magazine he was reading, and instead of rushing to Calvin’s side to help him, he grinned. “You’ve been training again.”
Calvin groaned and flopped onto the closest bed. “Yes.”
“You’re here for painkillers?”
“Painkillers, leg amputation, whatever it takes to make the pain go away.”
“You’re a big baby.”
Calvin buried his face into the pillow. He briefly considered the thought of suffocating himself, but he liked his new life way too much to do something like that. If he’d still been living his old one, well, he might have considered it a bit longer, but he was happy for what had to be the first time in his life. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but he couldn’t remember a moment when he hadn’t been in foster care, and for him, foster care meant being mostly unhappy.
But now he lived in Gillham, with the pack, and he was happy. He wouldn’t change his life for anything.
He sighed and turned his head. “Yeah, okay, I might be a tad dramatic.”
Sei snorted. “A tad? Try a lot.” He put down his book. “Come on, tell me where it hurts.”
“My legs.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Running, mostly, but I’ve also been training with the enforcers.”
Sei blinked as he walked closer. “The enforcers? Why on earth would you train with the enforcers?”
Calvin swallowed. He hadn’t really talked about his life before Gillham to anyone. Dallas knew, although not in detail. He didn’t know everything that had happened to Calvin when he’d lived on the street. No one did. Calvin would do whatever it took to never go through that again, though, and that meant finally learning to defend himself. He wasn’t completely helpless—no one who’d lived on the streets was—but he needed more, as his encounter with the two guys in Gillham had showed him. He didn’t even want to think about what would have happened to him if Dallas and Hamilton hadn’t walked by that day. He’d probably have been beaten to a pulp and left to bleed out in that alley.
“I just want to be able to protect myself,” he muttered, praying Sei wouldn’t push for details.
Sei cocked his head and stared, but to Calvin’s relief, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he moved toward Calvin’s legs and pushed his sweat pants up to his knees. He started massaging Calvin’s calves, and Calvin groaned in relief. It was slightly painful, but it was the kind of pain that was actually nice to feel.
“Am I keeping you away from your work?” Calvin asked after a while.
“Nah. Looks like everyone does their best to stay away from the infirmary. I’m starting to think it has to do with me, you know?”
Calvin chuckled. “Why would they want to stay away from you? You’re adorable.”
Sei’s hands tightened around Calvin’s calf. “Adorable? Look who’s talking. You’re a damn Labrador shifter. I don’t think there’s anything more adorable than that.”
“Rabbit’s a cat shifter.”
Sei snorted. “Clea thinks Rabbit’s the devil incarnated, and there’s nothing adorable in that.”
Calvin laughed. He didn’t really know Rabbit—the cat shifter mostly kept to himself—but he didn’t know why Clea didn’t like him. Rabbit was a bit weird, sure, and maybe a bit rough when it came to interacting with people, but he looked like a nice enough guy. Besides, he wasn’t the only one in the pack who didn’t interact much with the other pack members. “I’m sure Rabbit’s fine. He looks nice.”
“I wouldn’t know. We haven’t talked or anything, but I do know Clea.”
“He’s your cousin. Of course you know him.”
“Exactly. So I know he wouldn’t dislike someone for no reason.”
“He doesn’t like Daniel either. I like Daniel.”
“You like everyone.”
“Why is that a bad thing?”
“I never said it was.” Sei dug his thumbs into Calvin’s flesh, and Calvin thought it would probably be a good idea not to tell him he was wrong about anything while he still had his hands on Calvin’s body.
“What about me? What does Clea think of me?” he asked, hoping to distract Sei.
“He likes you. I thought you knew that.”
Calvin did, although sometimes he still had a hard time believing people really could like him. It was the first time it had happened as far as he could remember. All his foster families had tolerated him for a while, until he had to leave them for one reason or another, but that was about it. He’d been the weird kid in school, and the weird kid in his families. The other children didn’t want anything to do with him—with one exception—and he hadn’t understood why, at least not until he’d shifted in his foster’s family living room.
Humans couldn’t have known what he was before he’d shifted, of course, but that didn’t mean they weren’t able to feel something was wrong with him. Calvin knew that had to be the reason why his foster families had never kept him for long.
“We all like you,” Sei said, jerking Calvin out of his thoughts.
Calvin knew it wasn’t true, that he couldn’t be universally liked, but he didn’t protest. He was with people who understood him now. They didn’t think
he was weird, that he was a monster because he could become a dog. He’d had a few problems with some of the older pack members, because they didn’t think a dog should live with wolves, but they were a minority. Besides, with the number of different shifters living with the pack, he hadn’t listened to them much. A dog was the most normal kind of strange shifter, really. Calvin hadn’t known about shark shifters or pangolin shifters before he’d arrived in Gillham, and those were definitely weird.
He hadn’t known about shifters before, period. He’d known a few of them on the streets, but he hadn’t trusted them enough to talk to them, to try to learn what being a shifter really meant.
“You all right?” Sei asked.
“Yeah. I was just thinking.”
“I noticed you do that often.”
“Do what? Think? Yeah, I like to do that sometimes.”
Sei slapped Calvin’s calf. “Don’t be a smartass. I meant that you often get lost in your thoughts.”
“I guess I do.”
Sei patted Calvin’s calf, more softly this time. “It’s all right if you do, you know. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. It’s understandable, with what you went through. Now, are you feeling better, or do you want me to continue feeling you up?”
Calvin snorted a laugh and rolled to his back, almost falling off the narrow bed. “I’m fine. Thanks. I needed that.”
Sei grinned. “The massage or the conversation?”
“Both.”
“Well, you know where to find me if you ever need either of those again. What are you planning to do the rest of the day?”
Calvin sighed. “I have to study.”
“Ah. Kameron’s riding your ass?”
“Ugh. Don’t say things like that. And no, it’s not Kameron. Dallas thinks it’s a good idea for me to finally finish high school, and I know he’s right, but I’d forgotten how hard studying could be.”
“Daddy wants you to be a doctor like he is?” Sei teased.
“Don’t call him that.”
“Well, Dallas is old enough to be your father, or even your grandfather.”
That much was true, and Calvin couldn’t deny he did view Dallas as a father figure of a sort. He’d been the one to save Calvin from those men, and he’d taken Calvin in without questions, welcoming him into the apartment he shared with Hamilton by the infirmary. Calvin could have stayed with Kameron, but Dallas had insisted he live with them, and he really was taking care of Calvin as a father would do. He made sure Calvin ate enough, that he was healthy. He’d been the one to ask Calvin what he thought he wanted to do with his life now that he had a choice, and the one who suggested Calvin finish high school before making a decision. Calvin knew Dallas wanted him to go to college. But he also knew Dallas wouldn’t push him if he didn’t want to.
Honestly, Calvin had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. His thoughts about the future hadn’t gone past finding his next meal when he’d been on the streets, and it was hard to get out of that way of seeing life even now that he had a home. The possibilities were endless, and they all scared Calvin to death.
* * * *
Alex left his boots by the front door and walked in. He closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth and the scent of fresh coffee. He let himself relax after a long shift at work. He was one of the few shifters who could fly in the pack’s security crews, and Kameron didn’t have problems using him to do just that. That meant Alex—and Christian when he was on shift—had to fly around the edge of pack territory. They were allowed to land and rest, of course, but their role was important, so Alex tried not to do that often. It meant he was always dead tired when he finally went home, but he didn’t mind much. It was better than risking the pack being attacked.
It was also better than the way he’d lived when he and his family were with their nest. Kameron wasn’t forcing any of them to do anything. Alex’s father had retired after years of having to fight for their nest’s alpha. Christian and Iggy had found their mates, male mates, and nothing bad had happened. No one had tried to keep them apart or to separate them, no one had tried to hurt them because of who they loved.
The pack was like heaven for their entire family, and Alex didn’t even care that he hadn’t found his mate yet, even though both his brothers had. He was the youngest of them anyway, and didn’t expect to find his mate any time soon. He was only twenty-one. He had time, especially now that they were all safe.
“Alex? Is that you?” Alex’s mom asked from the kitchen.
Alex realized he’d been standing in the entrance for who knew how long. He shook himself and walked to the kitchen, smiling when he found his mom at the counter mixing something in a bowl. He leaned down and kissed her cheek before stealing a bite of cookie dough. His mom batted at his hand, but he was too fast.
“Don’t eat that, Alex. You’ll be sick.”
“I’m a shifter. Cookie dough can do nothing to me.”
His mom rolled her eyes, but when he tried to steal another bite of dough, she smacked his hand with her wooden spoon. Alex shook it even though the pain wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the first time he’d been hit with a spoon, and it wouldn’t be the last. He loved stealing food while his mom cooked, and no matter how much she protested every time, he knew she loved it too.
“You just came back?” she asked as Alex went to flop into one of the chairs around the table. He looked at the chair on his right. It was the one for his mate, and it still stood empty every time they ate.
Alex shook his head. It looked like the fact that everyone seemed to be finding their mates bothered him more than he’d been willing to admit even to himself.
“Yeah, I just finished my shift,” he answered his mom, who was frowning at him.
“Is Kameron working you too hard?”
“Aww, Mom. Don’t worry. I’m fine. I’m tired, but really, I’m fine. It’s nothing I’m not used to.”
“Maybe, but things are different now. You could ask for a few days off work.”
Alex knew he could, but he didn’t want to. He and Christian were the only shifters who could do what they did, who could fly during the night, and he didn’t want the pack to have problems just because he was tired. “I’m fine, Mom. Really. Of course, I’d feel even better if you gave me more of that dough.”
She rolled her eyes. “No eating before lunch.”
“Why not? It’s not like I’ll spoil my appetite.”
“You and your brothers will eat us out of house and home sooner or later.”
“But you love us anyway.”
“Of course I do.” She eyed him. “So, have you met anyone since we moved here?”
Alex groaned. “Are you really asking about my sex life, Mom?”
“No, I’m asking about your love life. I don’t want to hear anything about your sex life, but I do want to know if you’re lonely.”
“I’m not lonely. I’m happy, Mom.”
“But there’s no one new in your life.”
“Not for now.” And not in a while. He’d had to hide half his relationships when he’d lived with the nest—the ones he’d had with men—but that wasn’t the case now. He had a lot of work, though, and they hadn’t moved to Gillham that long ago. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. Christian had managed to find his mate and bag him already, so one would think Alex would have had the time to find himself a boyfriend, or a girlfriend.
Truth to be told, Alex hadn’t looked too hard. He’d noticed a few pack members and enforcers he wouldn’t say no to a night with, but he wasn’t looking for anything serious right now. Maybe it was because both Iggy and Christian had found their mates, or maybe it was just because he’d had enough of short-term relationships. He didn’t know the reason why himself, and it didn’t really matter.
“You worry too much, Mom. I’m fine. I don’t need to be with someone to be fine.”
“Of course you don’t, but I thought, well, now you don’t have to hide when you have
a man in your life.”
“So you thought I’d jump on the opportunity to be out and proud?”
“Something like that.”
A warm feeling bubbled in Alex’s chest. His mom had three sons, and all of them liked guys. She could have rejected them, especially since their old alpha would have rather killed them than accept their male mates, but she hadn’t. She’d always been there for them, had accepted them when they’d come out, and had welcomed Clea and Zane into their family without any problems.
He got up and hugged his mom from behind, kissing the top of her head and taking in the scent of her shampoo. It took him back years, when he was a kid and hid his face against her neck when he was scared. “I’m fine, Mom. I can be happy without someone by my side, and I’m only twenty-one. I have all the time in the world to find someone.”
“Have you decided to wait for your mate?”
“Nope.”
“Good. I know it must hurt to see your brothers with Clea and Zane.”
Of course she knew about that. When had she not known everything there was to know about her sons? “I can’t say I’m not jealous of them, but I know I have time. I never expected to find my mate at twenty-one, Mom, but I’m happy I’ll have the opportunity to be with them openly even if he’s a guy. I’m just... settling down, I guess. We’ve had big changes in our lives lately, and I know all of you have someone to rely on, but I don’t, and I’m doing my best to do it on my own.”
His mom squirmed in his arms and he knew she was about to say something he wouldn’t like. “What about Nuallan?”
Alex knew where this was going, but he wasn’t going to make things easy. He’d done that before, and no one seemed to take the hint. “What about him?”
“I know you said you two weren’t together, but are you sure you don’t mind him being with Ethan?”
Yep. It was what Alex had thought it would be. He sighed and stepped away, leaning his hip against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “Why would I mind? They’re mates.”
Gillham Pack 19 - Calvin Page 1
