Maddox
Iwatch from the back porch as Red runs around the backyard with the twins in wolf form. Bain stays close, keeping his eyes on the tree line and her, making sure she’s safe while letting her drop her guard for a moment.
I’m glad Hunter was able to cook the steaks fast. She ate three of them, even if she did choose the well-done ones over the less-cooked options. I’m just glad she’s eating. She already looks better than she did when we first met her.
Hunter and Chase seem to be playing some sort of game of tag with her now, one they seem to be letting her win, as I know they aren’t running at anywhere close to full speed. But it doesn’t matter. All three of them are having fun, and that’s all that matters.
Happiness and safety.
As their leader, it’s important that I give them as much of that as possible. I feel like I’ve been failing at it lately. Especially when it comes to Red. I’m still kicking myself for scaring her when we got home.
Thank goodness for Gage. That’s why he is always the one I go to first when I can't figure something out. The chances are that if I didn’t understand something, he did.
He recognized her wolf instincts and knew she feared confinement. My hands clench tightly at the thought of her being locked up somewhere. Had she been on some sort of house arrest or was it far worse? Had she been caged?
If she hadn’t shifted in five years, does it mean that’s how long she was held captive for? Where was she even taken from? Does she have family out there looking for her?
“Fuck,” I hiss, realizing how much I’m failing her right now.
“What’s wrong?” Gage asks as he steps up beside me, passing me a beer as he takes a sip of his own.
“What if she has a family out there?”
His bottle freezes halfway to his mouth before he slowly lowers it. “Shit.”
“Exactly. We’re going to have to ask her.”
“What if she does?”
I lick my lips and swallow heavily. “Then we’ll have to figure out a way to find them and reunite them.”
He’s silent for a moment before dropping his voice to a whisper. “We might lose her to them.”
“We might,” I agree, before taking a few long sips of my beer.
We don’t speak anymore. We just watch in silence for the next hour as they run around the yard. The twins get in a few light tackles, which has Bain growling, but Red doesn’t seem bothered by it. She seems… happy.
When the three of them jog over to us, and she takes a long drink from the fresh bowl of water I set out for her, I see pieces of grass sticking out from her fur, and it gives me an idea.
“It’s been a while since your last bath, Red.” She glances up at me and tilts her head. “Why don’t we all go for a swim? We can show you our pond.” I gesture toward it, and she takes a long look before giving me the smallest of head nods.
My chest warms, knowing that she doesn’t know how to swim but is trusting me with this. It’s a big step forward.
Hunter nudges her side, then takes off running toward the pond. Chase barks at her, making her follow Hunter with him at her side. Bain follows slowly as Gage takes my empty beer from me to set it inside with his.
When the twins reach the pond, they run in from the shallow sandy end until they’re paddling around, lapping up the water as they go.
Bain quickly runs up to her side and swiftly changes into his human form.
She jumps back from him in surprise, but before she can argue, he scoops her up and starts to walk into the water.
Gage throws down a large pile of towels he grabbed inside, then the two of us quickly undress and join them in our human forms. I want to be able to hold her and help her, and I can’t do that if I’m in wolf form.
Bain doesn’t go in too deep; he stays in the middle as he sways her back and forth. She looks a little tense, but I can see she’s trying to be brave for him.
When I make it over to them, I run my hand along her back, under the water. “You doing okay, Red?” She gives a small head nod, making me smile. “I hope you like our pond. We made it look as natural as possible so we can swim as wolves or humans.”
I gesture to where the twins have started paddling around us in a circle, then, in unison, they suddenly switch back to their human forms.
“Let’s show her the best part,” Hunter says excitedly as he stands and motions toward the waterfall. He leads the way, and Bain turns her to rest her paws on either side of his neck so he can hold her against him with one hand and use the other to swim. I stay close in case she slips.
“Hold your breath,” I tell her right before Bain swims through the waterfall. It’s much more gentle than the one where we first bathed her, and when we arrive on the other side, she doesn’t seem too bothered by going through it.
The ground is high enough here that we can stand with the water coming up to my ribs. The others are a bit further out of the water than me, due to their heights.
Red looks around as Chase smirks. He throws his arms wide and turns in a slow circle.
“This is our private cave,” he says, motioning to the secret cave we had built in here.
Nobody but the five of us, six of us now, knows about it.
The contractors who built it were from out of town.
It’s not like you could do anything here other than hang around, but it made a safe spot to hide something… or someone.
“Nobody but us knows it exists,” I tell her. “Once you learn to swim, you can come here anytime you want.”
She gives me what looks like a head nod as Bain turns, letting her see the different levels of ground, giving us some places to sit, while still being in the water, and then the cave itself, which is raised out of the water completely.
“We should teach her to swim,” Gage says as he stares at her in contemplation. I see her paws tense, her nails digging into Bain’s shoulders.
“Another time,” I tell him. “It’s been a busy day and she may still be recovering.”
“True,” Gage says with a frown. “We still don’t know the long-term ramifications of what happened in the woods.”
We all make our way out of the pond, and Red closes her eyes when she notices our naked bodies. We’re not used to hiding our nudity so much. It’s pretty normal around shifters, but she seems uncomfortable around it, so we tie the towels around our waists.
“You can look now,” I tell her. “We’ve covered up.” She peeks at me from where she’s standing on all fours between us, then I visibly see her shoulders relax as she glances around at everyone.
Hunter grabs a free towel, kneels down beside her, and starts drying her off. Chase mirrors his position on the other side as they tell her how pretty she is and dry her off.
I smirk, shaking my head at them as I head back to the house, Gage at my side.
“Maybe we should watch a movie to help her relax?” Gage asks as we head inside and up the stairs toward our rooms.
I huff out a laugh as I raise a brow at him. “You’re going to sit and watch a movie?” I ask in disbelief.
“Well, I’ll be in the room,” he says, his own lip twitching in amusement. “But I need to keep researching. There must be something useful I can find.”
It is strange that he hasn’t been able to find anything that can help us identify her or her symptoms. But if she had been experimented on, then there would be nothing in those history books that could help. And that’s what I am afraid of most.
Once I’m dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, I head back downstairs to find Red lying on her side in front of the fire, Chase sits beside her, gently running his fingers through her fur.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so calm. He’s normally bouncing on his toes, full of energy, and ready to either go for a run or get in a fight.
He and Hunter have come a long way since we met them six years ago on the brink of being exiled from their pack. My uncle had sent me West to the Red Creek Pack to try to negotiate more land from their alpha’s territory.
That venture had been pointless, but it did allow Bain, Gage, and me to meet the twins.
As I watch Chase be more gentle than I’ve ever seen him in my life, I realize two things.
One, he truly believes she’s his fated mate, and two, he’ll be absolutely heartbroken if she ever leaves.
That loss could send him spiraling, and I’m not sure who would be left unfazed to help piece him back together.
Because if she leaves, I’ll be absolutely gutted.