9. Revelations
Revelations
Dakota
I ’d seen the pain in Jasper’s eyes, just a quick flash, there and gone again.
I wanted to feel vindicated it hurt him keeping us apart, but I didn’t.
After letting Angelica sleep for half an hour, I carefully handed her off to Jasper without speaking a word to the man.
If I opened my mouth, I’d end up begging him for another chance.
Tell him to forget about this guy, Silas, no one could be better for him than his true mate.
Not wanting to risk another rejection, I left my little Angel with her papa, and made my way over to my alpha and alpha mate.
They were chatting in a small group of mainly family and the ever present Roan.
“Alpha, I wanted to take you up on that job offer if it still stands.” I said, as I came to a stop in front of them.
“Really?” Kade asked, his eyes lighting up.
“Yes, really. The offer is great and I’ve already got ideas.”
“This is perfect,” Blake said warmly. “You’re exactly what we need in the office, especially with the babies on the way. When can you start?”
“Well, I’m bored with my own company and my dad doesn’t want me at his clinics, so tomorrow?”
“That works for me.” Blake looked at his mate, gauging his response to his next words.
“Dakota, would you mind sticking close to Kade when we all shift? I know we have Roan,” he acknowledged the man at Kade’s feet.
“But with the babies, I’d prefer more of a guard.
We’re still checking the pack for any last traitors. ”
Kade looked mollified by that reasoning, and I hastened to accept. “Of course, Alpha.”
I felt my mate’s gaze on me. My shoulders stiffened and Kade narrowed his eyes as he looked between the both of us. “What’s going on?” He dragged the words out with his open suspicion.
“I’ll tell you later.” I promised.
“So, there’s something to tell, then?”
“Later.” I repeated firmly.
“Fine.” He huffed. I felt a smile slip into place. Kade pulled on my hand until I was sitting at his side. “How about now?”
I pushed him away with my shoulder as I laughed, Kade’s chuckle melding with mine.
Anxiety prickled along my senses that Kade would reject me or that this would damage our friendship.
I knew telling him was the right thing to do.
In all honesty, I should have told him sooner.
I guess I’d just hoped that over the last couple of weeks that Jasper would change his mind. No such luck.
Sitting with my pack mates, I just listened to the ongoing conversations, adding little, just soaking up the peace that came with my pack.
I felt Jasper’s attention multiple times, yet worked not to give any outward indication that he was getting to me.
My bear got stronger the closer that we got to the moon reaching its peak, making the task that much harder.
One by one, we began to show signs of the moon’s pull. We didn’t have to shift then, but it felt uncomfortable not to. Perhaps if we were a pack that spent a lot of time as our alters we wouldn’t feel it as sharply.
“Okay, start getting ready,” Blake called as he rose to his feet and started stripping down.
Feeling eyes on me as I took my shirt off, my eyes lifted to meet Jasper’s.
He was standing in his underwear, pale skin gleaming in the moonlight.
Beautiful. I swallowed sharply and let his eyes take their fill of my chest. Slowly, keeping my eyes on him, I unbuttoned my jeans.
His eyes flicked down as I let the denim drop.
He licked his lips and his pupils dilated.
The moment stretched between us. Then I blinked and Jasper was in his fox form.
With just a look, I could almost feel the fox apologizing for his human self.
His all too human eyes stared for a minute, then they turned away to encourage Angelica to shift.
“I need the full story soon, Dakota.” Kade said from his place beside me.
I dropped my underwear, cupping my dick because of the kids around.
I wasn’t used to shifting around young ones.
There weren’t many in the sleuth, since a lot of the parents had moved away with their children or turned their backs on pack life.
Shifters weren’t body conscious. Nudity was perfectly normal.
It was a fine line around children, though. No one wanted to be inappropriate.
Papa had gone on rants about how human culture had infiltrated shifter culture, making us question our natural state, causing kids to be wary about shifting in front of their pack mates. I smiled, thinking of him as I let my bear take over.
My bear took in the scents of the forest at the edge of the backyard.
The scent of caramel and cinnamon that I associated with my mate teased my senses.
Remembering my task, I stuck close to Kade rather than let my nose guide me to our mate.
My bear grumbled in approval. We had to protect our cub.
He felt the presence of the tiny heartbeats inside our wolf son.
To him, it was simple—Jasper and his fox were our mate and Jasper’s children were now ours to protect and love.
It didn’t matter a jot that we hadn’t helped make them.
We’d get our turn at cubs, he assured me.
His unerring faith in our goddess and fate smoothed over my cracked heart.
Kade rubbed alongside me, layering me in the pack’s scent before resting his head against his mate’s. They broke apart, Blake moving aside to raise his head and howl, signaling the pack to begin their run.
Staying by Kade’s side was harder than I thought.
A month ago, I thought I would never run with my friend like this.
Now I was struggling to keep up with the agile wolf as he led us through the forest, two dark wolves on his heels.
I could almost see his wolfish grin and felt his joy through the pack link.
Jumping over logs and ducking under low branches, I heard Kade’s laughter as I caught burrs in my fur and hit my head more than once in my haste to keep up.
Sorry, Kota! he called back to me.
Dakota, fall back if you like and look after the little ones. Deke, stick to Kade. Blake ordered.
Yes, alpha , he replied, the charcoal wolf dashing to Kade’s side. The red-brown wolf was sitting tall, tongue hanging out, looking mischievous. Right away, I felt glad I was being moved to another job. I didn’t want to be Deke.
Sure enough, Deke didn’t have time to stop as Kade turned and ran deeper into the woodland. He gave what looked like a pleading look for patience and hurried after the errant alpha mate.
An hour later, most of the party had broken up, with children taken home by their parents. I’d stood by quietly as Jasper had congratulated his son and son-in-law, disappearing without another word or look in my direction.
“Okay, explain,” Kade demanded, taking a seat on a comfortable sofa in the living room of the mansion. Blake’s brothers had made themselves scarce.
“I can leave,” Roan offered.
I only thought about it for a second. There was no way that we’d be going through this conversation just once. Having Roan leave the room every time we ended up talking about this was going to get tedious. “Nah, you can stay,” I told him.
Roan relaxed in the cushions of the armchair that faced the door. Always alert and ready for an attack. I hoped they finished going through the pack soon to weed out the Rincoln sympathizers.
“Basically,” I said, turning to face Kade, “when I met your papa, we both realized straight away that we’re fated mates.”
“What? This is the best news ever!” Kade’s face voice was incredulous. His eyes were joyous. Slowly, that light dimmed as he figured it out. “Who rejected who?”
“Jasper rejected him.” Roan said from across the room. To me he said, “that’s right, isn’t it? I was there in the office when he saw you. I saw you react to something.” Roan spoke into the sudden silence.
“Three times.” I admitted.
“What?” Kade and Blake spoke together. Kade looked… angry, disappointed, resigned. I couldn’t quite get a read on it.
“At first, I wasn’t sure. I thought… I thought that I’d already met my mate. We were young and didn’t get the chance to find out if the bond was there.” I looked down at my hands.
“When we were at Heatwave, you mentioned a mate, and I never got to ask you about them.” I could tell that Kade wanted to know what had happened.
“It’s a bit of a long story.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about Cooper when I was telling my friends about Jasper being my mate. Then I thought about Cooper and knew that honoring his memory meant speaking about him.
“We’ve got time.” Blake said as Kade yawned and leaned against him.
Kade gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I’m tired, but I want to hear about the person you thought was your mate. I’m sorry about Papa, Kota. Tell me, please.”
I ran a hand over my face, mentally bracing myself.
“Cooper and I met when his family migrated from another pack. He had an omega sister, and she mated a member of our sleuth. They moved away… after. We were nearly twenty at the time, so we were together for just over a year. Our attraction was instant, and both our families encouraged and supported our bond. Cooper’s family especially.
It soon became apparent that something was wrong with Cooper.
” My eyes rose to meet Kade’s. “You know, shifters don’t get ill often.
Your illness was unusual, but we know the cause.
Cooper, he had really intense heats. No one knew why.
They lasted at least a full day, sometimes two, and took days to recover from.
He’d been avoiding them by using blockers. ”
“So that’s why you hate them!” Kade burst out.
“Yeah. We went through his heat together after I got him to stop taking them for a while. Both Dad and Papa had coached me extensively. I was already twenty-one by the time it happened. We thought he would turn twenty-one and The Luna would reveal the mate bond. I think we all hoped, his family, and mine, Cooper too, that having a mate bond would make them easier to deal with. That my bear would somehow stabilize him. The heat… moon help me. It was awful. Nothing seemed to satisfy him. He was constantly in pain and crying. When it came close to his next heat, just weeks before his birthday, I handed him the blockers myself.”
“Kota —“ my name slipped from Kade’s mouth as a plea for a different outcome.
Taking a deep breath, I continued. “As you’ve probably guessed from when you took them, he’d developed a tolerance for them.
Cooper had to take more to push his heat back.
They poisoned him.” I felt the tears rise.
I didn’t hold them back. Just let them fall.
“My bear woke me. Changes in Cooper’s breathing alerted him.
We’d been really protective of him. No one questioned it.
Deep down, I think we all knew that we were losing him.
Cooper was gasping for breath, his shift going in and out like I’ve never seen before.
It scared him. Terrified me. I could feel his fear until I spoke to him.
I tried to coach him to take deep breaths as I used the pack link to call for my dad.
Cooper turned to me and told me he loved me.
I just remember telling him I loved him too, that it’d be okay.
He just needed to hold on.” A sob broke loose.
“He couldn’t. His soul was tired. By the time my dad got there, Cooper was gone. ”
Kade moved from his mate’s side and climbed into my lap. “I’m sorry, Kota.” He held me while I cried.
“Me too, kiddo,” I finally said, wiping my face.
I got myself in order. Needing to finish the story now that I’d started.
“So that’s why I don’t like blockers. We held Cooper’s funeral a few days later.
His parents left a few weeks after that.
They couldn’t stand to be so close to all those memories.
Unlike me, they didn’t put any blame on me.
Cooper’s sister convinced her mate to move not long after that.
Not having the reminders around helped. I moved into a different apartment.
Tried to put it behind me. Dad put more research into reproductive issues in omegas.
It was his way of honoring his almost son-in-law.
After a while, I just begged them to stop reminding me about the best and worst times of my life.
We stopped talking about Cooper and I tried to move on.
I didn’t think that I had a fated out there until I locked eyes with your papa. ”
“Then he rejected you.”
“He did when he ignored me in that room. Then again, when he closed your door in my face after I tried to get him to talk about it.”
“Seriously?” Kade sat straighter in my lap.
“Papa encouraged me to talk about it. There’s no denying fate, and we needed to have a plan in place if he went through with a formal rejection.”
“Formal rejection?” I’d forgotten how little Kade and even Jasper knew about shifters. Their pack had limited education to omegas. Probably in an effort to keep them repressed. I was so glad that Rincoln was dead, or I’d have to hunt him down and kill him myself.
“I’ll tell you later, sweetheart,” Blake said into Kade’s ear as Kade returned to his mate’s side.
“I went to your house, built Angelica a trampoline, and hung out with Jasper for a bit. I hoped we could make something work. We could be like you guys and take it slow.” I motioned to Blake and Kade.
“He told me he had no intention of mating with me or formally rejecting me. Jasper mentioned a guy he’d left behind he had no intention of ending things with.
While he feels the draw, he’s determined to ignore it and wants me to do the same. ”
“So you’ve got to see him with Silas knowing he’s yours and you are his?
How does he think that will go? This Silas guy is going to figure it out.
Anyone can see the tension between you both, and Papa is the worst liar ever.
Does he think Silas will go back home and not wonder if the bond will get the best of you both?
We all know fate likes to mess up our plans. ”
We all chuckled. Kade wasn’t wrong. Fate didn’t approve of having her plans ignored. “Don’t worry, Dad.” He stumbled over the name, but his eyes took on a wicked glint, there and gone again. “I’ll help fix this mess.” My son gave me a sweet smile as I fought back a fresh batch of tears.