Chapter 4
Kieran
I lean against the doorway of my cabin, my emotions churning.
I have made Amaryllis swear, on her life, that she will only examine and diagnose Stephen. She will not treat him. I now have a guess as to what the problem might be, but I’m not going to tell anyone other than my sister for now.
And if I’m right, there’s a chance that there truly will be no cure for the problem, but at least we’ll have answers. They’re just not going to be answers that Olivia is going to like, and that is a problem, given that she’s the woman who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
She just won’t admit it yet.
As the sun melts into the horizon, Olivia storms across the gravel path to the guest cabin next to my house, spine straight, still clenching her leather bag, along with the bag of clothes and female stuff that Amaryllis put together for her.
I imagine she’s given her some makeup, shampoo, maybe a silver-coated axe for Olivia to throw at my head.
Olivia slams the door hard enough to rattle the porch light.
My house sits at the edge of a ridge that overlooks pack property.
It’s a sprawl of timber and stone, much too big for one person, but that’s what’s expected of the Alpha.
Past the tree line the land drops toward the creek, and far past that, Frostbane pack territory glints with mining lights after dark.
I stay on my own porch, struggling to settle my wolf.
It might look like I've been running from her all day. The truth is, it’s taken every ounce of my self-control to avoid her, but I have to, or I’ll overwhelm her.
She’s a proud, stubborn woman, and she’s not going to roll right over for me.
I need to take a little time to woo her. And my wolf is pissed.
He wants to go over there right now, kick the door down, and start rubbing his scent on every surface in the room. He's been screaming variations of claim her since the minute I laid eyes on her, getting louder every hour, and my only response so far has been not yet on a loop.
My wolf is pure animal. My human side has to use reason.
I’d love to just growl orders at her – move in with me, now! – but she’s the one shifter I’ve ever met who would just laugh in my face. That’s probably what makes her perfect for me.
Fate sure has a sadistic sense of humor.
With a groan of frustration, I sit on my own porch, in my own chair, and refrain from clawing at her door like an animal.
***
Amaryllis's office sits at the edge of the greenhouse row, glass structures catching the morning light behind her building.
Inside, the shelves are packed floor to ceiling — dried moonveil for sleep, twists of emberroot bundled for nausea, hushbell blossoms for cramps.
Runes sit in labeled trays, magically charged for more serious and exotic ailments.
Amaryllis is joined by two of our other healers, Peyton and Gemma.
They’re our cousins and Bram’s younger sisters.
They’re both in their twenties and bear the Holt family physical resemblance, looking a lot like my sister with thick brows and gray eyes.
They’re sitting in office chairs, smiling sympathetically, notebooks in hand.
Stephen Crowley sits across the desk from Amaryllis, spine ramrod straight, hands folded in his lap. She’s already done some of the examination – and what she found is encouraging.
“The fact that we found your wolf, a faint version of your wolf, is everything,” Amaryllis says.
“It gives us hope. I am being honest when I tell you I’ve never seen a wolf hidden like this, and I don’t understand why.
But you have one. Part of what may help heal you is just being here, because this land has very strong ley line energy, but that alone isn’t enough. I need information.”
“Anything!” His head bobs enthusiastically.
"I need you to fill out everything you can on this," Amaryllis says, sliding a blank family tree across the desk. "Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. Anyone who ever had trouble shifting, even a little. Late bloomers, early bloomers, anyone who just seemed off."
Stephen picks up the pen, shaking his head glumly. "Nobody in our family ever had this problem. My father sure pointed that out again and again.”
She nods with a supportive smile. I don’t know where the hell she got her ‘nice’ genes. Probably from our mother’s side of the family. My mother was a famously kind, decent woman who cared about everyone before herself - and look where that got her. And us.
I scowl. It doesn’t bear thinking about. My mother made her mistakes. I won’t let Amaryllis make the same mistakes.
"Has anyone in your family ever been sick around puberty? Missed a lot of school? Anything that got explained away?" Amaryllis asks.
“No, nobody.” He smiles ruefully.
The door bangs open and Olivia rushes in. Her gaze lights on her brother. "Stephen, you're here! Bram told me. I didn't know you'd arrived. When did you get here? I was waiting for your call.”
"Sorry, Liv. I started out early, and got here an hour ago," Stephen says, looking a little sheepish. "They took me straight here.”
Olivia rounds on me, glaring. "Why didn't you tell me he was here? I was starting to worry."
I shrug. "You were eating breakfast. I didn't see the need to bother you.” God knows she could put some pounds on. She’s wired tight with stress and looks like she hasn’t been fed well in years.
My wolf hates that. So do I. She’s our mate, it’s our job to care for her, to make sure she’s fed and pampered and cared for. If she’s hungry, it hurts us.
Olivia’s blue eyes blaze with fury. "That's not your call to make."
I meet her gaze coolly. "Actually, everything in Cedar Run is my call to make."
That earns me a skeptical look from Olivia. “There are two other packs who make up the town, aren’t there? Moonstone and Frostbane.”
I stifle a curl of my lip at the mention of Frostbane.
“True,” I agree. “But if anything affects one pack, it affects all three of us, so yes, everything in this territory is my concern.” Day and night.
Even when I’m relaxing on market days, I’m never really relaxed.
I’m just a micro-milliliter less stressed, but still always scanning, watching, waiting for disaster.
“That sounds like a lot.” The soft undercurrent of sympathy in her voice startles me.
It seems to startle her too. She straightens her shoulders and looks me right in the eye, something very few shifters in our pack dare to do.
“But again, this is my brother, and I have the right to be informed about anything that involves him.”
“Agree to disagree.” I shrug.
“No, we do not! I do not agree!” she splutters.
I grin at her. She’s cute when she’s mad. She’s cute all the time. I like that fate has given me a feisty mate.
“I have a wolf!” Stephen blurts out.
“What?” Olivia’s jaw drops.
“It’s weak and faint, but I have it, and if I stay here the ley line energy might help activate it!” he says eagerly. His whole demeanor changes as he says that. His eyes shine with hope.
“Stephen! That’s incredible!” Olivia’s eyes brighten with tears, and she embraces her brother.
The door opens, and Rose strolls in. “What do you mean you’re considering extending my grounding another week?” she snaps at me. She waves at Gemma and Peyton. “Hello. My brother’s a dick-face.”
Gemma bends over her notebook and pretends to be studying something interesting on the page. Peyton puts her hands over her ears.
I fix my sister with a cold smile. “Hello, sister dear. It’s so wonderful to see your smiling face. You had a self-defense lesson with Bram scheduled for this morning. You missed your lesson yesterday. Don’t do it again.”
She glares at me. “I’m a healer. I don’t want to learn how to hurt people. Except you. For you, I’ll make an exception. Because you’re special.”
Amaryllis and Stephen are both watching this interchange with interest. Gemma and Peyton are looking for escape routes.
Olivia’s mouth twitches in amusement. She’s struggling not to laugh.
I narrow my eyes in annoyance. My younger sister is a naive, bratty, over-protected twit.
She wants to leave pack grounds by herself someday.
Shifters are a war-like species and as the Alpha’s sister, she’s practically begging to be kidnapped and held as leverage.
She’s also a healer. Even if she’s not a very strong one, any healing power at all makes her valuable.
So if she ever wants me to allow her to leave the pack without a protective detail, she needs to learn to kick some serious ass.
I could explain that to her, but I don’t have to. I’m the Alpha. If I tell her to do something, she’ll do it.
“Take the lesson. Or sit in your room until you do.”
Her eyes blaze with rage. She draws in a furious breath.
“Rose!” Olivia interjects. “Are these self-defense lessons any good?”
Rose flashes her a startled look, and the angry breath rushes out of her in a whoosh. “I guess? I mean...I don’t honestly pay a lot of attention to them.” That earns her a ferocious scowl from me, which she ignores.
“If I took the class with you this morning, is there any chance at all that I’d learn a technique which would show me how to kick your brother’s furry ass?” Olivia asks, her tone hopeful.
Rose goes from angry to amused. “Probably not, but…maybe?” I see a look of interest sparking in her eyes. “Hmm. It’s possible.”
The thought of my reed-slender sister hurting me in a fight makes me burst into laughter, which earns me glares from Rose and Olivia, who are suddenly apparently besties.
“We’ll never know until we try,” Olivia says to Rose. “I’d say that you and I are both highly motivated.”
Rose nods vigorously. “That’s it. You and me are booking a double training session today.”
My jaw drops. I shut my mouth quickly. Rose has never, ever shown any interest in self-defense training before.
Rose smirks at me. “And whatever we learn, we are allowed to use against you.”
To my enormous credit, I refrain from howling with laughter. Instead, I nod gravely. “I will agree to that, if you start taking your lessons seriously.”
“Stephen, let’s have lunch together. We can meet at the pack canteen,” Olivia says. The pack canteen is in the pack meeting building, which is connected to our grade school and also has our gym and our craft lore area where healers teach the next generation.
Rose and Olivia flounce out of the office together, and Rose bangs the door shut behind her.
“What just happened?” Amaryllis asks me. “Should I be worried for you?”
Well, my fated mate and my bratty little sister are now BFFs and are probably going to braid each other’s hair and swap takedown strategies against me, so…maybe?
“Nahh.” I shrug. I watch as they head down the white gravel path, and my wolf paces anxiously inside me, because Olivia still doesn’t know she’s ours yet.
As they walk, Olivia pauses and pulls her phone from her bag. She answers the phone and I see her body language change completely. She walks away from Rose, pacing for a minute as she argues with whoever is on the phone, then hangs up.
Boyfriend?
Dead boyfriend, if so.
But I don’t think she has one. Somehow, I feel like I’d sense it.
Still, my wolf is snarling now, and I know I need to let it go on a run or risk spontaneously shifting and attacking everyone around me.