Chapter 71 #2
Pops and Dad leave their RV at the rec center and follow me home in their SUV they tow behind it.
They’re not staying with us tonight; they’ll return to the RV.
Tomorrow, they’ll move into one of the larger guest houses.
Shawn and I live in what was their house before they started traveling in the RV.
The times they’ve visited since then they’ve either stayed with us or in one of the guest houses, depending on the circumstances.
I offered for them to stay with us, but I suspect they want a couple of nights of privacy now that they’re child-free for a little while.
I texted Shawn when they arrived in the compound. When we arrive home, the lights are on and we walk in to the smell of something delicious baking.
Dad practically shoves Pops out of the way and nearly tackles Shawn in a bear hug. “Oh my god! You finally got Jax off his ass!” Despite Dad’s obvious exhaustion, his joy is palpable and fills the room. “I can’t believe I finally get a grandpup!”
Shawn meets my gaze and I shrug, leaving the decision up to him.
He manages to untangle himself from Dad. “Well, you’re not getting a grandpup.”
Dad’s face falls. “What? Oh, no—”
Shawn holds up two fingers. “You’re getting grandpups, plural.”
“We—” His jaw snaps shut. “Two? TWINS?” he screams. He grabs Shawn again and lifts him off the floor, spinning him around.
Pops drapes an arm around my shoulders. “Congratulations, son.” He smiles. “You realize we can’t leave now, right?”
“Fuck you, Mike,” Dad says. “You can leave if you want, but I want grandpups! I’ve waited thirty-two years for this, and I’m fucking enjoying it.”
Pops roars with laughter. “You do remember we have two sons we need to retrieve from Owen, right? Who happens to be one of our other sons?”
Dad finally stops hugging Shawn and swoops over to hug me.
“They’re fine,” Dad says. “Besides, they’re not babies.
We’ll have a hard time getting them back, anyway.
Lately, they’ve been grumbling about living in the RV, you know.
Wondering when they get to come back to Florida.
And it’s not like we have much private time when they’re around. ”
“That’s TMI, Dad,” I tease.
“Well, obviously you already know how pups are made,” he shoots back.
“Too well,” Shawn snarks.
“Overachiever,” Pops says, grinning.
Despite acting chill, I know he’s as excited as Dad over this development. If Pops was still the pack Alpha, Dad would never have talked to him like this unless they were alone. Not even in front of us kids.
But they’ve both mellowed. With Pops no longer carrying the entire weight of the pack’s safety on his shoulders, it’s brought out a playful side of him.
The Ocala Pack was still relatively young, not even forty-five years old, when I was born sixty-two years ago. It wasn’t even a quarter the size it is now, in population or in geographical size.
Despite being Alphas, my next younger brothers, Owen, Kevin, and Edward, never wanted to take over the role of pack Alpha. So I was the double-default heir to the position, both by being the eldest child and the only Alpha son stupid enough to agree to do it.
I didn’t grow up with everyone assuming I was the “default choice” to become pack Alpha.
To be honest, no one—including me—thought Pops would choose to hand it over as soon as he did.
Hell, no one could imagine Mike Crow ever taking a day off, much less taking a knee to his eldest son.
Not when he was the one who started the pack from scratch.
I honestly think Dad talked him into it after they had Edward.
Four Alpha sons meant Pops could tap at least one of us to take over.
Dad always wanted a big family, and it wouldn’t shock me if they have more pups.
If anyone can talk Pops into something, it’s Dad. When I was growing up, Pops ran the pack, and Dad ran our home, in addition to helping Pops.
The oven timer goes off, and Shawn pulls the six pans of muffins he made out of the oven. Cranberry, blueberry, and banana nut.
“You didn’t have to go through that trouble for us,” Pops says when he finally gets to hug Shawn.
“Well, I was starving,” he admits. Figured might as well be productive if I’m awake.”
“Ah, let the cravings begin,” Dad teases.
When Shawn starts yawning his third muffin in, I send him to bed with his fourth muffin in hand while Dad, Pops, and I remain at the table to eat and talk.
“What the fuck is Sterling’s problem, anyway?” I ask Pops. “Does anyone know? Is he just some random asshole with delusions of grandeur?”
“Well,” Pops says, “for starters, he’s got an inferiority complex. Probably why he killed his own father.”
My eyes widen. “How did I not know that before now?”
“Hardly anyone knows it,” he says. “A guy who quietly left the pack about twenty years ago confided to me last week when all the arrangements for the refugees were starting. He heard what happened and approached me on the condition of anonymity.”
“I thought I heard Sterling’s father died in a car accident with one of his sons.”
“He did,” Pops says. “But the wreck wasn’t an ‘accident.’ This guy knew Sterling’s youngest sister back then, and she let it slip to him.
She was terrified of her brother. She accidentally overheard Sterling talking about it with one of her other brothers.
That brother was a beta, never would have been pack Alpha, and Sterling promised him he’d be second and always taken care of if he helped him off them.
She quickly married out of the pack and moved to Europe, outside her brother’s reach. ”
“Bet that pissed him off.”
“Oh, it did,” Pops gravely says. “She died in an ‘accident’ about a year later. Hit and run. She was walking, and the car didn’t stop.”
“Shit.” I stare at him. “He’s a special kind of asshole, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. As far as we know, those are the only direct relatives he’s offed. The rest of them fell in line immediately, and he’s ruled with an iron fist ever since. He took over as pack Alpha when he was thirty and has remained so ever since.”
“How did you manage to stay off his radar all these years?” I ask.
Pops smiles, but it’s the smile I’ve seen him use when someone’s pissed him off. “Probably because the fucker’s terrified of me.”
Dad laughs. “True story.”
I sit back. “How much history do I not know?”
They exchange a glance. “There’s a lot you never needed to know,” Pops says. “Like the fact that Dad’s mother’s mother was the sister of Sterling’s father’s mother.”
I attempt to do the familial math in my head when Dad says, “Cousins something-removed,” he says. “You and I are distant relations to Mal.”
“Which isn’t uncommon,” Pops continues. “Turn over enough rocks and most shifters of the same species will find common distant relations. Especially here in the States.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I say. “How do you know Sterling’s terrified of you?”
“Because about forty years ago, just a couple of years after he took over as pack Alpha, Sterling showed up at an unofficial gathering of some pack Alphas. He wasn’t invited, but someone spilled the beans, and he invited himself.
Tried to throw his weight around. I literally picked him up and tossed him out of the house before anyone else could react. ”
“That was ballsy of him to show up.”
“Well, he’s a delusional narcissist,” Pops says.
“The meeting was between pack Alphas of found-family packs like ours. Some queer-centric, some not. All of them with more than just wolves as members. All of us forging alliances with each other. Sterling strutted in there thinking he would scare all of us into taking knees and showing throats, and he left with his tail between his legs.”
“But how did that make him afraid of you?” I ask.
He smiles—that smile. “Oh, that would be because of the vampire.”
My eyes must be saucers by this point. “What vampire? Marchman?”
“No, a relative of his, Renard Banks. He was invited to the meeting by me as a sign of respect and peace, because Sterling was making waves. We wanted to assure the vampires that we didn’t stand with Sterling, and we didn’t give a shit what they did as long as innocent people remained unharmed.
That Sterling absolutely did not speak for us, and we had no beef with them.
But as Sterling got to his feet right there in the front yard and turned, already starting to bark threats, he watched all four of the armed bodyguards who’d come with him instantly fall to the ground with their throats cut.
Then Renard was standing behind him, the knife to Sterling’s throat, and asking why he shouldn’t just kill him, too.
“That’s when I walked over, stood in front of Sterling, and said if I ever so much as smelled him anywhere near our territories, I’d make sure all the vampires had his exact coordinates and they’d take him out.
I guess his fear held, until now. Sterling’s obviously emboldened by his run for Congress.
” Fury fills his features. “Which is likely why he’s targeting vampires, fae, and witches before he targets other shifters.
He wants to shred alliances and instill fear. ”
“And he wants to eliminate your backup,” I point out.
“That, too,” Pops says. “But he’s underestimated all of us and signed his death warrant.
If it wasn’t for the fact that they don’t want the bad press, the vampires would have already taken him out.
Unfortunately, no one knows what other plans or teams he’s got in place, and everyone’s scrambling to move and protect their people. ”
“Let me tell you Alizée’s idea…”
Ten minutes later, he’s nodding. “I like that. We also cannot do anything until all the refugees safely arrive and the other nests, covens, and fae colonies have prepared. It’ll be at least two weeks before that’s complete.
We’ll wait until then to formulate the strike against Sterling, but I like the idea of baiting him.
He’ll absolutely lose his shit. It’ll force him into fatal errors in judgment. ”
“I would like to exfil Mal’s mother, if possible.”
Dad shakes his head. “I wouldn’t count on it. I suspect Mal’s right that she’s terrified to leave. We can try, but we can’t risk personnel or resources if she doesn’t want to leave. Then again, if Alizée told Mal she’ll be here, I guess it makes it worth trying.”
It’s just after dawn, and all of us are yawning. “We should go,” Pops says.
I walk them to the door and they both hug me. Dad heads to the SUV while Pops hangs back.
“You’ve got this,” Pops says.
“I can’t help feeling like I’m…like I’m a failure.”
Pops scowls. “Why?”
I gesture at…
Well, everything. “Because I don’t have a handle on any of this shit!”
He snorts, which progresses to chuckles, then full-on laughter so hard he has to lean against the wall. When he finally collects himself, he meets my gaze dead-on.
“Jax, let me tell you a secret, son. No matter how old you get, you will always want an ‘adultier adult.’ And guess what else? We all do. None of us has this figured out. We’re all bullshitting our way through life.
Some people are better at hiding it than others, that’s all.
There’s not a damned thing wrong with you or how you run this pack, and you’re going to be an amazing father.
Maybe I don’t say this enough, but I’m really proud of you. ”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. Besides, you know what a damned control freak I am. If I didn’t have confidence in you, I’d still be pack Alpha. You of all people should realize that.”