Shadow Wars (The Stoneridge Pack Book 2)

by CJ Cooke

  It wasn’t until we’d made it out of the front door and I’d quietly closed it behind him that Sean spoke.

  “Say the word, kid, and I’ll have you and the sprouts out of here and hidden away before any of them even know what’s happened.”

  I knew it was coming, and there was a part of me that appreciated it.

  “This is where I belong, Uncle Sean. They’re my mates, and this is my pack now.”

  Sean nodded in thought. “You’re going to have to fight for it.” He leaned back against his car when we reached it and turned back to look at the house.

  “I know, and I pity the person that tries to take it from me,” I growled.

  Sean’s smirk turned into a grin, and he shook his head in amusement. “You’ve grown up a lot since you got here, Calli. I think you needed this place. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get to keep it. Now, get some sleep kid, you look like crap.”

  With one last booming laugh, he unlocked the car and climbed inside.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow evening before the vamps arrive. Any chance you’re cooking?”

  I rolled my eyes playfully. Some things never changed.

  “Dinner will be at 6. We’ll probably be moving into the packhouse tomorrow, so I’ll text you to let you know where we are.”

  “Smart idea.” Sean closed the door of his car and rolled down the window. “Keep those wards fed and strong.”

  I nodded, even though I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and the smirk on his face told me he already knew. Fucking hell, more research.

  6

  River

  This was the weirdest morning I’d had in a long time. It was the dreaded return to school, and the kids were not happy about it.

  Abby sat at the kitchen table, eating cereal, happily swinging her legs as she did. Jacob and Coby, however, were a completely different story. Jacob was flat out refusing to leave Abby. He looked absolutely appalled that we’d even suggested it, and it was becoming really hard not to laugh about it all. Coby was like his wingman, joining in just as strong as Jacob was.

  Calli was the only one standing up to them because as soon as Jacob said no, the three of us had absolutely no idea what to do next. Don’t get me wrong, because of my job I was used to dealing with difficult kids and talking them through things they didn’t want to do. But this was Jacob. This was the little boy who had become our pup. Calli gave me a disapproving eye lift, and I quickly turned to start filling a travel cup with coffee. Yes, we needed to learn how to handle the kids and support her, but I was chickening out of doing it just now.

  “Jacob, all Abby and I are doing is going shopping to buy clothes and girl things. I know you don’t want to come and do that,” Calli tried to reason with him.

  He currently had his little arms crossed, rocking some sort of power stance and scowling more than I’d ever seen even Grey do.

  “No!” Was the only response Calli could get out of him.

  She huffed out a sigh of exasperation as her head fell backwards, and she looked at the ceiling. I could tell she was about to give in, and now I was feeling guilty about not supporting her. Looking around us, it was kind of telling that Grey and Tanner had suddenly found something deadly important to do in another area of the house. I saw a glimpse of Hunter as he started down the stairs, then as soon as he heard what was going on, he’d just turned right back around and went the way he’d come. Some guard he was!

  “Okay,” I sighed, coming over to join in the fun. “Jacob, we understand how you feel, but Abby isn’t old enough to go to school yet. Plus, you wouldn’t want her to walk into that school when the two of you haven’t made any friends yet, formed a circle of trust to make sure it’s safe for her.” I knew it was manipulative but also five more minutes, and we were going to be late, and I needed to get us moving.

  Calli gave me the stink eye, and I couldn’t blame her. This wasn’t how the situation should be handled, but Jacob got his serious face on as he thought through what I’d said, before he nodded and picked up his school bag, turning towards the door.

  “Come on, Coby!” Jacob barked and both of them marched out the door to the car.

  Turning to Calli, I spoke before she could say anything. “I know,” I admitted. “We can deal with it better tonight.”

  Her mouth snapped shut, and she just nodded before turning back to the table to Abby with a sigh.

  We needed to get better at this. Calli had gone from being a twenty-year-old backpacking around the world, to suddenly a mother figure for three kids. We needed to make sure we dealt with this as a pack and didn’t just expect her to fill the void when we ran away from the kids because it got scary.

  I followed the boys out to the car just as reluctant as they’d been. I didn’t want to go to school either. The pack was still in danger, no matter how much we were choosing to ignore that fact right now… Plus, I’d just found my mate. I should be shut away from the world, spending every moment memorising every inch of her body. I shouldn’t be going to work to hang out with snot-nosed kids all day.

  Don’t get me wrong, I used to love my job. But that was before. Now, I just didn’t want to be that inaccessible to Calli. But what else was I going to do? We needed to work for the pack to have an income. We earned a large amount from the garage. But there’d been months when the pack had needed my paycheck just as much. We’d made some wise investments over the years, but we were still establishing ourselves.

  My wolf was entirely in agreement that we should be staying with Calli, however, money shouldn’t be the reason for everything. He was fully on board with the idea of staying with the pack, with our mate. But that would put Coby and Jacob at a human school without any kind of protection. We’d never had to deal with a young child who had the potential to shift. This could be a terrible idea. If Jacob exposed us to the school, it would be one more thing the Council would hold over us.

  7

  Calli

  Target is apparently a place where dreams and wishes really could come true. They seriously sold everything here, and Abby and I were loving every second of our shopping trip.

  After a rocky start to the morning, the UPS guy, who I was pretty sure thoroughly disliked me now, dropped off a package with a few bits of clothes for Abby that I’d ordered online. We couldn’t exactly take her shopping when she didn’t even have shoes!

  We’d picked out the most adorable bedroom set for her, and the guys were currently loading it up into one of the trucks. Thankfully, we’d thought ahead and brought two. Aidan and Blake were moving Jacob’s furniture to the packhouse while we were out, and then they were going to relocate Jean there as well.

  Blake had wanted to go back to the cabin, but until she was awake again we all felt better having her close by at the big house, so we could make sure there was always someone with her. I’d seen the misty-eyed look Blake got when we told him, but none of us had said anything. Nash was keeping an eye on her while they were busy. He was pretty limited in what he could do until his leg healed properly.

  Now that the guys were occupied with the heavy lifting, we’d moved onto the clothing section and were currently getting Abby sorted with enough clothes to fill her entire wardrobe. I could admit I was going overboard, but it was so much more fun shopping for little girl clothes. Abby was at least smiling away and currently gushing over a little pair of trainers with flashing lights in the heels.

  I was saving the toys for last, mainly because I knew Tanner would sulk if we did toy shopping without him. While he was busy helping load the furniture, I was going to sort out sheets and things for the kids. Wow, it took a lot of stuff to set up a room for someone, especially a kid.

  The guys mysteriously appeared just as we were leaving the clothes section and heading to the toys.

  “Wow, your timing is nearly as good as it was this morning,” I joked, even if I was still a bit annoyed they’d abandoned me to Jacob’s temper tantrum this morning.

  T
hey at least had the decency to look guilty about it, but they weren’t going to get away with it that easy. Words were going to be had this evening. I was just letting them stew in the nerves of what was going to happen first.

  “If you guys have the toy situation covered, I’m going to get some sheets and stuff for Abby’s room,” I told them. Tanner and Abby had already disappeared with an excited squeal—which mainly came from Tanner—leaving Grey and me alone in the aisle.

  “I guess I’ll help you out with the sheets,” Grey said with a laugh.

  “Lead the way,” I grinned. “This must be a bit weird, doing all this again so soon after Coby.”

  Grey suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth dropped open and his face flushing in horror.

  “You did set Coby up in a room, right?” I said with a cringe, already knowing the answer when I saw his face.

  “He brought a bag…” Grey started.

  “And then you went back to the cabin and got the rest of his stuff?”

  Grey suddenly pulled his phone out of his pocket without answering me. It was really answer enough. Men! How could they have not thought about something like that?

  “Aidan, did you move Coby’s stuff out of the cabin when he moved into the packhouse?” There was silence for a bit, and then Grey’s head dropped forward. This didn’t sound good. “Okay, can you go to the cabin? Let me know what he has that you can bring over and what else he might need, then we can grab everything while we’re here.”

  As he hung up the call, guilt and sadness rolled off him in waves. I didn’t need to be an alpha to be able to feel it.

  Wrapping an arm around his waist, I leaned my forehead against his chest, offering him the comfort he obviously needed.

  “How could I let this happen?” His voice cracked from the weight of his guilt as he spoke, and my arms wrapped around him more to hold him tighter.

  But then I had a thought, and whilst it was perhaps a bit of a sexist one, I also knew it was probably true.

  “Grey, do you own a spare set of sheets?”

  “I mean, they’re sheets. I just put them back…”

  “How about a set of guest towels?”

  “We have towels.” His face scrunched up in confusion, not seeing where I was going with this.

  “And if you have people over for dinner, how many extra place settings do you have?”

  “Place settings?” His cheeks just deepened to a dark red in embarrassment.

  “I’m not saying these things to be mean, honey. What I’m getting at is up until now, you’ve just been a group of guys living in that big house. The only women who were anything close to pack, lived in the cabins. You didn’t think about him needing those things because they aren’t things that are even on your radar. Now, I’m going to remind you that Coby is a seven-year-old boy before I ask you this… how many game consoles are in the house?”

  Grey flushed in embarrassment again, but I already knew the answer because I’d seen them—all of them.

  “Coby has only been at the house for a few days, and he didn’t want for anything while he was there because the packhouse is one big boy’s playhouse,” I laughed. “But he’s going to want his own things eventually.”

  I grabbed his hand and started to pull him in the direction of where I assumed the sheets would be located, and he willingly came with me.

  “And we are getting you a set of spare sheets for the love of God!” I joked, but deep down, I wasn’t. What was I getting myself into with this lot?

  We had just about filled a trolley with sheets and towels when Aidan’s call came through.

  “What do you mean there isn’t anything? Did Nash already pack it up or something?” Grey started to pace the aisle as he spoke, and I could feel his alpha powers starting to rise with his agitation. He spoke with Aidan for a couple of minutes before he finished the call and came back over to me with a shell-shocked look on his face.

  “There’s nothing at the cabin,” he just said quietly. The fears I’d had about Coby came screaming to the front of my mind but now wasn’t the time to voice them to Grey. He was already riding an emotional wave, and I didn’t want to add to it, not while we were still out in public and away from the safety of packlands at least.

  “How much room is left in the trucks?”

  “Plenty, that little kid furniture is tiny. I’ll grab Tanner and another cart.”

  “Okay, what’s he going to need?” I asked as we started to head back to the toy section.

  “Everything, he needs absolutely everything.”

  It took us another two hours to get around Target again, grabbing furniture, clothes and some other random things for Coby. We didn’t go too heavy on the toys deciding it would be better to let him choose some for himself. That delivery guy was really going to hate me soon.

  By the time we finally made it back to the packhouse, Aidan and Blake had moved all of Jacob’s stuff to his new room, and Jean was set up in Nash’s. Apparently, he crashed in the office most nights anyway—troubling but was it really my place to say anything?

  The guys were unloading the boxes of furniture, and Abby and I had the bags of clothes and some groceries set up in the kitchen.

  “Hey Abby, shall we make some cookies for when the boys get home from school?” She jumped up and down at the suggestion, and we set about mixing up the ingredients, and I prepped as much as I could for dinner at the same time.

  By the time we had everything ready for the oven, we had a bag full of cookie dough to go in the freezer and a tray for the oven. The recipe I pulled off Pinterest apparently made six million judging by the amount we had to freeze, but we lived with a pack of hungry wolves and two small boys—they weren’t going to last long.

  “Let’s go and see what’s going on upstairs,” I suggested to Abby as I helped her down off her stool.

  We’d only been back for about an hour, and I was surprised to see how much they’d done when we went up to the bedrooms. I suppose it helped that we had three mechanics putting together the furniture, and they owned more tools than most hardware stores by the look of it. That thought had me kicking myself for missing the ideal opportunity to break out my new toolbox!

  As soon as I thought about it, James flooded to the front of my mind. What had happened to him? We’d heard the rumours around town about him going missing in the night. All they found the following day was a pool of blood by the side of the road. Everyone was saying there was no possible way he could have survived.

  I shook my head, shaking the sad thoughts away. I’d make sure to check in with Mary soon. But for now, getting the kids settled in the packhouse, to the extent that it felt like home, had to be my priority.

  Jacob’s room was already put together, but most of it had come from the house, so there were just a few boxes of toys and clothes to unpack. Abby’s room had nearly all of the furniture made, and when we stuck our head into the room next door to that, I was surprised to see how much of Coby’s was done as well. We’d decided at the store to move him into the empty room next to Abby and set him up with a proper kids room. The room he had now was the old guest room that just had a double bed and a dresser. It wasn’t really set up for his needs.

  Abby was busy looking at all her new things in her room when I stuck my head into Coby’s new room and found the guys putting together the last few drawers for his dresser. It all looked amazing. It was similar to how we had Jacob’s room set up with the bold colours, but we’d bought a few big poster frames for him to choose posters for. It would make it feel a bit more grown-up, even though there wasn’t really all that much age difference between the two of them.

  Grey sat in the corner setting up the new Nintendo Switch he’d gotten for Coby. He still had a slight scowl on his face. The Coby situation was taking a toll on him. On all of us, really. It was something we all needed to talk about tonight after we had dinner with a dragon and then found out what favour we now owed a vampire clan—life sure was interesti
ng around here.

  I felt Abby’s little hand slip into mine and decided we all needed a break. The guys from the stress and guilt of the Coby situation, and Abby from being dragged around the shops all morning, even if she did get a bunch of new toys.

  “If you guys are ready to take a break, Abby made cookies, and we’re just about to pull them out the oven.”

  Tanner’s head snapped up, and he had the biggest grin on his face.

  “Did you make me cookies, cherry bomb?”

  “Erm, no. They’re for everyone to share,” I pointed out.

  “But I’m definitely the favourite,” Tanner laughed, getting up and scooping Abby up into his arms. “So, I get to have two, right?”

  “You have to share,” she told him earnestly, and we all just about melted on the spot.

  “Only for you, cherry bomb,” Tanner told her, nuzzling his face into her curls and making her giggle.

  I left them to it and went to get everything out of the oven. When the guys came down to join me, they looked drained. I couldn’t blame them. They’d made a monster effort to get all the rooms set up before the boys got home. There was still some left to do in Abby’s room and Jacob’s, but as long as Coby’s was ready for when they returned, that was all that mattered.

  The school would be letting out any minute, so I made sure to put another tray of cookies in the oven when I pulled the first lot out because I knew they wouldn’t last. Seeing three big shifter males sitting at the dining room table, drinking milk and eating cookies with a little girl was equal parts adorable and hysterical.

  8

  Grey

  Abby was like a reluctant, little ray of sunshine. She was still so unsure of herself. We all knew it would take time for her to settle into life in the pack. After what she’d been through, it would linger with her to some degree for the rest of her life. But every so often, when that little smile broke through, all of us swooned. She was definitely the sun, and the whole pack had fallen into her orbit. Her and Calli, maybe there was something in that thought.