by Viola Rivard
As they stepped into the eye of the cave, Hale's gaze sought out his brother. As always, he found Alder in an instant. He sat far in the back of the cavern, cross-legged in front of a roaring bonfire. Holly had arrived already and stood to one side of him. Their beta Laurel was on the other. Across from them were two unfamiliar wolves, who looked as different as any pair could.
One was thin, short, and prematurely balding. He wore several layers of clothes over his slight frame and his facial features were crowded towards the center of his head. Hale immediately picked up on his nervous twitch, and the way his eyes moved anxiously from Alder to his alpha.
There was no doubt that the male sitting next to him was his alpha. The first thing that struck Hale was his height. The alpha not only dwarfed his companion but even leaning back on one arm, he looked to be a full head taller than Alder. He had long, brown hair that was tied in a knot at the back of his head and wore only a fur that was draped over one side of his large, tattooed body. He was staring at Holly, his lips quirked.
“Where are the other two?” Hale asked quietly.
“Resting in the lower chambers with the alleged pup. They're being watched closely.”
The alpha said something that Hale couldn't make out. His smile widened as Alder's jaw clenched and Holly looked away, blushing. As she turned away, Holly became the first to notice Hale's approach, and she tapped Alder on the shoulder, motioning in Hale's direction. Alder stood at once, relief evident on his face.
He met Hale just before Hale reached the bonfire, pulling him into a tight embrace. Any semblance of a warm reunion was tarnished as Alder murmured, “Keep quiet and let me talk.”
“Good to see you, too,” Hale grunted, shoving past him.
Annoyed as he was, Hale always felt a surge of confidence as he stood beside his twin. Given that he already possessed an abundance of confidence, this could sometimes prove problematic.
“This is my brother, Hale. Hale, this is Oslo and Shan,” Alder said, motioning towards the smaller male, and then the alpha.
Hale felt his confidence drain from him in a rush as Shan's cool, jade eyes looked him up and down. A chill of recognition ran down his spine.
“I believe our paths have crossed before,” Shan said.
Images of Yewen's pack flashed before Hale's eyes, and he cursed Alder for letting this male into their den and then cursed himself for leaving Taylor and Shadow. Never in his life had he been one to run from a fight, but at the moment all he wanted was to collect his mate and his pups and put as much distance as possible between them and this male.
“What are you doing here?” Hale asked, unable to hide his malice. Beside him, he could see Alder tensing.
Seemingly indifferent to Hale's mounting fury, Shan regarded him mildly. “As I told your brother, I have come into possession of a newborn pup. Your pack is the first I've encountered with a viable female to nurse it.”
“If you wanted a viable female, then maybe you shouldn't have butchered its mother,” Hale shot back.
The room fell silent for an instant, and then nearly everyone began talking at once. Fenix expressed his incredulity, Alder demanded an explanation, and Holly uttered several choice curses at Hale. The morning that they'd left Shaderunner, he had told the adults in his group about the killings in Yewen's territory but had purposely glazed over the ugly details, mostly for Taylor's benefit. He had said nothing further on the matter to any of his pack mates, and he hadn't mentioned the giant wolf which was the sort of thing that had to be seen to be believed.
Through the ensuing outbursts, Shan remained silent and undaunted, but his companion had gone red in the face.
“We did no such thing,” Oslo seethed, punctuating each syllable with his outrage. “How dare you—”
Shan lifted a hand, and Oslo immediately fell silent, though his slight form still trembled.
Alder's hands were fisted as he addressed Shan. “What is this? Why didn't you tell me that you met my brother?”
“Perhaps it slipped my mind,” Shan said, in the way a man spoke when they had no fear of the consequences.
Alder started to respond, but Shan spoke over him.
“The mother is alive, though I can't say she is well. She has been returned to her human family where she belongs, given that she is, herself, a child of thirteen years.”
Hale felt a sinking feeling at Shan's words, but he refused to let himself be played. “Even if we were willing to believe that, it doesn't justify what you did to that pack.”
Oslo sneered at him, revealing a mouth of crooked teeth. “We don't care what you believe.”
Shan said, “By abducting the child, Yewen's pack was transgressing against the human town of Granite Falls. As it happens, my pack has an alliance with said town and were therefore obligated to intercede on their behalf. Yewen was given ample opportunity to return the child and give himself over in return for the safety of his pack. When he refused, I enacted justice.”
Hale had several questions for Shan, but not one of them was what Alder asked.
“You have an alliance with a human town? What sort of alliance? A Non-aggression Pact? Did they provide you with a mate?”
“Neither,” Shan said. “They provide us with resources and we make sure their farms and their children remain safe. We have similar deals with at least a dozen other towns along the reservation borders, which is why this matter slipped through the cracks.”
“Reservation borders?” Alder asked.
Shan made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “The Greater Appalachian Reservation. It's where our kind lives, as of January 24th, 2006. It took them a few centuries, but our land is now federally protected territory. Not that it means much. If they can give it to us, they can take it away just as easily.”
Hale didn't know the half of what this asshole was talking about and he didn't care either.
“Don't try to change the subject,” Hale said. “You had a problem with an alpha, so you massacred a pack and you call that justice?”
Shan glanced at him, brows rising as though he'd just remembered that Hale was there.
“Massacred?” Shan repeated. His tone turned patronizing. “Do you even know the meaning of that word? It means to kill unnecessarily and indiscriminately. I did not massacre that pack. I executed its alpha and every wolf that was complicit in his crime. Now, I presume your mate returned with you. Are you going to bring her, or will we stay here and argue semantics while a pup starves to death?”
Hale wanted to spit at him. “I don't see any pup with you, and you're out of your fucking mind if you think you're going anywhere near my mate.”
Alder said, “If you give me the pup, I will take it to my mate.”
Regardless of Alder's opinion of Shan, which Hale could tell was vastly more favorable than his own, Alder wasn't about to put Taylor in jeopardy.
Shan scoffed at them. “If I wanted to leave the pup in your care with no assurance that it was being provided for, I'd already be gone. Either bring your mate, or I will collect her myself.”
No wolf in his right mind would ever dare to make such an assertion. Had he actually tried to go to Taylor, Alder would be perfectly justified in killing him. Only, Alder couldn't kill him. Hale didn't think the both of them could kill him, even with Holly nipping at his heels and Fenix pecking at his eyes. But Alder didn't know this, and for once it was Hale who had to be the voice of reason.
As a growl rose in Alder's chest, Hale clamped a hand down on his brother's shoulder.
“Go and get Taylor. She can come in once this asshole shows us there's actually a pup here.”
A look passed between them, one they'd shared many times in the three decades that they'd been bound to one another.
Don't argue. Just trust me.
Alder didn't hesitate. As he left to get Taylor, Shan ordered Oslo to fetch “Kalla and West” who, presumably, were his other pack mates. Fenix went with him, while Holly remained at Hale's side, glowering at Sha
n.
“I don't care what you are,” Hale said. “I meant what I said. If you come near my mate, I'll kill you.”
Shan looked unimpressed. “Your loyalty to your mate is admirable, but don't be an idiot. Take your brother's advice and learn when to shut up. Silence is always stronger than an empty threat.”
CHAPTER 9
A LIVELY FIRE was crackling in the cabin's wide hearth. Taylor had spent many nights stretched out on the bearskin rug that lay in front of the fireplace, lazing in the lap of one of her mates, a pup napping in either arm. She still held out hope that that would be how tonight ended, but at the moment everything was in the air.
She sat by the door, stuffing her feet into damp boots. After building the fire, she had taken a few moments to change into clean clothes. She only had one decent pair of boots, the ones she'd traveled in, and her fresh socks quickly became cold and damp with the melted snow that had pooled inside of the boots.
Karin watched her, her eyes gleaming with reproach. Taylor ignored her, knowing that Karin wouldn't try to stop her from leaving. Whereas Holly and Glenn were old pros at keeping Taylor wrangled into submission, Karin had yet to realize that she had the authority to restrain Taylor, and would even flinch sometimes if Taylor raised her voice—which she tried not to do often. Unlike most of her pack mates, Karin treated Taylor with a certain degree of respect, as though Taylor was an extension of Alder and Hale, rather than just their human pet.
“Are you going to get Fawn?” Shadow sat beside her, his arms wrapped around his knees. “Is she okay?”
The kid was too damn perceptive, and Taylor hadn't been able to distract him from the tension.
“Fawn is fine, sweetheart. And yes, I'm going to go get her, and then we're all going to eat dinner together. Take good care of Henry while I'm gone, okay?”
“Can't I come with you?”
“No, puppy.”
“Why not?” he whined.
“Because Karin needs your help.”
It was a dismissive response, and Shadow was rightfully peeved.
“No she doesn't. You're lying.”
There was no accusation or hurt in his tone, he said it as though he were simply stating a fact, and somehow that bothered her more. It was the first time he had ever accused her of lying but was it the first time he'd recognized that she was stretching the truth?
“Karin does need your help,” she said, turning to stroke his face. “She hasn't taken care of Henry on her own yet. But you are right, I'm not being totally forthright. The truth is, I'm also a little worried that Papa and Fawn didn't come out to greet us, so I'm going to go up and check on them. I also want to make sure that the strangers in the den are nice people. It'll be a lot easier for me to get everything done if I'm not worried about you and Henry.”
She couldn't tell if he accepted the explanation. As she was speaking, his attention shifted to the front door of the cabin. Seconds later, Taylor heard footsteps on the porch, and then the door swung open.
Taylor experienced a moment of panic, and then a flood of relief as she saw Alder standing in the doorway. She could tell it was him by his skin, which still held a residual tan from a summer spent in the sunshine. She also knew him by his eyes. Alder had the same mismatched gold and blue as his brother, but while Hale could turn cold and remote on a dime, Alder always regarded her with affection, even during the rare moments that they weren't getting along. Today, his eyes were brimming with emotion as they darted between Taylor and Shadow.
Taylor was in the process of standing as Alder scooped her and Shadow up in his big arms, pulling them into a too-tight hug. He alternated between kissing the side of Taylor's face and nuzzling the top of Shadow's head.
For a few, precious moments, everything else, the cabin around them and all of her worries, fell away and nothing else mattered. Alder tended to have that effect on her. Had her family been complete, she would have clung to him and that space for as long as she could. Instead, she pulled back and ran her hand through his hair.
“What's going on? Where's Fawn?”
“She's fine, just taking a nap,” he said, rubbing his nose against hers. “There's a pack in the den, or at least the representatives of one. They've come to ask for assistance with a pup. Apparently, it's very young, and the mother wasn't able to care for it.”
Taylor heard what he said, but his words refused to click in her mind. Shadow, however, was fast on the uptake.
“Like Henry's mama? Are we getting another new pup?”
“Henry?” Alder said, giving Taylor a quizzical look.
As if on cue, the baby roused. Taylor had passed him off to Karin as soon as he'd fallen asleep on the breast. While Henry had taken to Taylor quickly, he was not keen on being held by anyone else, save for Shadow, and when he saw that it was Karin holding him, he immediately began to wig out.
Unable to explain over Henry's wailing, Taylor ignored Alder's shock and went to the pup, plucking him from the flustered female and working quickly to soothe him. She was tempted to put him back on her breast, but she knew he wasn't hungry and that would only make it harder if she had to pass him off again.
“This is what Sarah's urgent matter was,” Taylor explained, gently swaying the pup back and forth. “His name is Henry, and he's two weeks old.”
“Why didn't Sarah nurse him herself?” Alder asked. He picked up Shadow and came to get a closer look at the pup.
“It's a long story,” she said. She wasn't about to discuss Sarah's menopause with him, at least, not in front of Shadow. That would open a whole 'nother can of worms that she wasn't ready for. “But basically, he's the littlest member of Halcyon now. Unless you have any objections...”
Henry was so thoroughly bundled up that there was no way Alder could notice the arm. Taylor knew she should find a way to bring it up, after all, hadn't she been annoyed with Sarah for being shifty about the very same matter? And it wasn't like Alder would care. Still, she could only smile at him as he marveled at the tiny baby.
“I don't,” he said, slipping an arm around her waist.
They quietly waited for Henry to fall back asleep, and after a few minutes, he obliged. After instructing Shadow to sit in Karin's lap, Taylor passed the baby off to her older son. Shadow was eager to accept him, and Taylor could tell that Henry had inadvertently proven Taylor's point that Karin would need Shadow's help.
Alder allowed her a moment to get the pup situated. After assuring Shadow that they'd be back by nightfall, he grabbed a fur and led Taylor outside onto the porch.
“Hale and I are still assessing the situation. When we get to the den, stay back until we say so.”
Alder could be every bit as overprotective as Hale, but usually, when Alder gave her orders, his reasoning was sound and his motives were not self-serving. Though she didn't like being told what to do, she nodded her agreement and silently promised to try her best to listen to him.
She felt a pang of disappointment as he stepped onto the lawn and shifted. This was not the passionate reunion she'd envisioned having with him, though that should not have surprised her. When did things ever go the way she planned?
Alder didn't shift back into human form or let her down when they arrived at the den. It was a subtle signal that he may have believed she wouldn't pick up on. It meant that he was prepared for a fight. Taylor took her cues from her mate, growing tense and alert as they passed under the eye of the den.
Her gaze flitted around the main room, noting that it was nearly empty, save for a small gathering toward the back. When observing any group of people, she habitually sought out one of her mates, and her eyes settled first on Hale. Before she had time to blink, her attention was drawn to an unfamiliar male, and Taylor could see why Alder was on edge. The man looked frightening.
At first, all she could see was his unnaturally large frame, and she thought she was looking at some sort of ogre. But as they drew closer and the details of his face and body came into view, she saw that he was
quite the opposite. A man his size should have looked deformed in some manner, but everything about him was proportionate and his face was rather nice to look at. She found herself particularly drawn to his eyes, which were a shade of pale green that seemed out of place with his dark hair and deeply tanned skin.
He had the sort of thickly arched eyebrows that could have made any man look intimidating, but as he returned her stare, Taylor didn't feel threatened, at least, not physically. His eyes seemed to bore into her—analyzing, scrutinizing, and taking her measure. She quelled her bubbling anxiety by reminding herself that Alder and Hale were close by and would protect her if it came to that.
Taylor and Alder arrived just as three more unfamiliar shifters joined the group. They were an odd bunch. A short, bald man, a tall, bulky man, and a willowy girl that Taylor judged to be in her late teens. The girl was clutching a bundle to her chest, her eyes red and her face streaked with tears.
Alder stopped beside Hale, finally allowing Taylor to climb down. Hale wrapped an arm around her waist and performed perfunctory introductions. The bald man was Oslo, the brawny man was West, the young woman was Kalla, and their alpha was Shan.
Shan was the first of their group to speak. He didn't move from his spot on the floor, but his voice carried to Taylor as well as if he'd spoken into her ear.
“Did your mate tell you why you are here?” he asked.
“You have a pup that needs to be nursed?” She didn't like how uncertain she sounded, and when she continued, she was careful to straighten her spine and take a more confident tone. “Is it yours?”
Shan cracked a smile as though Taylor had made some sort of joke. He gave a single shake of his head. “No, it is not mine, though I am responsible for it.” He lifted his hand, waving in Taylor's direction. “Give her the pup, Kalla.”
At his command, the girl elicited a low and piteous whine. Her body began to tremble as she clutched the bundle closer to her chest.
Shan's expression did not change, but his tone was stern as he spoke again. “Kalla. You cannot keep it. It is not a doll.”
