Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
For the first time in over a week, Samara found herself sitting in the dining room of the White Mountains Bar & Grill.
The renovations had already started on the kitchen as well as the new sun deck.
Kellen sat next to her at 'their' table with his arm around her shoulders.
Across from them Grace looked a little less uncomfortable than she had while she adjusted to living outside of the Riverstone mansion.
She listened with Samara as Stephen and Kellen regaled them with stories of the brotherhood's past. At the end of the table a chair sat empty in case Leo should return.
"Oh my God." Sarama almost fell out of her chair. "All three of you?"
"Not one of our better moments." Steven grabbed a fresh bottle of wine and popped the cork, serving Grace and Samara first.
"Certainly, not one of our most manly." Kellen picked up the story. "So, the French farmer's daughter got quite the view when she opened the barn for milking and found three American soldiers lying there looking dead."
"Except for the snoring." Stephen split the rest of the wine between himself and Kellen.
"We don't snore, do we?" Kellen picked up his glass.
Stephen sat down with an air of complete satisfaction. "In that condition, it would have been hard not to."
"Then what happened?" Samara asked.
"The fine young lass screamed—too loud, for our poor hung over heads—then slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside." Stephen set down the wine and snagged a few chips.
Even Grace laughed at that. "You're trying to tell me you couldn't have broken the door down?"
"The state we were in, we couldn't even shift back into wolves." Stephen sat down, taking a glass for himself.
Kellen snorted. "Oh, hell, we couldn't even remember we were wolf shifters in the first place."
"Hang on for a sec." Samara reached for her wine. "If you shifted to escape the angry bull that chased you out of the field, your clothes must have been torn to shreds."
"Yep, no clothes for us," quipped Steven.
Grace shook her head. "No wonder the lass screamed. So, she locked you in, how did you get away?"
"The fine French lass returned with her very angry mother armed with a Ruby pistol." Kellen had to put down his glass before it spilled so he could mimic the angry mother with his hands, waving an imaginary gun around.
Stephen couldn't hold back his own hearty laugh. "By God, she had a look that would have sent even the most Catholic of nuns scurrying."
"What did she do next?"
"We lucked out." Kellen suddenly turned contemplative, and a little sad. "Turns out her husband and two sons were in the resistance."
"That's how she got the gun," Stephen added.
"She had lost her husband and one of her sons. She didn't know what happened to the other one. After blistering our ears for ten minutes about our foolishness—"
"—unfortunately we knew enough French at that point to understand her."
"—with the wine and stupidity of passing out in her pasture, she said she understood that young men sometimes did stupid things."
"Her husband and sons were about our size, so she gave us their clothes, and said she expected us to honor their memory by doing better."
"Oh, that's terrible." Samara's good mood burst like a balloon.
Kellen gave her shoulders a squeeze. "Some friends of ours at Army headquarters did some research for us and found out what happened to her second son. We returned a month later and gave her and her daughter closure."
"It was the least we could do—"
"—for disturbing—" Kellen tried to keep his laughter in but couldn't “—her bull."
They all had another sip of wine, each taking another look at Leo's empty seat.
"I'm still worried about him." She hadn't known Leo long but felt the emptiness of their table without the blond wolf shifter sitting there acting both cocky and charming at the same time.
Kellen kissed her temple, leaving the scent of wine on her skin.
"This isn't unusual," Stephen said. "We have taken breaks from the brotherhood in the past—"
"—usually for a month or two," Kellen added. "We always come back though. That will never change."
Would it, though, now that she was a part of the brotherhood?
Talking about the details of their relationship had taken a back seat this past week to figuring out where they were going to live. With the restaurant under construction, Kellen had to scramble to find them a hotel room in the middle of tourist season.
Carlie and George had offered all of them rooms in their house. They'd returned to Winterbourne the second they saw the ad on the New-Journal's website.
Why should you pay all that money for a hotel?
Our kids are out of the house. We have plenty of room.
Carlie wasn't reading the room, so George pointed out that both of them had at least a month before they could return to work.
Carlie had harrumphed and said something about how she better be getting roses and foot massages out of this.
Kellen must have taken that as inspiration because the next thing Samara knew, he too had fresh red roses delivered to the room they’d rented, and oh, man, the things he could do to a woman's foot. When asked where he acquired that talent, he just said a man never kisses and tells.
A pleasant moment passed, then Grace not so delicately stated what they'd all avoided for the past week. "Josiah will come back, you know. If we're going to stay in Winterbourne until Leo returns, we need to plan for that."
It was a mood-killer for sure, but one they needed to talk about. Samara had made it a point to help Grace adjust to life outside of Riverstone.
“It’s so odd,” Grace had said. “I know how the world is supposed to work, but I don’t know how to live in it. I can fix a flat tire, but I’ve never driven a car. I’ve seen movies on TV, but I’ve never been to a movie theater.”
Samara asked Kellen if she could borrow his credit card so she and Grace could go clothes shopping. They both needed heavier winter clothes, with weather threatening snow.
Grace had made one position clear: she wasn't going anywhere. Now that she had Kellen back in her life, she wasn't going to abandon him again.
On the surface, Samara hadn't minded much. She hoped the brotherhood would be stronger, if not the same, with both of them in it.
"We can't plan anything until we clear the air between us, define our positions.
" She avoided saying the word pack because this wasn't her story to tell.
She looked at Stephen, though, who avoided her eyes by putting the cork back into the empty wine bottle.
He sat down and fiddled with his glass, saying nothing.
Grace’s lips drew into a hard line, but Samara continued. "If you don't tell him then I will. You and Leo have been lying to him long enough and this brotherhood can't evolve without the truth being told."
There was no turning back now.
Next to her Kellen leaned away, his brows furrowed together in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Samara kept Stephen pinned with a stare, and Kellen couldn't miss it.
"Stephen?” he asked. “Have you and Leo lied to me about some—"
"You're an alpha." Stephen shoved himself back in his chair, as if expecting a physical attack.
Kellen’s mouth gaped for a moment. "What are you talking about? We're all omegas..."
"No, we're not." Stephen looked up at his brother, his blue eyes sad and earnest. "Leo and I figured it out in the first ten minutes we had alone together in that church. If I had told you that I was a beta, you wouldn't have built the pack we have become."
"We're not a pack. We've always—"
"Let you lead us." Stephen's voice became louder, drowning out Kellen's objections.
"You said you wanted us to become brothers, take control of our own lives, explore the world outside of our wolf shifter packs.
Leo and I were tired, lonely, and confused about why we were sent to kill each other.
You gave us clarity, if not an explanation.
You offered us a way out of the life we were living, and we chose to grab hold and go on this journey with you. "
"But we've always—"
"Yes, we have. We've always made decisions together. You have always listened to us if we had ideas or suggestions or random thoughts. That's what a good alpha is supposed to do, a strong alpha."
Kellen shook his head, as if he disbelieved everything Stephen said. He slid closer to Grace. "Tell him he's wrong."
"He's not." Grace took a sip of wine before looking at her son. "I'm an alpha. Your father was an alpha. He is the true alpha of the Riverstone Pack, and he died trying to protect us."
All the blood drained out of Kellen's face. "Why? Why did you let me think I was an omega? I could have—"
"What? Challenged Josiah? You were only five years old," Grace snapped, but immediately closed her eyes, appearing to get her emotions back in check.
"Not until I was older..."
"He never would have let you grow up if he'd thought you were an alpha."
"But how could he not know? He must have seen you and my father together. He had to know I was your son."
"I think the protection spell made him...not forget but kept the information from triggering his anger and violence. It's the only explanation."
"It certainly didn't work at the campground."
Grace raised her hand to her throat as if feeling the chain around her neck.
"I suspect it wasn't that strong of a spell.
Not enough to make us invisible to Josiah, just strong enough to keep his head turned away and keep us alive.
I can't imagine any sorcerer placing anything so strong into the hands of a woman who'd never cast a spell before. "
"And you never saw this sorcerer again?"
Grace shook her head.
"I can't do this right now." Kellen pushed his seat back, looking as if he were going to bolt, just like Leo.