25. Sol
CHAPTER 25
Sol
I fell asleep in Orion’s arms on the way back to Bastard territory. Safety and security surrounded me, warmth trickling from my heart into my gut as I finally relaxed. I inhaled his strong masculine scent with every breath, reminding me the nightmare was over, that I was reconnected with the love of my life and nothing could ever tear us apart again.
Sometime later, I woke up in an unfamiliar bed, the scent of my big grumpy wolf calming my fox. One of his heavy arms was draped across my body, the other tucked protectively under my head. The smell of cleaner and latex assaulted my nose and, when I glanced around, I realized we were in some sort of makeshift hospital.
My head throbbed, and I’d obviously swallowed fire judging by how raw my throat felt. Every muscle in my body ached like I’d run full steam into a freight train carrying a planet’s worth of bricks. But when I turned to see Orion, the weight that had been on my chest for the last few days lifted.
He’d come for me. He’d heard my voicemail and felt my panic and come for me.
Memories of being strung up in that vampire’s hellhole flashed through my mind, the feel of the silver coursing in my veins making me want to shrivel up into a ball. It was the most agonizing torture I’d ever been through, like acid in my blood, fire in my bones. My entire body felt aflame. Tears formed at the corners of my eyes and I tried to blink them back, but a desperate sob wrenched out of my lungs and I struggled to breathe.
Orion’s arms tightened, pulling me closer to him.
“It’s okay, little fox. I’m here. I’ve got you.” His murmured words soothed the horrible memories, and I turned to face him, tucking my head under his chin to inhale his woodsy scent.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the Scorpions,” I said. “I should have said something sooner. I should have done it all different.”
“Shh,” he said, kissing my forehead before using his nose to nudge me up, so I had to look at him. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. I hated the thought of him putting his hands on you, of losing you. I shouldn’t have let you walk away. My temper got the best of me. I won’t let it happen again.”
“Do you still want me?” I hung on the anticipation of his answer, knowing I couldn’t face his rejection again.
“I love you, little fox. Forever. I always will.”
His words broke me, and I cried harder, letting the weight of everything I’d been through pour out of me. I hated the fact I couldn’t get through this without sobbing. I’d just survived a hell of a trauma, but my fox wanted to be strong for him, to let him know I deserved to be his mate because I could withstand whatever this life threw at me.
You’re good enough as you are, my fox reminded me. You deserve him because he’s your mate. That’s all.
I needed the cleanse this release brought me. I needed to process the emotional weight of all I’d been through.
“I love you, too, grumpy wolf,” I said. “Please mate me. Please let me stay with you.”
“You won’t be able to run away from me,” he said. “Not again. Never again.”
That, too, comforted the side of me that needed him to feel safe and whole. We were mates, irrevocably and infinitely.
Sometime later, the healer came in to check on us, and Orion introduced her as Morwyn. She had bright blue eyes and a kind smile, but she seemed exhausted, her features drawn and her skin pale.
“The silver should be out of your system by now,” Morwyn said before glancing at Orion’s arm. “And you’re all healed up, which isn’t surprising.”
I narrowed my eyes as I wondered what she meant.
“It’s because you’re with me,” Orion said, obviously sensing my confusion. “You’ll heal faster when you’re with your mate. It’s the magic.”
“The magic,” I repeated, nodded.
“Whatever it is that makes us shift, whatever it is about me that helped you transition, it’s what decided we were the most compatible together.” He brushed a piece of hair out of my face. “There’s a reason for that and a whole host of benefits.”
“One of them is healing each other,” Morwyn continued. “When you need it, he gives you energy. When he needs it, you give him the same.”
“Morwyn is the pack healer,” Orion went on. “She can draw energy from us all in order to save the pack. That’s how she healed you. Otherwise, the silver would have taken days to clear out.”
“Thank you,” I said to Morwyn.
She pursed her lips and nodded. “We’re all happy Orion has mated, but you should know, Vermillion is still in critical condition. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to talk again. Ruby and some of the others are furious.”
Orion snorted a disbelieving noise and shook his head. “I’m not afraid of Ruby.”
“I’m not worried about you.” Morwyn glanced at me and raised her eyebrow. A chill raced down my spine and I tried my best to hide it. “I’ll let you two get ready to leave. Kodiak’s called a meeting, and you should go.”
“What happened to Vermillion?” I asked after she left.
Orion ran a hand back through his hair and sighed. As we dressed in clean clothes, he explained what it had cost the pack to get me and Guin out of there. He told me about Ruby’s reluctance to be involved and how she feared the worst would happen. “It almost did.”
Guilt settled in my gut, rotten enough to make me feel like I would vomit. I didn’t like the thought someone had almost died so I could live. It shouldn’t have had to be that way, and now that Marx had escaped, the war would continue.
“It’s okay, little fox,” he said, grabbing the back of my neck so he could pull me in for a kiss. “This is what pack does. I would gladly lay down my life if it meant saving any one of them. The lone wolf dies, but the pack gives. The pack thrives.”
“Will they ever forgive me?” I asked, determined to do whatever it took to earn my place with Orion’s family.
“You’re the second’s mate, the VP’s old lady. You’ve already won over Lycan and Poe. You’ll be okay, I promise.”
I nodded and prayed he was right. Of course, I wanted more than to be okay. I wanted them to like me. I wanted to be their family.
“Let’s go.” He held out his hand for me to take. “The clubhouse is a short walk from here.”
While he led me across the Bastard property, he told me about how the pack worked. Their ranch sat on a few thousand acres that everyone in the club helped maintain. Each adult member had their own house, but the younger shifters chose to stay in the dormitories together, preferring to be around others their own age.
“Is that where I should be living?” I asked, pleased when he grabbed my fingers, growled, and kissed my knuckles.
“You better be in my bed every night or I’m going to come looking for you.” He said it with a playful grin, but I recognized the serious look behind his eyes. He really would drag me back to his room if he had to, but he never would. There was no place I’d rather be.
He turned onto a snowy gravel driveway leading up to a building that looked like it had been converted from an old barn and turned into a large house. Together, we walked inside, and I braced myself against whatever would await me.
Truthfully, I’d been nervous to meet the rest of the pack. Sure, some of them had come to rescue me and my sister, and maybe I had some allies with them. But I feared what this Ruby would say, especially with Vermillion still so injured.
All eyes shifted to us when we entered the enormous room. The floors were concrete and various Bastards sat around at random tables scattered throughout. A large door on my right led to a room in the back with a desk and a long, rectangular table with the Royal Bastards logo burned into it. Across from us, more shifters sat at a bar with a marble countertop, all swiveling around to face us. Behind that were pool tables, but no one stood around them.
I recognized some of the faces from the night they’d come to save me, particularly the woman who’d clawed Marx so Orion could try to take him down.
Larentia, I think.
“There she is,” Lycan said, sauntering up to me with his arms open. “How are we feeling, your worshipfulness? All that silver gone now?”
“Okay,” I said, giving him a hug. Sure, my head throbbed and my body ached, but now that Orion and I were with the pack, there was a noticeable difference in intensity. As if being with them made it easier to bear. Poe followed closely behind him, pulling me into a tight embrace before turning to point at Kodiak and Guin in the back room.
I raced to my sister, tears burning my eyes at how rough she looked, so much worse than me. Where I’d healed with the help of my mate, she didn’t have one, or if she did, she was too far away from him to be of help. Perhaps she was wrong about Vermillion, after all.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, hugging me despite the fact I knew her love language definitely was not physical touch.
“Me too,” I said. “Have you talked to Maeve or Avalon? How is everyone at home?”
She shrugged. “We’ll check in after this, okay?”
I nodded as Kodiak walked closer, his massive arms crossed. Objectively, the Bastard alpha was gorgeous. He had bright, intelligent eyes that saw more than he’d likely admit, and his strong body spoke to the hours he must have spent in the gym. I wondered where his mate was because certainly someone like him couldn’t be single.
“Isolde,” he said, holding a hand out for me to take. “Welcome to the Royal Bastards clubhouse. I’m glad you’ve healed up.”
I took it and gave it a firm shake, recalling the last time we’d been introduced had ended with him berating Orion for having seen me through the transition and mating me without his knowledge. Now, he seemed much friendlier.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded to the table behind him and glanced up at the Bastards still mingling around. “C’mon everyone. We’ve got two new pack members to greet and a deal to make.”
Deal? What deal?
Orion hadn’t mentioned anything about that, but when I furrowed my brows at Guin and she smiled in response, I figured she had worked her business magic on the alpha before I’d arrived.
Orion pulled me over to a seat next to Kodiak before sitting and tugging me down into his lap. A few of the other shifters eyed me curiously as they filed in, but most smiled and waved in a genuinely friendly greeting.
Growing up, I’d had a few friends at boarding school, but none I would consider close enough to call family. I understood this pack’s closeness immediately. Because I had mated Orion, I was already in the family. I still had to earn my place, just as I had to at the Fiver, but they would give me the benefit of the doubt because their second in command, their vice president, had mated me. And if a grumpy Bastard like him could find it in his heart to love me, then surely they could as well.
Lycan and Larentia sat opposite of me, and a few other Bastards wearing cuts filled in the rest of the table. Poe stood off to the side while all the members of the club circled around us.
“Brothers and sisters, family,” Kodiak started, standing at the head of the table with his fingertips on the surface. “We have much to discuss. First, we have two new members of the pack: Isolde and Guinevere Vanderbilt.” He gestured to us. “Both take the shape of a fox during the moon, and they’ll be turning with us from now on.”
“So she’s the one we almost lost Vermillion for?” one of the members of the pack asked, their eyes shifting between me and Guinevere, who stood next to Kodiak—close enough to touch his shoulder. My mate tightened his arms around me for a moment before he took a deep breath and let it go on a sigh.
“That’s my mate you’re talking about,” Orion snarled, his eyes turning sky blue. “Be careful what you say next.”
“I feel the bonds to them,” Kodiak said before the naysayer could respond, “Even without performing the ritual, they are present.”
“Isolde, I understand,” someone else said. “She’s mated to our second, to the veep. Her sister?” They shook their head. “Forgive me for saying so, but the Vanderbilts are ruthless.”
“And what would you have me do?” Kodiak asked, pursing his lips. “Leave a shifter to suffer the moons alone? Her sister is in the pack. She is connected to us in more ways than one.” Kodiak shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, like there was more he wanted to say but couldn’t. “Know this—if she was not meant to be in the pack, there wouldn’t be a bond.”
“I can speak for myself,” Guin cut in, glancing at the person who’d suggested she shouldn’t be here. “I’ve known about you all for over ten years. I’ve been searching the rest of the country for shifters similar to us, and the magic is different depending on where you go. In all that time, I could have screwed you over a thousandfold. I haven’t.”
“That we know of,” grumbled that same person.
“Tell you what, old man,” Guin said, turning so she faced the guy questioning her. “If you find out I’ve betrayed you in some way, you can challenge me yourself.” Whispers echoed around the club, some disbelieving, some impressed. “You all like to do that, don’t you? Beat each other down to see who’s on top? You look like you hit your stride in the eighties. I bet I could have you on your knees, begging me for a reprieve.”
Lycan laughed, echoing a few other chuckles coming from other people, including Larentia. But the other female at the table, the one that looked like she could be Kodiak’s sibling, only ran her tongue over a canine and raised her eyebrow at my sister.
Ruby.
“Is that a promise?” she asked.
Guin narrowed her gaze on Ruby and put her hands on the table, leaning closer to the pack member. “You bet. You wanna handle this now?”
“Maybe I do.” Ruby crossed her arms. “Brother, I told you what would happen if we trusted the Vanderbilts and we almost lost pack because of it. Now, you leave us no room for concern?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t sit right.”
“Enough,” Kodiak cut in. “As alpha, it’s my right to welcome anyone into the pack that I deem worthy. I have enough support from the rest of my council to override vetoes from the others.”
More grumbles of approval came from the crowd, and his disapproving sister let out a long sigh.
“We’ll perform the pack and mating rituals at the next new moon in a week’s time.” Kodiak pushed upright and cleared his throat. “There are two other matters to discuss. Guinevere?”
She cleared her throat and crossed her hands together in front of her as I raised my eyebrows, curious about where this was going.
“On behalf of the Vanderbilt family, I want to extend my thank-you to everyone that risked their lives to save me and my sister.” She glanced around the room, making sure to linger on Ruby before focusing on Kodiak. “We are in your debt.”
He nodded, accepting the acknowledgment. And though I didn’t know for certain, I figured owing the pack a debt meant something important, more than it did between humans.
“We got into this predicament because our late brother decided to be a greedy little prick and make a deal with the Scorpions rather than wait for me to find an alternative.” Guin cleared her throat and straightened, reminding me so much of our father in that moment, I almost could have cried. “I propose a truce. For too long our families have been enemies, divided when we should have stood together. Our lands border each other. We can help each other.”
“What are you proposing?” the man sitting next to us asked. His cut read Moose.
“We need workers to help us through the winter. We’re already behind schedule, and the ranch hands I was able to secure won’t be nearly enough.”
“And in exchange?” Moose asked.
“We make you the same deal—money and land. A future with Vanderbilt Enterprises. A treaty with the most powerful and influential family in Helena…probably even Montana.”
Mumbles came from around the crowd, and I swelled with pride at Guin’s brilliance. This had been what we’d talked about before the abduction. This had been our plan. As I sat there and watched them mull it over, I realized Guin and I may have done what our father never could. We may have ended this feud with the Royal Bastards, and all it took was one offer of good will.
“Think about it,” she said. “But time is wasting, so don’t take too long.”
“We’ll discuss it at our next council meeting, and I welcome any and all thoughts from the pack.” Kodiak nodded. “Thank you, Guinevere.”
“Thank you, Kodiak,” she said, smiling at me before taking a step back behind him again.
“And finally, Moose.” Kodiak turned to the shifter next to us. “What’s the final count on the Scorpions? How many heads did we take?”
“Near fifteen. We burned their bodies and buried the heads, just like you asked,” Moose said, inducing a round of hoops and hollers from the pack. I sensed the warm spark of joy emanating from Orion and the others, the thought of fewer vampires in the world an overwhelming feat. “But we nearly lost Vermillion and four others. Opal and Fenris are still in critical condition.”
“And Marx?” Kodiak looked to Serpent, who took a long inhale of his cigarette and let it out with a shrug.
“We’re still looking for him,” he said. “But I’m sure he’ll pop up sooner or later. He won’t let something like this stand.”
“I agree,” Lycan said, a deep growl erupting from his chest. “He wants Sol. He feels he’s owed her. He’ll come for her, and he won’t stop until he has her.”
“He’s welcome to try,” Orion said from behind me. “But the next time that bloodsucking motherfucker looks in her direction will be the last time he has eyes. I’ll tear his head off myself.”
More claps of approval came from around us, and I shifted closer to Orion, feeling safer than I had in my entire life.
“Let me know if anything comes up.” Kodiak straightened and turned his attention to me and Orion. “It’s seven days until the new moon. Rest up. Prepare yourselves. We’ll do the ceremony at moonrise.”
Orion tightened his arms around me and kissed my shoulder, and a blush burned my cheeks as another congratulatory round of shouts came from all around us.