Bear's Silent Soulmate : A Fated Mate Shifter Romance

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Rory

He’d been woken early that morning, by Callisto, who had a new notebook. She’d put a hand on his mouth and shoved it in his face.

THIS DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING. IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT I’M GOING TO SHARE A BED WITH YOU OR THAT WE’RE PROPER MATES. YOU’RE HELPING ME AND I ACCEPT THAT BECAUSE THERE SEEMS TO BE NO OTHER OPTION. THAT’S IT.

“Okay,” he’d muttered, trying to sort out her frantic expression through his utter lack of sleep. He’d blinked grainy eyes until she focused and then he’d re-read the words.

OKAY? WHAT DO YOU MEAN OKAY?

Somehow, the written words hissed at him like a snake.

“I mean okay,” he’d tried to explain, watching her face transform from pensive to even more pensive. “I’m a grown man. I understand. I hardly expected everything to change because we had sex.”

He’d smiled shyly at her after and for the first time, she hadn’t looked at him with scorn. Her eyes raked over him, from his soft curls, down to that dimple he knew was showing, down the length of him. He’d got his clothes adjusted the night before while she dressed, and he’d left them on when he resumed the couch. After what they’d done, he felt he needed that extra layer of protection, silly as it sounded. The red scratches on his chest were healed by the time he was woken up to that pre-dawn watered down gray, but he still felt them burning.

“I’m going to Sam as soon as it’s a decent hour to do so,” he’d told her. “I’m going to arrange a meeting with Clay and Taylee. We’ll go from there, if that’s amendable to you?”

Her eyes had narrowed into slits, but she didn’t write anything further. She didn’t challenge that he was to be part of this now. She didn’t change her mind. She’d just nodded fiercely and left him as quickly and as startingly as she’d appeared.

He’d made good on his promise. He’d gone straight to Sam and Lily’s and unfortunately had to interrupt their breakfast again, but they didn’t mind. Lily kept right on cooking and getting the boys ready for school, while he and Sam spoke in the study down the hall. Study was too formal, and office wasn’t right, but it was private and soundproof.

If Sam had been shocked at the real reason for Callisto’s coming, for her challenge, and the accusations against Pinefall, he hadn’t shown it. He’d let the information flow over him. He’d agreed that they should go privately to speak with Clay and Taylee, which they had. It was harder to interrupt their day and even harder still to give a very brief outline of why they were needed for an important meeting without giving away what Callisto needed to say herself. They’d decided that telling them there was an urgent family matter that they couldn’t say much about was best, but that just stressed the hell out of Taylee and made Clay look like he needed to get into the cage again—even though those days were long past—and win some unseen fight.

Whether they’d done the right or wrong thing, Clay and Taylee sat in two of the chairs they’d arranged into a circle in the middle of the hall. The building was huge and empty with all the tables put away. Anything they said would echo through there like ghosts shouting through time.

He and Sam had the place prepared before they’d gone to speak with Clay. From his and Elowen’s cabin, they’d gone to Taylee and Kier’s. They were here now, seated in two of the wooden chairs although they didn’t understand why. Taylee wrung her hands anxiously, looking all around her, but she stayed quiet, trusting in her alpha, since Sam was right there beside her, filling out another chair.

Clay was to the left of Sam. He still looked like he expected unseen enemies to jump him. Rory hadn’t seen that cagey, mistrustful expression on Clay’s face in a long time and it cut like a knife.

On their way to the hall, he’d trailed at the back and broken away. He’d stopped quickly at his shop. The kids were all at school. He’d told Callisto and Sophia that they could come to the hall in twenty minutes. He wanted to stay and wait with them, but Sophia gently told him in that older-than-her-years wise sort of way she had about her, that they needed the time to talk. He wasn’t sure if they’d spoken during the night, but he hadn’t imagined the new distance between them. In his hurry to try and arrange the meeting he’d promised—and that was about as raw and as big a deal as there ever was—he’d barely thought about how Callisto would take the news that her best friend had betrayed her. Broken trust wasn’t easy to repair.

He sat across the circle now, watching Clay tap his fingers on his knee and Taylee fold and unfold her hands. He was probably making some kind of nervous gesture of his own. If Taylee and Clay didn’t trust Sam and respect Rory, they would have been up and out of those chairs as soon as they’d sat down.

Whatever their differences, rough words signed out or cold silence between them—Sophia and Callisto entered the hall together. Sophia dressed cheerfully in a colorful long dress. Callisto looked much like the night before, he was either going to burglarize something or she was dressed for a funeral.

Rory leapt up when he saw them. Sam stood too, but with a measured slowness. He indicated the two empty chairs beside Rory. They’d made the circle so that there would be an empty chair between Clay and whoever had the one beside it. Clay and Taylee sat on either side of Sam, but maybe it was smarter to keep them together and have Sam and Rory in the middle. It was too late to play musical fucking chairs now.

“Would you have a seat?” Sam asked, indicating the two chairs beside Rory. “Clay and Taylee aren’t sure why they’re here. I asked them to come, and they did.” He waited until Sophia and Callisto took chairs beside each other and Rory had sat down as well. “There are some serious accusations that have been made against- well, against Pinefall mostly. We’re here right now because we need to hear Callisto’s truth. Sophia will be interpreting for her.”

Clay literally cracked his knuckles. He looked more and more like a wild bear all the time. Rory swallowed hard. Clay was in control of himself. It had been a long time since he’d been mostly anger and bitterness. He’d been in Greenacre for years, mated with a family, but before then, he’d always been good to Emma and he’d tried to be good to Glendy, even after they’d divorced. None of his life had been easy.

Taylee was much softer. She might be quiet and thoughtful, cool where Clay ran hot, but she was every bit as strong. She went rigid and slowly turned her face to Callisto.

“What do you mean accusations?” she asked, but softly. There was no edge of anger or disbelief to her voice.

Sam sat down and looked towards Sophia. There was no easy way to start, so this might as well be it. Rory hadn’t eaten anything that morning, but he felt his stomach churn anyway. How had he gone from finding Callisto holed up in the woods, ready to spy on Pinefall, executing one small step of a master plan, to having his tongue buried inside of her.

Fuck, he couldn’t even think about that right now.

“How old are you?” Sophia asked after Callisto faced Clay and Taylee. She was frowning hard. Too hard. Rory didn’t like the undercurrent of unease she was throwing.

“Clay’s fifty and I’m forty-seven.”

Callisto looked unnaturally pale. She turned and signed something to Sophia, but she didn’t share with the rest of them for a minute before turning back to the group.

“Callisto says she believed she was older than you both. Than all of you. You have a brother? Jem.”

“We do,” Taylee admitted, but she looked to Clay like a guilty party looked to their lawyer for permission to speak. “He’s a year younger than Clay.”

Sophia’s hands worked hard, and Callisto’s moved just as quickly. They were having a whole conversation between themselves. Clay and Taylee both sat watching, pensive. It would be a miracle if someone’s bear didn’t burst out and interrupt the whole thing, it was growing so tense.

Sophia turned again. “Alright. What I’m going to tell you is what I—what Callisto was told. When she had the money, she hired someone to put all the pieces together for her, to try and find the truth about her past.”

She started at the beginning, sketching out a timeline of when they had been in care, when they met. She didn’t gloss over many of the horrible details of their foster home. It made Rory burn with rage all over again, hearing how they’d been mistreated. Maybe it was his bear who was going to come out roaring. He heard about how Callisto did her training, how she got a job as a home aid working with an elderly retired doctor. He was blind and she was mute, but she was allowed to bring Sophia with her, so they were able to communicate. His health was failing in many other ways, but he was a brilliant man. They had all day together, and long into sleepless nights, since he could afford to have her in a live-in position. Taught her everything he knew from math to science. Talked about long and complicated medical procedures. He found her eager to listen. He liked going for walks, loved nature, loved the parks. Callisto and Sophia both enjoyed his kindness and his simplicity. He had no children. He’d never been married. He wasn’t afraid to die alone.

His fortune was destined for several different charities, but unbeknownst to the women, he’d changed his will and left them a sizable portion of cash. He’d had his lawyer liquidate his properties after his death and donate the sales from vacation homes and his investments in other real estate, along with his house and the few rare collector cars he’d owned, to several different charitable organizations.

That was how Callisto came into the money that allowed her to hire a PI.

She knew a few things at that point. She wasn’t fully human. She could turn into a bear. She was either cursed or shifters and other paranormal creatures were real. She’d privately thought, up until the point she’d trusted Sophia enough to reveal that neat trick, that she might be mentally ill and be hallucinating the bear thing.

There were a thousand things Sophia didn’t mention. Like how Callisto had got through those first shifts. How she’d kept her secret. He was certain that Sophia downplayed the trauma they’d been through, only mentioning a few instances that stood out. He wanted to ask those questions later, and yet… he didn’t. Part of him would hurt too much to hear it and if that was true for him, what would it be like for Callisto?

“Our PI gave us information about Callisto. Where she was born and to whom. She found out that it was common practice to get rid of babies who were born imperfect. Instead of leaving Callisto in the forest to die, she was taken to Houston and given to a woman. It’s unclear what she promised—probably to care for the baby or find her a loving home, but that’s not what happened. That woman made it a business to sell these children into the system. She got a handsome cut every month from the money the government allotted. She was a social worker herself, so she could gain these children placement into certain homes. Homes that she very well knew wouldn’t take care of them.”

Rory tucked his hands under his thighs to keep from clenching them. He bristled with a rare anger that he was hardly keeping under wraps. His bear wanted to tear out, run to the city, find that woman and dismember her. Would he ever do that? No. No, he would fucking not. Did it stop him from going over every gory detail in his mind? No. No, it certainly fucking did not.

Sophia paused for a minute, letting everything she’d just said get digested, not just by Clay and Taylee, but by Sam. Then, she very neatly dropped the news.

“Clay. Taylee. Callisto might have come here because she wanted to be close enough to Pinefall to find out the truth for herself and seek vengeance for what was done to her, but there was also something else she wanted to do. Something that I know was even more important and far closer to her heart. When you’re in foster care, you know you don’t have any family. We’ve been like sisters to each other since we met. We were each other’s family. When she found out she had other family, she wanted to meet them more than anything. In this life, to people like us, family is everything. Family is something you think of as this mythical thing, something you know you’ll never have. Part of finding your place in this world is processing that painful knowledge. Callisto is your sister. Your full. Blood. Sister.”

Clay exploded upwards, but he just stood there, heaving like a monstrous bull uncertain which direction to head to wreck shit first. Sam and Rory both tensed, but Clay didn’t even look at them. He didn’t need to. Callisto sat perfectly calmly, using that impenetrable mask of hers, while Sophia looked half wrecked and on the verge of tears. Basically, the same as Taylee, but on her part, there was more shock and disgust at the possibility that her people could have done something like this and probably more than once.

No one said anything and Clay dropped back down. He was still struggling with his breathing, but he was under control. No bear outbursts. No holes punched through a wall.

Most important, no one was shouting Callisto down or calling her a liar. No one had interrupted Sophia. They’d let Callisto tell her truth the way she knew it, and sometimes the most powerful thing anyone could do was listen.

Clay raked a hand over his face, sighing loud and hard. “Fuck,” he muttered. “If it’s true…”

Taylee brushed away tears with her fingertip. More gathered, and she had to keep gathering them up. “I don’t remember anything.” She looked apologetically at them all, letting her gaze linger on no one for very long before she turned her head down and studied the floor. “The accident… I only know what I was told of my childhood. I’m sorry.”

She’d tipped her face down because she couldn’t stem the tears anymore. They flowed silently, dribbling off her cheeks.

Rory’s throat tightened. It started to burn when Clay put his hand on his sister’s knee. “I don’t really remember anything either. I was young. We all were. It might make sense now. There was a time when my mom got sick. All of us stayed with our grandparents for almost a month. But then, we stayed with them for all sorts of reasons. Aunts and uncles too, or even people who weren’t relations. Pinefall was a closed off, close knit clan. Everyone was involved in the raising of children.”

Rory listened with interest, this would have been back when the Pinefall clan lived in Texas, he really didn’t know much of their history as they were so closed off and secretive. He’d always wondered how their clan worked. Pinefall was different from Greenacre, they had shifter women. He knew Greenacre’s dark secrets, how things used to be done in the shameful, old days, and he supposed that other shifter clans had similar periods in their history where they did what they needed to survive.

Clay paused, like he was trying to remember back to his childhood. “I was too young to remember when my mom had Jem, and I barely remember when Tay was born, only that Jem and I returned from our grandparents and seeing we had a sister. I was so young it didn’t really make sense to me where babies come from. I wasn’t watching for changes in my mother’s body. I didn’t know what pregnancy was. I was interested in little boy things. Fighting and being outside, being with my friends, running wild, roughhousing with Jem. We were more interested in catching frogs or building forts than the comings and goings of our own family.”

Clay was a natural born fighter. He was grappling with this, the knowledge that his parents and his clan could be capable of killing babies, or at the very least, handing them over to complete strangers and severing all ties.

No one spoke. The room was eerily quiet. Even the outside world around them seemed unnaturally still, like there was a storm rolling in.

“It could be possible,” Clay sighed, breaking the tension. He looked right at Callisto, which made Rory feel that irrationally protective urge again. No wonder she’d told him that nothing was different after what they’d done, but everything felt like it had changed. “They would have known something was wrong with the baby immediately when she wasn’t making a sound. Shifters, like wild animals, sense weakness. A potential defect. Wild animals will often reject such an offspring so they can pour resources into their other healthy babies, or get their own energy and strength back. Not saying it’s right or that it’s not cruel in nature, but nature is a harsh, sad place a lot of the time. With people…with people, it’s not excusable.”

The negative energy coming off Clay in waves wasn’t directed at Callisto. It wasn’t for her, it was on her behalf.

Taylee wiped her eyes. Her tears had a strong scent, or maybe that was her misery. “Jesus,” she whimpered. “Jesus, this is truly awful. I- I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never heard of this before. I can’t- it’s… unthinkable.”

Callisto started to sign to Sophia. She watched and then she spoke to the group. “The information we received might not have been one hundred percent accurate, but there is little doubt that you are all blood relations.”

“A sister.” Taylee was bewildered, but a look of wonderment started to spread across her face like an early morning sunrise. “I always wanted to have a sister. I had best friends, cousins, brothers, but never a sister. I’m so sorry this is how we’re meeting. I know that word doesn’t even begin to mitigate the pain and it can’t change the past, but I want to say right now that I believe you. I don’t know what to think about the rest but- but I believe that you’re here because you needed to find your family. Everyone should know where and who they come from. I don’t know what to do now…”

Clay looked to Sam. “It’s our clan, but we’re also part of Greenacre now. This involves our parents and Jem. Maybe others. I don’t know how to proceed either. We’d have to be very careful. A meeting with Clarence might be best.”

“I was thinking it might be unavoidable. If this is still happening…”

“I don’t see how it could be now. Not in an age where this would be harder and harder to hide. Not when paperwork would be hard to fudge. Their contact must be ancient by now.”

“There aren’t cameras everywhere,” Taylee whispered to Clay, her voice breaking up like waves crashing violently against the rocks. “A pregnancy could still be hidden, a baby still taken away. Systems are still corrupt. The reason we don’t know about it is that we’re not meant to.” She flattened her hands against her chest. “This hurts me so much as a mother. As a member of Pinefall, it’s horrifying. As a daughter to parents who did this and as a sister to someone who suffered so greatly… I- I don’t even have words for it.” She stood up suddenly and stepped towards Callisto, but froze. “Can I hug you?”

Rory wasn’t sure what his warrior mate would do. There was pretty much nothing beyond the realm of possibility. She didn’t look like her brother and sister. Taylee was as dark as it came, with raven hair and almost black eyes. Clay’s hair was now salt and pepper, but once it had been just a shade or two lighter than Taylee’s. As far as he knew, Jem also was dark haired and had dark eyes. He’d seen Taylee’s and Clay’s parents at Greenacre a few times, but he couldn’t remember if their eyes had been light or dark. Their hair had long since grayed.

Even though Callisto looked so different, neither Clay nor Taylee had refuted her. They hadn’t sat there and rejected her claims, and they weren’t rejecting her now.

Rory’s breath caught and something sparked inside of him when Callisto stood.

She didn’t step towards her sister with caution. She didn’t let the years, the raw emotions, the dark pain always at the root of her very existence stop her. She flung herself at Tay. Taylee was a tiny woman, small for a shifter but it didn’t matter. She hugged Callisto just as hard.

It wasn’t just Taylee’s cheeks that were wet. Callisto’s silent tears poured down her face.

Clay sat, immobile and uncertain. Rory felt the same way. He looked over at Sophia, who was far from dry eyed either. She caught him looking and turned, mouthing a silent, thank you.

If his world had shifted out of balance the day Callisto and Sophia stepped foot in Greenacre, it was far from settling back onto its regular axis. But thinking it could one day… that Callisto might stay. That she might find forgiveness instead of meting out justice. That the bitterness and anguish could be slowly erased and something warmer, happier, greater could take its place… that was dangerous.

Clay studied his sisters like he was trying to figure out what to do himself. He watched them so intently it was like he could shape shift and materialize in their brain to pick apart their thoughts and get answers to the many questions he had. He was trying to see through both of them. Eventually, he shifted his eyes to Sam and gave him a helpless sort of shrug, which for Clay, said a lot.

Men like Clay didn’t do helpless. They didn’t just surrender. They fought.

Rory was never the type to take up arms or raise his fists, but whatever the future had coming for them, if he had to stand in front of Callisto to shield her or go to war for her, he would.