I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Rem, it’s the only way you could have shifted. Your body knows much earlier than a test could.”
“I didn’t have a choice in this,” she says. “I didn’t ask to be… I know we should have used condoms and that was idiotic but––”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. Those don’t work with shifters anyways.”
“Oh, so you have super sperm, too?”
“Yeah,” I say, knowing my tone is cockier than I intend. “Call it super sperm if you want but Rem, we knew where to find you, knew you were––”
She pushes away. “I get it, okay? I was your special prize, you knew where to stalk me, you knew everything,” she snaps. “But what if I say no?”
“You want to raise a wolf shifter in the real world?” I roll my eyes. “Listen, Rem, we know it’s a lot, and hell, we didn’t expect to knock you up the first time we were together—but that’s what has happened. And besides, you’re going to shift at inopportune times, from here on out. If you're in heat, you’ll shift. If you are feeling protective, you’ll shift. You can’t just live in the real world anymore. That reality is off the table.”
She clenches her fists, looks at the sky and screams. Her voice echoes through the trees and bounces off the mountain. Her anger courses through the ground beneath my feet and reminds me that she is one hell of a woman.
“This is so not how I wanted my life to go. You get, that, right?” she asks, wiping her nose with her sleeve.
“What did you want your life to be?” East asks. “Because we will do whatever we can to give you what you want.”
She looks at him as if he has no clue. “You can’t give me what I want.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you’re freaking wolves. You live in a cave … you … you’re animals.”
“We’re men, too. Or did you forget last night? Look at me, Rem,” I say stepping in front of her. “I know this is all crazy fast, I know it’s confusing, but can we try?”
She presses a hand to her forehead. She looks exhausted and all I want right now is to pull her into my arms and take away her worry. I’m not usually the consoling type—I give that to River and East—but looking at Rem right now, I want to take care of her. Protect her. Forever.
“So, what, we just go back to the cave and pee in the woods and eat nuts and berries? That’s my life now?”
I furrow my brows. “What?”
“The cave, isn’t that where you live?”
I shake my head, realizing our mate really has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.
“No, baby,” I say. “We have a home. It’s where we plan on taking you.”
“Like, a house?”
“Uh, yeah. A house.” East grins. “With electricity and everything.” He doesn’t ask permission, he just pulls Rem to himself and kisses the top of her head. “Did our mate think she was going to be roughing it for the rest of her life?”
“Does this house have a shower? Because it’s been weeks since I bathed beyond a sink and a washcloth.”
“What do you mean?”
For a moment it’s like she’s realizing her admission says more than she wants. But then, she shrugs, and her eyes glaze over with defiance. Suddenly, there’s a wall up she doesn’t want us to break through. “Well, uh, I’ve been living on the streets for a while.”
I look at River and East, the three of us surprised at this detail.
“And before then?” I ask. “Where were you? Where’s your family, Rem?”
She smirks like we have no clue. And maybe we don’t. “I’ve always been on my own,” she says. “Told you I was a loner. You might say, until now, I was a lone wolf.”
Chapter 11
Remedy
I’d say the guys were crazy… except I feel a sliver of something within me.
In my womb.
Which—I know. It’s crazy-town talk.
And maybe I am crazy. But I also know I shifted into wolf form today and their explanation of it makes sense. Not to mention the fact I do feel something inside me. Maybe a wolf-shifter baby is more powerful than a regular human baby? It’s the only thing that makes any sense at all.
“You okay?” East asks, his face warm and it puts me at ease. The guys say we’re only a mile from their house and the walk has been pretty painless. I’m not scared of the bear as long as they are with me. We even find my backpack where I’d left it during my bear-fight.
“I’m just trying to process everything. It’s a lot.” Exhaling, I reach for East’s hand.
“Any questions?” he asks.
“Do you guys, like, have jobs?”
East smiles. “Everyone in our old pack—about one hundred males right now, work for the pack leader’s company, Forest Trek. They take tourists on hikes and expeditions and stuff.”
“But not you?”
“East lifts an eyebrow, looking at me in a way that tells me he has a story. “It’s not that simple. We refused to take the mates Malik, our leader, had chosen for us and it put us on the outs with the pack.”
“You mentioned that last night.”
“Right, well, he can’t technically kick us out, but he assigned us the grunt jobs.”
“So, what’s a wolf shifter job that is grunt labor?”
“We patrol the territory. Mostly it’s a lot of walking in circles. Not very glamorous.”
“Why not get a job in town?”
“If we quit Forest Trek entirely, we lose our pack.. There aren’t any other shifter wolf packs in Alaska. It’s not something we we’re prepared to do. And now that you’re pregnant, I’m glad we never did.”
“You think it’s real, this pregnancy?”
“I hope it is,” he says, squeezing my hand.
My eyes are still on his face, his thick beard, and the warm hand holding mine. “Why? I’m a stranger.”
He just shakes his head. “No, Remedy, you’re family.” He points up ahead, and my eyes land on a house.
Not just a house. A storybook cottage ripped from the pages of Snow White or Goldilocks.
“Welcome home,” East says. “I hope you like it.”
He has no idea what those words mean to me. What this place means to me.
But I plan on explaining everything, right after I take a nice long bath.
*
I run my hand along the butcher-block counter, over the river rock fireplace. I open a linen closet and find it stuffed to the gills with down pillows and hand-stitched quilts.
“This is not a bachelor pad,” I say, but it’s not really a question. “What gives?”
“It was my aunt’s place, Callum says. “She wasn’t a shifter, and she died a few years ago. I inherited it. We moved in after we left the compound.”
I nod, taking in the rugs on the hardwood floor, the narrow staircase leading to the bedrooms upstairs. “Sorry about your aunt.”
“It’s alright. It’s been a few years, and we weren’t very close.”
“East told me about some of the stuff that went down with the pack. So, the rest of the pack lives on a compound?”
Cal nods. “Yeah, and we still have every right to live there, we just wanted some space. And… this place is pretty nice.”
“More than nice,” I say, taking in the drapes and the plush couches, the bookshelves lined with books, the purposefully placed artwork on the wall. “That bay window reading nook is just a little too perfect.”
Cal shrugs. “You like it? It seems a little old-fashioned.”