Chapter 38 Leo #2
They stared at me like I’d grown another head. Sighing, I went and got the treats. What could I say, I had no backbone when it came to Ven’s kitty children. At least they wouldn’t tattle on me.
I gave the treat container a few solid shakes.
Naturally, the two boys launched themselves from wherever they were and skittered across the floor like their lives depended on it.
I gave them each a handful, which was probably about five treats too many, then waited for Mudpie to saunter in.
She loved treats and would throw a hissy fit if one dared to short her, but she at least tried to pretend she wasn’t absolutely mad for them.
Once those clawed terrors were handled, I returned to Andromeda and helped her sit up.
She looked a lot better. The color had returned to her cheeks and her hair wasn’t stuck to her scalp anymore.
America and Ven had helped her in the shower, and I was immensely grateful for that.
I knew the experience was likely very different from how my first time with Ven had been, but I was glad she’d had someone there to help her.
“Here you go,” I said, carefully setting the tray on Andromeda’s lap.
A warm smile spread across her features as she leaned in and inhaled the scent of the soup.
I was all too familiar with how the delicious warmth after far too long in the cold could leave one speechless, so I didn’t say anything for a while.
I settled into the only other chair in the room and picked up the book I’d started reading a few weeks ago.
It was only a matter of time before Ven’s three felines joined us, Mudpie settling at the top of the couch behind Andromeda’s head, and Goober and Fork settling along her legs and feet. Although Ven did indulge her babies, she’d trained them to keep their distance when someone was eating.
“I… had a cat.”
I set my book aside and leaned forward. I tried to sound casual, as I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and freak Andromeda out.
“You did. Do you remember that?”
“I do. She was old and very fat, even though we kept trying to put her on diets. I think we took her to a vet once?”
“We did indeed. Do you remember the diagnosis?”
Andromeda seemed to puzzle over it for a long moment before she shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
“That’s okay. I only remember because your aunt thought it was the most hilarious thing and told the story pretty much any chance she could get.
The vet said she was diagnosed with being too good of a hunter, and she would need to become an indoor cat instead of being allowed to play in the dilapidated barn in the afternoons. ”
Andromeda’s eyes went wide. “Wait, wait, I do remember that! We all joked that she was meant for a pack, or that she learned from us.”
“That we did,” I said, grinning from ear to ear.
It was a small thing, sure, but it made me so incredibly happy.
Bit by bit, Andromeda would find herself again.
It would be hard working through the wounds the brothers left on our bodies and in our minds, but she was taking the first steps to do so.
Man, once things calmed down, I would have to find a shifter therapist for all of us.
God knew we needed it. I supposed we could try a human one, but having to keep so many secrets and also not having them understand our duality seemed like a recipe for disaster.
“You said something about my aunt...”
“I did,” I hedged, perhaps a bit more cautiously than I needed to. Like most of us, Andromeda’s backstory wasn’t exactly full of roses and sunshine. We all made do and got through it together, but it wasn’t easy.
“I... I didn’t live with my mom, did I? Or my dad?”
“No, you didn’t. They died fighting the usurper. Like my dad did.”
Such news could be pretty shocking. After all, it was one thing to be an orphan, but it was another to forget you were an orphan, then suddenly learn it when you’d only just remembered you’d had a cat.
Thankfully, Andromeda did not seem that rattled.
Instead, she gave a slow, measured nod. I’d never realized how much we wolves tended to communicate that way until Ven started mimicking us.
“Your scent just changed,” Andromeda said, her brow furrowing. “Penny for your thoughts?”
She was remembering idioms already? Another great sign. “Just something funny about Ven.”
“Ven? That’s your mate, right? The human?”
I made a so-so gesture with my hand. “Maybe not entirely human, but, yeah.”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “Her genetics are a bit of a mystery, but it’s nothing urgent. Ven is Ven no matter what species she is.”
It was impossible for my thoughts not to go to my love.
Sometimes when I looked at her, it was hard not to be in awe.
Never in a million years had I thought I would deserve someone like her.
Honestly, I still wasn’t sure I did, but I certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I was happy to accept that I had definitely pulled above my league.
She would probably disagree with me because she always undervalued herself.
“Did I have a mate?”
“No, you didn’t. For a while I thought there might be something brewing between you and Tabitha, but then...”
“Then the warlocks happened.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much the long and the short of it.”
“So, I like women?”
I raised my eyebrows, a bit taken aback by the question. While I had been plenty confused when I’d woken up from my curse, I’d remembered my sexuality. Sure, it had taken me a couple of days to remember the actual word for it, but I’d been aware I was acutely attracted to women.
“As far as I know, you like hunters. The more skilled they were, the hotter they were to you. What’s between their legs never seemed to matter much.”
“It’s hard to imagine that. Sometimes I feel like I’m still just a wolf in the most insane dream.”
“I understand, believe me.”
“But I do know I loved my aunt. She did her best.”
“That, she did.”
“I wish… I wish…” She trailed off again, and dutifully ladled soup into her mouth.
I didn’t take it personally. Really, I was proud of her for saying as much as she had.
It did seem like she was coming back into herself, even if she couldn’t remember who she did or didn’t fancy.
“I wish she was here right now. I wonder how long it’s been since we even talked. ”
“As far as I can estimate, we probably spent about two years under the brothers’ spell.”
“Two years? That’s insane.”
I couldn’t agree more, and while I wasn’t certain, with everything that Ricky and I had figured out, we were about as sure as we could be. If it weren’t for America and Jason also pitching in with rumors they’d heard, we’d likely still be in the dark.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.”
“I know, time is weird in our animal forms.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I—” She straightened so suddenly she nearly knocked her bowl of broth from her tray. “I was with her!”
“With her? What do you mean?”
“I know where she is.” Andromeda turned to me, a manic grin on her face and tears in her eyes. “I know where so many of us are! I remembered. I remembered!”
“Look, I don’t want you to get your hopes up. None of our scouts have picked up any shifter scents so far, and we would have if they were around here.”
“No, I know they’re here,” Andromeda said, her voice almost beseeching.
I hadn’t really been keen on her coming to the cave she’d described from her memory, but her directions weren’t the best, and considering that wolves navigated by scent, we needed her to lead the way.
“I know it, Leo. I do!”
Ricky looked skeptical and opened his mouth to say something, but I shook my head. While I hoped Andromeda was correct, if she wasn’t, there was no need to argue with her about it. We would find out soon enough.
But I did truly, borderline desperately, hope she was right. The last thing I’d expected was a bowl of good soup and a conversation about cats to bring around the possible location of nearly a dozen of our missing pack members.
“This way,” Andromeda said, still gripping my hand tightly. “I think the cave is this way.”
“How did y’all end up in there again?”
“I don’t remember. I woke up there with no clue what was going on, and I was so hungry it felt like my stomach was going to turn itself inside out.
I wandered into the night, but then I got turned around, and I followed this feeling in my gut that told me I was going the right way.
It didn’t lead me back to the cave, though, it—”
“Led you to us,” I finished.
“Exactly.”
I shot Ricky one last meaningful look, and he clamped his mouth shut. Despite all odds, we eventually stumbled upon a craggy opening at the foot of a steep hill, the kind that told of mountains not too far in the distance.
“There,” Andromeda said with a shaking finger. “They’re in there. I know it.”
Ricky and the two scouts with us began to step forward, but I held out my hand. I had no doubt whoever was in that cave was either terrified out of their mind or confused enough to be violent. They needed their alpha, and it was time for me to step up to my responsibilities.
“I’ve got this,” I said, striding forward. No one argued with me, which I appreciated, and I gave my eyes a moment to adjust before I walked farther into the darkness.
Even with my enhanced vision, there was nothing quite like the pitch black within a cavern, so after a moment I pulled out the phone Ven had given me and turned the flashlight on. I made sure not to shine it far into the cave since I didn’t want to blind anyone hiding there.
I pulled up a rumble in my chest as I walked, a deep, comforting alpha sub-harmonic that any of my pack would hear and feel. I didn’t want to surprise anyone, and hopefully they would be drawn to me the same way Andromeda had.
The going wasn’t exactly smooth, and there were two points where I had to drop down. Just as I was beginning to think no one was there, I heard it. A heartbeat. It was weak, more like a hummingbird than a wolf. Perhaps a starving wolf?
“I’m here to help,” I said softly, but any shifter would hear me. “I’m your alpha. You have nothing to fear. I’m here to protect you.”
It started off as soft noises, nothing more than the scrape against rock, but then I heard more heartbeats. I raised the phone slightly to illuminate more of the space, and I nearly burst into tears at the sight in front of me.
Andromeda was right. There were nearly a dozen humans in ragged clothing who looked more like cave people than modern citizens. They stared at me with confusion and fear, but also the tiniest flicker of familiarity.
“Come,” I said, offering my hand to the closest one. “Let’s take you home and get you something to eat.”
“Alll….pha?”
My heart squeezed at the filthy face looking at me curiously. I thought I would have been able to recognize the female, if not by sight then by scent, but she was so caked in mud and other gross things, it was hard to make out much about her at all.
“Yes. I am your alpha. You’re all safe now.”
It wasn’t quite like herding cats as I got them out of the cave, but it was slow going.
While I couldn’t discern their individual scents, I could pick up the acrid notes of starvation.
Even if they had somehow adapted to see within the caves, there wasn’t enough large prey to sustain them.
When was the last time they’d eaten? How did they get to the cave?
Were they let loose as wolves or had they escaped to the wilds to form their own mini pack?
Andromeda still didn’t remember that part.
So many questions, and we might never get any answers, but I didn’t care. My pack was slowly coming together. We had only a handful missing, and I was sure we’d be able to find them, too.
“Auntie!”
Andromeda stumbled forward the moment we came out into the light. Although she was still unsteady on her feet, she rushed past me to an especially emaciated figure in the middle of the group.
“Auntie!”
The woman stared blankly at her niece before the mud on her face crinkled, and she let out a nearly feral cry. “Andy! My little Andy!”
It was like a dam broke open. Ricky and the two scouts quickly strode forward, embracing our lost brethren one by one.
Tears flowed down every face, and it was a miracle I managed to keep my composure.
I was so completely filled with pride and joy, it was like it was welling out of me, filling every single cell before it flowed out to touch all the members of my pack standing around me.
Against all the odds, we were winning. We were reuniting.
And this time, I would make sure I never failed them.