Chapter 4 #2
Jack opened the door and stepped inside his home.
His first glance told him Bonnie had done a hell of a job.
There were kids in his family room lying on the sofa, on blankets on the carpet, and just generally piled on top of each other like it was a sleepover.
Disney Channel played non-stop on the TV, and there were a few who were still awake, while most were sleeping.
There were a few mothers mixed in with the kids, too.
His formal living room, where he conducted business and received Pride members who’d requested a meeting with him, had pallets all over the floor, and there were women sleeping in there, too.
As he walked further into the house, some of the women looked up at him nervously.
“Y’all good? Do you need anything?” he asked.
Findley popped her head out of the kitchen. “Jack!”
“Hey, Findley. Where’s Bonnie?”
“She’s upstairs getting some of the ladies set up so they can take showers and get cleaned up.”
“Where’s Gwen?” Rance asked, his voice so deep with pent up emotion he was practically growling.
“She’s up there, too.”
“Alpha? We have some food left if you’re hungry. We’ll be making a fresh lunch later on today,” Alison said.
“Thanks, Alison. Appreciate it,” Jack said. “I’m going up to see Bonnie first.”
“Maybe you should wait until she comes down. They’re all up there showering, probably some of them naked,” Alison said.
“Oh. Yeah, okay.”
“Hello, ladies. My name is Niko. If you need anything at all, or have any questions, please let me know. I live upstairs.” He made eye contact with everyone that looked his way.
“Hey, how you doing? You have everything you need? You get enough to eat this morning?” one question after another fired off to any woman he walked past.
“Maybe he should be our welcoming committee,” Findley said.
Even Rance chuckled at that one.
Jack walked over to the stairway and stood on the bottom step, looking up toward the landing. “Bonnie? Baby? You up there?”
“It’s Jack!” he heard her say excitedly, then the sound of her footsteps could be heard moving closer. She came into view at the top of the staircase and smiled down at him. “Welcome home!” she said, grinning from ear-to-ear.
“How about a kiss?” he asked.
Bonnie bounded down the steps and threw herself into his arms, her lips pressed against his.
He kissed her slowly, letting her feel how much he missed her. “Now, that’s a welcome home.”
Bonnie smiled at him. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too, baby. Everything okay?”
“We’re just trying to help everybody feel at home. We’re taking advantage of the bathrooms up here so everybody can get cleaned up and feel comfortable again.”
“Where’s Gwen?” Rance asked from behind Jack.
“She’s in one of the upstairs rooms with her boys. They’re taking showers and she’s going to try to get them down for a nap.”
“Paxton said there are five males here, too?” Jack asked.
“Yes, they jumped right in helping with security. They came in one at a time to get something to eat and went right back out,” Bonnie said.
“We can have the males bunk with some of our single males. Do you think some of the females would mind doubling up in some of the new homes Titus built?” Jack asked.
“I think right now they’re grateful for anything. They’re all traumatized and still unsure of how things are at home. All they know is they were told not to come back by their males. Alpha Grail told them if it was safe for them to come back they’d come after them.”
“Is he gone?”
“No one knows for sure, and Gwen didn’t see it with her own eyes, but from all she said, she knows he’s gone. She’s shattered, but doing a hell of a job of faking it.”
“My room is still available if you need me to find somewhere else to sleep for a while,” Niko said from behind Rance and Jack.
“Your room is still your room,” Bonnie said. “I think it’ll be good for the ladies to see that we have males all over the place keeping watch. They’ll feel a little safer.”
Niko nodded, then squeezed past Jack and Rance.
“Going to put my shit away and see what I can do for anybody that needs it.” He reached the top of the stairs and announced his intention to walk down the hallway to his room.
“Ladies! My name is Niko, I live here, and I’m walking down this hallway to get to my room.
I am not looking or peeking, I promise!”
A few giggles could be heard from upstairs.
“I think they like the comic relief,” Bonnie said.
“I’m going to grab a few things out of my room,” Rance said, edging past Jack.
“There’s someone taking a shower in your bathroom, but they’ll be out right after.”
“Alright. I’m just going to take a look around up there and make sure everything is okay.”
Bonnie watched him go, then focused on her mate. “Isn’t there anything he’d need in his house since he hasn’t stayed in his room here in a while?”
“Yeah. But he’s got a need to see Gwen and make sure she’s okay.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Jack said quietly, dropping a kiss on her lips.
“Okay, but she’s in her bedroom with her boys. I’m pretty sure she’s trying to get them bathed. I don’t think he’s going to see her at the moment.”
“Is her room near his?”
“His is the first at the top of the stairs, and since we renovated up here for the girl’s rooms taking up the opposite end of the hall, and Niko and Draven being across the hall from Rance, I put Gwen next to Rance. That way she’s kind of surrounded. Is that okay?”
“Couldn’t have planned it better. You need me to do anything at all, baby?”
“Just make sure the women know who you are and watch for our girls when they get up. Most everybody down there sleeping has already had showers and gotten fresh clothes, and eaten and are just now lying down. The ones up here now are the last.”
“Where you’d get enough clothes for everybody?”
“Some are mine and Findley’s, then Jessica has been making the rounds asking people to donate, while Alison held down the kitchen with Findley here. We’ll make an order at the department store later and send somebody to get some more stuff for everybody.”
“Sounds good.”
“Oh! I wanted to grab my baby monitor for Gwen to use. We can get her another one when we order the clothes and all,” she said as she slid past Jack.
“Alright, I’ll be down here. I might get somebody to send me the males that escorted the females here. I’d like to hear what they have to say, too. Maybe their version isn’t quite as sheltered as what the females were told by their mates,” he said as he went toward the kitchen.
Bonnie disappeared into their bedroom, then was quickly darting back around the half wall that separated their downstairs suite and the family room from the rest of the house. “Jack?” she asked, pausing with her foot on the bottom step before going up with the baby monitor in hand.
“Yeah, baby?” he asked, coming out of the kitchen with a coffee cup in his hand.
“With all the women and the kids resting wherever they happened to find, maybe talk to the males away from here,” Bonnie said. “They’re already beginning to decompress a little and you never know what the males may say that would trigger them again.”
“You’re right. I’ll go to them as soon as I find some coffee to put in this cup.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “So fucking glad I have you.”
“Ditto!” she said happily, and jogged back up the stairs.