Chapter 11
Reid
The bonus of having Calan turn up at the crack of dawn to relieve Logan was that I was up a whole hour earlier than needed. Which, in turn, meant I beat Chester to work.
There was a first time for everything, I supposed. I managed to make it on time on days when I had to open the shop, but it took six alarms to achieve it. Other days though? My punctuality was more hit and miss than an incel’s success rate with beautiful women.
To be fair, that often happened with me. I overshared like it was going out of fashion. It was possibly the neurodivergence at play, but I suspected my upbringing had something to do with it.
Not the having to hide what my family were from the world. It wasn’t like I’d interacted with anyone who wasn’t a supe as a kid. That didn’t happen until after I ran away.
No, it was because no one in the clan ever gave a shit about my thoughts or feelings. My voice wasn’t to be heard.
Funnily enough, Evan had been the first person to actually take an interest in what I had to say. Looking back now, he had to have been bored out of his fucking skull, listening to a ten-year-old drone on about dinosaurs. He’d never given any sign of it though. None I’d picked up on, anyway.
Finn’s voice echoed through my mind. “Evan’s a good person.”
I was sure he was. But, like I’d said to Evan, I couldn’t seem to move past this.
Even if I wished I could.
Chester’s eyes widened in alarm as he hurried towards me. “Is everything okay, Reid?”
I frowned over my coffee at him. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He gave a relieved sigh as he turned to unlock the back door. “You’re here early. I panicked in case something had happened. You haven’t had any more trouble from your family?”
That’s right—I hadn’t spoken to Chester since leaving the shop with the furry cavalry. I waved a hand towards the woods. “Nope. We can thank my bodyguards for that.”
Chester squinted in the direction of the trees. “I can’t see anyone.”
“Nah, me neither,” I said over my shoulder as I went to stash my bag. “Calan’s out there somewhere though. Logan sat on my sofa all night, but Calan refused to come in when it was time to switch over. Said he was fine outside. Stubborn git.”
“They’re guarding you?”
“Apparently.” I shrugged as I walked back out to face Chester. “Think it’s overkill, personally, but it’s their time to waste, I guess.”
“Are they…” Chester’s voice trailed off momentarily. “Are they strong enough to fight your family?”
I snorted. “Please. Finn and Calan have more strength in their pinkies than my entire cl—” I caught myself. Shit. That was close. “—family put together. And that’s before we add Logan into the equation.”
Chester looked confused. “But Logan’s tiny.”
“Logan’s psychotic,” I said flatly, recalling the sheer glee in his voice as he described how he’d skinned a wolf responsible for hurting Riley last year. “Don’t underestimate him based on his size. Doesn’t mean anything with wo—ah, blokes like him.”
Great going, I berated myself. If you accidentally reveal the truth to Chester, Finn might deliver you to the Clarksons himself, all tied up with a pretty bow.
Maybe that was an exaggeration, but he wouldn’t be happy about it. Given everything the McCarthys were doing for me right now, I didn’t want to upset them. Any of them.
Not even Evan?
I tensed. Weirdly, I didn’t want to upset Evan. Didn’t mean I wanted him in my life though. It was better for both of us this way.
“Did you mean to say wolf shifters?”
I froze, arm outstretched where I’d been reaching to turn on the computer. I blinked at Chester a few times as my brain raced to catch up to what he’d said. When it finally did, a huge grin spread across my face. “Shut the front door. Did Finn reveal his furry little secret?”
A laugh burst from Chester. “Man, I can’t wait to tell him you called it that.”
“He did.” I clapped my hands in glee as I realised what this meant. “Oh my god, does this mean you’re mated?”
Chester’s laughter faded away. “What? No, of course not. Why would it?”
I tapped my foot on the floor as I considered how honest to be. Fuck it, he already knew the biggest secret. There was no harm in sharing everything else too. “Supes usually only reveal their true nature to their mates.”
His face turned grim. “Well, he didn’t have much of a choice.”
That was when he explained what had happened the night before. How he’d choked on a tablet, and Finn had been forced to shift in order to save him.
There was one detail in his story that my mind fixated on. “Stop it. Are you trying to tell me that Finn, the terrifying and almighty leader of the great McCarthy Clan, has been spending weeks pretending to be a domestic pet?”
Chester winced. “You can’t say anything. This stays between us.”
I pouted. “Spoil my fun.”
“I mean it, Reid,” he said warningly. “You’re not to speak about this to anyone. Especially Logan.”
Ha. I could only imagine the shit Logan would give Finn for this.
“Fine.” I sighed dramatically. “It’s a good thing he was there.”
“It is. It would’ve ended very differently if he hadn’t been.”
I shuddered. It was a reminder of how fragile we humans were.
How something so tiny could spell the end for us.
It wasn’t something the rest of my family had to worry about.
You’d think being immortal would make them more empathetic to those who weren’t, but nope.
“Yeah. Thank fuck. Still, I can’t believe he spent all that time with you posing as a dog. ”
We talked some more about Finn playing at being a pet to get closer to Chester before moving on to some of the clan dynamics.
I was so fucking relieved that Chester knew the truth now.
I was used to watching my words around my friends, but that was before shifters had once again intruded on my life.
Having them around us on a daily basis…yeah, I was glad I didn’t have to censor myself with Chester.
Unsurprisingly, the topic came back around to my family. To how I was different from the rest of them.
“That can’t have been easy,” Chester said quietly. “Growing up somewhere where you’re seen as different.”
I stopped spinning in my chair as I considered how to answer his question. “I think it was the type of difference that bothered them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was weaker. Slower. Prone to illness and injury.” I listed off the reasons my father often threw at me, finishing with the one that hurt the most. “Instead of being an asset, I was a liability.”
Because rather than being born as the next alpha and leader of the clan, I’d been born human.
The lowest of the low.
“I’m sorry they made you feel like that, Reid. I don’t know you as well as I should, and that’s my fault, but what I do know is awesome.”
Fuck. Compliments were my kryptonite. I sank lower in my chair as if that would hide me from Chester’s earnest gaze. “I’m perpetually late, scattered, unable to focus unless I’m interested, and completely unlovable as far as my family’s concerned.”
And everyone else. Well, my friends loved me platonically. That counted, I supposed.
But it wasn’t the unconditional love I’d grown up missing. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find that.
Even if I wanted to.
Desperately.
Chester got to his feet suddenly. Marching over to me, he put his hands on both my shoulders. “Right, you listen here, Reid Clarkson.”
Oof. The full name. I was definitely in trouble.
“I know you’ve been told a lot of bullshit about yourself,” Chester continued firmly, “and not just by your family, but now I’m going to tell you some stuff.”
Despite myself, my lips lifted in a tiny smirk. “Because you’re more worthy of listening to than them?”
“Yes.” Chester nodded. “I am, because I’m going to tell you the truth. You, Reid, are caring. You refused to give up on trying to get me out of my shell, despite all my grumpiness.”
I fidgeted in my seat. I really couldn’t cope with people being this nice to me. “You were very grumpy. I get it now though. I should’ve been tempting you with bears instead of twinks.”
My attempt to derail Chester’s compliments failed miserably.
“You’re tenacious. You don’t give up on anything. If a design isn’t going the way you pictured, you don’t throw it out, you keep working at it until it’s just right.”
God, my face was on fire now. Chester didn’t stop though, just pushed through, determined. “You’re ridiculously intelligent. You might think your brain is scattered, but I wish I had a tenth of the knowledge you do. And you’re kind.”
I ducked my head as heat burned at the back of my eyes.
Chester refused to let me hide away, crouching in front of me so I could see exactly how much he meant what he was saying.
“Most importantly, even if you were none of these things, you still wouldn’t have deserved what you were put through as a child.
No one should be abused. No one, Reid. Including you. ”
A single tear slipped free.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Chester said quietly. “I’m so fucking sorry, Reid. It’s not your fault though.”
I wished I could believe him. I did. But the old patterns were too ingrained for my brain to overwrite them. “But I was born human.”
“So fucking what?” Chester’s voice rose. “You didn’t choose who or what you were born as. No one does. You were a goddamned child, Reid. A child. What they did wasn’t okay. It’s never okay to abuse or manipulate someone the way they did you.”
More tears were falling now. What Chester was telling me was patching up a wound I’d thought would never heal. It wasn’t gone; far from it. But the thread of his words was tugging at the edges, working to close it.
He wasn’t done, either. “And you’re not unlovable. Your family are the ones incapable of love. That doesn’t make you incapable or unworthy of being loved. You deserve it, the same as anyone else does.”
How I hoped that was true. Hoped, wished, even prayed.
I wanted to be loved. Wanted it more than anything.