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“Kier?” A note of uncertainty entered her voice, raising the pitch.
“Sorry. I was thinking that we need to go to our alphas. Have a meeting with us, together. If you’ll let me, I’d like Tavish and Trace to sit in as well.”
“They’re your closest friends. You work with them. And Sam is your alpha.” Her lips compressed, but she nodded. “Okay. I agree. I’d like to have Onyx with us, though. All anyone will think is that we had a moment out here and that we’re going to spend time with Misty a little bit early. We can meet with Sam and Clarence, if he’ll come to Greenacre, and then we’ll go from there.” She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed at it while she thought. “Half time?”
“Half time?”
“I know you want us with you, but as soon as we tell Clarence, he’s going to want to alert the rest of the clan. It’s inevitable that it’s going to happen. I know that if he says that my brothers can’t go after this guy, they’ll have no choice but to obey. They won’t go off in a blistering, murderous rage. Well, they might, but they’ll just go somewhere private like the woods and work it out. Shift it out. Do whatever they have to do, but Clay and Jem are both loyal. My mom and dad too. They would never disobey Clarence’s word. If I ask him to say that no one can hunt this guy down or cause him harm, that we have to proceed carefully, he’ll give the order. He won’t want any of us committing murder, so it won’t be hard to convince him. There have been so many half-cocked, wild moments that our clan has gone through. This will be just another one that we handle. But now, we have allies. We have you and the whole of Greenacre at our backs.”
“I know our clans have never acted on anything together, but maybe this can be a start.”
“Yes, and however awful it is. But I was going to say that I’d like to stay with you half the time. It would be too much to ask you to guard us the entire time. You need to go to work. I’ve stolen enough of the normal out of your life as it is. You need the clinic, your friends, your clan. Plus, I’d like to keep things as normal as we can for Misty. I don’t want to scare her with this. I know that our clans will double up security as it is. I’ll be okay. The girls will be okay. But I’d like it to be more subtle for Misty. I don’t want a guard shadowing her every step. It would be overwhelming. She’s a sensitive little girl.”
He couldn’t say that he liked the idea, but he wasn’t going to steal Tay’s freedom away from her. Plus, she was right. He needed his clan and she needed hers. They couldn’t pull each other away from either one. Hopefully, they would truly be able to come together and figure this out as a unit.
“If you’re sure that you’ll be safe from now on, I’ll agree to that. But half time, and you spend some nights with us? You and Onyx?”
She nodded solemnly. “Yes. If you’re okay with that.”
“I’m more than okay with it, but are you going to be comfortable doing that?”
“I know your house is small, but I could take the couch. Onyx just has her bassinet. We’ll explain what we have to explain to Misty. Whatever Clarence and Sam tell us they’re okay with. Probably what everyone else is going to tell their children.” She blinked suddenly, the fight seeming to evaporate out of her like steam. “Oh my god, Kier. I’m so sorry again this happened. It’s because of me that now both our clans are at risk. Our friends. Our loved ones. Our families. Not just our own children, but all our kids. It’s wrong. It’s wrong in every single way.”
He found her hand and clasped it tightly. He felt how she was still trembling. “No one is going to blame you. We’ve faced these threats before. Tavish shifted in an alley in the city last year. Sam’s little brother needed Trace to go to the city and rescue them because they did some shit party drugs and they were afraid they couldn’t control their shift. Your clan left Texas because some hot heads didn’t just run their mouth, but kept getting into altercations. Members of our clan in the past have done things too. Shifters live out in the human world and humans know our secret.” He kept his hand over hers, hoping she could draw some comfort from his presence. He’d do anything for her. He hoped she knew that. “We’ll talk to our alphas and let them take it from there. Everything is going to be okay eventually. I promise.”
Chapter 8
Taylee
After the day she’d had, it was no wonder exhaustion set in hard and fast.
The confrontation in the woods, the frantic flight, the worry, the meeting in the truck with Kier, the private moment they’d shared together, the afterwards, when they were both brought back to reality with what they needed to face and to do in order to keep their children and clans safe. One long meeting with two alphas, then two separate meetings with both clans and the majority of people in them, who would spread the word. Worry about Onyx. Worry about Misty. Checking in with Lily, Tavish, and January, who took turns watching Misty, confronting her parents and facing her brothers after. It was all just too much.
The clans were on alert. They’d tripled security, ordered cameras, and installed others that they’d been stalling on. Sam had contacted that PI he was using and given him the guy’s description according to what she could remember, and she remembered every single detail of the meeting that morning. Her brother Jem had offered to see if he could get anything from the video she’d been sent, maybe give them an idea when and where it had been filmed. The whole area was on high alert. She expected to be met with anger over her actions, but no one was angry. She’d been shown only love and support the entire time.
She hadn’t so much as walked into Kier’s house as stumbled in. He had Onyx on his shoulder. She’d fallen asleep, freshly fed and changed by Taylee’s mom before they left Pinefall, on the ride over. She hadn’t woken up when she brought her in. Someone had procured a bassinet for her. Somewhere along the way, they’d told Kier not to worry about having to bring one. He’d relayed the message and it reached her as if she was in a fog.
She’d had just enough fight left in her to hug Lily, who was surprised at the contact as much as she was, tuck Misty in and kiss her goodnight, and to crawl under the blankets that Kier had set on his huge leather couch for her because she’d absolutely insisted that he sleep in the bed. She was half his size. The couch would do just fine.
Except, maybe it wouldn’t.
Or maybe it was the obvious trauma and trials of the day that woke her up in the middle of the night.
At first, she was groggy. She looked around sharply, sending shooting pains up her neck, thinking that something was wrong. Onyx was still sleeping soundly in her bassinet. The house was quiet. Nothing was wrong.
She relaxed and drew in a deep breath. When that didn’t help, she moved to lean on her knees and put her head in her hands, and focused on massaging out the headache that had been with her for hours. Probably nothing to do with the other kind she got from the accident. This one was all stress.
Taylee heard a noise down the hall and carefully spread herself back out on the couch, closed her eyes, and counted her breaths, making them deep and even. She didn’t want Kier to worry about her. Correction. She didn’t want him to have to worry more.He’d been pulled in a thousand different directions all day. By the time they got home, he looked as exhausted as she did, but he still made sure she was comfortable and promised her she was safe. He’d still helped tuck Misty in and had kissed Onyx’s forehead carefully so he didn’t wake her up. He’d offered her water, an extra pillow, his bed at least six times so he could take the couch, and finally she had to insist that he headed to bed.
She kept counting her breaths as she heard his footsteps. A door opened. Closed. The creak was soft and soothing. A minute later, she heard water crank on.
Her body flushed under the quilt. She didn’t want to think about Kier in the shower. Naked. Wet. She didn’t want to think about all the ridges of his muscle. She’d felt some of those when she’d been pressed up against him in the truck. He was a good kisser and tasted so good. She’d felt instinctively that if she were to strip off all her clothes and pull him against her, her body would remember what to do. They’d be a perfect fit.
She didn’t want to keep thinking about that, not when she was out here on the couch. Not with Onyx sleeping half a foot away and Misty down the hall.
She gave up and let out a sigh of frustration, which she smothered with the pillow. Whatever. It wasn’t like she was going to be getting any sleep anytime soon anyway.
The breath counting thing helped calm her down fractionally, at least until she heard the door creak open and Kier’s footsteps in the kitchen.
