Sam
The younger kids all leaned forward and looked at the place in awe. It was night and day different from the hovel they’d just been in.
He didn’t, but he spent all day, every day reassuring a classroom full of hormonal preteens, so he could handle a few anxious kids. All he had to do was stay calm, keep talking, and get them distracted.
“Everything’s going to be fine, guys. I promise. Now, I’m pretty sure Alpha Jerrick said something about sandwiches, and I don’t know about you guys, but I could really use a sandwich and maybe some milk. Ben?”
The older boy nodded. “I… I’d like a sandwich.”
“Me, too,” Henry said timidly. “We didn’t get to have dinner because we were bad.”
Sam ignored the angry noises he heard from the surrounding pack members and focused on staying calm and in control for the kids. “Then let’s go inside and check this place out. Okay?”
He began to walk forward, and the kids all kept close to his side. Vaughn and Meshaq led the way and stopped beside an older couple on the porch.
“Sam, these are my parents, Stuart and Joanne. Sam helped us tonight.” Sam smiled at them, unable to move closer because of the wall of kids surrounding him.
Vaughn paused and gestured Ben forward next. “And this is Ben.”
Stuart pulled Ben forward and they rested their heads together for a moment. He moved to Joanne next, who repeated the gesture, and then she began to coo over Ben. The boy immediately began to blush.
Henry came next, and then the rest of the kids. Ollie was still asleep against Sam, but they touched his head softly as well before they all went into the house.
Sam only thought the outside of the house was big.
But the inside? The inside was huge. Most of Vaughn’s pack members as well as the hellhounds stayed outside while Vaughn and his parents led Sam and the kids through to the large kitchen.
An older woman bustled around by the stove, but she paused once they entered the room.
“Hey, Nana,” Vaughn said. “Dad called you?”
“Of course, he did. And, oh my, who did you bring home? Look at these young ones! Vaughn! What are you waiting for? Get them in a seat. They must be hungry after all that excitement.”
Vaughn grinned over at Sam as he led Henry and Jack over to the large wooden table at one end of the room. “Better listen to Nana. She won’t let us have dessert if we don’t have our listening ears turned on.”
Sam hung back, making sure they all got a seat, trying not to be charmed by Vaughn and his sweet Nana.
He kept his attention on the kids, watching as they fidgeted a bit, not entirely sure what was happening.
The adults in the room were trying to set them at ease, no one making any sudden movements and everyone speaking in quiet voices.
Nana put a plate of sandwiches on the table before passing around a stack of paper plates. She had each of the kids take one, and then placed a sandwich on each of their plates. She had five sets of eyes locked on her but didn’t seem to notice. “Go on now,” she said. “Eat up.”
They didn’t need to be told again. Even as she poured glasses of milk and set them in front of their plates, the kids devoured the sandwiches like they hadn’t eaten in days.
Sam instinctively tightened his hold on Ollie, wondering if he should wake him up and offer him something as well.
“You okay?” Vaughn asked. “Want me to take him?”
“I’m fine. Just not sure if I should wake him up to eat. He’s really out.”
Vaughn smiled and placed his hand on Ollie’s head. “Let him sleep. If he needed to eat, he’d have woken up when he smelled the food.”
Sam wished Vaughn would stop being so damn sweet and gentle. It was killing him.
“I want to get him out of these damp clothes. He doesn’t need to sleep all night in them.”
“Okay. I’ll be back in a second.”
Vaughn leaned in and pressed his forehead to Ollie’s head, and then turned and left the room.
Sam checked on the rest of them, but they were still enthralled with Vaughn’s Nana.
She’d placed a big plate of sliced fruit on the table next, and they were looking at it like they’d never seen fresh fruit before.
Ben’s eyes were almost wild, and it broke Sam’s heart all over again. He walked over to the table and snagged a grape before popping it into his mouth.
“Eat up. We’re going to sleep soon, so go ahead and eat what you want.
Slowly, Natasha. We aren’t in a race.” Ben was waiting and watching the other kids, and Sam realized he was making sure they had enough first. He reached out and pulled the plate over to Ben before nudging his back. “Take three of each kind.”
Ben looked up at him, but Sam put on his no nonsense teacher face. Ben blushed and looked down again, before doing as Sam asked and taking some of the fruit for himself.
“Good. If you want more, take more. There’s more than enough for all of you.”
Ben glanced up again. “What about Ollie?” he whispered.
“You really think he wouldn’t wake up with all this racket if he was hungry?”
Ben only looked half convinced.
“I’ll make sure to put a plate aside for him for later, just in case he wakes up. Sound good?”
Ben nodded then turned back to his food.
The poor kid practically moaned when he ate his first slice of apple.
Sam rubbed Ben’s hair for a second before looping his arm back around Ollie and shifting him up further against his chest. He’d been holding him for so long his arms were starting to get tired, but he didn’t really want to put him down yet either.
Vaughn came back carrying a stack of T-shirts in one hand and a black leather doctor’s bag in the other.
He waved Sam over to the family room beside the kitchen and sat down on part of the large sectional sofa in the room.
Sam sat down beside him. Ollie grumbled and snuggled his face closer into Sam’s neck.
“Dad and I are going to do quick wellness checks on them then we’ll let them get some rest. Mom’s getting some air mattresses out so we can pile together on the floor down here.”
Vaughn guided Ollie away from Sam and began tugging his little shirt over his head. Ollie opened his eyes in complaint but lifted his arms to let the shirt slip free before leaning back against Sam.
“I can’t believe how much he trusts you already. It’s not common at all,” Vaughn explained. He took a stethoscope out of his bag and warmed the end between his hands before placing it against Ollie’s back. He listened for a moment then moved it to another position.
“Everything okay?”
“He seems fine. Lungs clear. Heart strong. We’ll examine them more thoroughly tomorrow. I just… I need to check.”
Joanne and Stuart came back into the room carrying pillows, blankets, and an air mattress.
They began setting up an area on the floor while Vaughn finished up with Ollie.
He put one of the T-shirts on him, and Sam smirked when he realized that they must belong to Vaughn.
The shirt was nearly as big as Ollie and covered him from neck to toe.
“Can I hold him for a bit?” Vaughn asked quietly once he’d finished.
“Oh. Sure. Okay.”
Sam let Vaughn take Ollie out of his arms, and the boy snuggled up to Vaughn with no complaint.
It sent a weird little ripple of happiness through him that Sam chose to tuck away and examine later.
Much, much later. He went back to the kitchen to check on the others, but he had a hard time tearing his eyes away from the careful way Vaughn held Ollie against him.
His heart sputtered and skipped a beat or two, which drew five sets of small eyes to him. Sam smiled and ran his hand over Henry’s light brown hair. He wasn’t surprised to see two empty serving plates where there’d once been a stack of sandwiches and a pile of fruit. “Everyone have enough to eat?”
They nodded.
“Okay, take your plates and cups to the trash can and be sure to say thank you to Nana for the food.”
She paused in straightening up to hug each of them in turn as they followed his instructions, and she pulled Sam in as well and patted him on the back.
Vaughn had used the few minutes to settle Ollie onto one of the mattresses. He recovered him in the blanket they’d brought from Sam’s and turned to the others. “Okay guys. I brought some of my shirts down for everyone. I guess you guys know I’d rather have you smell like my pack than not, right?”
Ben nodded his understanding, but the others looked slightly confused.
“We smell like Mrs. Foote’s bad magic,” Ben explained. “He wants us to smell like him instead. It’s an alpha thing.”
They shrugged and accepted Ben’s word as Vaughn handed them each a shirt. He added a pair of shorts to the shirt he gave to Ben before leading them down a short hallway to a bathroom. “Okay, everybody get changed, and we’ll get turned in for the night.”
The girls went in together then came out a couple minutes later giggling and swimming in the over-sized shirts.
Henry and Jack went in next, and then Ben went in by himself.
When they all walked back into the living room, Vaughn and his dad gave them each a quick exam.
Vaughn paid special attention to the bruising on Ben’s face, but they didn’t seem to find anything wrong with any of them.
Sam made sure to stick close to Ben, especially since the older boy seemed to need more reassurance than the others.
He kept looking around like he was waiting for someone to storm in and take them all away, or maybe like he was going to wake up and realize it was all a dream. Sam knew the feeling well.
“I brought you down some clothes, too,” Vaughn said. He gestured to yet another shirt and a pair of pajama pants. “I figured you would want to stay?” He sounded so damn hopeful and sweet.
“Yeah. If you don’t mind. I’m so tired I can’t see straight.”
“I know,” Vaughn said as he touched Sam’s arm and slowly ran his hand down to his elbow. Their eyes met, but Sam forced himself to look away. “Go on and get changed.”
Sam took the clothes over to the bathroom and changed. He washed his face and stared at himself in the mirror for a long moment. He tried to put the wall back up, the one that meant he’d be safe from Vaughn again, but his brain refused to cooperate.
He was an idiot, plain and simple, and he should run for his life. But he wouldn’t leave the kids. They were his Achilles heel.
Vaughn had him well and truly hooked and he didn’t even know it.
He didn’t want to see Vaughn differently, couldn’t afford to wish for anything else to come of this.
He’d be strong for the kids, help them figure out how to get through the night, and then go home once everything was settled.
He nodded to himself but not even his reflection believed he meant a word of it so he sucked in a breath and headed back to the living room.
Vaughn had used the time to change as well and was sitting next to his parents on the sectional, watching the dozing kids.
“They asleep already?” Sam asked in a whisper.
“Nearly,” Joanne replied. “We promised Ben we’d stay and keep watch.”
“What about everyone else?”
Vaughn glanced toward the front door then turned to Sam. “Some of our pack is staying close. Meshaq and his pack went back to the house to check things out more closely. He wants to know what’s going on. He’s asked me to keep the cubs in my care until we find out more.”
Sam frowned. “Was there any doubt?”
Vaughn and his parents shared a nervous look. “Yes, there was a lot of doubt, actually.”
Sam opened his mouth to argue but snapped it closed again.
He knew absolutely nothing about what was going on here, but even he could see that he had a lot to learn about this culture.
There were big pieces of knowledge missing, pieces which might answer a lot of the questions Sam still had.
And not all of them were about the night they’d just had.
“Tomorrow, once I’ve slept and made sure this isn’t all some elaborate dream, I’d really like to ask those billion questions.”
“And I will answer them.”