Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Mira lingered after the shop was closed for the night while Leo tended to his own closing duties. As she helped her mom and sister clean up, she marveled at how a few days could make such a difference in her life.
She’d had the rug pulled out from under her several times in short order.
“You, okay?” Selene asked.
“Yeah, I was just thinking how thankful I am to have you all in my life. I didn’t even know you were missing from my life because of that Wiccan spell, but once I shifted into my gryphon and I met you, I could feel that you were my family.
It’s like my life got turned upside down more than once in a week’s time. ”
“I hate the time we lost, and I hate that we missed you growing up and you missed having your twin and sister, but I’m so glad you’re with us now,” her mom said.
“I’m glad for that too,” Mira said. She hugged them, thankful that because the spell had been broken, she could feel the family connection, and then stepped back with a smile. “I’m going to check on Leo.”
She found him alone in the bay and locking the last of the big doors.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “All finished up?”
“Yep. You?”
“Just now.”
She hooked her arm through his, and they walked out of the darkened bays and into the parking lot, where they saw Solan waiting by his truck to escort them back to Thorn Hollow.
“Hey, man,” Leo said. “Thanks for the escort back.”
“You bet.”
Her family filed out of the building to say goodbye.
“We’ll see you tomorrow at sunset at the alphas’ house,” Auron said. “We’re all looking forward to shifting and hunting with you and Leo.”
“Me, too,” Mira said.
After another hug goodnight to her mom and sister, she walked back to Leo and Solan and found them finishing up a quiet conversation.
“Ready to head back?” Solan asked, rocking back on his heels.
“Definitely,” Mira said. “It’s been a long day. But a good one.”
Leo nodded with a smile, a hint of heat simmering in his gaze.
He opened the passenger door of his truck, and she climbed in. When he was behind the wheel, he started the engine and followed Solan out of the parking lot.
“Everything okay with Solan?” she asked.
“Yeah. He’s the last of our small friend group to find his truemate, but he said that since you and I met, he’s been feeling more hopeful. So he hopes he’ll meet her soon.”
“I hope so, too. It’s really wonderful finding the other half of your heart.”
“One thousand percent.”
Solan was like a brother to Leo, and so were Brick and Adam. He might not have any biological family members in his life, but he had family in spades, and now he had her and her family, too.
Both biological and adopted.
“I can’t wait for tomorrow,” Mira said. “I get to shift with you, plus I get some pointers from my family about flying. Maybe I can get more than a couple of feet off the ground.”
“You can definitely do it,” he said confidently. “It just takes practice. I can’t wait to see you in your shift again. You’re really beautiful.”
She grinned. It was so freeing to be able to shift. She’d had invisible chains around her gryphon from the Wiccan spell, and Leo had broken them all.
He was pretty damn special.
“So,” she said, leaning against his shoulder with a yawn. “Tell me about wolf mating customs. And when can we do the gryphon one at sunrise?”
“As soon as you want, but maybe on a night when we can go to bed early?” he asked with a chuckle.
“That works for me.”
While he drove them to Thorn Hollow, he told her about the mating ceremony wolves liked to have happen on the full moon, presided over by their alphas, and how he couldn’t wait to join with her officially as mates when she’d also become a full member of the pack.
The September full moon couldn’t come fast enough.
* * *
Sunday morning, Mira kissed Leo goodbye on the front porch of the alphas’ home.
The shop was closed on Sundays, so no one was needed to man the front desk, but Leo had tires to change and would be gone until the afternoon.
Mira had been invited to the alphas’ house by Cinder to have breakfast with her and Jade, who was Brick’s mate.
“Have fun,” Leo said.
“You, too.”
He made a face but then smiled. “I’d have a better time if you were in the office. I love looking over and seeing your beautiful face.”
Her cheeks heated, and she gave him a last kiss. “Get out of here, you sweet talker.”
“Just for you, my Mira.”
He jogged down the steps and got into the truck, waving before he drove off down the street, a pack vehicle following behind as an escort.
She turned and walked through the open front door. “Hello?”
“We’re in the kitchen, come on down the hall,” a feminine voice called out.
Mira found Cinder and Jade in the spacious kitchen, which smelled of cinnamon and bacon. They both gave her a hug.
She settled on a stool at the counter and happily took a cup of coffee that Jade offered. “Now I can finish the eggs, and we can eat,” Cinder said.
“So we don’t know a ton about you,” Jade said. “But you don’t know a ton about us either, so tell us a few things and we’ll take turns. How’s that sound?”
“Perfect,” Mira said. While they did know about her meeting Leo at the festival and her psychic family, they didn’t know everything that had happened in Bishop or how things were going now, so she filled them in.
“Basically,” she said, as Cinder set a plate of scrambled eggs, two pieces of toasted cinnamon bread, and several strips of crisp bacon in front of her, “my adopted family is going to keep on traveling, but my biological family is sticking around. I think they’re talking to you and Adam tonight about things. ”
“Yes,” Cinder said. “Adam’s got some ideas about where they might stay and how to integrate them into the town so you can have your family close. It’s a blessing to have family near.”
“Absolutely,” Jade said. “The more people watching everyone’s back, the better. So it’s my turn?”
“You go ahead,” Cinder said. “I’m going to finish all the bacon. My baby is craving meat like crazy.”
The alpha female was pregnant, and Mira thought she was literally glowing with happiness. It made her long for that for her and Leo. A family of their own.
Jade fixed herself another cup of coffee and told her story, of how she’d escaped a dangerous situation in her old pack and stayed with a fallen angel, who brought her to the wolves, where she met Brick.
“Then we’ve got these anti-shifter buttheads trying to cause a ruckus, but on top of that, an alpha I’d been promised to came here looking for me and nearly took out me and Brick.
It’s a very good thing to be mated to protective, strong wolves like all of our mates.
They’d do anything, kill anyone, to keep us safe. ”
“That’s straight up facts,” Cinder said.
“You’ve met a fallen angel? I’ve heard of them but never met one.”
“Yep, her name is Alli. She’s gorgeous and the sweetest person,” Jade said.
“There’s also a fallen angel named Paris who runs the shifter bar Lykos, and another one named Darien who works for the vampire coven,” Cinder said.
“That’s really cool,” Mira said. “I had no idea. I’ve mostly been around supernatural people, not so much shifters but lots of Wiccans and psychics, elves and such.”
“You’ve been nomadic your whole life?” Cinder asked.
“Yep,” Mira said. “But I’m so happy to be able to put down roots with Leo and the pack.”
“Plus, you two might have some really cool kids. I can’t imagine how neat it will be to have kids who are a mix of gryphon and wolf,” Jade said.
Mira agreed.
Cinder finished the eggs, made some more toast for herself, then told them how she’d ignored Adam’s advances even though she knew they were mates, and how she’d become the pack lygisa when they mated, taking on the mantel of magical protector for the pack, able to shift into a golden-furred wolf.
“I can’t shift anymore until the baby comes,” she said, sitting back with her extra toast. “But we’ve got protections from the Wiccans to keep our people safe.”
They talked about the mating ceremony, about joining together as mates under the full moon, and the pack celebrating with a shift and hunt in the woods.
Cinder assured her it was a magical time, and Mira was certain that was true.
Everything had been magical for her since she met Leo.
She’d had another first in her life now as she sat with the females and laughed and talked: she didn’t feel like an outsider. She felt well and truly part of the pack, standing on the threshold of something amazing.
Tonight, she and Leo would shift together with her family in the pack territory. And the night would be theirs to enjoy.
And later? They‘d enjoy other things. Because her mate was a sexy male and knew just how to make her world spin.
Life was pretty dang good for a girl who thought she was a dud psychic and turned out to be a unique female gryphon.
Pretty. Dang. Good.