Emily
I’m not sure if I sleep on the drive to Creed’s hot chocolate spot, or if I’m just in a daze from the events of the night, but the next thing I know I’m blinking up at a cute house in the suburbs. It’s got the same colonial charm as the beach house but on a smaller scale, with palm trees overlooking a koi pond and a white picket fence. I thought we were heading to a diner, or maybe a hotel lobby, but my lips curve up as Creed ushers us through the garden gate and a tiny woman explodes from the front door.
Even before she throws herself into his arms, I know she’s his mum. With her dark hair, vivid black eyes, and aura of calm, she’s a tiny version of Creed, who she gazes at like he’s the best creation in the universe.
I want that.
I don’t know if it’s delayed shock, but I think I mumble the words aloud, which is why the small woman turns in my direction and pulls me into a fierce hug. “. I’m so glad to finally meet you.”
I hug her back, my eyes seeking Creed’s. “Thank you. It’s lovely to meet you, too.”
“My mum, Sally,” he clarifies for me, his eyes a soft apology. “I would’ve brought you around sooner…”
“No apologies, Tyler,” Sally says with a whiff of command. She’s definitely an alpha, but it’s more her energy than her dominance that gives it away. “You’re all very busy, I know. Ah, Finn, sweetie. It’s so good to see you looking so happy.”
To my surprise, she pulls Finn into an embrace next, and he seems to melt under her affection, bending a little so he can brush her cheek with a kiss. “Sorry for coming over so late, Sally.”
“You know you’re always welcome. Are you staying or are you just here for Tyler’s baby albums?”
“Mum,” Creed whines, shaking his head. “I thought we talked about sharing classified information.”
“Oh, nonsense. Everyone who loves you will forgive me for those bowl-on-the-head haircuts, you’ll see.”
I snort a laugh as she stands on her tiptoes to pinch his cheek, then ushers us inside, hands flying as she catches the guys up on her latest home improvements. It seems that the Creed house is in a constant state of change, with each room we pass through boasting a project of some kind. There are rolls of wallpaper in the hallway, half-sanded floorboards in the lounge, and tins of paint stacked in the corner of the kitchen. Sally manoeuvres her way around all these obstacles with familiar ease. I feel exhausted just looking at all the work to be done, and Creed winces as we take a seat at the country kitchen table. “Mum, I told you we’d come over and help you paint.”
“I’m in no rush,” she says with an airy wave of her hand. “I just saw the perfect colour on sale at the hardware store and had to grab it.”
She’s barely sat down before she’s popping up again, her hand extended in my direction. “Would you like to see Tyler’s room?”
“ Mum …”
There’s the echo of adolescence in his whine and I bite my lip, linking my arm through Sally’s. “I would love to see that so much. Especially if there are any of those bowl haircuts to look at.”
“Wonderful. And there are always embarrassing photos on display in this house.” Her dark eyes twinkle as we both snigger, but then she waves another airy hand at the guys. “Finn, why don’t you get the vanilla slice out of the fridge while Tyler puts the kettle on?”
Effectively dismissed, Sally leads me up a half-carpeted staircase, stopping on each step so I can study the framed pictures mounted on the wall. They progress Creed’s life from infancy to adulthood, usually with a ball on his hip and a stern look in his eyes. There’s definitely a couple of amateur haircuts in the mix, but mostly I just see the love and care radiating from each picture. When Sally pauses at the top of the stairs, she brushes a fond finger over a beanpole Creed standing in his mud-splattered football gear between two tall, attractive men. “That’s Bill and Kane, my mates. Kane was a nurse, but he passed from cancer when Creed was eleven, and Bill was a casualty of war. Training exercise they say, but Finn told me it was a mission in Afghanistan.”
The pain in her pretty face burrows straight into my chest and I clutch her hand in sympathy. “My sister…” I clear my throat and try again. “My sister lost one of her mates like that. We grew up in an army family, too.”
“Then you know,” she says softly, her gaze dipping to the bonding marks on my neck. “Why men like my boys love you so hard and hold you so tight.”
I can’t find the voice to comment, and she ushers me into a room at the end of the landing. It has a big bay window looking out onto the palm trees, a study desk with an old-model computer, games console, and a neat twin bed with bookshelves on both sides. They’re packed full of well-thumbed books and sparkling trophies, and I cross the room for a closer look. “Wow. Football, rugby, hockey, tennis… Is there any sport he didn’t play as a kid?”
“Cricket,” his mum laughs. “He hated all the standing around. But he loved everything else, and he was offered a rugby scholarship to uni before he joined the army.”
I can hear the tinge of regret in her voice and wonder if she tried to talk him out of military life. I know that Dee will struggle if Jacob wants to join up when he’s older. “That must have been a hard decision to make.”
“Well, Tyler has always known his mind. All those journals?” She points to a row of books amongst the paperbacks. “He planned out every day and then ticked off his list every night. It used to worry me, how seriously he took everything, but it reassures me now. Because if being in a pack with you and Finn is what he wants, then I know it’s exactly what he needs.”
I feel tears prickle the back of my eyes, and she ushers me over to sit on Creed’s bed. The room is spotlessly clean, and unlike the rest of the house, seems to have been untouched since Creed moved out. But I can still smell a whiff of something in the sheets – not so much alpha musk as smoky vanilla, which immediately reminds me of Soren.
“What you said about them loving me hard, I hope you know it goes both ways.” I watch her eyes soften as I pick up a family photo on his bedside table. “I grew up hearing a lot about duty and honour, but they’re the ones who’ve shown me what true loyalty is.”
She pats my hand, blinking away tears of her own. “That’s all a mother wants to hear.” She glances at my bonding marks again, and I feel a pang of regret that I’m not wearing Creed’s yet. Something we need to remedy. Not that she seems to mind as she gives me a sweet smile. “Why don’t you sit for a bit, and I’ll send the boys up with the drinks?”
I don’t have to wait long, Creed coming in first with a tray of hot chocolate and Finn bringing up the rear with a plate of vanilla slice. As they pass me a cup and set the rest on the bedside table, I offer Creed a soft smile. “Your mum is great, and I love your room. Hopefully Jacob will have something like this in their next place.”
I don’t just mean the room, either, because Dee told me that she confronted mum about the allowance she’s been hiding and was told that it was her “hard-earned nest egg.” After everything my sister has done to feed her and keep a roof over her head, my mum’s callousness makes my blood boil.
“I always wanted a room like this,” Finn muses as he runs a finger over the keyboard on the desk. “A locked door, my own computer, and a set of helicopter sheets.”
“Footballs,” Creed corrects him, flipping back the comforter to display the pattern.
“It’s a good room,” I tell them as I blow on the hot chocolate. It’s definitely not from a packet, with a hint of spice and plump marshmallows melting on my tongue. The hit of sugar goes a long way to perking me up, and I wonder how many times Sally brought Creed a cup after a hard match. “You can smell the love in the air, and I don’t think it’s just from your mum’s vanilla slice.”
“Nah, it was a happy house to grow up in. Mum’s stricter than a general, but she’s got a big heart.”
“And she doesn’t know about that?” I nod my head towards his chest. “She hasn’t met Soren?”
“No. I’m hoping that if he keeps doing so well, I can set something up.”
It makes sense, but it just increases my resolve to get Soren safely through his heat. After what he said about his own childhood, he deserves a pack mum like Sally.
Which makes me turn my attention to Finn. “You said you needed to talk to me when I was clear-headed.” I tilt the mug of hot chocolate at him. “Other than a sugar rush, I’m ready to hear what you have to say.”
Creed cuts him a hard look, then sits beside me on his bed, while Finn perches on the edge of his desk. It puts him straight in my line of sight, and as I drink in his handsome face, I watch a ripple of unease pass through his eyes. This might be a conversation he said we needed, but that doesn’t mean he wants to have it.
“You asked if I met Soren through Vast Horizons, and the answer is both yes and no.” His jaw flickers and he puts down his drink to grip the edge of the desk. “They wanted my skills, but they knew I wouldn’t condone their research, so they went behind my back.”
My stomach lurches as a horrible thought settles in my mind. Right back when I was first reading Soren’s file, Creed said that the army wanted designations they could manipulate at will - betas in the barracks, but ferals on the frontline. It was going to be a combination of hormonal and behavioural stimulation, but the science kept letting them down, because the subjects kept overdosing on the stimulant they were injected with.
“They used your alpha juice,” I whisper, a chill running down my arms despite the hot drink in my hands.
“No,” Finn says grimly, a murderous glint in his eyes. “If that was what they were after, they'd have to drain it from my corpse.”
“We don’t give away what's ours,” Creed says quietly, “especially if they plan to screw someone over with it.”
“Then what?” I set the mug on the floor, so I don’t drop it in my agitation. I keep replaying that moment when Finn wrapped his hand around the base of Rick’s skull and told him to break. “The command technique? You did that - like breaking Rick - to Soren? ”
I don’t realise I’m on my feet until I’m in Finn’s face, my anger burning through my blood like a wildfire. “How could you? You’re supposed to protect people like him.”
He stares at me with his wolf eyes, and I suddenly wonder if I’ve read him all wrong. Maybe that’s not the protector I can see there, but the predator, so powerful that he’s forgotten the line between what he can do and what he should do.
I pull away, too sickened to look at him another moment, only to find Creed’s strong arms around me. I try to push him aside, but a purr rumbles out of his chest, and he tilts my face up with a gentle hand. “ Calm , sweetheart. Hear him out. You know him better than that.”
I don’t think he’s commanding me to listen, but I stop struggling, and the ragged whistle in my chest dies away. My heart is still beating too fast, but one glance at Finn’s stricken face and I realise it’s true. Finn would never hurt Soren. If someone told him to break a twenty-year-old omega, he’d turn that terrifying power of his back in their faces. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ll listen.”
A relieved breath huffs from Creed’s chest, and I can suddenly smell their anxiety in the air, like hot metal and sulphur. I let Creed draw me down onto his lap, but my focus is all on Finn. “Tell me what they did.”
“You’re right, I hurt Soren, but not intentionally.” The stark misery in his eyes is hard to witness, but I hold still, determined to hear him out. “What you saw me do to Rick, I did to our political enemies. Traitors. Spies. Dictators. I was contracted to break them all, uncovering their secrets while I stole their designations. It eventually got to be too much, so I ended my contract.” He folds his arms, but not before I see the tremble in his hands. “What I didn't know is that they recorded me. They had audio files of my sessions, and they used some of their tech guys to manipulate my commands. When they could mimic my results, they built them into the Vast Horizons project.”
“Oh, my God.” I don’t know what else to say. They didn’t just steal part of Finn’s identity, they then used it against vulnerable people, all without his knowledge or consent.
“When I found out, I broke into their database and tracked down everyone they used it on. Lives… destroyed. All by my voice. And then I found Soren, who was living on the streets, almost crippled by what we’d done to him…”
I launch myself off Creed and into his arms, so angry my tears burn away before they can fall. “Not you . None of that was your fault! They betrayed you and damaged him, which isn’t just bad science but criminal abuse.”
Finn is shaking his head, too bitter at himself to accept my assurances. “I knew better than to trust them. I should’ve watched them more closely after I left and anticipated something like this.”
“It’s not your fault,” I repeat, holding him tighter. It’s like hugging a brick wall, and I push myself closer until I can feel his heart hammering against mine. “It was them, not you. I know it, and Soren knows it. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“But I do.” He doesn’t soften, and even though he lets me cling to him, his gaze is fixed on the far wall. “I found you, long before you knew about us or the project.”
“Lang found me. I mean, that’s how I met you.”
“Yes, but as soon as I smelled you on him, I knew. I hacked your medical records, mined your biometrics and social media… I even pulled your academy files and high school transcripts. I know more about you, , than any person on this planet, and I still used you for my own means.”
“ To help Soren .”
“Yes, but…”
“Do you think I’m really going to hold that against you?” I arch my neck so he’s staring down at the bonding mark on my throat. “Soren’s my mate. I’d do anything to help him. And yes, you should have told me about nulls and soulmates and all your other theories, but I doubt I would have believed it.”
His gaze flicks to mine, a hint of warmth stirring in his pale grey eyes. “Because you have a scientist’s scepticism?”
I reach up to feather a kiss over his lips. “Because having mates like you would have seemed too good to be true.”
Creed makes a soft sound behind me and then his front is pressing against my back, his mouth dipping to lick at Soren’s bite. I’ve noticed him eyeing it hungrily ever since we left the pub, and I shiver at the swirl of pheromones that fill the air. Want pulses through me as they press closer, but I force them both back with a “As much as I love your childhood room, I don’t think the three of us can fit in that bed.”
Creed must have inherited his mum’s flare for home improvement, because he eyes the narrow mattress confidently. “I’m pretty sure I could make it work.”
“Maybe,” I reply, ignoring their grunts of disapproval as I pull away. “But don’t you think we should continue this conversation at home, with the rest of our pack?”
The two alphas exchange a heated glance, and then Creed is reaching for the plate of vanilla slice. “I’ll ask mum to pack this up to go.”