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Chapter Eighteen
“Ivo, what the hell are you doing here at the crack of fucking dawn?” Miguel grumbled as he hiked up the last bits of the mountainside trail, stopping at the edge of the cave mouth. A hint of sweat on his brow glistened in the light of the cave inside, where Ivo sat crouched and alert. He’d been there all night, using all of his bear senses to keep watch over his clan’s territory.
Every time he checked a darkened spot beyond the rocky platform in front of the cave’s mouth, he expected to see a cluster of eyes glaring back at him. He wasn’t scared of the dark by any means, and he was damn sure ready to fight, but being up in the cave at night, especially while a few of the others slept on the pullout couches and around the fire, was kind of eerie.
He straightened as Miguel studied him, knees cracking and ribs aching, and winced slightly at the onslaught of fresh pain. His Alpha frowned, arms crossing over his burly chest.
“You look like shit.” He moved inward, dropping his voice. “What happened?”
“Rams,” Ivo said, still scanning the woodlands scattered down the nearby mountainside. “They tried to breach the base of the mountain last night, but I sent ‘em packing.”
“Christ, Ivo, you should have called for me—”
“There was no time,” he argued with an irritated shake of his head. “I’ve been patrolling the last two weeks because I knew they’d try to pull some shit when we weren’t looking. And I was right.”
Miguel stepped around him to take in the dozing shifters in the cave and then turned back toward Angel Fire.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Ivo said. “Nothing that won’t be healed up by tomorrow.”
“We’ll move the rest of the clan up this morning,” the Alpha continued, sounding more like he was speaking to himself than Ivo. “I want to address the issue with the entire clan and their families, then I think we’ll have to move the cubs and elders out. The women who want to fight can stay, but the rest of them should go too. We can’t take any chances.”
He knew Miguel was thinking about his fated mate and his cub, and for once, Ivo couldn’t blame him. If they were sending loved ones out of Angel Fire until the threat was under control, he wanted Alani to go with them.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” he offered after a tense moment of silence had passed. He could practically feel Miguel’s stress from there, noting the way his hands kept clenching in and out of fists and the way his shoulders seemed to hike up. Tense. Worried. Yet in control. The mark of a true Alpha.
“Thanks, Ivo,” Miguel said, finally turning back to him with a sigh. “I’ll need you.”
“If we’re sending mates and cubs somewhere safe, I…” He licked his lips, unsure if he ought to tell anyone just yet about his fated mate. Fuck it. If it meant Alani would be kept safe, then what was the harm? “I want my fated mate to go with yours.”
Some of the tension oozed out of Miguel’s features, with a rush of surprise taking over as the Alpha’s eyes widened. “Your what?”
“My fated mate,” he repeated, this time sounding a little surer of himself. “I met her about a month or so ago, and I just knew. The second I saw her, she was a part of me. I felt it in my bones, Miguel. I finally understand how you… With Clarissa…” Ivo fumbled for his words, immediately feeling a stab of regret for the way he had treated Miguel and Clarissa when she first rolled onto the scene with their cub. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know until I saw her, but now… I’d kill for her. Anyone. I don’t care who—”
“And you might have to,” Miguel interjected softly, placing a hand on Ivo’s shoulder. While the words were grave, his lips still managed to quirk into a little half-smile. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Alani,” he said. Just saying her name brought forth warmth from somewhere deep within, one that made him grin like an idiot. “She’s renting studio space at Tanith’s while she works on her art degree. She knows about us. I told her last night when she took care of my wounds.”
“Oh yeah?” Miguel’s eyebrows shot up. “And how did she take it? Because Clarissa freaked out a little.”
“Pretty good, actually.” He paused to consider Alani’s reaction to everything, his grin faltering somewhat. “Almost too well, you know? Like… No tears, no outbursts, no grappling with her own reality.”
“Might take some time to sink in,” Miguel said with a shrug. “Everyone handles it differently.”
“She’s got cubs,” Ivo blurted, then pressed his lips together as heat flooded his cheeks. “With another man, one who abandoned them.”
Miguel’s features darkened. “Well, that was low of him.”
“I’m going to love them.” He was determined to love them. Twin girls. Daughters. They didn’t have to call him Dad or anything, but Ivo was going to make sure they knew they were loved for the rest of their lives. With each minute that passed since he found out about them, his feelings grew and grew until he knew he couldn’t live without them.
Miguel grabbed his hand, so swiftly that he nearly threw him off-balance, and then shook it. “Welcome to the New Dad club. We’re getting t-shirts made up and hold weekly meetings to figure out how we’re fucking up on Mondays. You’re welcome anytime.”
Ivo gripped him back hard. “Thanks, man.”
“You got it.”
When they broke apart, somehow it felt like the past few years of tension and dislike, so palpable between them that it made their bears cruel to one another, just seemed to fade away. It wasn’t gone completely, but it was a start.
