Chase huffed a laugh, as much as he was able to in wolf form, while he watched Hannah hide behind a tree, pulling her clothes on. She shot him a look that was part exasperated, part amused, and shook her head at him.

“Don’t laugh at me, Chase MacKeltar. And why are you just watching me? Get dressed before someone comes!”

He shook his head at her before he closed his eyes and focused his energy on becoming human again. An instant later, he was stretching his tall human frame out before walking to where his mate was putting on her shoes.

“Man, I wish my changes were as easy as that,” she said enviously.

He planted a kiss on her cheek before pulling his clothes on. “You’ll get there. This was only your second shift. Give it time, baby.”

He dressed quickly, his mind drifting back to her wolf. She was beautiful. Snow white, not a hint of color to her, with silvery green eyes bright against her fur. He’d never seen a more gorgeous wolf, and he’d been proud to show off his mate today.

Today was their housewarming party. The fighters had moved out last week, and it was officially his and Hannah’s home. All the hard work they’d put into it over the last year had paid off, and it was beautiful, a home fit for his mate.

The shifters from Red Moon, Bear Claw, and the fighters had gotten together today to celebrate. They’d started the afternoon off by shifting and walking the woods in their animal forms. Parker, the only human in the bunch, had stayed back at the house with Ellie, who was pregnant and couldn’t shift, Adara who couldn’t risk her dragon being seen, and Cammie, who refused to change to her animal form. He thought she was protecting what her animal was, because as far as he knew, no one knew what she was, other than the fighters.

They’d made sure to stick well to the woods, because a few huge grizzlies, wolves, and the odd fox, tiger, leopard, and bird of prey wouldn’t have gone over well with the locals who didn’t know about the existence of shifters.

He still couldn’t believe the amount of shifters in the area. At one point, Eagle Creek had been flooded with shifters. It was founded by shifters, in fact. But they’d trickled away, until eventually only the MacKeltar and Montgomery siblings were left.

And now, they were slowly building back up, first by taking mates, some of them having babies, and then by Ian coming home and bringing his crew with him. He found it all kinds of exciting, and he was looking forward to what would come next.

He finished putting his boots on and straightened up, grabbing Hannah’s hand and reeling her in for a lingering kiss meant to be chaste, but that quickly turned frantic. God, he couldn’t get enough of this woman, and he thanked his lucky stars every minute of the day that he’d not only wised up where she was concerned, but that her heart had been big enough to forgive him and take a chance with him.

She finally pulled back with a laugh, her cheeks flushed, lips swollen and glistening from his kiss. “No more of that. The others will be back soon, and I want to help the girls get everything set up for the barbeque.”

“Soon,” he growled, leaning in to nip her bottom lip and smiling against her mouth when she moaned.

“Soon,” she agreed breathlessly.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him around to the front of the house, leaving him to go help the girls. He decided to make himself useful and grabbed the charcoal, heading around to the side of the house to get the grill fired up.

He heard the chattering of voices and looked up to see the other shifters coming out of the woods. He smiled, and he’d rather be hung from his toenails than ever admit it, but the sight of all of them laughing and happy caused something in his chest to tighten up painfully.

A couple years ago, this was inconceivable. The MacKeltars and Montgomerys had been enemies, and one wrong word from one of them could have caused an all out shifter war. And now here they were, laughing and joking, genuinely fond of each other.

He watched as Jared said something that made Ty crack a smile and actually laugh. And there was perhaps the biggest change of all. Those two had gone from wanting to kill each other to being friends again. Maybe they’d never be best friends like they were growing up, but they were closer than they’d been in years.

The women walked around front to join up with the others, and the men stood around, passing out beers and cracking jokes.

He was laughing at something Garret said when he thought he heard a noise in the woods. He quieted and looked that way, unease filling him when the other men followed suit.

Rustling sounded in the woods, and a tall man stumbled out into the backyard. The man’s knees buckled and he fell to the ground, swaying and looking like he was going to pass out any moment.

Chase tensed and held his hand up as the other men scowled and started forward. “Hold up a sec. He looks familiar.”

They reluctantly halted as Chase strode forward, squatting down to look at the man’s face. He inhaled sharply as recognition hit him.

“This is the man who was in the car accident with Hannah. Hey, man. You okay?”

“Are you sure it’s him? That was a week ago, and there’s been no trace of him,” Ty said from behind him.

“I’m sure. Same clothes and everything. Same bump on his head.” Chase reached a hand out and grabbed the man’s shoulder, shaking him gently. “Hey,” he said more forcefully. “Are you okay?”

The man looked up and blinked gray eyes at him, but they stayed unfocused. Holy shit, this dude was in a bad way. Haggard and dirty, dark circles under his eyes, sunken cheeks, a weeks’ worth of beard on his face. He didn’t look like he’d eaten in the week since Chase had seen him.

“Alex, right? Alex Kincaid? Talk to me, man. We’ve been looking for you.”

The man, Alex, swayed again, and Chase tightened his hand on his shoulder. He looked like he was fighting to focus his eyes, fighting to stay awake.

“Looking… Rocky River… fighters,” the man gasped out. His eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped over. Chase caught him and eased him to the ground.

Silence rang in the clearing as everyone looked at each other, varying degrees of shock and wariness visible on their faces.

“Holy fuck,” Ian finally muttered, moving around to look at Alex in the face. “And you’re sure this is the man from the accident?”

“Positive,” Chase murmured. “It’s definitely him.”

“Then how did he even know about us? He has to mean us. But it’s not like we’ve been calling ourselves that. None of this makes sense.”

Chase shrugged helplessly, searching Garret out. The other man looked over as he heard Chase think his name, looking just as confused as the rest of them.

“I was in his mind, but it was almost completely blank. Just that he was looking for the Rocky River Fighters. That’s it, over and over on a loop. I don’t even think he knew his name, man. When you called him Alex, a lightbulb went off, like yeah, that’s my name. But that’s all that was there.”

Garret’s brother Sam cleared his throat. “You don’t think he has amnesia, do you?” he asked, like he thought the question was insane. And it was. Yet…

“I mean, he might,” Garret replied thoughtfully. “It would explain why he didn’t know his name until Chase said it. I don’t know how he knew about the fighter thing, unless he came this way looking for them, and for some reason, it was the only thing he remembered.”

A burst of feminine laughter sounded from the front of the house, and Ian jumped in to action, beckoning Jax over. “We’ll take him to Rocky River. I don’t want the girls’ evening ruined over this, so we’ll do it quick, before one of them sees him.”

“Ian, you don’t have to take responsibility for him,” Chase protested. “It was the accident with my mate that caused this, and he showed back up on MacKeltar land.”

“Yeah, I do,” Ian replied grimly, pausing with his arms around the man’s shoulders. “He obviously came to Eagle Creek with the intent of finding us. And I’m not going to let him out of my sight until I find out why.”

Chase reluctantly nodded, backing away to give them room. He wasn’t comfortable with letting the fighters take Alex, because he felt like the man was his responsibility, but Ian had a point. Chase would want the same thing. And it’s not like he would come to any harm with the fighters. He didn’t think.

He watched as Ian and Jax carried Alex into the woods. Everyone was quiet, the mood tense, as Chase went back to the grill to stoke the flames back up.

A few minutes later, the women started trickling back outside. Jared and Adara’s twins were toddling in and out between people’s legs, laughing and lightening the mood back up. The men soon had smiles back on their faces as their mates came to them, and Chase knew everything would be okay.

Hannah skipped up to him without a hitch from her healed ankle, grinning with her dimples out. His breath caught in his chest as he looked at her. She was so fucking gorgeous, and she was his. All his. And he was hers, he thought as his claiming mark tingled faintly under her gaze.

“What’s up, slowpoke? Why’s it taking so long to grill the burgers? Anything wrong?”

He leaned in and stole a quick kiss. “Nope. Everything’s perfect,” he murmured against her lips.

And his voice rung with clear, honest notes, because it was the truth. With Hannah by his side, everything was absolutely perfect.