20. Finn #2
Chester rubbed a hand over his head. Fuck, this had to be so hard for him. He found it difficult to trust those he was familiar with, like Reid. Here I was, asking him to trust people he’d never met before.
I gripped the back of his neck, bringing my lips close to his ear. “It’s okay,m’eudail. They’re safe.”
His lips thinned, but he sighed and began to talk. He quickly outlined what had happened, mentioning the card the shifter had left .
“Can I see it?” Evan asked, pushing away from the wall.
I held it out to him. Just like me, he sniffed it. Fury flared in his eyes, followed quickly by grim satisfaction. I raised a brow and he nodded.
He knew exactly who the fucker was.
“Did the man say anything else?” Logan said. “After he gave you the card?”
“No…” Chester said, before his brow furrowed. “Wait, yes. Right before he left, he said he had a message for my friends.”
All four of us stilled. My wolf waited on his haunches.
“Not sure who he meant,” Chester continued, oblivious to the effect his words were having on the rest of us. “I don’t have many friends.”
“Except me,” I said through gritted teeth. Logan shot me a pitying look as he realised what I already had. I might not have scented the other shifter immediately, but he’d scented me. Or worse, he’d seen me coming and going to this shop.
If that were the case…if he’d been watching me and I’d had no idea…
My wolf howled, shoving against my skin as he once more tried to force the shift.
I gripped the edge of the counter to ground myself as a few of my bones snapped and then healed almost instantly.
Not here, I begged my wolf. We’ll scare Chester.
My wolf was past listening. Chase. Hunt. Punish. Kill.
More cracking. Chester looked around with a frown. “There’s that sound again. Can you all hear that?”
Calan and Evan subtly edged closer while Logan drew Chester’s attention with a sunny smile. “Ah, that’ll be yer pipes. Now the weather’s getting colder, they’ll be icing up. ”
Chester was still frowning. “It’s not that cold.”
I gritted my teeth as my whole body vibrated. Calan was beside me now, moving with stealthy grace. He silently wrapped his fingers around my wrist.
And squeezed.
Hard.
The bones in my wrist broke unnaturally, so much more painful than the shift. My wolf howled in my mind. I focused on the pain, letting it ground me. My wolf was torn. Normally we’d shift to fight our attacker, but Calan was family. Blood. He didn’t know what to do.
I used that brief moment of confusion to wrestle back control. I slammed my wolf to the floor of my subconscious and forced him to submit.
Calan held on a beat longer, waiting for my nod. Once I’d given it, he retreated silently, but he didn’t go far, ready to intervene again if needed.
I didn’t judge him for it. No, I was grateful. It wasn’t often that one of us had to step in to calm another. Some clans would never do it, especially not if it was their leader who was dancing along the edge of control.
But this was us. Our trust and loyalty ran deeper than any other connections. The only thing that could ever compete with it was a mating bond.
My wrist was already healing itself, the pain fading into nothing. Inhaling deeply, I tuned back in to the conversation Chester and Logan were having. From the thunder on the latter’s face, he knew exactly what had been said.
“Okay let’s just make sure I’ve not missed anything,” Logan said loudly.
My earlier ire at him faded. He knew I’d been too far gone to hear, so he was making sure it was repeated now.
“He said to remind your friends that we have a treaty, and that he’s not broken it because he wasn’t violent. Is that right?”
“Yeah.” Chester ran an exhausted hand through his hair. “Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. He also said he expected my ‘friends’ to do the same.”
The four of us exchanged dark looks.
Chester touched my elbow. “I assume it means more to you than it does to me?”
“Aye,m’eudail.” I kissed his temple. “It’s complicated, but?—”
Before I could say another word, the back door of the shop opened. Logan and Calan tensed, but Evan retreated further into the corner as he said, “Relax. It’s just Reid.”
My lips thinned. How was Evan so familiar with Reid’s scent already? Was it from when he’d been keeping an eye on him?Or had he continued stalking him after I’d told him to step down?
The human who was at the centre of this drama walked into the shop and came to an abrupt halt. He only saw one of us. “ You .”
Evan cringed, lowering his head further as though that might save him from Reid’s wrath. In another situation, it might’ve been funny seeing him quiver in front of a man who was half his size. But knowing the guilt Evan was carrying? The shame he felt for not saving Reid as a child?
It meant nothing about this was funny.
“I thought I told you never to come back here,” Reid said, nostrils flaring. “And not only have you come back, but you’ve brought the whole furry cavalry with you?”
“What?” Chester asked in confusion as Logan coughed to try and hide his laugh. Furry cavalry. That would definitely be coming up again in future.
Chester moved around me to stand between his employee and Evan. He held his hands up placatingly. “Reid, they’re here because someone came into the shop looking for you earlier.”
The blood drained from Reid’s face. “What?”
“Something about him was off,” Chester said grimly. “Finn came in shortly after he left, and then he called his friends here. They think they know who it was.”
Reid swayed on his feet, his gaze finding Evan’s over Chester’s shoulder.“Who was it, Ev?”
Calan, Logan, and I all stiffened. Evan never let any of us shorten his name.
There was pity in Evan’s eyes as he answered him. “It was your father, Reid. Clyde.”
Reid was shaking his head, stepping backwards as though he were about to turn and run. “No. No, it’s not possible.”
“Actually I don’t think that is possible,” Chester said slowly. “That bloke looked around my age. There’s no way he was old enough to have a kid in his twenties.”
None of us knew what to say to that. Most supes appeared to be in their mid-thirties, so it wasn’t surprising that Chester thought that.
Reid was blinking rapidly, like he was fighting not to cry. Chester’s expression softened as he tugged the smaller man into a fierce hug. “Don’t panic. It can’t have been your dad, he wasn’t old enough. Besides, Evan didn’t see him, so how would he even know?”
Again, no one spoke. Not even Reid. Like us, he knew that Evan’s sense of smell was more reliable than the average person’s sight. If Evan said it was Clyde, that’s precisely who it was.
So many questions were running through my mind.
What did Clyde want with Reid? Why was he tracking him down when Reid had been free of his clan for five years?
What was so urgent that it warranted him risking coming into our territory to get his son back?
What if it happened again? What if he decided to threaten or hurt Chester as some sort of power play?
I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions.
Or the answer to the most important one: What the fuck did we do now?