Chapter Fourteen #3
He was doing good He knew it. He was doing good. Fuck, he appreciated her. Inside of him, the tiger shrank back even more and his head was just…quiet.
Stellan blew out a breath and engaged in the conversation again. He kept holding Laramie’s hand, but he looped his arm over her shoulders and hugged her against his side, knowing damn well he was going to invest in one of those fancy two-seater bench seat bag chairs.
Dame and Misty sauntered into the barn and pulled up chairs soon after, and still, Stellan didn’t want to leave.
He didn’t need a break. He just wanted to be here, near Laramie.
And after a while, he realized he liked being around Ren and Misty too, and his brothers, even though they were both dumb as posts and said stupid shit every other sentence. Today, he minded it less.
It was probably just relief from the Change. Yeah. That was it.
Laramie was telling the story of what happened with Craig today. Stellan had forgotten all about it, honestly. He’d been so focused on that big conversation with Laramie earlier, the Change, and having fun now.
She had a funny way of telling the story.
She described watching him walk through the security footage frames and getting Craig to punch him and then quoted him in a robotic voice telling Murph that he didn’t feel safe in the work environment anymore.
They were all laughing, but it wasn’t at him.
He could tell because Dame gave him a fist bump and Mars nodded his head at him, like he would’ve done the same.
Stellan hadn’t thought about it. He’d just known he needed to fix it and get Craig off their case.
He didn’t like Laramie being upset by what Murph was saying.
Having his brothers’ approval did feel a little good.
They were still chuckling over it as they all walked as a group to the big house to meet the pizza delivery guy.
Even at dinner, as they sat around the outdoor table shooting the shit, and hanging out, he still didn’t feel like taking a break.
He pulled Laramie’s ankles onto his lap and massaged her calf as she talked comfortably with the girls.
“This feels like the before,” he said softly. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud though, so he kept his eyes downcast at Laramie’s smooth skin on her legs.
“It does to me too,” Dame agreed.
“Yeah, what is it? What’s making it like this?” Mars asked.
“The girls,” Dame answered.
Stellan nodded, agreeing. For years, he wasn’t able to be around Dame or Mars very long, because the tigers started sizing each other up. But now?
All of their animals had jobs to do.
Make sure their mates were good.
And if Mars and Dame were a part of the system that would keep Laramie safe, and happy? Well, his tiger didn’t have any beef with them right now.
“I killed him,” Stellan said softly.
Dame and Mars stilled and just stared at him.
“Our Maker,” Stellan whispered.
Dame was sitting next to him, nodding, glowing gold eyes boring into him. He just nodded and nodded, then cupped Stellan’s head and rested his forehead against Stellan’s Temple. “We know.”
Stellan glanced up at Mars, and his bright blue eyes were steady on him. “We figured you would tell us when you were ready.”
“Angry?” Stellan asked.
Dame and Mars both shook their heads slowly. “Relieved,” Dame said.
“I was awake,” Stellan said low. “I didn’t die fast enough, so I watched the both of you…you know?”
Twin nods from his brothers. “I remember you saying it would be okay.”
Stellan clenched his teeth hard and hated the burn in his eyes. “That’s what broke the tiger. It wasn’t the Turn. It was killing the Maker.”
“Fuck,” Dame uttered thickly.
Mars stood suddenly and walked around Dame, came to stand behind Stellan and he clapped his hand against Stellan’s chest. Stellan didn’t miss the sniffle from Mars. He’d never seen him cry. Not since the before.
Two more claps on his chest, and then Mars left. Stellan watched him run his hand down his face and take the porch stairs two at a time up to Dame’s house, then disappear inside.
Mars must’ve been angry with him.
Dame probably was too.
Laramie drew his hand to her lips again and pressed her soft kiss to his knuckles. Ren and Misty were looking at the table, and their eyes were full of tears.
“This is why I don’t talk.”
“Nah,” Mars said from behind him.
“This is why you should.” He was carrying a bottle of whiskey and a stack of shot glasses. He set them on the table and poured six shots, then passed them out to each of them.
“To Stellan who followed through. He promised us that night that everything would be okay, and then he made it okay. If that asshole, who we will never utter his name again, was still here, we would all be messed up still. That bond would’ve poisoned all of us.
” He lifted his shot glass and wiped his cheek roughly with that hand, spilling some of the whiskey.
He leveled Stellan with a look. “You took the poison away and we are all sitting here right now with our mates because you did what needed to be done. You avenged us. You made it okay.”
Stellan didn’t want to be weak. He didn’t want his bottom lip to tremble, or for the burning sensation in his eyes to get worse, so he leaned forward and grabbed his shot glass and lifted it into the air near Mars’s. “To being here.”
“To being here,” Dame agreed.
And the girls, even Laramie, repeated it. “To being here.”
And then they took those shots and inside his heart, Stellan felt even better. The darkness was seeping out of him. He could feel it. He’d been purging the things he’d kept hidden today, and it was fixing something that had been so broken inside of him.
He looked over at Laramie, and she seemed so proud of him.
So damn proud.
To being here.
Hell yeah.