"Aren't they cute?" Justin nudged me in the side as he slipped beside me, where I was surreptitiously watching through the curtains as our newest pair of lovebirds had a snowball fight that was pushing the boundaries of PG while the rest of our boys and their pups played in the yard around them.

"Wuv, tru wuv," I intoned in my best Princess Bride imitation, making Justin snort out a laugh. Damn, I loved the sound of his laughter. Slipping my arm around him, I pulled him in front of me where I could hold him as I rested my chin on his shoulder while we watched our family at play. "I was just thinking how much Remmie would’ve loved to see his boy mated to a good guy like your buddy, Dean. Look at how cute they are together."

"You old softie." Justin leaned his head against my shoulder and turned to kiss the underside of my jaw. "Everyone thinks you're the tough old bossman, but you're just my sweet, fluffy little marshmallow, aren't you?"

"Only for you, darlin'," I drawled. "Damn, Sammy looks just like Remmie. I wish you'd known him, babe. He was a good man. My only regret from the day I saved you was losing him. Especially when he left his wife and baby Sammy behind." I sighed heavily, hugging Justin closer. "Although, he'd have done it anyway, even if he'd have known his fate."

"From everything you've ever told me, he was a good man, hon. And Sam’s had a good life, hmm? His mom remarried and gave him a brother, so it wasn't like they were adrift in the world, right?" That was Justin, always trying to make me see the brighter side of life.

"I wonder if they intended to exchange mating bites last night, or if it was in the heat of the moment?" I murmured, changing the subject back to the lovebirds. "I have to admit, they'll be a good team. As long as Sam doesn't go charging into battle and get himself killed too young."

"Ray," Justin chided softly. "Let's not write their ending, hmm? Let's celebrate their beginning. Hell, they're our anniversary buddies now. Another Christmas couple. May they have just as long and satisfying a union as we've had. And if they build half the family we have, they'll live happily ever after, helping others as they go."

"Huh. I wonder if Dean's already pregnant? That's usually the way when fated mates make love the first time, as we well know." I chuckled as I heard myself gossiping like an old crone.

"It's that damn heat and rut that hits you so hard and fast. I swear it supercharges that alpha sperm." Justin giggled.

"What's alpha sperm, Grandpapa?" I looked over my shoulder to see Amy standing there looking at us quizzically.

Justin chuffed as he slipped out of my arms. "It's for you to discover when you're much older, young lady. My goodness, we need to tie a bell on you, don't we? You snuck right up on us, little one. Did you need something? A drink of water, perhaps?"

I grinned as Justin effortlessly distracted our oldest grandpup, turning her toward the kitchen. Amy smiled up at her grandfather. "No, Grandpapa. I just came in to go potty before we leave. My gramma is taking us all sledding."

"Well now, doesn't that sound like fun?" Justin gave her a quick hug and walked a little faster. "You go on ahead, I'll just fill a few thermoses with hot cocoa and pack up some treats for all of you to take along on your outing." He started singing Walking in a Winter Wonderland as he disappeared around the corner.

Fuck me, but I loved that dear man.

Now that the pups were all gone sledding with Cindy and Wendy, the adults were enjoying some hot buttered rum while Christmas carols played softly in the background, courtesy of Justin. Pax walked over and curled up on Zeke's lap like an overgrown kitten. In a repeat of last night's demand for a story, he looked over at Justin and me expectantly.

"Now that it's just us adults present, can we get the rest of the story, Papa P? You know, the nitty-gritty parts you always skip?" He tilted his head to the side, pushing his hair behind an ear as he waited for Justin to answer.

Justin shrugged. "Honestly, I think this part of the story is Ray's to share." He rested a hand on my thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. "That is, if you're up to talking about it, hon?"

I leaned back against the couch cushions, pulling Justin tightly to my side. I needed to touch him, to know he was safe in the here and now before I could mentally return to those awful days. Giving a terse nod to Pax, I turned to take a calming breath, and inhaled the clean, fresh peach scent of Justin's shampoo as I kissed the top of his head.

"Well, as you heard last night, Justin and I were at a damn carnival when we caught each other's scents. While those fuckers were pulling him away from me, I caught sight of a fucking metal collar around his throat while he screamed his name at me. That was all I had to go on." I leaned back and closed my eyes, pulled back to those god-awful days of searching. "It took me six months to pick up his trail. The last anyone had seen of Justin Alder was when he'd been living with his piece-of-shit stepfather in a ratty old trailer on the outskirts of Des Moines."

"I hated that godforsaken thing." Justin grimaced. "Shifters weren't meant to live like that. You could smell everyone in the park, like they were right there in the room. My step-dad tried to make me think I owed him a debt of gratitude for keeping me after my mom and my baby brother died while she was giving birth, but even as a child I knew better. He'd kept me for slave labor. Hell, I was his substitute wife, except for sex. Thank God, he was only into females. But he kept me out of school to cook and clean. And my payback was for him to sell me to a flesh circus when I was about to get my first heat cycle."

"A flesh circus?" David leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "I've never heard this part. I'm guessing that's not the kind of circus where you watch creepy-ass clowns running around and making funky balloon animals?"

"No," I growled. "They sell seats to perverts to watch their chained and collared slaves perform live sex acts."

Pax pulled out his knife, calming himself as he ran a finger along the blade. His voice was deceptively calm as he glanced over at David, who was one of our more sheltered family members. "The collars they use in those circuses are wired. If the subject doesn't put on a good show, they get fried with enough volts to make them piss themselves, if not have convulsions. It's a disgusting freak show for only the most depraved of patrons."

"Some of the people I was unfortunate enough to deal with during my days when I was being trafficked mentioned those circuses. I was always afraid that I'd end up in one." Cody smiled sadly at Justin. "I'm so sorry that happened to you, Papa P."

Justin waved a hand. "I had a happy ending, sweetie. Everything worked out the way it was meant to in the end, thanks to my Ray."

"How long did it take you to find Papa P?" David hugged himself, rubbing his hands along his arms as if to chase away a chill as he looked at me. Boomer frowned at the motion and simply reached over and pulled him over onto his lap to comfort him.

"Three long years of fucking hell," I answered. My voice turned gritty with weariness just thinking about those days.

"How did you find him?" Pax caught my eye with an astute expression that told me how well he knew what I'd gone through during my exhaustive search. "No offense, but that would've been like looking for a needle in a haystack. From what I understand, they don't use your given names in those places."

Justin shook his head. "No, the first thing that was taken from us was our name—after that, it was our innocence and any scraps of remaining hope they could possibly find left to take. We were just given numbers. I was called Twelve during my time there."

"I might've found him sooner, if I hadn't killed his stepfather before I had a chance to question him." I shrugged, waving a hand. "Rookie mistake. That's why I make sure my team always keeps a live captive to question."

Cain blushed, looking down at the floor, no doubt remembering his entrance into our group when he'd been one of our captives taken for interrogation. Jonah tossed a cookie at his brother, obviously trying to sidetrack him from wherever his mind had gone. Ezra flashed Jonah a grateful smile before wrapping his arms around Cain.

Zeke nodded with complete understanding. "It's a good rule to live by, though, Bossman. If you don't have someone to question, it's a lot harder to get your answers."

"Especially back then. Shit, you guys were living in the dinosaur days with no internet to help you search. What you did you even have, rotary phones and the Yellow Pages?" Jonah smirked.

"Pretty much," I said with a chuckle. "But just like you guys, I had my own group of friends to back me up. I made a few phone calls and assembled what was the first version of Team ALPHA. A ragtag group of my old military buddies who owed me favors or I knew I could trust."

Sam smiled wistfully. "And that's where my dad came in, right? Ray and my father served together," Sam explained to the group.

"Yeah." I grinned. "John Remington, or Remmie as we called him, was our team’s version of Zeke. He wasn't afraid to charge into the most dangerous of situations and he always got his man. But I digress. Let me get back to the story. I pulled a group of my old military buddies together and we combed the countryside, following rumors and tips for the next two and half years after I’d taken out the stepfather, until I finally found where Justin was being held."

Preston smiled hopefully. "And then you went in and broke him out, right?"

"Something like that." I fought back the urge to growl. "The guys and I got our plan together after a couple of them went and sat through one of the shows to see how it all went down so we could plan the timing." I held up a hand when Noah started to speak. "No, before you ask, I didn't go to that one. They knew that if I saw Justin in that situation, all hell would break loose and the plan would be right out the window."

Noah nodded respectfully. "That's why it takes a team. You've gotta lean on each other and have each other's backs. So even though I know the story, refresh my memory—did everybody die that night you saved Papa, or did you leave any survivors?"

That time I did growl as the visceral memory of the night flashed before my eyes. It was like I was right back there, seeing, smelling, and hearing everything all over again. Justin gently squeezed my leg, pulling me back to the present.

Answering my son, I spoke in a level tone, forcing myself to remain calm. After all, that shit had happened over thirty years ago, and Justin was sitting here safe beside me. "The only survivors that night were the innocent victims—the performers who were forced to fuck each other on stage like animals."

Justin shuddered. "Not to embarrass any of you, but I was on stage when all hell broke loose. My heat was due and they’d had to shock and restrain me, because I was afraid of getting pregnant. That would've been the worst thing that could’ve happened, because any children born to us slaves were sold." Justin shook his head, frowning as if he were remembering his days with the flesh circus.

"I'm just going to rush through this next part, because my wolf and I don't like to talk about it too much—it's hard for us to relive it," I said candidly. "We'd planned to get there at the beginning of the night before anything could go down, but a flat tire and a few wrong turns slowed us down."

Justin chuckled. "Remember boys, this was in the days before GPS and satellite navigation. Ray and his guys had to do it the old-fashioned way by following directions and using a rough map of the area."

"Exactly," I agreed. "After we’d paid our entrance fee and made our way in, we pulled the doors shut and locked them."

"A lot of that night is a blur," Justin added. "But I'll tell you what, I'll never forget the sight of those large alphas walking in with chains wrapped around their necks. It was hard core, let me tell you."

"Damn straight, it was hard core. We were badasses." I grinned humorlessly. "Some of the chains were to lock the doors, the others were used for weapons and restraint."

"No shit, they were weapons." Justin snorted. "You boys should have seen him! Ray walked into that crowd like fucking Tarzan, swinging a heavy-ass chain like a lasso over his head and wrapping it around people's necks, snapping them and dropping the corpse before he’d jerk the chain free and move on to the next."

Pax leaned forward, his eyes alight with interest. "Chains? Why not guns or knives?"

"The chains were a statement," I said. "They kept the performers chained up, so we used chains to free them. But have no doubts, there were also plenty of knives and guns in play." I thought back, giving a mental count to the bodies we'd dropped that night. "There must've been about thirty pieces of filthy shit there watching the show, and maybe about a dozen or so workers. We took them all out in no time flat."

"Unfortunately, Ray lost his shit when he saw the guy overseeing our acts give our collars a shock—both mine and the alpha who was being used to service me. When the alpha was shocked, it made him rut harder while my own shock rendered me incapable of moving. All I could do was drop flat onto the filthy stage and watch Ray and his guys fight to rescue us, and meanwhile poor George's body was used to brutalize me. George was the alpha who was being forced to perform that night," Justin quietly explained. He looked up at me with a fond smile as a random thought occurred to him. “Did I tell you he sent us a Christmas card?”

Noah clenched his jaw, his eyes ablaze with anger on his papa's behalf. "No offense, Papa, but fuck holiday cards. I mean, it wasn’t his fault, but I think it’s weird you kept in touch.” He turned to the other guys. “You know, that's the night my dad got his scar."

"Scar?" Dean asked hesitantly. "It must have been quite an injury to leave a scar on a strong alpha shifter like you, Ray."

I nodded, quietly raising my shirt to show him the long, jagged scar that bisected my ribs and abdomen. "Even in my wolf form, you can see the scar. My wolf's fur won't grow over it, the scar tissue is that bad. And you know what? I wear this shit proudly. It’s a sign that I saved my mate."

"Yeah, I remember," Jonah said quietly. "The first time I saw that scar, you were in wolf form and I tried my best to imagine what would’ve possibly caused it."

"It was caused by the big pole that held up the center of the tent. As I charged toward the platform, my chain caught the main pole and brought the whole fucker down. I didn't even care, I just shoved my way through the crowd of bodies and pushed the canvas out of my way until I got to where Justin was. I managed to get him up and over my shoulder, and I had the presence of mind to grab hold of George’s damn collar and yank him along behind me as we made our escape. After all, it wasn’t his fault he’d been forced to fuck Justin—although my wolf still disagrees with me on that point. He wanted to kill George anyway."

Sammy winced. "That's when my dad died, right?"

I nodded somberly. "The lights were really hot. And when the lighting rigs came down with the tent, it caught the dry canvas on fire. One of my buddies managed to get the chains off the door, but Remmie didn't make it out. We found out later that he been killed by the main tent pole when it fell. Yeah, it gouged my side as it swung around, but what I didn't know at the time was that it stabbed your father in the heart, as you probably know."

Dean crawled right onto Sammy's lap, crying softly as he hugged his new mate. My heart skipped a beat as I saw that, and for the first time since Remmie died, I finally felt like Sam would be okay.

"And then we all lived happily ever after," Justin said as he turned and climbed onto my lap the same way Dean had done with Sam. He glanced back over his shoulder to look at our boys who were all hugging their mates. "And that's the R-rated version of our story that we don't usually tell. As for what happened next, well, let's just say that’s the NC-17 version that will stay private between me and Ray."

"Which I will thank you for until my dying day," Noah said with a relieved grin. "Especially since I'm assuming that's the part that led to my conception? Yeah, you can keep that one in your private vault."